"I admire your optimism," d'Artagnan replied. "Though I can't be said to share it."
"Chin up, d'Artagnan," she said as they dismounted and handed their horses off to be stabled by a boy no older than eight. "I gather you walked out of a plague house without succumbing, and I have already had the sickness and survived. Neither of us have anything to fear from it, surely."
D'Artagnan stared at her as if she had grown a second head. "You survived the plague?"
"Well... yes. Not everyone dies of it, you know," she said.
He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before replying, "Actually, in my experience, they do. You are quite literally the first person I've ever met who has been sick with it and lived."
"As it happens, I'm the second person you've ever met. De Tréville has had it as well. How do you think he lost his arm?"
"I assumed he had lost it in battle," d'Artagnan said, still taken aback.
"No. He had the variety of the sickness that lodges in the blood and kills the flesh. His arm rotted with it, so he cut it off." She paused for a beat before adding, "He did lose the eye in battle, though."
"He cut it off?" d'Artagnan echoed, trying to envision such a thing.
Milady nodded; then gestured impatiently. "Perhaps this is a story for another time. The others will be along shortly. We should go inside and procure a room... little brother."
It was probably fortunate that d'Artagnan's role in their farce was essentially that of a useless appendage, because he was far too involved in his own thoughts to do much more than nod and mumble at appropriate intervals as Milady—Clarisse—spun their tale to the innkeeper.
"So you see, we are here to meet our father's friend M. Sauvageau and his daughter," Milady finished. "They should have arrived here yesterday. Could you perhaps tell us where to find them?"
The portly, bald innkeeper's eyes were darting back and forth between Milady's face and her décolletage in a way that made d'Artagnan bristle on Athos' behalf—a reaction that was also in character for a brother, he supposed. Milady, however, merely blushed prettily and bit her lower lip in a coy gesture of modesty.
"No one here by that name, pretty lady," said the man. "I hope you'll still consider staying at our fine establishment tonight, though. May I say that your presence brightens the place up considerably?"
D'Artagnan felt himself deflate at the news that Her Majesty and de Tréville were not here, but hid it as best he could behind a look of ineffectual irritation as Milady preened under the clumsy flattery. She turned her attention to him, all pleading eyes and fluttering lashes.
"Oh, but surely we must stay, Charles? Perhaps M. Sauvageau and his daughter were merely detained. They might arrive tonight, or tomorrow. Say we can stay? It has been such a terribly long ride, and our host is so charming!"
D'Artagnan took a moment to admire her acting skills before offering a reluctant mutter of assent. Her smile in return was radiant, and the innkeeper flushed red as she turned it on him.
"So, young lady, will you and your brother be wanting one room or two?" the man asked.
D'Artagnan felt a moment of panic at the idea of spending the night in a room alone with Athos' wife, but Milady smoothly stepped in. "Oh, two, if you please, sir. Charles snores so dreadfully at night, and it's a rare treat to have a bit of privacy."
She looked up through fluttering lashes as she uttered the words, and a slow grin spread over the bald man's face. "Two rooms you shall have, in that case." He made a show of looking at the entries in the large ledger behind the counter, tut-tutting to himself. "Oh, dear. I'm afraid I don't have two rooms together. However, I could put you on the first floor, at the back, and your brother off the second landing."
D'Artagnan opened his mouth to protest, uncomfortable with the two of them being so far separated, but his tongue was stilled by a small foot stepping firmly on his own.
"If that is all you have, I'm sure it will be fine," she said.
"Yes, fine," he echoed. Feeling it was past time to assert himself in the situation, he added, "We'll need food as well. In fact, we'll eat as soon as we've taken our things upstairs. Come, Clarisse."
Milady took the time to send the innkeeper one last winsome smile, which was returned with what could only be described as a leer, as d'Artagnan ushered her away. He carried her saddlebags to her room and inspected it quickly to make sure it was safe, ignoring the way she rolled her eyes at him. Taking his own things up the back stairs to the little room under the eaves that had been assigned to him, he returned to the taproom to discover that Athos, Aramis, and Porthos had arrived and claimed a table in the corner for themselves.
Aramis and Porthos were playing cards, trading quips and laughter. Athos, by comparison, was the picture of gloom, his face in shadow beneath the brim of his hat as he drank steadily from a tankard of wine. The bottle sat at his elbow. Schooling himself to ignore them beyond a casual glance, d'Artagnan scanned the room for Milady and found her in spirited conversation with another table full of men, several of whom were eyeing her up like a prime rack of lamb.
Again, his natural instinct meshed seamlessly with the role he was meant to play, and he hurried over to the table, ushering "Clarisse" away by the shoulders and glaring daggers at the men as she laughed softly at him. He was sure he heard a couple of guffaws behind his back, and reminded himself firmly that ineffectual little brothers did not engage in duels merely because someone laughed at them. Instead, he procured a table on the other side of the room for himself and his "sister," where a serving girl shortly arrived with wine and slices of meat pie.
The food was far better than anything they had eaten since they left Blois, and d'Artagnan dug in happily. Seeing Milady's attention had been caught by something across the room, he followed her gaze just in time to see the innkeeper throw her a wink and a smile, which she responded to by smiling back and ducking her head shyly. D'Artagnan frowned, but forced his attention elsewhere. It was then that he noticed what the other patrons were eating—unidentifiable brown stew with coarse bread. He looked down at the rich meat and pastry on his own plate, and back at the innkeeper once more. The man was studiously bent over his ledger with quill and ink, and did not look up.
D'Artagnan's frown deepened.
The pair finished their meal in silence. When they had both set their plates aside, d'Artagnan heard a throat being cleared and looked up to find Aramis standing by the table.
"Good evening," Aramis said, sweeping his hat off and dropping into a bow. "My friends and I could not help noticing the two of you sat over here all alone, and we wondered if you would care to join us for a drink or two."
D'Artagnan froze, unsure what was expected of him, but Milady covered smoothly. "Oh, how charming! However, I fear I am quite exhausted from traveling all day and must decline. Charles, you should join the gentlemen for the evening and enjoy yourself. I believe I will retire early to my room, and I should hate to think I'd left you all alone with no one to talk to."
"If you're certain," d'Artagnan said.
"Quite certain," Milady said with a smile. "Enjoy your evening."
"It will be our loss, mademoiselle," Aramis said in an arch tone, holding his hat to his chest. "Sleep well, and may all your dreams be sweet ones."
Milady raised an eyebrow, and a bit of her own vinegar slipped past the facade of wide-eyed Clarisse for a moment. "Too kind," she said, and excused herself.
Aramis replaced his hat and led d'Artagnan over to their table by the elbow. He and Porthos made a show of introductions; though Athos remained silent and withdrawn, merely pouring himself a fresh tankard of wine with a slightly unsteady hand. D'Artagnan noted the level in the bottle—less than half—and the empty bottle next to it. He wondered if this was unusual for Athos, and if he should worry. His eyes automatically sought Milady, but she was already gone. His gaze flickered over to the front counter on a sudden suspicion.
The innkeeper had disappeared as well.
"Wait,"
he said. "She's not—"
He was cut off by a hearty kick to the shin delivered from Porthos' general direction. Shooting a guilty glance at Athos from the corner of his eye, he subsided back in his chair.
"Join me in a hand of piquet," said the big man. "I'm tired of playing with Aramis; he cheats."
Aramis emitted an undignified squawk of outrage, but let the accusation go with a huff when Porthos grinned and winked at him. Reaching across the table, he nabbed Athos' bottle and poured himself a drink, ignoring the man's warning scowl. Meanwhile, Porthos shuffled the deck and d'Artagnan cut the high card, so he dealt the first hand.
While Porthos exchanged his cards, d'Artagnan let his eyes roam around the room once more, half-hoping that the innkeeper might reappear. The man was still absent, but the serving girl caught his eye when he looked toward the kitchens, smiling and winking at him brazenly. After a quick glance behind him to make sure he hadn't mistaken a gesture meant for someone else, he smiled back hesitantly.
"She's been mooning after you all evening," Aramis said, "but I think you were too flustered by events to notice."
"She has?" d'Artagnan asked, and Porthos rolled his eyes.
"Yes, you young idiot. She has," he said. "Now see to your cards."
D'Artagnan dragged his attention back to his hand and exchanged two cards, which left him with a run of three and a quatorze. Once he was satisfied, Porthos led the declarations. D'Artagnan was fairly sure that he had the better hand, and after all twelve tricks he was ahead on points.
The pair continued to play, with Athos a silent and foreboding presence in the corner, drinking steadily, and Aramis offering unsolicited advice and occasional bon mots. D'Artagnan was thoroughly distracted from strategy when the serving girl re-appeared during the fourth hand with another bottle of wine for Athos and a sunny smile for him, her fingers trailing unobtrusively across the bare skin of his neck as she left.
By the fifth hand, Porthos had drawn even on points, and he went on to win the partie after six hands.
"She's still doing it, you know," Aramis said.
D'Artagnan craned around to find the girl watching him from across the room. When she saw him looking, she caught her lower lip in her teeth and blushed becomingly.
"And what are you expecting me to do about it?" he whispered to Aramis out of the side of his mouth. "I can't exactly—you know—when we're supposed to be—you know..."
The twin looks Aramis and Porthos shot his way were pitying.
"D'Artagnan, nothing is happening tonight. The—people you were supposed to meet—aren't here, and a friendly encounter with a pretty girl is exactly the sort of thing that might distract a younger brother from his duties to watch over his sister, if you take my meaning," Aramis said, wincing slightly when the sound of a flagon being thumped against wood a bit too hard came from Athos' end of the table.
"So, you're saying you want me to—" he trailed off, looking over at the girl again, "—you know? With her?"
"Go on, lad," Porthos said. "One of us may as well enjoy the evening. We'll stay here and look after Athos."
Athos glared daggers at him through eyes that failed to focus completely.
"I am sitting right here, you know," he said with the immense dignity of the extremely drunk.
"Yeah," Porthos said, his voice fond. "I can just about make you out behind all of those empty bottles."
"Porthos is right," said Aramis. "Go play your role. And if playing your role means spending an evening with a pretty girl, then so be it, eh?"
So it was that twenty minutes later, d'Artagnan found himself back in the little room under the eaves off the second landing, sitting on the edge of the rough bed with a lapful of buxom brunette trying valiantly to kiss the breath from his lungs. Her name was apparently Sylvie, and she was remarkably talented at making him forget all of his worries about the Queen, and de Tréville, and what exactly Milady was doing with the innkeeper with a skillful twist of her hips against his.
Whereas his night with Christelle had been composed of affectionate mutual exploration, it became clear very quickly that Sylvie knew exactly what she wanted and wasn't afraid to ask for it.
"Put your mouth on me," she said, rolling off of him to sprawl on the bed with her hips at the edge and her feet wide apart on the floor, making space for him.
D'Artagnan would have been lying if he'd claimed not to have thought about the possibility of such a thing after Christelle had sucked him off so sweetly with her own lips, so he wasn't about to turn down a chance to experiment when it was handed to him on a platter. He knelt on the floor between Sylvie's legs and burrowed under her skirts, enjoying something about the way they hid him, muffling the outside world until all that existed was the soft, suffocating darkness and his objective—the delicate prize hidden between Sylvie's thighs.
She smelled like sweat and musk and sex, and he inhaled deeply, nuzzling the soft nest of hair until she placed a hand on his head through the layers of fabric and pressed his mouth where she wanted it. He licked along her slit tentatively at first; then with more certainty as her fingers tightened over his scalp and her breathy moans reached his haven under her skirts as if from a distance.
Gaining confidence as he went, he began to experiment with thrusting his tongue inside her and sliding it up to worry at the little bundle of nerves that had so transported Christelle. He continued in that vein until his jaw began to ache and his tongue to tire. Suddenly, Sylvie pressed upon his head and one shoulder, urging him down and away. Worried that he had done something wrong, he disentangled himself from her skirts and looked up inquiringly. The question on his lips died a sudden death, however, when she dragged him up to the bed by handfuls of his shirt and said, "Fuck me."
D'Artagnan wrestled the laces of his breeches free in record time and let her pull him down into the cradle of her thighs, the two of them clumsily shoving layers of rumpled fabric out of the way until he could slide his hard prick against her folds, making both of them groan.
"In... in, now! God!" she begged, her fingers digging into the muscles of his arse to line him up and pull him toward her. He slid in with a smooth push that left both of them gasping and hitched her leg up higher against his side, seeking a better angle as he pulled out and pressed in again, hips snapping.
"Yes!" she said, voice slipping up an octave. "Like that! Take me hard!"
D'Artagnan didn't need to be told twice. He thrust into her with abandon, ignoring the growing ache in his side in favor of the feeling of her writhing against him, grinding herself against his pelvis with every stroke. Sweat gathered on his forehead and chest as they rocked together, and he reached to free one of her breasts from her corset, needing to touch more of her. She keened when he squeezed the soft flesh, and arched with a cry as he tweaked the pebbled nipple, her walls fluttering around his cock and making him shudder.
He fucked her through her release, holding her tightly until she quieted, becoming soft and yielding below him. He stilled when he felt her hand come up to stroke through his hair, and rested his forehead on her shoulder.
"I'm close," he groaned, making to pull away from her. "Should I—?"
She interrupted his words by digging her heels into his flanks to press him back into her, and he gasped.
"Come inside me," she said. "I want you to."
That was too much for d'Artagnan, who suited deed to word and came with a hoarse shout, his seed gushing out in strong pulses. The pair lay quietly in each other's arms for some time, before d'Artagnan slid a damp curl off of Sylvie's forehead with one finger and asked, "Aren't you worried about a baby?"
Sylvie only smiled at him. "I have a sweetheart. I love him and he loves me, but he thinks himself too poor to wed. If I am pregnant, though, I will tell him it is his, and I'm sure he will marry me." Her smile became impish. "Besides, your baby would be such a terribly pretty one."
Chapter VI: July 2nd, 1631
A KNOCK ON THE DOOR roused d'Artagnan from sleep th
e following morning. After a quick check to ensure that the other side of the bed was empty, he called, "Just a moment!" and scrambled into his shirt and breeches. He was pulling on his boots when the door creaked open and Milady stepped in.
"Don't be shy, brother, dear," she said, raising an eyebrow at him.
It was early yet, but Milady was perfectly put together—far more so, in d'Artagnan's opinion, than should have been possible for a woman traveling lightly, after a night spent who-knows-where doing who-knew-what.
"What did you learn?" d'Artagnan asked, putting his more personal concern about Athos and the state of his marriage aside.
Milady closed the door behind her and settled herself on the room's single, rickety stool as if it was a throne of gold and jewels.
"Well, let’s see... I learned that the vast majority of men are tedious and boorish, which I already knew," she said. "I also learned that no one matching Ana and de Tréville's description has been seen in the area, and there have been no reports of disturbances, nor men dressed in black, nor people going missing."
D'Artagnan frowned. "So what are we supposed to do now? We have no further leads about where they might be."
Milady shrugged, and said, "There are still one or two avenues we might pursue. For now, though, my dear brother, why don't we go downstairs and see about some breakfast. Perhaps those three handsome soldiers we met last night will be there."
D'Artagnan shook his head at her teasing and shrugged into his doublet, strapping on his weapons belt before following her out of the room.
"So," Milady continued. "Was she pretty?"
"What?" d'Artagnan asked, caught out, feeling the skin between his shoulder blades tingle with discomfort.
"Your distraction for the evening. Was she pretty? Who was it, that little serving girl who was fluttering her eyelashes at you as she served the meat pie?"
D'Artagnan's blush was almost certainly its own answer, but he managed to keep his voice steady and ignore the growing itch in his back as he replied, "Surely a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell."
Book 2: The Queen's Musketeers, #2 Page 8
