I have heard you remark that we Bearnais are cunning, and I agree insofar as it is true that we seek to employ sense and wisdom in our dealings. You have said that I, alone of everyone in Europe, doubt you, and for that you have claimed that all your work has been thwarted. I have long made it a practice to be direct and candid in everything I do and say, for to indulge in any other practice can only serve to provide my opponents at court with more fuel than I am willing to give them. If in so doing I have slighted you, I ask that you will pardon me, as I freely pardon you for the many unkindnesses you have shown me in the last year. If it is that Her Majesty has seen fit to elevate Troisvilles and bestow upon me the title of Comte, I can only remind you that such elevation was not of my seeking, nor was it the reason for my service to the Crown; and while I am honored far more than I can ever express, I am also nothing more than the servant of the Crown.
Undoubtedly we can agree on one or two essential matters: the King must be protected from the treachery often present in the court, for a little boy is too easily influenced by those who appear to show him favor. And it is apparent to both of us that the Queen Regent is in need of protection and guidance so that the Crown will not be in greater danger than it already is.
I pray you will consider this and then be willing to meet with me and discuss our difference in the light of the things we concur are of paramount value and importance. We do ourselves and the Crown no good by our continuing bickering, and we endanger what we intend most to defend. It is not my desire to continue to run counter to your wishes when it is apparent that our devotions are the same.
Believe me to be the King’s true subject and the loyal commander of his Musqueteers.
Jean-Arnaud du Peyrer, Comte de Troisvilles
On the 24th day of March, 1645.
A bona fide copy of this letter is included in the files of the King’s Musqueteers.
5
“Do you really prefer me clean-shaven?” Charles asked as he peered into the mirror at his bedside. “Beards and moustaches are more gallant.”
“Not to me,” said Olivia, propping herself on her elbow and watching as he stropped his razor. The morning sunlight angled in the window, making brilliant golden splotches on the flowered carpet; one small section of this was caught in Charles’ mirror as well, and reflected some of the brightness onto his face. “I like to be able to see you.”
“Why?” His smile was joyful. “You see so much of the rest of me, why do you want to see my face?”
“I like your face. I like all of you,” said Olivia as she pulled the bedding up around her shoulders and was content to watch him lather his face before working his razor over the chiseled line of his jaw. She enjoyed the way he moved, the way his long, blunt fingers held the steel. “I wish you didn’t have to leave.”
“Do you?” He was finished with his cheeks and had tilted back his chin to work under his jaw. “It is my first real opportunity to demonstrate my skill as a soldier. If I do well, there is recognition and advancement for me. Doesn’t that please you? Don’t you wish me well?”
“I wish you safe,” she said, her affection giving way to asperity. “You are not proof against musquetballs and cannon and the swing of a sabre.” She said the last softly, not quite looking at him anymore.
“Well?” he challenged. “I am a Musqueteer. I am a soldier sworn to the King. Musquetballs and cannon and sabres are part of my life, Olivia.” He completed shaving and wiped the excess lather from his face, suddenly impatient. “You know how much I have sought this, and you know that any success I am to have in this world will come through battle and war. Why do you question that now, when you have known it all along?” He rounded on her, not quite glaring.
“Because you are leaving to fight, and I fear for you,” she admitted slowly. “I dread you will go into battle and all that will emerge will be your corpse.” Her words were as harsh as her eyes were sad.
“Is that likely?” His manner lightened at once. “After what there is between us, why should I be in danger? Look how long you have lived. Why shouldn’t I be as fortunate?” He was teasing her, the ends of his flying brows raised even more, making his face pleasantly devilish.
Olivia was not mollified. “I have been much more lucky than I have any right to be,” she said brusquely. “And I have had the good sense not to face cannon.”
“No, you train horses instead,” he answered in the same sharp tone. As he turned toward her, his body, naked from the waist up, shone in the glow of morning light. “And from what you have told me, if you break your neck, you would be as dead as I would be with my chest blown to pieces by enemy fire.” He slapped his towel down on the post at the foot of the bed. “Do not tell me that there is any difference between my danger and your danger. At least I do not pretend that battle is safe.”
“In battle,” Olivia said sternly, “you may be certain that someone will be trying to kill you. My horses do not want to kill me, they do not intend to kill me—or very few of them,” she amended honestly.
“Your neck would still be broken, whether the horse wanted to kill you or not,” said Charles, his voice very low. “I don’t think I could bear that.”
Olivia gave him a long, direct look. “Then you know how I feel when you tell me you are going to war.” She sat up, drawing her knees up under the covers and resting her chin on them. “It has happened before, many times. I have been assured that there was no chance, none in the world, that my … companion could come to any harm. But it wasn’t so. And I knew as soon as the breath was out of them. It is the way of those of my blood to know such things.”
Charles leaned toward her, into the shadow of the damask hangings, his straight arms braced on the bed. “And what of me? I am of your blood already. I have tasted your blood, and you are as much a part of me as I am of you, aren’t I?”
“In some ways,” said Olivia carefully, wishing for the moment that he were not so dear to her. “But you have not yet died and wakened.”
“What does that matter?” he demanded of the air. “What would that mean? I have taken you as part of me, and I am glad to have that privilege, I welcome it. But since it is mine, let me have it.” Abruptly he reached out and took her head in his hands, leaning forward to kiss her with a passion that bordered on anger. He held her for some little while, his mouth on hers, until her lips opened to him; his defiance faded as her arms went around his neck. “Teton de Marie,” he murmured as they drew apart, “why are we fighting?”
“Because we are afraid,” said Olivia, remembering too many other times when she had not been willing to admit her fear.
“I am afraid of nothing but the loss of you.” He had stretched out, angled across her, his face—now filled with love and concern—close to hers, his hand still at the back of her neck. “We are fools, Olivia.”
“I grant you that,” she said, brushing the strands of long chestnut hair back from his face. The scent of the soap he had used for shaving was sharp in her nostrils.
“I want to be angry with you,” he confessed. “So that while I am gone I will not miss you, or so that I can lie to myself and say that I am too furious to miss you.” His smile was tentative, chagrined. “I would rather face charging cavalry than have to miss you, Olivia.”
“Don’t face charging cavalry,” she protested, pressing the tips of her fingers to his mouth. “Promise me.”
“If I can avoid charging cavalry, I will,” he said, dismissing her concern with a swift gesture that pulled her more closely to him. “Will that satisfy you?”
“It must,” she said, her expression distant. She leaned into his shoulder, unwilling to meet his eyes. “I can’t help being worried. If anything happens to you—”
He cut her short. “I worry for you, as well. And not because of the horses, not only because of your horses. That courier of Mazarin’s died hard, Olivia. You did not see his body. I did, when they brought it back to Paris, all wrapped in a torn windmill sail. They showed it to u
s, to convince us that there are troubles. They explained what was done. If anyone did such things to you … I think I would go mad.” This time his kiss was light, nothing more than the brush of his lips on hers.
Olivia took a deep, unsteady breath. “It will not happen; you have no reason to be concerned.” She stared up at the canopy of her bed. “I have servants here who guard me well, and money to keep them attentive and faithful. If any of my staff is dissatisfied, I discharge them, so that none of the household can be easily bribed. And I have Niklos to protect me.”
“They might not be enough,” said Charles, then, as he tightened his hold on her, he went on roughly, “Listen to me: the courier was tied to the base of a tree, and his arms were tied to the bent limbs of another. When they let the limbs go, they pulled his shoulders from their sockets. One of his arms was almost off. They let him bleed to death from that torn arm; he was so white that his body was pale as cheese when we found him. That was why he never arrived here, Olivia. That’s what Mazarin’s enemies did to stop him.”
“I cannot bleed to death,” Olivia said softly. “None of us can, not after we change. Only the living can bleed to death.”
“You can be tortured, and it might happen that you are. What then, if there is no death to spare you?” He kissed her again, urgently this time, breaking away before he could succumb to her nearness. “You are known as the Cardinal’s Italian friend, you are part of his suite; everyone knows that. No one at court doubts that you act on his behalf, that you receive messages and documents for him, and that his couriers come here for private meetings. Don’t you understand the hazards you run?”
Olivia shifted, moving the bedclothes so that she could lift them for Charles. “All right; I know I am at risk.” She beckoned to him. “There is less danger for me than there would be for most others.”
“That does not make it acceptable,” Charles said, vexation in his voice now. “It is not acceptable to me.”
“Yes; I have the same sense when you tell me you are going into battle.” She indicated his breeches. “Take those off.”
“I will not change my mind simply because you give me your love.” There was more pain than resistance in what he said. “I can’t forget.”
“Neither can I,” Olivia said, her fingers laid lightly on his chest. “But it will be a while before I see you again, and I want … oh, I want to sate myself with you before you go, so that I will not grieve too much while you are gone.”
“Do you think you can?” he asked with an impulsive, mercurial smile. “Sate yourself, I mean?”
“No,” she said.
“Does that mean you will try to drain me?” He asked it to tease her, but her reaction was genuine shock and dismay.
“No!” She started to move back from him, to seek refuge in the engulfing blankets and sheets. “How can you ask that of me, when you have tasted my blood?”
Charles was contrite, reaching out to her as he condemned himself for a fool. “Olivia, no. No, darling love, no, no.” He hardly touched her, but he made her face him. “I didn’t mean that. It was a jest—a poor one.” He kissed her brow. “If I believed you would truly do such a thing, I would never say so to you.”
“Wouldn’t you?” She was terribly cold all at once, her skin feeling raw with it, though the sheets were warm to the touch. “And why not?”
“Because I love you,” he said simply. “I would never mock you for anything you are, because I love you.”
“Even though I am a vampire.” As she said the word, other times in her life rose unbidden in her mind. That word, that one simple word that branded her a monster and worse was no longer hard to utter, but she had never learned to be able to acquiesce in the horror others felt: that word and what she was damned her as no court, no church, could.
“You could be a shrieking demon from the lowest pit in Hell and it would make no difference to me as long as you were also Olivia.” He slid close to her. “And you are not a shrieking demon, are you?”
“Not just at present,” she said stiffly. “How can you be certain I am not?”
His chuckle was low and filled with warmth. “I have been your lover for long enough to know what you are. I have tasted your blood, and though you are not willing to believe me, I know as much of you as you know of me through that bond.” His kiss now was deliberate, as if he were trying to give up his soul to her. He ran his hand down her flank, over the rise of her hip and down the muscular curve of the thigh.
“Charles,” she whispered when he at last permitted her to speak, “I did not mean to offend you.”
“But you doubt me,” he said, taking care that there was no trace of accusation in his response.
“I don’t want to,” she said, kissing his fresh-shaven chin. “But after so many, many years, I find it difficult to think that anyone could know what I am and not … despise me.”
“I do not despise you; I never could.” His hand moved up her body, around her breast, his thumb lightly pressing her nipple before his lips closed there. He felt her shiver as he drew her nearer, touching her as if he held fragile treasure in his hands.
There was no point in resisting him, Olivia told herself with that remote part of her mind that could still think. She did not want to, in case it was the last time. Over the centuries she had come to cherish the few and precious moments when souls and bodies joined; Charles sought the very core of her, searching for it in every part of her being. And she loved him, not only for that, but for the way the sun shone on his hair, on those loose chestnut waves that would not take a fashionable curl; for the way he walked, his heels leaving the ground almost as soon as they touched it; for the scent of him, and the way his sweat tasted when they lay together, their limbs tangled as vines; for the strength and clarity of his passion; for his blood that was forever part of her.
“Olivia,” he said, quietly as a prayer. He bent and, in spite of the engulfing bedclothes, began to wrestle his way out of his breeches. “Wait.”
Olivia, startled by this swift change, blinked as she looked at him, and then, realizing what he was doing, laughed.
“How can you do that?” he demanded with flagrantly false indignation. “Can you find the garter, for God’s Nails?”
She could not stop her giggles, but she complied, ducking under the covers and reaching for the ornamented cuff of his breeches that was secured with rosette garters just below his knee. She worked the fastenings of the garters until they were loose enough to permit him to slide them over his feet, helping him to wiggle and kick his way free of his clothes. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to get out of bed to do that?” she asked as she appeared at the mound of pillows at the head of the bed.
Charles grinned. “Possibly. But this is more fun.” With one extravagant gesture he threw his breeches across the room, then rolled toward her, wrapping her in his arms once more. “How good it is to be with you,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “I like this place, just here, under your ear.” He kissed her several times there to make his point.
Olivia flung her head back, her eyes half-closed, her smile ecstatic as he resumed his ministrations. “What am I going to do for you?” she asked when he paused.
“Enjoy yourself,” he answered, breathless in his delight. “I want you to be transported with pleasure, so that I can be part of it. I want you to fill yourself with the sweetness of love, so that when I fill you, there will be more than enough for both of us.” His kisses went from quick and light to long and deep. His hands had an imagination and purpose of their own that served to make them both light-headed. As he moved over her, he looked down on her face, and could not believe that a saint in the sight of God was more beautiful than Olivia. Her flesh welcomed him as he entered her, and she moved with him as their rapture became delicious frenzy. He trembled, and felt her lips on his neck as his fulfillment overtook him.
They lay as they had been, the sheets rumpled around them, the blankets in disarray. He used his elbows to keep from crush
ing her, and to let him move enough to be able to look at her again. He grazed her upper lip with a kiss and the tip of his tongue.
She opened her eyes slowly, watching him grin at her. She hooked one foot inside his ankle. “I have you,” she murmured.
“Not because of your foot,” he whispered back at her.
It was too much trouble to say anything; she slipped her hands around his waist and locked them easily behind his back, giving him a lazy smile in answer to his grin. “I could stay here all day.”
“If that’s what you want,” he said, easing off her but not breaking her hold on him. “I will explain to de Troisvilles that I was unavoidably detained.” He stroked her fawn-brown hair. “He will understand.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” she asked, but there was a sadness in her flippancy.
Charles kissed her neck on the same place she had touched his. “Would it make sense to do it again?”
“Sense has nothing to do with it,” she said, stretching with the lithe contentment of a cat. “Do you love me because it is sensible?”
“If I don’t, I should,” he said, smoothing the damp tendrils from her brow. “Answer my question.”
“It always makes sense to make love,” she said, slightly puzzled by his insistence.
“No,” he said, his knuckles caressing her ribs in a parody of a blow. “Would it make sense for me to taste your blood again? You have had mine—”
“So often that it wouldn’t matter if you hadn’t tasted mine,” she said, feeling strangely old as she answered. “If we had been lovers for a short while, it would be another matter, for there would not be the … bond; but … it has been years.” In spite of her qualms, she smiled. “It … anything more would be … redundant.”
A Candle For d'Artagnan Page 34