A Box of Chocolates

by CommandMeConfessor

Life at French court has always been dangerous but when Mary's life is threatened Francis must be her knight in shining armor. Loyalties are never certain and Francis must realize who is friend and who is foe. Can Francis catch the culprit and save Mary's life or will he miss out on his chance to tell her how he feels? Can he really have the girl of his dreams or is too late?

2. A Queen Confused

Present Francis

He stood up and walked to the large canopy bed. In the middle a horrifying scene played out. Mary, his usually robust, smiling, intelligent and beautiful companion looked like death personified. Normally rosy cheeks were pale and those lovely chocolate brown eyes were covered by dark and heavy eyelids. Her long and graceful fingers that could always be seen fiddling in an unladylike manner with a necklace or a strand of hair were weakly grasping at wrinkled sheets. He fell to his knees and grabbed her hand. Without thinking he brought the hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into the pale and shaking hand.

Present Mary

The action caught the attention of the sickly queen. She slowly opened her eyes. She locked gazes with the most gorgeous pair of blue eyes. Francis. A small smile graced her face but something was wrong. Why did those normally sparkling eyes look anxious? Why was she looking at him from such a strange angle? More importantly why did her hand feel so heavy in his, why did her eyelids keep threatening to close, and why did she feel weaker than a newborn babe? The smile dropped from her face as she tried to remember.

She couldn't remember what had happened to her and that truly frightened her. She began to panic. She tried sitting up in bed but a gentle hand on her shoulder held her down. Look at the owner of the hand an seeing the tears threatening to fall Mary finally broke down. The tears rushing down her face were quickly wiped away by a soft yet masculine and. "Francis" she whimpered, sounding like the young woman she was and not the mature queen she tried to be.

Present Francis

The sound of Mary's broken voice hurt Francis in a way he didn't know was possible. It made Francis want to do terrible things to the person behind the, as he suspected, poisoned chocolates. Despite the fact that he had an inkling of who had done this he couldn't bring himself to admit that he would be willing to kill the person, family or not. The sobbing tired out the already feeble girl and she fell into a fitful sleep. Francis smoothed a stray piece of hair back into its place and placed a gentle kiss to her fevered forehead. He stood up, took a moment to compose himself, and then faced the other people present. He wanted answers and he was not leaving until he was satisfied with what those present had to say.