On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) by Kate Silver Read Free Book Online Page B

courtyard.   “Last I saw of him, he was giving the Captain of the foot soldiers an earful.”
    Without another word, Sophie strode off in the direction he indicated and the Musketeer fell into step beside her.   “I was sorry to hear about your loss.   I grieved that I could be of no help to you.”
    Sophie grunted.   Even after all those months of solitude as she recovered her strength and taught herself how to fight, her loss rubbed raw against her spirit.   She did not trust herself to speak of it.
    “I knew how close you were to your sister, and how much you loved her.”
    Her heart swelled with an anguished pride to hear herself so spoken of and to know that Gerard had confided his brotherly love to his comrade-in-arms.   She had to clear her throat several times before she could speak.   “We were twins.   We had seldom been apart from each other.   We were two, and now I am one.   I feel as though a part of me is gone.”
    “I, too, mourned her death.   I was more than half in love with her already from the reports you had made of her.   I had hoped to be your brother by now…”
    Lamotte.   Of course, such a handsome fellow had to be Lamotte – the author of her ruin.   She stopped dead, and faced her enemy for the first time.   “No matter,” she interrupted, stopping him in his tracks.   “Sophie is dead and buried, and nothing can bring her back.”
    Lamotte stood still, gazing at her with an earnest puzzlement.   “You are not the man you used to be.”   His voice was tinged with a sober melancholy.   “The sickness has changed you in both mind and body.”
    “I am the man I always was.”   She shrugged her shoulders and began to walk away, the memory of her solitary winter in a house of death making her shudder.   Lamotte had promised her brother he would take care of her, but he had broken his vow.   How she hated him for that.   “I had no time for cowards and scoundrels a year ago, just as I have no time for them now.   Good day.”
    The words had barely left her mouth when she felt a sudden prick in her belly.  
    The Count, moving quickly despite his limp, pressed the point of his sword uncomfortably hard against the leather of her jerkin.   “No man, not even you, Gerard, calls me a coward.   Draw your sword.”
    So this was it, Sophie thought, as she moved back a step and drew her sword.   Had she been cooler and more detached, she would not have provoked him so readily.   In the heat of the moment she had been overcome with her hatred of all that he stood for – the death of her brother and her loss of faith in humanity.   Forgetting that she was now a man and her words would be construed as a deadly insult, she had given in to the temptation to taunt him.
    Now they would fight.   She had no illusions about her skill with the sword.   She had done her best to learn on her own, but she was direly in need of an expert teacher.   Unless she was lucky or he was a worse than usual swordsman, she would most likely die.
    She had no fear of dying by his hand, only of dying without honor.  
    She focussed all her concentration on the sword in her fist.   She would acquit herself well in this fight and avenge her family if she could.   If she were unsuccessful, at least she would die in peace, knowing that she had done her best.
    Gerard, this is for you , she screamed in her heart as she made the first lunge, which he deflected with a quick flick of his wrist.
    He feinted and then lunged back at her.   She knew that trick.   Her brother had taught it to her when they were both still children.   She twisted her body to one side, and the force of his blow cleaved only the empty air.
    Backwards and forwards they went, now attacking, now defending, the clash of their swords drawing a crowd of the curious around them.   Sophie was breathing hard and her sword arm was starting to tire.   Lamotte, though his limp was more pronounced than ever and his face pinched