Thank you so much for your ongoing support and encouragement with this story. I don't know about you, but the more I write of this the more I detest Milady! How did Athos ever get sucked in by her?

Chapter Eleven

Athos slumped onto the floor of his room and leaned his head against the wall. He felt the weight of despair crushing down on him and he closed his eyes. Never could he have imagined the insane cat and mouse game his wife had conjured up. The letter was scrunched up in his hand and he wanted to fling it away from him. Instead he pulled it closer, smoothed it out and read over it again. He could not afford to miss anything.

You must agree by now that you truly deserve each other. Just as I once held Thomas' life, I hold his life in my hands. You will never see me coming until it is too late. If you wish to spare him, then surrender yourself in his place. Remember, if you speak just one word of this, the offer is revoked and he will surely die in agony. His death will be on your head. Sleep well my love.

Sleep!

There would be no sleep this night. His mind was stretched in a hundred different directions as his fears threatened to overwhelm him. He had no doubt whatsoever that Anne would do exactly as she had said she would. His heart told him to rush back to the garrison as swiftly as possible and surround d'Artagnan with a hundred musketeers. His mind told him that panic would be the cause of his death. If he appeared to have tipped anybody off then her threats would morph into reality and d'Artagnan would pay the price for his stupidity. Just as Thomas had paid the price for his blindness.

He threw his head forward onto his knees and wrapped a hand across his shoulder. The other hand shook violently as it scrunched up the offending piece of parchment. He longed to speak with his friends and find a way through this nightmare, but he knew his wife too well. She was totally capable of what she had threatened.

He wished, not for the first time, that d'Artagnan had never made the choice to return that fateful night. His worthless body would have burned and his home would have been his funeral pyre. A fitting end to a family line that was cursed. The last vestiges of his sins would have been wiped off the face of the Earth. Anne would have gone off to God knows where and d'Artagnan would never have been in her sights.

"Why did you have to come back?" He whispered the question into the empty room. Silence called back to him, but he already knew the answer. The boy's sense that something was wrong. His ingrained sense of duty. His misplaced loyalty to Athos. It all combined to conspire against him in the worst possible way.

If you wish to spare him, then surrender yourself in his place.

The words rolled through his tortured mind and he found himself nodding. There was no question that he would give himself up in order to stop her murderous plans. He was responsible for creating the monster she had become. But how? Where? He had no idea of even when. No doubt the instructions would come. As much as he had come to hate the letters, there was one more he needed to see.

A part of him was furious that he had allowed Aramis to convince him to leave d'Artagnan to sleep, while another part was relieved not to have missed the latest letter. Who knew what could have happened if he had not seen it? Or worse, if somebody else had.

He remained seated on the floor for some time, trying to find a way through the schemes and lies to save his friend.


Aramis cleared the last of the items onto the tray and began to stand up. He was pleased that most of the food had been eaten and it boded well for a full recovery. He watched as d'Artagnan sagged back against the pillow and tried to keep his eyes open.

"You need to get some sleep. The draught I gave you should help with the pain."

Everything in him wanted to pull up a chair and stand guard for the night with his musket. Treville had told him not to stay the night as it may give away the game to whoever was watching and he had reluctantly agreed to the plan. Porthos had managed to drag Athos off with a false assignment to the palace and he knew that the man would have then returned to his quarters. He felt sick at what his friend would have walked into. His heart was heavy with concern as he looked towards the door.

"Is there anything else you need before I go?"

D'Artagnan shook his head slowly. "No, I'm fine, really."

Aramis paused and looked across the space between them. He seemed on the verge of saying something else before starting across the room again.

"Then I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well." He smiled as he left, but the instant he walked out the door the smile slid off his face. He caught sight of Porthos cleaning a pistol at a bench and he nodded. The tray needed to go back to Serge and he slowly made his way off to find the man.

Torches had been placed in sconces as the sun had begun to dip. He found himself actively searching out the shadows as he walked. It felt sickening to feel that they were not safe in their own garrison.


D'Artagnan awoke some time during the night. The candles had burned lower, but Aramis had left several lit in case he woke in the night. He moved across the bed without thinking and pain flared across his shoulder. It felt stiff and heavy and he leaned back against the bed and tried to control his breathing. It wasn't the first time he had been kicked by a horse and his mind wandered off to the time his father had been a fraction too slow to pull him back from danger. He had been twelve and thought he knew all there was to know about horses. His own arrogance had led to an almost broken leg when an unfamiliar horse had taken a dislike to him. It had kicked out from behind and his father had pulled him forwards enough to lessen the blow. Still, it had been extremely painful and his calf muscle had been swollen and sore for weeks. The one thing it did do for him, was instill a deeper respect for the animals and it brought his inflated self-confidence down a notch. He smiled as he recalled his father bringing him supper in bed, much as Aramis had done the evening before.

He wondered where Athos had gotten to after being called off to the palace with Porthos. He had wanted to stop them from going, but managed to clamp his mouth shut. Just.

Eventually he realised the reason he had woken up was because he needed the chamber pot. He tentatively raised himself up on to one elbow and waited for the room to settle down and stop spinning. His head was reminding him that it was still very bruised and he slowly pushed himself to his feet. What should have taken a few minutes, took far longer as he struggled to hold himself upright. Finally he was done and he wandered over to retrieve one of the candles. As he did so his breath caught in his throat. A single piece of folded parchment had been pushed under the door.

He felt his heart pounding wildly and the rush of blood caused his vision to blur over. He swayed on his feet as he lurched towards the door. Grabbing hold of the handle, he managed to steady himself before slowly bending down to pick it up. His fingers felt like they were burning as they touched the paper. He stumbled back to the bed and slumped down onto it before flipping open the paper.

I told you once, choose the Musketeers and you choose oblivion. You chose the wrong path. You chose the wrong man. He deserves to be punished for his sins and you are the only one who can save him. If you wish to spare him, then surrender yourself in his place. Remember, if you speak just one word of this, the offer is revoked and he will surely die in agony. His death will be on your head. Sleep well my lover.

D'Artagnan felt himself gag as bile rose in his throat. He crumpled the paper in his hand and threw it across the room. The fact she had once seduced him was the lowest point of his life. Coming on the back of the loss of his father, his mind had not been in full control of his actions and his body had simply responded to a need for physical comfort. He had discovered much too late that she had a plan in mind to frame him for murder and the seduction had simply been a part of that. Over time, he had come to understand she was capable of anything and her depravity knew no limits. She certainly knew nothing of love.

It wasn't the first time he had wondered how Athos had come to be taken in by her and fallen in love with her. How did the man he considered to be the epitome of honour become ensnared by such a manipulative witch? He knew the answer to that, but his stomach revolted at the thought of how she had sought to ensnare him too in her web of lies. The thought that Constance had almost paid the price for that made him double over in distress. He could not allow her to take Athos from him. The question was, where? And when? He had no doubt that she would let him know. He just hoped he had the strength to do what he must.


Marcel was curled up in the straw in the corner of the empty stall. He had long since cried himself to sleep. He had stayed out for hours to make sure that nobody could possibly see him deliver the letter under d'Artagnan's door. On the way back to the garrison he realised that even though Porthos had guessed about the letters for Athos, he had been too frightened and distracted to tell him the rest of the story. The fact the pretty lady knew about the horse nearly trampling him just confirmed what Porthos had asked him to do. He felt sick that she had sucked him into doing something so wrong. He wasn't really sure what was so wrong about it, but the place in his chest the nun had told him about felt really sick. It wasn't like he cared about any of them, but the men in the garrison had been kind to him and fed him every day. For the first time in his life he felt almost connected somewhere. And somehow he had destroyed all of that for himself. He had no idea if he could do anything to fix it or not, but he resolved to at least try. As soon as he saw Porthos he would tell the big man about the latest letter.


She sat on the windowsill of the room she had rented and smiled to herself. The curtain fluttered in the light breeze and she enjoyed the sense of danger that such a flimsy barrier provided. If he just looked up he may see her. The candle was still burning in the room across the street. It was a warm night and the shutters were pushed open. From the second floor she could not make out any details, but she could see the shadow that passed back and forth across the room as the candlelight was blocked out. There was no way he was going to sleep well this night. Neither was she, but that was more from delicious anticipation than anything else. Her heart raced in her chest as she absently twirled the locket in her fingers. The tiny blue forget-me-nots spun into her sight every time the locket turned.

"I will never forget what you did," she whispered into the darkness. "And it's time to make you pay the price, my love."