The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,27
take care of that part then,” Porthos said. “Getting maids to talk to me is easy.”
D’Artagnan smiled, as he saw Athos give Porthos a shocked look.
“I enjoy their company,” Porthos said. “And I believe they enjoy mine.”
D’Artagnan could only imagine how this shocked the very aristocratic Athos. He, himself—brought up in a manor house so small and unimportant that it had exactly two servants, both treated as family—was not so much shocked as amused. It seemed to him the contrast between Porthos’s desperate seeking for the appearance of high connections and his enjoyment of maids’ company made the man more human and warm than either of his two other friends.
“So what am I to ask them?” Porthos said.
“If there are any passages into the room,” Athos said.
“That is all? There is no part of this conversation that I failed to understand?” Porthos asked, standing up.
“There is no part you failed to understand,” Athos said.
“Good, because I don’t want to be told later that there was something else I was to ask.”
Athos frowned thunderously in Porthos’s direction.
“What have I done now?” Porthos asked. “Did I ask something I should not have asked?”
Athos blinked. It seemed to D’Artagnan that the musketeer had awakened from some deep thought. “No Porthos, I was just thinking.” He looked at D’Artagnan, then back at Porthos. “Did Aramis, ever, in his gossip, tell you of anyone who might have hated Madame de Dreux?”
D’Artagnan, never having heard that name before this day shook his head and added, “No, and no one who hated his seamstress, either.”
“I thought his seamstress—” Porthos started.
“Never mind, Porthos. Did he tell you of anyone who wished ill to either?”
“Aren’t they the same person?” Porthos asked.
“Yes, but Aramis would have referred to them as being two different people.”
“Oh. No, he never spoke of anyone bearing animosity to either.”
Athos let out breath with every appearance of anger. “He didn’t speak of anyone who hated her to me, either,” he said. “Which is remarkable in itself. For someone living in the hothouse that is the court, the lady made few enemies. Perhaps because her interest was more in Aramis than in court intrigue.”
“I know she supported the Queen,” D’Artagnan said, recalling the events of a month ago. “And as such, perforce, the Cardinal must be her enemy.”
Athos tilted his head. “So are we the Cardinal’s enemies. Yet I don’t see him going through some trouble to murder us by stealth. Those the Cardinal wants dead or vanished either are killed in open daylight or disappear during the night into the Bastille, never to be heard from again. Besides, Cardinal Richelieu is not a fool. He would not murder a duchess and expect it to pass unnoticed.”
He drummed his fingers, impatiently upon the table. “There is nothing for it,” he said. “I must go as soon as possible and pay a visit to Raoul—Monsieur de Dreux.”
It did not escape D’Artagnan’s attention that Athos had first mentioned the man by his given name. Twice so far. There was also something to the way that Athos said the name that implied great affection or great familiarity— perhaps both. He wondered if Athos thought he needed to go see Monsieur de Dreux because he wished to see him or because he really wanted to assess his guilt. And he suspected the first more than the second. “Her husband?” he asked, drily. “But you said, only a few moments ago, that her husband could not possibly be the murderer. That he was not in love with her.”
Athos looked at him, for a moment, blankly, then rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of his bloodied hand. Though the blood had dried, it nonetheless left little flakes upon the pale skin. “I did. And it is true I don’t think he loved her, which means he had no reason to kill her in jealousy and rage. But there is another way he could have killed her, and I did not give it enough thought.” He looked at D’Artagnan and said, slowly, as though the words pained him. “He might have killed her in cold blood and calculatingly. He might have fallen in love with someone else, and killed his wife to be rid of her.”
“Do you think that’s likely?” Porthos asked, resting one huge hand upon the table. “I presume you knew the man well enough to guess that.”
Athos inclined his head. “It would not be possible for the man I knew, but some years have passed. People change.”