But then a thought formed that God looked after madmen and children, and that Porthos could combine a good deal of both. Athos was starved and didn’t wish to steal a dish of pigeons.

At any rate, his imagination was beggared to think what role that dish might play in Porthos’s cunning plan. Was it simply something to eat on the way, to keep his strength up for the ordeal of breaking into the Bastille? Or else, did Porthos assume he would be arrested for at least some time, and in that spirit had decided to take some food with him till his friends could spring him? Alternately, was it the bribe with which he wished to gain his way in to Mousqueton?

Athos could not imagine, and was sure-in fact, would stake his life on it-that no matter what strange ideas he might conjure, they wouldn’t approach the amazing and bizarre simplicity of Porthos’s plan.

He hoped the god of madmen was on duty and had a close watch on his friend, but right now, hungover, confused and hungry, Athos wouldn’t be any use to Porthos. He would go home and see if Grimaud could prepare him a simple meal. And then, if night advanced and Porthos did not return, then Athos would go looking for him.

Monsieur D’Artagnan’s Social Scruples; A Guard’s Conscience; Where a Good Head Is an Unreliable Asset

D’ARTAGNAN had allowed himself to rest a little before he finished dressing to go to his dinner. Or rather, he’d meant it to be only the shortest of rests, and then to go to his dinner early, and perhaps to give some excuse. But he was still hungover, and the inside of his head felt as though it were entirely covered in cobwebs.

His rest prolonged itself, so that when he woke up the sun had almost set completely and a deep shadow prevailed the room. And Planchet stood by his bed, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as nervous as a cat in a circle of dogs.

As he opened his eyes and gave the boy a puzzled look, Planchet said, in an anxious half whisper. “Monsieur,” he said. “Milady has sent a carriage. It is waiting at the door. Her footman is in the entrance room.”

D’Artagnan felt his heart skip, both because being picked up in a carriage was a novel experience, and because he couldn’t like it. His dreams had been tormented by images of a fleur-de-lis branded into soft, female flesh, and by the look on Athos’s face when he spoke of women-that desolate look that was like land after fire, when everything has burned, even the stubble of the fields, and nothing remains behind but barren expanses of nothing.

His wakening mind seemed to have decided that not only did he not want to go to dinner with this beauty with the English title, but he would go a long way to avoid it. Even if she weren’t Athos’s wife, after all, she was a lady-titled. And while he had nothing against titled ladies, he thought that he would much prefer to keep his affairs simple. Or rather, his affair, as he only had one.

He thought, as he sat up, of how he would feel if he were to find that his Constance had gone to dinner with some British earl. He rather suspected his sword would come out of its sheath and the earl would better be very good with his own sword, or the world would be one English earl to the less. So how could he do this to Constance? It wasn’t as though she could fight a duel with the English countess.

But here was Planchet, informing him that the carriage was waiting, and he told himself his feelings were only the result of the shadows in the room, and of the remains of his hangover. He would probably find she was not Athos’s wife at all, but merely some woman who resembled her. Possibly even an Englishwoman.

And while he had no intention at all of betraying his Constance-for all his Constance had ripped up at him like a fishwife at her errant husband-it wouldn’t hurt to go and have dinner in the best of society. Nor would it hurt him to know someone with title and more power than Constance.

He’d been long enough in the capital to know that much of what happened was the result of whom you knew, and who might be willing to vouch for you. As such, he thought that he would do well to expand his circle. “Tell the footman I will be there as soon as may be,” he said.

Rising from bed, he put on the blue venetians that Aramis had enjoined him to buy only last week, and he slipped on the doublet that went with them. He saw his reflection in the lead-paned window, cut up by the lead panes, and didn’t see a dazzle of gold and lace shining back at him, and so he hoped that the suit looked distinguished and expensive but not Porthos-like dazzling, as he would hate to appear vulgar.

Pulling his hair back and tying it tightly, he stepped out into the sitting room, where the footman-a tall English-man with pale blond hair-dressed all in livery was waiting for him. He led D’Artagnan, without a word, and D’Artagnan followed him, thinking that this was all very foolish, but he felt like he was a prisoner.

And even though milady’s carriage was deep and comfortable-a vehicle fashioned on the latest mode, with arms he didn’t recognize painted on the door, and the most cushiony seats he’d ever had the honor of occupying-her black horses perfect and perfectly trained to work with each other, and her driver and the footman absolutely obsequious and formal, he went on feeling as though he were under arrest.

Nor did the impression diminish when he stopped in front of a handsome town house, and he was led down a vast hallway, lined all with candles, to a sitting room where she waited.

She offered him both her hands and greeted him as her savior, the man who had rescued her from a fate worse than death. Wearing a green dress trimmed in different tones of green lace, she was beautiful and elusive as a forest creature. The hair she’d worn loose when he’d last seen her was now gathered in a net of spun gold that shone just slightly darker than the hair it confined. A smell rose from her, heady and subtle like the scent of a summer night. Her bare arms were unornamented save for a simple circle of gold. And she smiled, just enough.

When he had greeted her, bending over her hands as he knew was expected of him, she allowed him to take her in to dinner. There were no other guests.

Her dining room like the rest of the house was perfectly appointed. The servants circled, serving dishes that D’Artagnan had never tasted before, and they all filled his mouth with wonderful flavors.

She asked him questions-about his mother, about his father, about his friends. He tried to answer in a way that wouldn’t compromise anyone, should she be, in fact, Athos’s wife and an agent of the Cardinal himself. But as the night went on, she dismissed the servants, and he started finding his tongue considerably more difficult to control.

Perhaps it was the wine. After she dismissed the servants, she’d start serving him the wine herself, cup after cup of some sparkling vintage, that tasted deceptively sweet and light. He’d tried to refuse it, but she’d laughed at his gesture, and just added more wine to his cup. And she’d cajoled him and smiled at him, till he did not know what he was doing.

His mind became more clouded than he ever remembered wine making it. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d drunk so much just the day before. Perhaps the drunkenness built on his so recently disordered senses. Or perhaps he simply had no head for liquor, or not such a head as he’d always assumed he had.

He never understood how, but he found himself in her bed, quite stripped and under the covers, next to her. And she was under the covers too, her hair loose down her back, wearing a nightgown of the sheerest silk.

He tried to speak and said something about Constance. Even he wasn’t sure what he’d said, or what it meant, and all it got him in return was laughter. “Your village lass back in Gascony,” milady said, ruthlessly, “wouldn’t know how to do this.” And in saying it, she touched him in a way he didn’t even know it was possible to be touched.