Author's Note: So, I decided to develop this a little further after all. Rather than a second chapter, this is really another one-shot which serves as the sequel to Blind. I thought I'd post it this way rather than separately though, to make it easier for anyone who hadn't read the first part. Not sure I managed to do exactly what I wanted with it, so I may make a few tweaks, but I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks for reading!
Red
Stumbling from the queen's private chambers, a bloody viscous mist clouding his left eye, Rochefort could have wept amid the tempestuous raging of his emotions. His beloved Anne's treachery was ... unfathomable.
"Guards!" he cried out again, somewhere between a yell and a sob.
His mind raced to try, as always, to formulate a way in which to resolve the situation to his own satisfaction, but for now he could see nothing beyond the disgust in the eyes that had locked on him in the moment after she had violently slapped him across the face. Its sting had cut deeper than she could have ever imagined.
How could she not understand? Why, after all this time, would she spurn his devotion? She had forced him to throw her to the ground, but only because she would not see. His fists clenched at the memory. Even a man in love could surely be forgiven for being caught up in frustration.
And how frustrated he had been. His body had ached for her for so long. Wanted her. Needed her. And now when he was finally risking his neck for her ... He dropped heavily to his knees in the middle of the hallway.
How could she?
After everything they had been through together, the agony of her betrayal only left him all the more wretched by its sordid nature. A dagger through the heart, or indeed a sharp hairpin raked into his eyeball, could not so grievously injure him as the one realisation that still threatened to overwhelm him.
His queen had given herself to a filthy Musketeer as if she were some common whore.
How could she?
"Anne. Ana, look at me, my love. Did he ... Did he hurt you? Or the little one?"
But the queen could only sob in his arms, their tiny child caught in the midst of their dishevelled embrace on the floor of her chambers. And, worried nearly out of his mind, Aramis rocked them both gently as he held them to his chest, trying his best to soothe the distraught young woman.
"I'm here now," he murmured into her soft hair. "I'm here and I've got you."
Though she still trembled within the protective circle of his arms, her cries slowly started to subside and he drew back just enough to kiss first her lips and then the forehead of their whimpering baby son. Releasing her only to cup her face in his hands, his eyes roved over her anxiously before flitting to the ragged tear in her dress. "Did he hurt you?" he asked again, his voice husky with pent-up emotion. "Please, Ana, I have to know."
He couldn't bear the thought that he had been too late and, as fresh tears spilled from beneath long lashes when she closed her eyes, for a moment he feared the worst. Then, she shook her head.
"N-no," she managed. "He tried, but then y-you ..."
"Thank God," Aramis said, letting out the breath he hadn't realised he had been holding as he leaned in to rest his head gently against hers.
With their baby cradled in one arm, the queen reached for him again with her free hand and held him close, her fingers tangling in the dark unruly curls of his hair.
"I fear God himself will not be able to save us now," she whispered.
"Guards, come quick – there is treason in our midst!" Rochefort all but wailed, still clutching helplessly at the sharp incessant pain that seemed to engulf half his face.
He had long since known that the king would never bring his young bride happiness. For beneath the veneer of calm propriety, she was strong-willed and fiercely intelligent. Her marriage, to a weak man who wanted only a pretty face to laugh at his feeble jokes, nod blindly at his foolish plans, and bear him a son and heir, could only ever be a gilded cage. One no better than a humble prison, for all its fine trappings.
For years, he himself had schooled the Spanish Infanta in the ways of a country he had come to despise for how it had treated him. He had watched her blossom into the captivating woman who had stolen his heart and his very soul. Oh, he had known he would be left with no choice but to watch her wed Louis. It was a duty he had borne through gritted teeth, soothed only by the sure knowledge that he would be the one to whom she would turn for comfort. He would be her refuge and her solace.
Her saviour.
At the thought of his crucifix around that cursed Musketeer's neck, Rochefort's bloodstained fists clenched again in anger and he slammed them against the polished floor. His hopes and dreams had been torn to shreds, and the torture of it crashed over him anew. It was bad enough to have lived with thoughts of her forced to share the king's bed, but this ...
How could she do this to him!
"I can only imagine that he must have truly lost his mind," the young queen said, watching from where she sat on the edge of the bed as Aramis paced in front of her. "I have been so foolish not to see it sooner."
With their son now cradled contently in her Musketeer's arms, one tiny fist closed around his father's finger, the sight of them both brought fresh tears to Anne's eyes and a tiny smile to her lips despite the gravity of their situation. Even now, she could not bring herself to regret a thing. How could she, when her dashing Musketeer had given her so much that she had thought would forever lie just out of reach?
Motherhood, a beautiful little boy to cherish, and the chance to be truly loved and to love in return.
No, she would not regret anything – only that it may yet all be torn away. And that she could not bear.
As if he had read her thoughts, Aramis sat down beside her and, with his arms still full with their child, stole a tender kiss from her lips. "If I thought I could promise you a life beyond these walls, I would be proud to tell Rochefort and the world that you are mine. But I fear if the king were to know the truth, neither of us would see another sunrise. And I would lie in the face of God himself if it meant sparing your life," he said fervently.
"The king trusts Rochefort," Anne said, reaching to caress the Dauphin's delicate cheek. "If he goes to him ..."
"Tell me what he knows."
"That I gave this to you," she said, touching the small gold crucifix that still hung around Aramis's neck. "I had forgotten it was he who gave it to me so many years ago. Apparently I told him I would treasure it always. I did not for a second think it was anything other than a gift. I would remember if it had meant something more."
"I do not doubt that anything else between you is all in his twisted head," he said, with a sigh. "But we must not underestimate how dangerous that makes him. Who can tell what a man's next move may be when his actions are spurred by a reality no one else can see?"
It made his stomach roll and tears blind his already wounded eye, but it was too late to shake off the haunting visions that took hold of his tortured mind and Rochefort cried out in fresh fury. It was too much to endure the thought of another man's lips on hers, a mere soldier's hands undressing her, whispering intimate words of caress as he took her for his own ...
He did not, could not, understand. She loved him, he was sure of it.
And yet, in his last tainted glimpse of her, she had cowered from him as if he were a stranger or some madman. Why would she be repulsed by him, only to tremble in that bastard's arms as he held her close and murmured words of comfort? Comfort! What need had she of comfort? He had only intended to prove that she was meant to be his.
After everything, wiping bloody crimson tears on his sleeve as he straightened up with renewed determination, he thought he must have surely earned that right.
And he would make her see.
