Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

And yet, this woman too was sweet, and her scent of spice and some indefinable exotic mixture tantalized his senses. And his body responded with deep-seated pleasure to her advances and, in the way of things, he pursued release eagerly, till his body gave it to him, blotting out thought and-for a moment-breath and awareness of self with it.

He came to while being rather rudely shoved aside, and because the lady was inconstant, but never rude, he opened his eyes in shock, to find her glaring at him. “D’Herblay,” she said, crossing her arms on her not inconsequential chest, from which he seemed, somehow, to have torn enough lace and ruffles that her left nipple stood up among such a nest, looking like a slatternly version of its more demure right-side sister, still sheltered by fabric.

“Yes?” he asked, dazed, as he pulled away and fastened his own disarranged clothes.

To his surprise, she answered him with a bubbling laugh and, looking up, he found her sitting up and smiling at him. “It won’t do, my friend. It won’t do. This is much like sending a challenge to duel to the wrong man.” She shook her head. “At the very least, you’ll offend the offended yet more, and you’ll offend a whole other group of people.” Looking up at what must be his very bewildered expression indeed, she laughed again. “How abominable you are, D’Herblay. You have no idea at all what you have done, do you?”

He shook his head, checking that he was indeed now decent, and adjusting his doublet.

“Who is Violette?” she asked.

The name, pronounced in the light of day, made him tremble all over and look up. “Vio-” he said, but could not pronounce the rest of it. Not here. Not in front of this woman.

“You don’t even know, do you? I’m sure,” she said, drawing herself up in turn and rearranging her clothing. “She would be heartbroken if she knew you forgot her name as soon as she left your bed. And yet”-she gave him a calculating look-“you remember her in the throes of pleasure, which seems to indicate that she has bitten deeper than I would have expected. Who is she, D’Herblay? Are we going to hear the announcement that you have decided to forsake your vocation and to marry, after all?”

“No,” he said, horrified, wishing she would drop the subject. Sometimes he found himself quite willing to agree with Athos that women were the devil.

“Oh, good. You’re not so lost. Because, of course, it would not do. I suspect you could no more be faithful to a wife than I could be faithful to a husband. So I’m very glad you’re not willing-quite yet-to marry your Violette,” she said, and, on the instinctive, immediate reaction to the name, she looked surprised.

“I’d marry her in a second, madam,” Aramis said, primly, hoping this would stop the flow of words. And hoping above all it would stop De Chevreuse pronouncing a name he tried to avoid even thinking too loudly, in the privacy of his own mind. “Were it possible.”

The Duchess was sitting in the midst of her disarrayed clothes that rose like a frothy foam of fabric at her waist. She looked like a picture some Italian painter might do, slightly altered. Venus rising from the sea, perhaps, though the sea probably shouldn’t be on a bed. At his response, she widened her eyes. “Oh, married is she? My condolences, D’Herblay, but I must own that leaves the field open to the rest of us who are perhaps not quite so skilled as to imprint ourselves upon your mind and heart so indelibly.”

The idea that his love for Violette was based on skill-that type of skill yet-made Aramis start. “She’s not married,” he snapped. “She is dead.”

“Oh,” De Chevreuse said, and, as her face fell, “Oh, but her name was not Viol-”

“Please don’t pronounce it,” Aramis said. “Please don’t. She was that to me. It was the name she first gave me, and to that name we clung.” He shook his head. “Have mercy on a bereaved man and don’t drag your fingernails upon a still raw wound.”

She tilted her head sideways and regarded him curiously. It was very much the expression of a cat studying a small animal squeaking past. “How odd,” she said. “I believed you quite recovered from that incident, if indeed you had ever felt it.”

“What you believed matters not,” he said, and turned his back on her, walking to the wall and pretending to be allencompassingly absorbed in the portrait of a small child on that wall. Probably one of Marie’s daughters, he thought, as there was some resemblance to the mouth and the eyes.

He heard her get up and come towards him from behind. He felt her hand resting so half her fingers touched his neck and half his shoulder. “I could give you a child, you know?”

His head turned around so fast that it felt as if he’d dislocated something, and his normal suave manner deserted him. “What?”

She smiled at him, a contented smile. “To be sure I can. I can conceive very easily and I’ve had… bearing is easy. I’ve had more children than the obvious, you know? It’s not so bad-a trip to the country, and later, you send the baby to the father who can then do with him or her as he pleases.” She gave him an understanding look. “Someone bound to be a cleric could always claim it was a nephew of his and have him-”

“I am an only child.”

“Oh, that hardly matters. It’s only a polite fiction. The popes themselves have done. Everyone knew the nephews and nieces were truly-”

“No.”

“But yes, I tell you it would be the easiest thing. All society really would care for, of course, was knowing the child was of the first blood. And my children are always lovely.” She looked at him speculatively. “And if I have one with you, then he can’t help but be lovely. I feel sure the Lady your Mother would approve. Just because she means you for the church, it doesn’t mean-”

“Maman!” Aramis said, his mouth gone dry with feelings he couldn’t even describe. “Oh, yes, everything I do in life must be with the object of pleasing Maman.”

This got him an odd look and then a small nod as though De Chevreuse had decided he could not possibly but be telling the truth. “I thought,” she said smugly, “that was the origin of your great grief, for everyone knows the Duchess de Dreux was carrying her lover’s child. I never thought that lover would be you, though I knew you were one of her-” She stopped, abruptly, and Aramis was shocked to realize the reason she had stopped was probably because he’d strode towards her, and was now holding her small face in the vise grip of his large hands.

He didn’t know what his eyes showed, but he was sure they were intent. And, since he’d not meant to come here and hold her face; since, in fact, he had never thought of doing it; indeed since he couldn’t make himself let go of her, he must assume there was something very scary about his expression.

The impression was confirmed by a little squeal escaping De Chevreuse and then her hand coming up to cover her mouth. He looked intently at her a while longer, before his mouth found its own way to the words he must pronounce. “Do not ever pronounce the name of Violette again,” he said. “Not in my presence. Not if you live a thousand years and see me every day. I am a sinful man, despite my best intentions. I’ve had many lovers and will probably have many more, whether I take orders or not.” He paused. There was something in her eyes that told him only the fact that his gaze was still intent, his hands still immobilizing her face, kept her from giggling. “Violette was not one of those lovers, taken to satisfy a human lust. Something happened between us. Though we were never married, it was the first time I understood the biblical order to leave your mother and father and cleave to your wife.