The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,109
belt and handing it to Porthos. “Clerks rarely wear swords.”
“An excellent point,” Porthos said, buckling Aramis’s sword belt alongside his own.
“Won’t they be suspicious?”
“Of someone coming and offering excellent skills for low wage? Aramis, even if Monsieur Coquenard thought you were the devil himself, he would keep you as long as he could. As for Madame Coquenard, she will know better, but Athenais knows when not to speak. And she’ll enjoy having someone in the house who understands her.”
Aramis must have given Porthos an alarmed look. Because when Porthos said that, about understanding her, Aramis though of all the women who, throughout the years, had thrown themselves at him and declared themselves madly in love with him. What if that happened to Madame Coquenard too?
But his look of panic was met with a genuine grin and a chuckle from Porthos. “Oh, Aramis,” he said. “I don’t fear your competition. You can dazzle your duchesses and enthrall your princesses, but I think that Athenais is just mine, and I wouldn’t trade her for all the crowned heads in Europe.”
Speaking that way, he lifted his hand and knocked hard on the door. When no one answered he repeated the action. After a long while, the door opened a sliver and a head appeared—a disheveled young male head, looking like it had just woken up.
“Good morning,” Porthos said, all happy courtesy. “I have brought someone who wishes to speak to Monsieur or Madame Coquenard.”
The young man gave them a weary eye. “It will have to be the mistress. If we wake the master like that, this early in the morning, it will kill him.”
“Well, the mistress then,” Porthos said, in the tone of one who thought this by far the worst alternative. “But make it quick. Tell her that Monsieur Porthos and Monsieur Francois Coquenard are waiting.”
“Francois?” Aramis asked, as soon as the door closed, and the young man presumably retreated into the house to call his mistress.
“Would you prefer Rene?” Porthos asked.
Aramis could only shake his head.
Moments later, Madame Coquenard—wearing a cap, and a dressing gown, appeared at the door. When he first saw her, Aramis was shocked. Oh, Porthos might lack the sophistication of the court, but surely even he could attract a woman whose skin wasn’t lined, whose eyes weren’t sunk from worry, and whose hair didn’t have many silver strands entwined in it.
And then, Athenais Coquenard raised her head. And Aramis found himself staring into the most intelligent eyes he’d ever seen in any woman. And realized that the woman had noticed and marked his look of distaste.
“Madame,” Porthos said. “This gentleman who says his name is Francois Coquenarde, claims to be your husband’s sixth cousin and has come from the provinces to seek a post as a clerk in your husband’s firm. He says he had a letter of introduction from his unfortunately late mother, and that it was stolen from him when ruffians set upon him on the way.”
Porthos’s playacting wouldn’t deceive a child. He recited the whole thing in a monotone, and Aramis was about to bristle with resentment at it, when he realized that, in fact, if Porthos were repeating what some new acquaintance had just told him, or someone he’d escorted across town out of charity, and whom he never intended to see again, he would not speak it with any more feeling than that.
Athenais looked Aramis over, then looked back at Porthos, her eyebrows raised. “Is this going to bring us any problems?” she asked.
“Harboring a distant relative who will help in the office?” Porthos asked. “I doubt it.”
“If he can help in the office. Can you, Monsieur?”
“I was brought up by the church, madame,” Aramis said, bowing. “And I write quite a convent hand.” This with a teasing glance towards Porthos.
Madame Coquenard frowned at the word convent, but then she must have caught the flicker of amusement in Porthos’s eyes and known this for a joke. She bowed slightly. “So long as he pulls his own weight and demands no privileges, nor complains of the food, I’ll keep him here, then,” she said. And, with a look at Porthos. “And safe.”
The Matter of the Knife; A Dead End
MONSIEUR de Treville had offered them a room. Or rather, D’Artagnan thought—as the servant led him into the small but well appointed room which actually had three narrow beds, a trunk for clothes, a washbasin, a pitcher of water and even towels—Monsieur de Treville had offered Athos a room for the night.