Athos was starting to wonder if perhaps he were drunk-if the monumental drinking spree of the night before could have clouded his mind to the point where he couldn’t make sense of a simple conversation.

“Why is what?” he asked. “I don’t have the pleasure of understanding you.”

“No, I quite see you don’t. Sorry to disturb you.” She walked around him, clockwise, eyeing him with a most intent expression. “Do you have any sons, milord?”

“No!” Athos said.

She sighed heavily. “Pity.” And then in an undertone, as though speaking to someone else altogether. “The devil of it is, I’m starting to understand why Aramis refused to present you to me. I’d only seen you from afar before, and I couldn’t understand it. As you know, Aramis is not in the habit of mind of being insecure. But now…” She sighed again, and picked up a fan from a nearby table. “Now I wonder what he could mean by telling me you don’t like women. Do you not like women, Monsieur le Comte?”

Athos didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t stupid, and despite his hangover headache, he knew very well that he was being made fun of. The problem was how he was being made sport of and by whom. If the countess had been a man, he could have challenged her to a duel three times over by now. But, alas, as his body was telling him rather insistently, she was not a man. And alas also, she was following no conventions of discourse, neither man’s nor woman’s.

He couldn’t imagine how to respond to her without violating more than a few societal laws. And he didn’t want to spin on his heels and leave her behind, because then, somehow, she would have won. And Athos would be damned if he allowed De Chevreuse to have the best of him.

“I like women well enough,” he said.

She gave a pointed look. “Yes, I can see that.” And with utter suddenness, sat down on a blue-upholstered armchair and raised her feet to rest on a little padded stool, so that her skirts fell back, revealing tiny slippered feet and a pretty, well-turned ankle.

He couldn’t avoid looking. He would not have been human, had he managed it. She followed his look and smiled up at him. “Delightful slippers, are they not. The embroidery was done by little Yvette, one of my maids. It is the birth of Venus.”

Squinting, Athos could see a lot of flesh tone, embroidered on black satin. To see the nude lady on the slippers would mean getting rather closer to the nude ankle, and then the lady would make some remark about his liking women well enough and the evidence of it being plain.

Athos clenched his hands by his side, and turned away, towards the window, where he stood for a moment, looking out, trying to collect his thoughts, and hoping that both the evidence of his interest in the fair sex, and the pounding of blood through his temples that seemed to beat a rhythm to his headache, would subside.

“You asked to see me,” the duchess said. “I assume it was not to allow me to inspect your physique?” There was something pointed to the question, as though she very much hoped that he would yield to temptation and tell her that yes, it had been exactly that, and then proceed to remove his clothes.

Athos, who knew his Bible, knew that Christ had been led by the devil to a pinnacle, and from such height, been shown all the kingdoms of the world. He wasn’t prepared to compare himself to his savior, but he would be willing to bet that Christ’s refusal would compare to his in the Herculean strength needed to avoid temptation. He clenched his fists and took deep breaths, and, at length, managed to extract words from the dark ocean of thoughts rushing through his mind. “I said, your Grace, that in the last two days your name seems to always be on the lips of someone, relating to something suspicious.”

She took a deep, satisfied breath. “I like a good deal of intrigue, you know? Of all types. Life, otherwise, can be so horribly boring.”

Athos turned around. There had been a note of sincerity there, and when he looked at her, her eyes were quite serious. He had heard De Chevreuse described as many things. Most often, people thought her a voluptuary. They thought she lived for the senses and that the senses alone interested her. Others thought that she loved playing with men-their minds as well as their bodies, and making herself the queen of a little male harem. Others, yet, thought she was more the victim than the victimizer, that she led men astray and enjoyed their pathetic attempts to escape but that she was so attracted to them she couldn’t help herself.

Athos saw through all that, and to something else. In other days, he’d been often too reckless. The becalmed existence in his domains, much as he enjoyed the land and its inhabitants, had seemed flat. He remembered days of staring out over the still landscape, and wishing he could go somewhere, and do something dangerous and pulse pounding. Perhaps all young people felt like that. Or perhaps his craving was extraordinary.

In the still hours of the night, when he was being exceptionally honest with himself, which usually happened right after he’d drank enough not to flinch from the truth, but not quite enough to make himself sodden drunk, he would admit to himself that he’d fallen for Charlotte because she was dangerous. Oh, he hadn’t known it openly, but he was sure there had been signs, signs that his thoughts had missed, but his body hadn’t.

Since then he’d found that this distressing tendency followed him. The only women to whom he reacted-or at least reacted strongly enough to forget his reserves and his pain, were dangerous somehow-hoydens or hussies, hedonists or viragos, religieuses, or painfully sharp.

It was quite possible, he thought, narrowing his eyes at the duchess, that the Duchess de Chevreuse, at least if half the rumors about her and her alter ego, Marie Michon, were true, was all of those with the exception of being a professed nun. Though he would not put even that past her, should she ever find herself unencumbered by a husband. Not that she would stick to it. It would bore her after a very short time. He looked into those blue grey eyes locked on his, and felt for just a moment that he wished he were someone else-someone who could, impunely, get involved with her. He would have traded quite a lot to put his hands on either side of that dainty waist and carry her to the bed on the other side of the room. [7]

But he had duties to his friends, and more than that, should the woman involve him in some intrigue, not only could he be caught, but he could drag his name through the mud in all its splendid glory, when the details came out.

To protect his name, he had hanged his wife. To protect his name, he had given it up. Great as the temptation was, he was not about to discard his care for his name over this woman’s lovely body or even her madcap, raging mind, that loved adventure and danger more than even he did.

“Madam,” he said, making his voice very cold and very correct. “What I meant to say is that in the last couple of days you’ve been mentioned to me as running part of a plot that might involve regicide, and also that you might have been the instigator of a plot against my friend D’Artagnan.”

“D’Artagnan! At least he uses his real name!” she said, then shrugged. “As for regicide, what fool can have told you that? Everyone knows I love the Queen as a sister, and as for the King”-she shrugged-“he is my sovereign and lord. Surely you would not accuse me of wanting to subvert the entire order of the court.”

He looked into her eyes and sighed. “Madam,” he said. “I would suspect you of wishing to subvert the entire order of the world.”

She laughed, as though his words delighted her. But strangely, her face acquired a grave look immediately after. “I see,” she said, “exactly why Aramis didn’t introduce you to me earlier. Where were you five years ago, Monsieur le Comte.”