The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,44

you’d want at your back in times of danger or doubt.”

“I see,” Raoul de Dreux said. “I see.” He bowed to D’Artagnan. “Monsieur, I beg your forgiveness, but you must know that it is not normal for the Count to travel without more than two servants. In fact, usually, he’s accompanied by more than three. I did not mean to be insulting.” He extended his hand to D’Artagnan, and clasped D’Artagnan’s for the briefest of moments. “You must come. I’ll order two guest rooms set up. I don’t know to what I owe this visit, but you can have no idea how welcome you are. I have missed Alexandre very much and any friend who accompanies him on a visit is welcome.”

It seemed very strange to D’Artagnan hearing Athos called Alexandre. Truth be told, he would have found it easier had de Dreux just called Athos “count.” With his noble countenance, his fine figure, Athos always impressed anyone as a nobleman anyway. Count was no less than his due. Alexandre, on the other hand was a given name, the stuff of family and friendship dating back to the nursery. Both of which were hard to reconcile with Athos’s severe countenance, his aloof bearing. Which he retained even as the two of them followed Raoul de Dreux down echoing corridors ornamented with paintings and tapestries and roofed over with carved ceilings gilded and painted and ornamented with figures from mythology.

“This wing is all new since you last visited,” de Dreux said. “With your wife, right after your wedding.”

Was it D’Artagnan’s imagination or did Athos’s bearing become more military and more rigid at those words and his expression more determinedly aloof?

D’Artagnan remembered the story that had come out of Athos’s mouth almost a month ago, the story that Athos had told of the Count who’d killed his wife. Even back then he had had the feeling the Count was Athos. Now he was almost sure of it, even if he couldn’t imagine Athos killing any woman.

“I had this whole area rebuilt after my wedding,” Raoul went on oblivious. “While it might not be good for anything else, my marriage brought me money in the form of my wife’s dowry, and that I used to make sure that this part was renovated as it should be. You probably don’t remember, but in my father’s day it was all but roofless.”

“Ah, Montagne,” the Duke said, at a servant who appeared at the end of the corridor and bowed to them. “Do we have guest rooms in some semblance of order, that my friend the Count and his friend, Monsieur D’Artagnan, can occupy?”

The young man in livery bowed. “Certainly, sir. The rooms by the library have just recently been cleaned, and I believe the beds are made.”

“It is our policy,” de Dreux said, walking past the servant who—D’Artagnan noted—was dressed more richly than him. “To keep a few guestrooms ready in case of a surprise visitor, just as it was in my father’s day, though you must know I don’t get nearly as many visitors. My father was a far more gregarious being than I am.”

He led them down another corridor, which ended in two doors. The doors, once opened, revealed two splendid rooms with curtained beds piled high with pillows and cushions, with carved trunks waiting to receive a copious wardrobe that D’Artagnan did not possess, and with glazed double doors which opened on a spacious balcony.

In his room, D’Artagnan was almost immediately provided with warm water for washing. A servant stood by to help him dress, until D’Artagnan, embarrassed by the paltry simplicity of his wardrobe and by his own ability to dress and undress without help, sent him away.

Then D’Artagnan washed and changed into fresh clothes. He’d just finished lacing his doublet, when someone knocked at the door. “It is I, Athos,” Athos said, before D’Artagnan had time to answer.

D’Artagnan opened the door a sliver, and found his friend looking at him, his face attentive and stern. D’Artagnan opened the door all the way to let him in.

Like D’Artagnan, Athos had washed the travel dust and changed into fresh clothes. But he looked even more browbeaten than D’Artagnan, whether by the decadent surroundings or by meeting his childhood friend, D’Artagnan could not say.

D’Artagnan backed into his own room, ahead of Athos, who closed and locked the door behind himself, then stalked around the room, straightening a picture and looking behind a tapestry. “D’Artagnan, I trust your silence on anything you see or