On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) Read Online Free PDF Page A

reproved him.   He was her beloved brother – her twin.   She could not live without him.   He could not be so sick as all that.   “You are ill with exhaustion.   Nothing else ails you.”
    He gave a wan smile as he drew his right arm from under the bedclothes and pushed the sleeve up to his elbow.   “You cannot fool me, sister, and you will not be able to fool yourself for much longer.   You had best be prepared for the inevitable.”  
    She stared at the black spots on his arms with a horror verging on madness.   Not Gerard.   Not her brother.   God had taken her mother and her father.   Could he not spare her brother?
    “I have the plague.   I have seen many others die of it these last weeks and I do not flatter myself that I will survive where so many others have not.   I will be dead before the morn.”
    She would not let him go so easily.   She would fight Death for the life of her brother.   She clutched at him with frantic fingers.   “You must not die.   I will not let you die.”
    He loosened the death-grip of her fingers and took her hand in his.   “I have made my peace with the world and I am content to leave it.   It is time for me to join God’s kingdom.   My one regret is that I will not be here to take care of you.   You will have to look out for yourself.   Promise me that you will take good care of yourself.”
    “I promise.”
    “I had thought to see you married this summer.   I would have danced at your wedding with a good grace.”
    She shook her head with impatience.   “I care naught for being wed.”
    “Count Lamotte is a good man.   He would be a good husband for you, Sophie, or I never would have proposed the match.   I loved him like a brother, and knew you would love him as I did.”
    She bit her tongue.   She would not quarrel with her brother when he was so ill.
    “You will need someone to look after you when I am gone.   If the King takes any notice of his wealthy new ward, it will only be to marry you off to the highest bidder, or to some new favorite who has more charm than wealth.    Promise me that you will consider Lamotte’s suit.”
    How could she think of marriage when her parents were both dead and her brother was dying?   “You must think only of getting better, not of such foolish things as my marriage.   I can look after myself.   Besides, you will not die.”
    “Promise me.”   His voice was urgent.
    However unreasonable she considered it, she could not refuse a sick man’s request – not when that man was the brother she loved better than she loved herself.   “I promise.”  
    She was promising only to consider Lamotte’s suit she told herself, to quiet her uneasy conscience.   If she could not have Jean-Luc, she had no intention of marrying anyone, but she would give Lamotte’s suit fair consideration if ever an appropriate time came to do so.
    Her words brought her brother ease.   He heaved a faint sigh of relief and closed his eyes as a spasm of pain crossed his forehead.   “You have put my last care to rest.”  
    Fear clutched at her heart as she looked at her brother’s drawn face.   He was preparing himself for death.   “I carry ill-luck around with me.   He may not want to wed me now.”
    He gave a hoarse, hacking cough.   “He swore on his mother’s soul that if aught happened to me, he would care for you.   I sent word to him when I first arrived, telling him that we had the plague in the house.   I know him, Sophie, and he is no oathbreaker.   I can die in peace, knowing that he will come to your aid as soon as he can be here.”
    Sophie laid a finger over his mouth.   The strain of talking was weakening him before her eyes.   “Hush now, and rest.”
    He closed his eyes again, and exhausted with the effort of conversation, he soon sank into an uneasy slumber.
    Sophie sat in the armchair by his bed keeping watch over him, dozing fitfully when her eyes would no longer remain open.   She did