The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,24

call his duchess a seamstress while Porthos labored so hard to give the impression that he slept with crowned heads.

“There was never a niece of a theology professor,” he said, as Porthos looked at him. “Aramis has always been involved with a duchess.”

“A Spanish duchess?” Porthos asked, in tones of great amazement. “The maid yesterday called her by a string of . . .”

Athos shrugged and was rewarded with a firm pull on the ligature that D’Artagnan was attempting to tie. “She was Spanish by birth,” he said. “I believe she grew up with Anne of Austria, as one of the young noble ladies chosen to be her playfellows and friends from a tender age. And when the Queen married our King, Aramis’s seamstress, too, was sent to France as part of her escort, and her marriage to a French nobleman was arranged, at the same time as the royal marriage. Her title is Duchess de Dreux, an old duchy in Brittany.”

“She is . . . married then?” Porthos said, slowly. “Her husband is still living?

And for just a moment Athos thought that Porthos was going to express or fake moral outrage at the woman’s liaison with Aramis while she was married. Which would be strange from Porthos, whose own lover was the wife of an accountant. And Porthos normally was not hypocritical. His very own lack of ability to explain away things with words made him unable to explain or excuse himself to himself.

But, instead, Porthos said, “Where is her husband. Is he at court?”

“No,” Athos said. And thought of her husband who had been his playfellow, or what passed for such amid their class, with each family living in its own isolated estate and rarely meeting the others. Raoul de Dreux’s father and Athos’s father had been best friends and, as such, once or twice a year one of them undertook the journey to visit the other and then stayed several weeks at the other’s house, hunting through the fine mornings, discussing poetry or history or philosophy through the heat of the day. Both men had lost their wives at their sons’ births and, both fathers being unusually devoted to their offspring, the sons and their complement of maids and nurses traveled with the fathers when they went anywhere. Which was how Athos had come to share a nursery with Raoul from earliest infancy for some weeks every year. And a school room with him later on. They’d learned fencing and reading together and later—as they grew to adulthood—they had developed a friendship as strong as that of their fathers.

They had married very different women with results that, while not similar, were equally disastrous for both of them. The dissolution of Athos’s own marital bonds by means of a rope around his Countess’s neck had made Athos leave behind that, his most ancient friendship, as he had everything else—from estate to land to proud heritage.

He was surprised to find tears in his eyes and realize he was thinking with longing of the simple, uncomplicated friendship of childhood. As much as he liked and trusted his present friends, it was strange to have no one around who truly knew him, who’d seen him grow up, who remembered the garrulous young man as well as the silent musketeer.

“No,” he said. “Raoul . . . Monsieur de Dreux has no taste for the court. Truth be told, I never thought he had much taste for his wife. She was not . . . his kind. He is a quiet man, much fond of his books and his horses. She was bright and noisy and . . .” Athos realized he was relaying information from private letters and stopped. “The thing is that the marriage was arranged by his father, a glittering affair that meant not much. And then de Dreux returned to his domains, and his wife stayed in town.” He felt his lips twist into a wry smile, an expression that he knew well betrayed more bitterness than humor. “And found her own amusements.”

D’Artagnan had finished tying the bandage in place. “Could he have been jealous of her? Could he have found a way to murder her?”

“How?” Athos said. “By hiding under her bed while she entertained her lover?” He tried to imagine that situation and shook his head. “D’Artagnan, I don’t believe he cared enough for her to come to town and visit her, much less to kill her in a jealous fit.”

“You speak as though you know him?”

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