down onto one of the chairs and sat on his lap, and toyed with his blond hair.
“You look so severe,” she said. “In your dark clothes. And your mother says you have a vocation for the church.”
Aramis said nothing. He allowed her to press herself against him and to caress him. It seemed to him he had been cold for a long, long time, and her warmth against his flesh was a welcome comfort.
And then he found his hand beneath her skirt and searching around for the girdle which cinched her undergarments.
Her thigh, between girdle and the beginning of her stocking proper, was warm and soft. He moved his fingers upon it, feeling skin like velvet.
Violette had felt so. And Violette had smelled like this. Of a sudden, it was all too much for him. He put his head on her shoulder and moaned, a soft moan of loss and regret, as his hand retracted, to rest upon his own thigh.
“What is wrong?” Lida asked, alarmed. “What is wrong?”
Aramis realized he was shaking. The overwhelming grief of losing Violette hit him suddenly and without reprieve. He thought of Violette’s soft skin, her luscious body. And he thought of other things . . . The way she played with him, the way she teased him. Her words, her letters where she pretended to be a mere seamstress. The way she understood him. The way their souls resounded together like goblets cut from the same crystal. He didn’t even know why or in what way.
Before her there had been many, and perhaps there would be more after her, but not yet, not . . .
He realized he was crying on Lida’s shoulder, his tears soaking the velvet of her dress. She pulled him to her, called by some ancient maternal instinct, resting his face upon her softly rising and falling bosom.
This reminded him even more of his Violette, and it brought out his tears yet more abundantly, till he was sobbing openly, like a child.
“You poor man,” Lida said. “You cry for fear of sinning, do you?” And, with gentle hand, she pulled back the hair that had got stuck to his moist face. “Don’t be,” she said. “You could marry me. I could break my engagement to the horrid old Count, and you could marry me. Then you could do as you please to me, and not feel guilty.”
Slowly, slowly, Aramis brought himself under control.
“Mademoiselle,” Aramis said. “If you must know . . .” He swallowed hard. “I had a lover. As close a lover as one can have without actually being married. I was with her for years, forsaking all others. And she got murdered, just a few days ago, while—”
“While you were in her room,” Lida said. “I know. I thought you might feel guilty over that, and that’s why I say you could marry me.”
Aramis stared into the dark, dark eyes and wondered if the girl was telling him she was sure he had killed his previous lover and then could marry her.
“How do you know about my mistress?” he asked.
“Your servant told your mother who told me, by way of warning me.” She smiled reassuringly at him. “I don’t know why your mother wished to warn me. The lady was not a lowly woman or a peasant,” Lida said. “Clearly your tastes are to the highest nobility. And if she had the misfortune of being already married when you met her, I do not have that misfortune. I find that your being so in love with Ysabella de Navarro de Dreux that you feel guilty about having an affair without marrying her is quite romantic. One of the tenderest things I’ve ever heard.”
Aramis shook his head. How could he explain tender to her? And how could he explain love? He didn’t think any less of her because she didn’t understand the depths of his feeling. He, himself, wouldn’t have understood anyone’s feelings on the matter. Hadn’t understood anyone’s feelings on the matter. He’d comprehended marriage only within the bounds of arranged unions. That someone could marry for love, marry by their own free will, contrive to live with one person his entire life was alien to him, and strange.
Lida’s words poured into his ears, inconsequential and meaningless, like the pleasing babble of a brook, “You know, they were from our area of the country and they had only two girls—those two. To preserve the dowry of this one, her twin was consigned to a convent before the