Book 3: The Queen's Musketeers, #3

by R. A. Steffan

  Rather than answering, Constance rolled him onto his back and pinned him there with a kiss. He surrendered willingly, smiling against her lips as she clambered on top of him. His arousal, which had waned slightly with his earlier nervousness, surged back with a vengeance the instant his cock brushed against her inner thigh. When she pulled away and straightened above him, her lips swollen and pink from his kisses and her hair tumbling over her shoulders, he could hardly breathe with how much he wanted her.

  “You are so beautiful, Constance,” he whispered, and for once, she did not brush off his words.

  “So are you,” she said, and reached down to guide him into her body.

  It didn’t matter that it was a little awkward at first as they tried to figure out how to move together with her on top. It didn’t matter that they were in a set of small, dingy rooms in the middle of a city threatening to tear itself apart around them. It didn’t matter that tomorrow morning, they would have to go back to pretending that this wasn’t a new and precious thing between them.

  Right now, d’Artagnan was home.

  “Talk to me,” he said, looking up at Constance as she swayed above him, eyes closed, rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. “Let me know that you’re really here with me.”

  A single tear slid down, over her cheek. “I’m here, d’Artagnan,” she said, opening her eyes and looking down at him. “Oh, God... I’m here with you and I never want to leave. This must be how it’s supposed to feel.”

  More tears fell, and she released a small sob. D’Artagnan reached up and guided her down into his arms, until she could bury her face in the junction of his neck and shoulder. The lazy rhythm of her hips never faltered as she sniffled a bit and mouthed at the sensitive skin of his throat.

  He let his hands rove up and down the silky skin of her back, allowing pleasure and tenderness to crest over him with every slow thrust where their bodies were joined together. Eventually, she pushed away to sit upright again, bracing herself with a hand on his chest; the warm press of her fingers grounding him.

  “Touch yourself,” he begged, feeling his arousal building ever higher—threatening to sweep him away.

  Constance moaned, low and needy. Her free hand delved between her legs; d’Artagnan could feel her fingers brushing against his shaft as she rose up and swallowed him down again and again. He shivered at the sensation, closing his eyes and tilting his head back, baring his throat to her.

  “I can’t believe I get to have this,” she said, voice unsteady.

  “You can have everything of me—body and soul,” d’Artagnan replied, too far gone to filter the words flowing directly from his heart to his mouth.

  This declaration was apparently enough to tip Constance over the edge. She cried out, bearing down and taking him to the root; her walls clenching and releasing around his flesh—pulling him into the abyss right behind her. He groaned and thrust up again and again, filling her passage with spurt after spurt of his seed until they both collapsed into a boneless heap, completely spent.

  Blood was singing in his ears; Constance was a warm, soft weight pinning him in place as tiny aftershocks chased themselves down his spine to where his cock lay softening, but still nestled inside her body. D’Artagnan decided on the spot that this was his new favorite feeling in all the world.

  “I’m never moving from here,” Constance murmured against his collarbone, eerily echoing his own thoughts.

  “Good,” he said into her hair.

  Together, they fell into a light doze, only to wake some time later, still entwined. D’Artagnan’s prick stirred with renewed interest, and it was the matter of a moment for Constance to shift her hips and let him press inside again. They fucked and kissed and slept and fucked through the long Parisian night. Beyond the tiny window, the drunken shouts and screams and laughter of the city gave way to the uneasy quiet of the small hours, and, eventually, the bustling sounds of the approaching new day.

  It was with heavy eyelids and light spirits that the newlyweds readied themselves for the walk to the palace, where drudgery and an uncertain future awaited them.

  The streets were emptier than usual that morning, but Constance’s hand clenched convulsively on his arm as they rounded a corner to find a small detachment of the Cardinal’s guardsmen hauling away the battered corpse of a middle-aged man. A pool of rapidly drying blood marked the place where he had died during the night. As they continued on their way, avoiding the gaze of one of the guards who straightened from his task to glare at them suspiciously, it was to find a trail of destruction cutting a swath across the stately buildings near the palace.

  Windows were shattered, with shards of glass scattered across the streets. Debris littered the roadway. The post of a streetlight had been snapped at its base, leaving it leaning against a building, a trail of blackened wooden siding leading up where the flames from the lamp had caught at the facade.

  Constance shivered. “They could have burned down half the city,” she said.

  The mood at the palace was even worse than usual. The servants flinched and scurried in fear under the palace guards’ bad temper, and the smattering of visiting dignitaries appeared pale and worried. At one point while d’Artagnan was attending to the royal chambers, Cardinal Richelieu appeared, looking grim and angry. He disappeared within, and raised voices could be heard through the thick oak, though d’Artagnan could not make out the words. When the Cardinal reappeared, his face was pale, and his eyes glittered dangerously as he swept past d’Artagnan without a glance.

  “Things are getting out of control,” Porthos said that evening, as they sat at a table in one of the back rooms of the Leaping Bard. “De Tréville won’t wait any longer. They’re on their way to Paris with the troops.”

  D’Artagnan felt his heartbeat speed up. “How soon will they be here?”

  “Three days from now, depending on how heavy the opposition is outside of the city.” Porthos looked at him piercingly. “Isabella’s spies will likely bring news of the move back to the palace by tomorrow sometime, and I don’t know what’s going to happen at that point. Is anyone there suspicious of either you or Constance?”

  “I don’t think so,” d’Artagnan said. “At least, no more so than they’re suspicious of everyone at court.”

  Porthos nodded.

  D’Artagnan took a breath and continued. “However, the flip side is that I’m still no closer to being able to carry out the Captain’s orders regarding the boy. I don’t think I can get in and get him out without someone else’s help. Someone besides Constance, I mean. I need a person who can smuggle weapons inside for me, or get me access to the guards’ armory in the palace. And, ideally, people who can help me fight my way out with him afterward.”

  Porthos scrubbed a hand over his face, grimacing. “God, this whole plan is a fucking nightmare,” he said. “It could maybe work if we knew we had Richelieu’s support—a good chunk of the palace guard is far more loyal to him than they are to Isabella. But he’s as likely to stab us in the back as help us.”

  “What about de La Porte?” d’Artagnan asked. “I doubt he could bring weapons in from the outside, but maybe he could find a way to get me inside the armory.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Porthos said, still visibly unhappy. “Have Constance tell Milady to talk to him. She’s under the Cardinal’s protection, for whatever that’s worth, and this way you and Constance will still be above suspicion if anyone’s watching de La Porte too closely. It’s not going to help you with getting out afterward, though; he’s no fighter.”

  “I know, believe me.”

  Porthos blew out a large breath. “Christ, I hate this,” he said. “All right, d’Artagnan, I gotta meet with some people in a few minutes, and you’d best not be seen with us. Anything else you need, besides divine intervention and a less insane set of orders?”

  D’Artagnan picked at the worn wood of the table with his fingernail, eyes cast downward. “One thing. I have to ask you a favor, Porthos.”


  “Anything, whelp. You know that.”

  “When this all goes to hell, keep Constance safe for me,” d’Artagnan said, looking up to meet Porthos’ gaze. “At the first sign of trouble, I’ll send her to you with the excuse of needing to get you an important message. Promise me that you won’t let her run right back into danger.”

  Porthos clapped a large hand on d’Artagnan’s forearm, where it rested on the grimy table. “Done,” he said, “though she won’t thank either of us for it.”

  “As long as she’s alive at the end of all this, I don’t care,” d’Artagnan replied. He rose from the table to take his leave. “Stay safe, Porthos. I’ll see you soon.”

  * * *

  After another night spent twined around each other as Paris scrabbled and tore at its own flesh beyond the shutters, Constance and d’Artagnan arrived at the palace to find chaos.

  “An army is coming to attack us!” said the pale, frightened pageboy that d’Artagnan grabbed and interrogated. “Queen Isabella’s going mad—I heard they’re going to lock all of us inside the palace and make us defend it!”

  D’Artagnan let the boy go and exchanged a wary look with Constance.

  “I’ll find Milady,” she said, and darted away from him after a brief kiss on the cheek.

  More cautious questioning of passersby clarified the situation somewhat. The palace would indeed be locked down once most of the servants had arrived for the day, partly for security, and partly to discourage the staff from fleeing like rats upon learning of the coming attack. D’Artagnan cursed silently. There would be no practical way to get messages out, either to Porthos or, by extension, de Tréville, with both himself and Constance trapped within the grounds of the Louvre.

  Smuggling weapons or fighters inside to help with the kidnapping mission would likewise become an impossibility now. All d’Artagnan’s hopes rested on Adrien de La Porte’s willingness—and ability—to get him into the armory. In desperation, he wandered slightly from his assigned duties in order to get a better look at the heavy, locked doors, flanked by two vicious-looking guards who stared him down impassively as he passed.

  With a sword in his hand he might be able to take the two of them without getting himself killed in the process, but he didn’t have access to so much as a parrying dagger. Not to mention the lock was the size of a dinner plate and looked utterly impenetrable. Defeated, he continued past the door until he could no longer feel the guards’ eyes upon his back.

  The day dragged on, tortuous with uncertainty and the stink of fear from the other servants. Palace guards seemed to be everywhere, stalking up and down the corridors—randomly stopping and harassing staff that caught their attention for one reason or another. D’Artagnan saw Constance only once, in passing, but she gave him a brief, subtle nod that he took to mean Milady had received the message to try to coordinate with Adrien de La Porte and agreed to act on it.

  This must be what it was like to be blind or deaf, d’Artagnan decided. He had no way of knowing what was happening outside the walls—were the Queen’s forces close? Had they run into opposition? He would not know until troops arrived and started battering down the doors, and he thought he might go mad before then. The worst part was the sick knowledge that his own assigned mission was essentially impossible.

  As long as Francis remained outside of their control, he would have supporters that would fight tooth and bloody nail to keep him on the throne. After having come so far, to be the cog which buckled under the load and brought the whole plan to a halt, plunging France into civil war, was more than d’Artagnan could bear. As evening came, he briefly considered the alternative of trying to sneak weaponless into the boy’s rooms somehow and break his neck before he was caught and killed himself, but nausea nearly swallowed him whole when he contemplated the reality of killing a two-year-old boy with his bare hands. He couldn’t do it—he couldn’t—not even to salvage his mission. Not even to save a country.

  Disgust at himself both for having the idea in the first place and for lacking the fortitude to go through with it made him jittery. He paced back and forth, fingernails scratching at his forearms through the ridiculous blue brocade of his doublet until welts formed.

  When Constance—released from her duties for the evening—found him in the dusty wing that had been allocated for the staff’s temporary sleeping quarters, he could not help taking her in his arms and burying his face in her neck. Under the guise of the embrace, she whispered in his ear, “They spoke this afternoon. My godfather says he’ll try to find a way in, and meet with her again tomorrow at noon to let her know if he can do it.”

  He nodded, her soft hair brushing against his cheek. At this point, it was all that they could hope for.

  The night brought only restlessness. They passed it on a lumpy straw palliasse on the floor of a disused room in a damaged part of the palace. The other servants who, like them, normally kept rooms outside the Louvre stirred and spoke in hushed voices in the thin-walled rooms around them. Constance woke several times with nightmares, but refused to let d’Artagnan leave and sleep on the floor, clinging to him once she awoke enough to distinguish reality from dream. D’Artagnan barely slept at all, even though he knew that adding exhaustion to the list of hurdles he needed to overcome was the worst thing he could do. As he lay in the dark, holding Constance a bit too tightly, he wished desperately for counsel from his friends.

  When he finally fell into a restless doze just before dawn, he dreamed that they were gathered around him, their hands clasped reassuringly on his shoulders and back as they advised him in words that he could never quite hear or understand, no matter how hard he tried.

  He awoke with a dull, pounding headache and shoulders stiff with tension. Beside him, Constance stirred and sat up, dark circles under her eyes. He pulled her down and himself up enough to kiss her, his one precious thing in this dark and dangerous place. Afterward, they rested together for a long moment, forehead to forehead.

  “When I know anything new, I’ll find you,” Constance said, and he nodded against her.

  “Be careful, Constance,” he said, and felt her brow furrow against his.

  “You be careful,” she replied.

  They rose and dressed for the day in the dim light. Constance kissed him again and slipped through the door, leaving d’Artagnan to head up the stairs to the main wing, wincing as the sunlight filtering through the east-facing windows stabbed at his eyes.

  M. Delacruz was in a temper, hurling abuse at the servants as they straggled in for their morning assignments, and d’Artagnan felt his already considerable contempt for the man grow. Faced with underlings who were understandably terrified, the man’s response was to belittle and threaten them. Once again, d’Artagnan found himself wishing heartily for the company of his loyal friends and honorable captain, only to realize with a sinking heart that it was quite likely he would be killed while trying to extract the boy, and never see any of them again.

  When Delacruz rounded on him, he found himself thinking idly, but with unworthy relish, that seeing the Spaniard on the end of a blade would go a long way toward easing the sting of his own near-certain death.

  “And you,” said the man, coming to stand half a step too close to d’Artagnan. “Gascon. Look at you! You look like you’ve just come from a cheap brothel, and you practically reek of cowardice, but if you think you can keep from soiling yourself with fear, you may attend the throne room until mid-afternoon. There are several very important meetings taking place today, so try not to embarrass me too badly.”

  “Yes, M. Delacruz. Of course, M. Delacruz. I will do my very best to make you proud,” he said, eyes wide and innocent as he pictured what the man would look like with a dagger sticking out of his belly.

  Delacruz curled his lip, apparently unaware of the undertone of mockery as he moved on to the next unfortunate target, a boy of barely twelve who had obviously been crying not long before. Rather than stay and risk doing something precipitous, d�
��Artagnan left for the throne room in hopes of gaining some new insight to the goings-on beyond the palace walls.

  The morning saw a slow procession of increasingly frightened, irate dignitaries and ambassadors who had been trapped inside the Louvre when Isabella ordered it locked down. The woman herself looked slightly more unhinged than usual as her rival’s army of retribution approached. She would hear nothing of her visitors leaving the Louvre, citing concern for their safety outside of the walls. To d’Artagnan, it seemed as if their presence was more in the nature of insurance—a sort of human shield against the coming attack.

  The Cardinal arrived late in the morning in the midst of an escalating argument between the ambassador from Flanders and two of Isabella’s military advisors. Richelieu immediately stepped in and requested a break for food and drink to defuse the situation. D’Artagnan was sent with another young man named Luca to fetch refreshments, and he bit down on his frustration at being dismissed just when information that he sorely needed might be about to come to light.

  He returned fifteen minutes later bearing two heavy trays, and began to distribute wine and cheese to those present, careful to remain in the background as much as possible. As he was returning emptied goblets to the trays, a commotion broke out in the hallway beyond the closed entryway. The doors burst open, and d’Artagnan felt his heart drop as three of the Cardinal's red-cloaked guards marched in, two of them holding Adrien de La Porte and Milady tightly by the arms. The strange little procession swept forward into the room, coming to a stop before the dais, where the leader bowed low.

  “Your Majesty. Your Eminence,” said the guard. “One of the servants informed us that these two were meeting in secret for the second time in as many days. We found them closeted in a disused room and arrested them on charges of suspected conspiracy.”

  D’Artagnan’s heart sunk right through the floor, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to react outwardly as his final hope for the success of his mission was dashed.