Marrying the Musketeer by Kate Silver

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    He sat next to her on the window seat and took her into his arms.   “Courtney, my love.   How I have looked forward to this moment.”
    She had no will to resist when he kissed her.   Somehow it all seemed so natural that she be with him, that he hold her in his arms, that he kiss her until she was breathless.
    Just as she felt she was about to melt into his arms, he broke off the kiss and breathed into her hair, drinking in the scent of her.   “Though I met you scarcely a week ago, I feel as though I have known you all my life.”
    He had put her own feelings about him into words.   She knew he was her soul mate the moment she met him.   He had made her leap from her comfortable existence into a world of passion and delight that she had never known existed before.   “I feel the same way about you.”   She felt her face grow hot in the darkness.   She was not used to confessing her feelings out loud.
    “I had never thought to say this to a woman I have barely met, but I love you, Courtney.   You are more precious to me than anything else under the sun.”
    She buried her head in his shoulder, muffling her voice so that he could not hear her tears, suddenly overcome by the hopelessness of her feelings for him.   “I love you, too, Pierre, but there is no use in it.   You must leave for Paris in six days.”
    His hand was hot on her shoulder through the thin fabric of her nightgown.   “The news is worse than that, my love.   I must leave for Paris on the morrow.”
    “On the morrow?”   Her tears broke out afresh and she muffled them on his shoulder so no one would hear her sobs.   “I thought we had six nights left to be together.”
    “I thought so too, my love, but new orders came from the King this very eve.”   His voice was troubled, as if he did not want to give her such evil tidings.   “We must set out at dawn.”
    She could not comprehend that her love would be ripped from her so cruelly.   “I shall not see you again?”   Her anguished cry came from the depths of her heart.
    “I must go to Paris when the King orders me there, but I cannot bear to leave you behind for long.”   He clasped her hand in his and held it to his breast.   “Courtney, my love, I have only known you for a short while, but I have lost my heart to you.   Will you wait for me until I can return to you?   Will you plight your troth to me?   Promise to wed me and none but me?”
    In an instant she had gone from black despair to gloriously shining happiness.   Her heart felt so full that it would burst with joy.   Pierre had asked for her hand in wedlock.   She could think of nothing she wanted to be more than Pierre’s wife.   She took him in her arms and hugged him close to her.   “Yes, my love – I will wait for you.   I will wait until the sky falls into the sea for you to come back to me.”
    He stroked her hair in reassurance.   “I will not be that long, I promise you.”
    She smiled in the darkness.   “I am glad of it.   I would find it hard to be that patient."
    “You will wait?”   His voice was anxious all of a sudden.   “Your father will not try to marry you off to that friend of his while I am gone?”
    How could her father object to their marriage when he saw how happy her darling Pierre would make her?   She would bring him around to the match.   Little by little she would make him see that Pierre and none other would be her husband.   He had never been able to refuse her aught that she begged for with all her heart.   He was sure to consent in the end – maybe sooner than she might normally hope for, given that he was eager to see her wed before long.   “I will wait for you until you return to me – I swear on my mother’s grave that I will have none but you.”
    He held her close.   “I will go to Paris in the morn with a lighter heart now that I know the greatest treasure in all of France will keep herself safe for me.”   He sounded happy to