Chapter Two

 

Part of Athos could not move fast enough, to race to the stable and claim Anacreon. Another part of him sulked and bowed his head. So this was it? To simply walk away from all he had accomplished?

He did owe a final, respectful visit to D’Artagnan. He could not leave the city knowing hard feelings might exist between the two of them. The lieutenant’s home was but a short jaunt from the Green Fox, where D’Artagnan’s apartment sat on the border of the royal gardens.

Disregarding his growling stomach, he bypassed the tavern and strolled down the snow-coated yew path encircling the Tuileries. A dash to his left, the city’s ancient stone ramparts still guarded against the ghosts of invasions past.

It occurred to him now, for as many times he had strode through this garden, he had never before appreciated the sharp angles and graceful curves of shrub and tree. He was not a courtier, nor an admirer of esthetic beauty.

Certainly he had just held beauty in his arms. Held her crushed against the wall and had delved deep into her body. But hers had been a cruel beauty. A bitter reminder of his regrettable past.

Smoke... An oddly arousing scent when he'd nuzzled his nose into her hair and lost himself for those few precious moments.

Now, he inhaled crisp air through his nostrils as he moved stealthily across the gardens. Not far off, a couple youngsters laughed as they fashioned snowballs to toss at one another. True beauty lived within the eyes of children. A child both saw and exuded innocence. A state of being Athos wanted to remember, to know and to touch.

And he would. Soon.

D’Artagnan greeted him at his back door with a hearty hug and bid him settle his heels. With a dripping iron spoon in hand, D’Artagnan excused himself to check the stew he’d been tending.

The delicious aroma of simmering onions and spices filled the room, overwhelming the cloud of smoke clinging to the raftered ceiling. The lieutenant’s talents did not cease to amaze Athos. Rarely did Athos cook for himself. He had been without his valet, Grimaud, for weeks and was looking forward to finding his clothes folded and ordered in the mornings and his meal waiting in the evening. And yes, he missed the servile respect, too.

Fixing his body to a wobbly, rush-seated chair near a small dining table, his gaze wandered to the bewitching flicker of red and amber flame in the hearth. Thoughts drifted to the dark angel who’d clung to him as their bodies entangled beneath the wicked sky. And her cruel slap to his ego as she’d dashed away, seemingly unaffected by the embrace they had shared. He should expect nothing less from a tryst in the alley.

So why did the memory trouble him so? He had gotten exactly that which he’d desired—a farewell to Lady Paris.

Might it be he could not erase the vision of her glittering eyes from his thoughts? So defiant. Or forget the feel of her taut body pumping against his, all muscles and surprising feminine strength?

“Athos?”

Surfacing from the image of the dark angel’s mouth, curving from softness into hardness to spit out, “Never,” Athos pulled his gaze from the flames and glanced at his friend.

“I said” —D’Artagnan handed Athos an empty pewter tankard— “I don’t know where your head is, man, but it is certainly not in Paris.”

He nodded agreement when D’Artagnan displayed a brown glass bottle of wine. Likely one of his very gifts to the lieutenant. Bless the man his reciprocity.

“My thoughts are rushing ahead to Blois, good friend.” Athos held up the tankard as D’Artagnan bit out the cork then poured. “As I should be. I’ve still to claim Anacreon.”

“And pay your tab at the Green Fox?”

Athos tipped back the tankard and downed half the contents. Oh, but the Spanish could make wine! “Indeed, indeed. So, no ill feelings between us?”

D’Artagnan shrugged and set the wine bottle on the table behind Athos, where a scatter of papers and a leather bandolier strung with wooden powder cartridges stretched beneath a black wool cloak. “I would not dream of forcing you to any task that discomforts you, my friend.”

That is a kind way of stating your disappointment.”

“Yes, well…” With a compelling lift of his brow, the lieutenant said, “I’ve recent information related to the Brotherhood. The Marquis de Marle is dead.”

That surprised. But Athos had already decided against this mission.

D’Artagnan continued. “The marquis’s valet claims to have witnessed the murder. Just this morning, in fact.”

“Marle was murdered this morning?” Why had he not been told? Hell, he was being told right now. “Who is this valet, by name, and who, exactly, did he finger as the murderer?”

“Ah?” D’Artagnan’s eyes twinkled at his interest. “Actually, the valet is a mere boy. His name is John Francis. Doesn’t mean a thing to me. But he described the murderer, or murderess, if you will, as a beautiful woman with dark, curly hair. Quite tall. Reports say she shot the marquis point blank in the head with her pistol. You know who I suspect.”

Indeed. The one woman whose moniker sat on the tongue of any soldier who answered to the royal crown.

“And this valet specifically named La Belle Dame sans Merci?” Athos wondered. “What of the Brotherhood? I can’t tie it all together. Our merciless beauty has not been known to go to such extremes as murder. And if she is a rogue cabalist, as rumors claim, escaped from the bonds of the Brotherhood, why draw attention to herself with so brazen a crime?”

And yet, he immediately deduced, if the marquis was connected to the Brotherhood, there was no more obvious target for a disgruntled member of the faction. To remove the man responsible for financing the group? Brilliant.

“I have answers to none of your questions, Athos. Only this morning did I learn of the marquis’s death—his body may yet be warm. The information came to me after reading a hastily scrawled missive from la Duchesse de Madame de Chevreuse. It was intimated in the letter she knew of the murderess.”

“Chevreuse has fled.” Athos easily made the assumption.

“In a way.”

Athos knew Chevreuse in so many ways.

Marie de Rohan, Madame la Duchesse de Chevreuse, had been toeing a delicate line between conspiracy and outright treason for years. She had established a network of “friends” to facilitate an alliance between Lorraine, England, and the French Huguenot nobles. Richelieu had been trying for years to have her exiled. The cardinal must have finally convinced the king his queen’s personal assistant was a spy.

The woman’s name struck a chord deep in Athos’s soul. Yet he’d known her by the more personal moniker, Marie Michon. For she had unwittingly provided the impetus for his escape to a new and wonder-filled life.

To this day, Chevreuse could not know how they were connected.

And while the duchess was one piece of Athos’s past he did not fear, he had never been fooled regarding her character. She remained reliable no longer than the sparkle of the gold coin offered for information. It was a short path to connect her with a renegade organization such as the Brotherhood of Justice.

Rather strange to realize, of his past lovers, two held connections to the very criminals he should most fear.

“It would be a shame to overlook such fortune,” D’Artagnan added. “It seems all the players in this crime presently stalk somewhere about Paris. The Brotherhood as well as la Belle Dame sans Merci.”

“Why not ask Aramis? Our wayward priest is on better terms with Chevreuse than I.” Aramis had had an affair with her for years; though Athos knew for fact the man was unaware of his personal relationship to Chevreuse. “If she is to be questioned—”

“Chevreuse reports that the Brotherhood's general has been seen in Paris. The man single-handedly responsible for training and commanding the cabal.”

“His name?”

“The duchess did not provide a name. But this general is supposedly searching for a rogue spy, a defected member of the Brotherhood. We suspect that person is la Belle Dame sans Merci.”

It made sense. In his investigations, Athos had almost connected the notorious female to the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood sought to persecute members of Les Grandes—the great noblemen in the king’s entourage so high-ranking as to rival the king himself.

Les Grandes exercised their own brand of justice against those who would rebel or commit a crime against their “royal authority.” Their greatness was solely due to the king’s favor; and they were favored because they were feared. It was known in the court’s tight backstairs rumor mill the king did not approve of Les Grandes acting as judge and jury, but he did not speak publicly against them, either, for it was those very noblemen who financed Louis’s reign.

While investigating, Athos had come upon a tortured member of Les Grandes claiming the Brotherhood had exacted revenge against him. He had named his accuser a female—a beautiful woman who had shown no mercy as she’d forced him to bow before the victims of his self-righteous justice and kiss their rotting corpses.

Beyond a physical description there had been no clues to lead Athos in the woman’s direction. Yet, he instinctively knew it was the merciless belle rumors spoke of.

“I, the only man for the task?” Athos could not prevent a brief smile. D’Artagnan thought to play upon his one known weakness. “You think I enjoy pursuing dangerous women?”

D’Artagnan’s smirk spoke loudly. The man knew him too well. Though, Athos couldn’t be sure if it was that he truly enjoyed dangerous women, or was, rather, that he attracted them like a death wish he could not control.

Athos Athos chuckled softly. But he was decisive. “Try all you like, my friend. I will not play this time.”

D’Artagnan nodded once. “An innocent woman was murdered along with the marquis. The widow de Beaux. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Athos. A musket ball traveled through her skull. No mercy was shown.”

Clenching his jaw, Athos closed his eyes for a pensive moment.

Don’t listen. You have thought this through. The future waits. Just leave!

“La Belle Dame sans Merci must be stopped,” D’Artagnan urged.

Have you no mercy? Words cried by a frightened, yet wicked beauty. A merciless beauty who had stolen Athos’s heart, then slashed it to pieces.

Athos stood and set the tankard on the mantel. “Certainly, Aramis will serve you well.”

Stepping backward, he toppled off balance as his thigh connected with the table. He spun to catch the fall of papers tumbling from beneath D’Artagnan’s cloak.

And she stared up at him.

He clutched a rumpled paper in his hand. A woman’s face had been sketched with charcoal upon the thin velum. A remarkable likeness. He knew that smirk. Intimately. Smugly compressed, her mouth looked angry, not soft and hungry.

But he knew it could turn soft.

“What…” he muttered, “what are you doing with this portrait?”

“Hmm?” D’Artagnan touched the edge of the velum. “Oh, that is her.”

“Who, her?” Athos followed D’Artagnan’s pace.

“I had planned to show you that earlier.” D’Artagnan opened the outer door to admit a gush of cold air. He waved his hands above his head in an attempt to coax out the smoke from the stifling room. “But when you expressed no interest—”

D’Artagnan hooked a heel against the doorjamb and turned to lean against the frame, filling the doorway with his body. A smile revealed his triumph.

Athos scowled.

“That woman” —his friend snapped the corner of the drawing— “is la Belle Dame sans Merci.”