Book 4: The Queen's Musketeers, #4

by R. A. Steffan

  “Where is my daughter?” Milady growled, unimpressed by de Castres’ theatrics.

  “Your daughter?” de Castres echoed, frowning. After a moment, a look of interest illuminated his features. “Oh, my goodness. You’re the elusive and slippery Comtesse de la Fére? Ha! What are the odds that you should escape, only to come waltzing right back into my grasp?”

  “Fairly high, I’d’ve thought,” Aramis said, “given that you’re standing between her and her daughter. And how is Charlotte? Is she safe? Unharmed?”

  De Castres laughed again. “She is... secure,” he said, before turning his attention back to Milady. “Which is more than I can say for you, my slippery beauty, eh?”

  Rather than reply, Milady only smiled her dangerous shark’s smile at him. Charlotte was still alive. Right now, that was all that mattered.

  “Very well, I can see that I will have to be a bit more persuasive before you will consent to having a civilized conversation with me,” said the Vicomte. “Guards, secure the man, and bring the woman over to the table.”

  Aramis’ guard manhandled him over to stand beneath a hook suspended from the ceiling, which had presumably been used to hang meat. With his eyes locked on de Castres’ pistol, still pointing at Milady to ensure his cooperation, Aramis allowed his bound hands to be lifted high and attached to the hook over his head.

  The man holding Milady dragged her over to a rough wooden table near the center of the room. The thing appeared nearly as old as the room itself, but was still heavy and solid. The guard shoved her against the edge, pressing her upper body down to rest on the pitted boards of the tabletop. She growled and struggled, but he pinned her in place with a forearm across the back of her neck while he held her wrists together with his other hand.

  The hair at the nape of her neck stood on end as the Vicomte walked slowly around her until he was standing immediately behind her. She kicked out, but failed to connect.

  “Now, now, none of that,” said de Castres. He reached down and lifted the hem of Milady’s dress, dragging his fingers up the back of her leg and making her shiver and buck up against her guard’s restraining hands with a grunt. “I wonder what you have hidden up here, that you were so eager to lay hands on when we broke into the study?”

  His hand brushed against the small sheathe attached to a satin band circling her upper thigh, and he pulled out the little dagger contained therein.

  “Hmm, this is certainly a pretty little toy,” said the Vicomte, letting her skirts fall and wandering back around the table until he was within her field of vision once more. “Now, why would a delicate flower like you be bringing such a dangerous little object to my party, eh?”

  Milady curled her lip, staring up at him from where the side of her face was mashed into the table. “Well,” she said, “I had hoped to be able to jab it into your scrotum at some point during the evening and twist it until you screamed. Unfortunately, we can’t always get what we want.”

  The amusement slid from de Castres’ face like water flowing out of a leaking bucket.

  “Actually, I believe I’m about to get exactly what I want,” he said, bringing the little knife up to her face and caressing her cheek with the blade. The sharp point came up to hover an inch from her right eye, and she forced herself to look past it and hold the Vicomte’s gaze as he continued. “Because I can think of all sorts of interesting places where I might jab this and twist it.”

  Aramis cleared his throat from his uncomfortable position across the room. “You’ll have to forgive the Comtesse,” he said. “I fear she is somewhat irritated by how quickly you found us earlier. My fault, I’m afraid—I had assumed you would be detained for considerably longer with Mlle Jeunésse. But I suppose not every man can be blessed with that sort of... stamina.”

  The Vicomte looked up with an angry sneer, and the blade retreated from Milady’s face.

  Aramis continued as if he had not noticed. “Of course, I suppose I haven’t much room to talk, since I finished with your wife some time before you apparently finished with Mlle Jeunésse. Though, in my defense, I should point out that I satisfied her twice during our admittedly rather abbreviated tryst. She’s an extraordinary woman—do you know that delightful little noise she makes when you press your tongue inside her, just so?” He paused in his inane chattering, directing a sneer of his own at the increasingly enraged Vicomte. “No, on second thought, never mind. I don’t suppose you do.”

  Milady felt her guard’s grip loosen slightly, the man clearly taken aback that anyone would dare speak to his master in such a way. Before she could take advantage of it, though, de Castres hissed, “Get her up!”

  Her captor scrambled to release her arms and drag her upright by the hair. She staggered, trying to get her feet under her, her mind still vaguely un-tethered from her body by the tea and her roiling memories. De Castres grabbed her right wrist and slammed her hand onto the table, palm down. An instant later, the dagger flew downward in a shining arc. The point of the blade pierced through the back of her hand, slicing between the delicate bones and embedding itself in the soft wood of the table. Pinning her in place.

  She screamed as the pain blossomed, bright and pure, through the protective mist of the opium. Behind her eyelids, memories exploded from nowhere in a chaotic tumble, filling the gaping, empty spaces in her mind. Aramis might as well have been a hundred miles away rather than across the room, as he yelled and cursed at de Castres.

  When she came back to awareness, though, it seemed that only moments had passed. Her guard was looking back and forth uneasily between her hand with the hilt of the dagger protruding obscenely from the top, and de Castres, hauling off to hit Aramis in the face. She forced herself to focus, letting the waves of pain wash over her, more distant and unimportant than they should have been, thanks to the drug in her veins.

  Aramis’ head snapped to the side under the impact of de Castres’ fist, and he spat blood. The Vicomte grabbed him by the throat, forcing his head up.

  “You are foolish to provoke me, monsieur,” he said. “As I told you, I have all the time in the world to find out what you know, and why you came here. No one is coming to save you.”

  Aramis met the Vicomte’s gaze unflinchingly, and smiled—a slow, dangerous grin that revealed teeth stained gory red with the blood from his split lip.

  “Really, Your Lordship?” he croaked, past the fingers gripping his throat. “Are you certain of that? Because I’m quite sure I heard the bells ring for Compline not long ago. And since I haven’t checked in with the squad of musketeers I arranged to have watching your house tonight, that means they should be storming the place right about... now, I should think. In fact, can you hear noises coming from upstairs?”

  Milady sucked in a breath at the same time as de Castres, everyone in the room suddenly frozen, listening with every fiber of their beings. Indeed, there was some kind of disturbance above them. Crashing. Distant shouts.

  She remembered Aramis speaking in low tones with d’Artagnan... asking for a private word with Porthos. Suddenly it all fell into place. The brilliant, maddening bastard.

  De Castres ripped his hand away from the priest’s throat and rushed closer to the stairway leading up into the main part of the house, listening. When he returned, his face was twisted with rage.

  “Get up there!” he yelled to the guards. “Defend the cellar! They mustn’t find me down here like this!”

  The guards scrambled to obey, apparently less frightened of a squad of angry soldiers from the Royal Guard than they were of their employer.

  De Castres turned on Aramis again. “You underestimate me, monsieur. Do not think for a single minute that I will leave you two alive when you can implicate me as a spy. It would be faster and easier to shoot you, no doubt, but I will take great pleasure in strangling the life out of you with my bare hands.”

  Aramis’ gaze did not so much as flicker toward her for an instant, and Milady realized with a jolt that he was purposely trying t
o keep de Castres’ attention away from her. The Vicomte’s fingers closed around his neck again, and Milady forced herself to look down at her mangled hand. It should hurt so very much more than it did. The pain was distant. There, but unimportant.

  She reached out with her free hand and gripped the hilt of the dagger, wrenching it free. Blood spurted and welled from the wound. Dangerous, but it wouldn’t be enough to kill her for quite awhile yet... at least, she didn’t think so. Holding the bloody knife confidently in her left hand, she moved across the room on silent feet as Aramis gagged and choked.

  She lunged the last few steps and pressed the blade to De Castres’ throat, tangling her other arm around his free one. Her blood dribbled onto his fine doublet in a slowly spreading patch.

  “Let. Go,” she growled. She could see her captive’s pulse pounding with a heady cocktail of fear and rage. Pressing the blade against the throbbing vein until blood welled up beneath it, she added, “Now.“

  De Castres slowly unwrapped his hand from Aramis’ neck, and the priest drew in a whooping gasp of air.

  “Two things you should have taken into account when you sent the guards away,” she said, “One: I really, really want my daughter back.” She jabbed the knife in a little bit harder. “Two: I’m left-handed.” She looked at Aramis, who seemed to have gotten his breathing under control and appeared relatively undamaged. “Aramis? Kick him in the stones for me, if you’d be so kind.”

  Aramis didn’t even change expression—he just braced himself using the hook and kneed de Castres viciously in the groin. Milady jerked the dagger out of the way at the last instant as the Vicomte doubled over, keening. Untangling her right arm from his, she let him collapse slowly to the ground. Placing the knife blade between her teeth to free up her good hand, she crouched down to grab the Vicomte’s pistol from his belt and hit him over the head with the butt as hard as she could. He grunted and went limp.

  “Cut me down,” Aramis rasped urgently. “I need to look at your wound.”

  Milady nodded and set the pistol to one side. She had to stand on tiptoe, and even then, she could barely reach the cords binding Aramis’ wrists with the tip of the knife. It seemed to take a ridiculously long time for the bindings to finally fray and come loose, but then Aramis was tossing them off impatiently and chivvying her closer to one of the torches so he could see properly. He untucked his linen shirt and tore a couple of strips from the bottom, using one to try and staunch the flow of blood.

  “This is nasty,” he croaked. “We must stem the bleeding, and it needs to be cleaned and stitched.”

  “It barely hurts,” she said, staring at the offending appendage as if it belonged to someone else.

  “Enjoy it while it lasts,” Aramis replied grimly. “Because it’s going to hurt like the devil once your damned tea wears off. In fact, let me just make use of a bottle from the Vicomte’s wine cellar and flush it out while you’re still floating around in the clouds.”

  He grabbed a random bottle from the nearest wine rack and smashed the neck to open it. With a quick sniff to confirm it hadn’t gone bad, he gestured for her hand and poured the ruby liquid over the still-bleeding gash. Pain flared across her awareness again, and she cried out, the blood draining from her face.

  “Sorry,” Aramis said grimly, setting the bottle aside and grasping the elbow of her good arm to steady her. Above them, they could hear footsteps crashing down the stairs, possibly coming to investigate the scream. Working fast, Aramis helped her lean against the edge of the table and bound a strip of linen tightly around the wound.

  “Can you shoot straight if you have to?” he asked, picking the Vicomte’s pistol up and offering it to her, handle first.

  She nodded, still not sure of her voice, and raised the weapon to point at the entrance to the chamber. For his part, Aramis retrieved his sword and her dagger from the floor, holding one in each hand and falling into an en garde position next to her.

  “Who’s down here?” boomed a familiar voice from the far end of the cellar, and both she and Aramis sagged in relief.

  Neither of their voices were up to par by that point, but Aramis managed to rasp, “It’s us, Porthos,” loudly enough to be heard.

  He sheathed his rapier and tucked the dagger in his belt, while Milady let the barrel of the pistol dip until it was pointing at the floor... the effort of holding it aimed and steady suddenly exhausting her beyond bearing. A moment later, several musketeers poured into the dim and musty space, Porthos and d’Artagnan leading the charge. The two soldiers relaxed visibly upon seeing them both more or less in one piece.

  “Can’t leave you two alone for a moment, can I?” Porthos asked, giving them a quick once-over and frowning at the picture they made. He crossed to the unconscious figure curled on the floor and prodded him with the toe of his boot. “This the Vicomte, then?”

  “It is,” Aramis said. “Apparently we were right about him. There’s evidence in his study upstairs that he’s been acting as an agent for the English.”

  Porthos whistled, and d’Artagnan made an impressed noise. Aramis wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand as the others moved around the cellar, binding de Castres hand and foot and ensuring that the cellar was secure.

  "Someone needs to go upstairs and check on Lady de Castres," he said. "I left her tied to the bed in the master suite, and she was a bit, shall we say... underdressed. She’s probably getting somewhat chilled by now."

  D'Artagnan stared at him with a completely flat expression for a beat, maybe two. "Aramis," he said eventually, "you're a horrible priest. You do know that, right? You should come back with us and start sticking people with swords again.”

  Aramis looked miffed, and Milady opened her mouth to say something witty in response. Unfortunately, what emerged was an entirely undignified groan. An instant later, her knees buckled and she toppled slowly forward, Aramis, Porthos, and d’Artagnan all scrambling forward comically to catch her.

  * * *

  She awoke an undetermined amount of time later in an unfamiliar bedroom. The instinct to jerk upright and search for threats had her moving without thought, only to cry out in pain as her injured hand licked fire up the length of her arm at the reckless treatment.

  “Easy,” said a familiar voice, and her eyes flew to d’Artagnan, perched on the edge of a chair next to the bed and reaching out as if he wished to touch her, but had wisely decided that doing so would be a bad idea.

  “Where—?” she rasped, falling back to the decadently soft mattress and cradling her wounded hand to her chest. Her head pounded, her stomach churned, and she honestly could not remember feeling so horrible since being sickened with the plague, many years ago.

  “We’re in one of the Vicomte’s spare bedrooms,” d’Artagnan said, redirecting his aborted movement to a small table containing a cup and a pitcher. “The house is secure and the others have carted de Castres and the English letters off to the Palais Cardinal for an impromptu meeting with Richelieu.”

  She focused on what he was saying with some difficulty, and reluctantly accepted a few sips of cool water when he offered it. Once she was confident that it wouldn’t make an immediate and precipitous reappearance, she lay back gingerly and said, “I’m sure His Eminence will be thrilled about being knocked up at such an hour.”

  D’Artagnan looked relieved at the return of her acerbic wit. A faint smile tugged up one corner of his mouth as he replied, “I don’t think anyone involved cares all that much for the Cardinal’s lost beauty sleep, to be perfectly honest. And he can hardly complain about the apprehension of an English spy among the upper echelons of French society. Now, though—how do you feel? We stitched up your hand as best we could, but Aramis said you were likely to be somewhat ill when you woke.”

  Milady ignored the part about her health and said, “I’ve remembered what happened after the attack on the Flemish ambassador.”

  D’Artagnan leaned forward like a hunting dog on the scent. “What, eve
rything?” he asked.

  “Yes, everything,” she confirmed.

  “Tell me,” he urged. “This could be very important.”

  * * *

  “Maman! Papa!” Charlotte cried, and Milady craned her head around frantically until she saw her struggling daughter being carried down the stairs by another of the intruders.

  “Charlotte!” Olivier called, his face deathly pale and his voice hoarse with pain. His leg was twisted grotesquely beneath his body, and Milady felt a gray fog close around her for a moment at the sight.

  The leader of the attackers stepped forward and leveled his sword at Olivier’s throat. Her husband glared up at the man with murder in his eyes.

  “Monsieur le Comte,” said the man in heavily accented French, “if you wish your wife and daughter to remain alive, here is what you must do. You will confess publicly to having orchestrated the murder of the Flemish ambassador and his aides. You will say that you sent the Comtesse and your daughter away to safety, but you will not say where. If you make any mention of Spanish involvement, or protest your own innocence, your loved ones will be tortured to death. I’m sure you have heard of the methods perfected by the Inquisition, sí? You would not wish them to be visited on your child, I think. Am I making this clear? You understand what you must do?”

  Olivier was trembling... shaking as if palsied. She had not seen him so undone since the fateful day he found the fleur-de-lys brand marring her shoulder. He dragged his eyes from the man holding a sword to his throat to meet hers instead.

  “I understand,” he said, but what she heard was, keep our daughter safe.

  Milady and Charlotte were dragged outside to an unmarked carriage. Held by two strong men and still reeling from the vicious blow to her skull, Milady was powerless to resist as her hands were bound in front of her and a bag tied over her head. Soon, they were being jounced around violently as the conveyance rattled over pitted roadways at great speed. Her fingers rested on Charlotte’s soft hair as the little girl sobbed softly in her lap.