Free Marrying the Musketeer by Kate Silver

from the harm that threatened them, like him or not as she please.
    “I hoped that I may be able to bring him around and show him that I was not a man he could easily dismiss as unworthy of his daughter, but he has little liking for me, either, I fear.”
    She felt an uncomfortable feeling start to grow at the base of her spine.   Her father had never seemed very enamoured of her French Musketeer.   She hoped nothing further had happened to give him even more of a dislike of her lover.   “Why do you say that?”
    “I decided to brave your house last night, hoping that you and your father would have returned from your journey and that I could at least see you for a few moments, even if we could not be alone together.   I did not expect a grand welcome, but I hoped to at least be shown a modicum of politeness, and be admitted on sufferance though I were not particularly welcomed.   The spell of your eyes was so strong upon me that I could not bear to have you so near and yet so far from me.   I did not want to wait to see you until today.”
    The uncomfortable feeling in her stomach grew stronger.   Was her papa so afeared of his enemies that even her friends were to be refused admittance to their house?   “How strange.   Papa did not tell me that we had visitors last night.”  
    “I do not wonder at it.   Your footman showed me the door most unceremoniously.   He said that the master had given him orders that no damned, lousy Frenchman was to be admitted to his house, and that if I returned, he would have me thrown out on my ear.”
    “Our footman refused you the house?   He threatened you?”   She could hardly believe that Jacques had been so saucy – not even under orders from her papa.   “I will speak to papa at once and have him dismissed from his post.”
    He shook his head.   “Do not, I beg of you.   I would not be the cause of trouble in your house.”
    “But to be refused the house with such rudeness?   I can hardly credit it.”
    “The insult to me matters little.   What pains me more than anything is the thought that it means I cannot see you again before I leave for Paris.”
    All thoughts of the footman flew out of her head on the instant at his dire news.   “You cannot see me again?”
    He shook his head sorrowfully, as if his heart broke to impart such news.   “My absences during the day have been noticed and I have been ordered to remain at my post until we leave.   I cannot disobey my King.”
    She could not believe that this was the last she would ever see of him.   She did not want to believe it.   “So I will not see you again?”
    “My duties keep me occupied from daybreak until sundown.   Could I but visit you in the evenings, I would be a happy man.”   His face was grave and his black eyes troubled.   “I cannot come to see you then.   Your father has forbidden me the house.”
    Her father’s fear was making him behave like a tyrant towards her.   She would not accept it.   “He cannot stop me from seeing you.   I will sneak out of the house and meet you in the alley, if I must.”
    “Alleys at night are no place for a young woman.   I will not allow you to take such a risk just to see me.   I hold you more precious than that.”
    She could not live without seeing him again.   “Is there no other way?   Can you not sneak into the house when it is dark and sit quietly in my chamber with me?   Papa would never know.”
    He looked almost startled at her suggestion.   “Sneak into your chamber?”
    “Yes – it is the perfect answer,” she cried, warming to her topic.   “Papa sits late in the library most nights, taking his nightcap and sorting through his papers.   If we were to sit and talk quietly in the dark, he would never know.”
    “If he were to find out…”
    She had hit upon an answer to their dilemma and she would not let it go that easily.   “Why would he ever suspect?”
    “How am I to get in?”
    She considered the