She knew exactly what the next words out of his mouth were going to be. The bleakness in his eyes, the way the others couldn't even look at her…
"It's my husband, isn't it?" She asked, finding herself surprised by the strength of her voice. It felt like her lungs had stopped working in her chest, and she could feel emotion – sadness, dread, something – crawling its way through her skull. "This is Bonacieux's blood."
d'Artagnan couldn't find the words – had spent the whole way back from the Louvre trying to find the words – and he choked, wishing so desperately that he could just shake his head and will all this away. Constance didn't say anything more, just kept looking at him for an answer, her eyes wide and heartbroken and just a little bit scared.
Eventually he managed a quiet, broken, "Constance, I'm so sorry."
Constance had been many things in her life; a bright daughter, an unwilling bride, an all-too-willing adulteress. One thing she had always been though was focused, and right now she needed that. She needed facts.
"Tell me what happened. Don't," She warned, when he clearly made to protest, "Think that you can keep this from me. Tell me exactly what happened."
And so d'Artagnan, in faltering, aching sentences, painted the picture of her husband's death and word by word, Constance felt her heart growing cold in her chest, stilling itself as though to save itself the pain that would be sure to follow. She hadn't loved Bonacieux, and he hadn't been a good man – not even a kind one – but she had sworn before God that she would be his wife and serve him until death parted them. She'd broken her vows long ago and maybe there would be retribution for that one day, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
The simple truth, the only one that mattered in that moment, was that Constance Bonacieux was a widow.
"He was at the palace for me," Constance heard herself saying, cutting off d'Artagnan's hesitating stream of comfort. "He said that he was going to come to take me home."
"This wasn't your fault Constance," d'Artagnan told her instantly. He looked like he believed that but Constance knew the truth. If he could see it too then he would walk away, never look back and be thankful that he was never bound to a creature such as she.
"At times I thought…" She couldn't get the words out. How could she tell the man she loved that she had wished her husband dead? Except she hadn't really, had she? All she had wanted was to be free to be with d'Artagnan, to marry him and live a life that was worth living – was it such a sin to want happiness? But that was what she had wanted, even knowing that the only way it was possible was for her husband to die.
She'd never really realised that meant he would actually be dead.
"Constance, please, talk to me," d'Artagnan couldn't stand to see her look so frozen, so distant, as though the foot of space between them might as well have been an ocean for all that he could cross it.
Constance couldn't work out what was happening. The air felt too thin and she thought for an awful moment that unless she latched onto something solid, she might just float away. She all but fell into d'Artagnan's arms.
He caught and held her, pressing his nose into her hair and letting her sob into his chest. He knew how conflicted she must be – he was the same. Less than a day ago he'd sworn to kill the man himself for laying a hand on the woman he loved and now he could almost mourn his passing, could certainly mourn for the pain it was causing Constance.
"It's going to be okay," he murmured, rocking her back and forth without thought. "We're going to be okay."
The other Musketeers kept their distance, and for just a short time, Constance could let herself fall apart.
There was a funeral, of course. Since Bonacieux had been shot by an enemy of the crown, the king seemed to have gotten it into his head that he deserved honours from the state and so the whole affair was far more than Constance had been expecting. The cost of such a thing must have been more than the man had earned in his whole life.
d'Artagnan had wanted to come, to support her through this but two days ago he'd been set upon in the street by a group of people who seemed to think he'd murdered Bonacieux so that he could have Constance to himself. He was bruised and his head had taken a hard knock but he'd be fine with time; it did little to sooth Constance. She'd forbidden him to accompany her, eventually convincing Athos to order him to remain at the garrison.
It had been the right decision. If he'd been here then he'd never have been able to stop himself from rising to the taunts thrown her way by people who thought they knew what they were talking about. Constance didn't let it touch her.
She was here to say goodbye to the man who had been her husband and hopefully to find some kind of resolution to the pain in her soul.
The church was a comfort. She'd never been particularly devout but her belief in God was firm and unwavering, and in His house, she felt the first peace she had in days. Her God would not lead her astray, no matter how badly she faltered.
Thanks to the king, the service had nothing to do with her, and she was allowed to sit and pray and say goodbye without anyone calling on her to do anything – it was a blessing.
There were no tears. She hadn't cried since that first day and her chest felt so hollow that she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to cry again. Hopefully no one noticed her lack of outwards reaction. Her reputation was in shreds as it was, it wouldn't do for people to think she was uncaring about her husband's fate.
Because she hadn't loved the man, and at times she might even have hated him but he had been her husband and in his own, twisted, selfish way, he had cared about her. If she could give him no further credit, it was something. A single piece of goodness in a dead man that she could look on with fondness and remember something worth remembering about someone who had been in her life since she was a teenager.
The dead are dead, and they cannot hurt you. She could afford to be kind.