Bianca has shifted from sitting, to kneeling, to standing on the kitchen bench so that she can reach easily over the great table where her shells are spread, separated according to shape, size, and color. She is engrossed in her work, stringing them into bracelets and necklaces with colorful glass and silver beads, using the laced ribbons that Tatie May has made for her, all the while, continuing the story about how she collected more shells with Alexandre so that she will finish the gifts for all her cousins at Glénay. Knowingly, she declines the heart-shaped, purple-striped cockle that Alessandra hands her: “No, Maman, this bracelet will be for Rosie.” Instead, she picks a white shell, spotted with dashes of crimson along the edge of its radiating ridges in a pattern that looks like delicate lace.
From where he stands, at the doorway that opens upon the back yard, Athos raises an amused eyebrow. He has lingered at that threshold for some time, neither inside nor out, his arms crossed over his chest while, behind him, the kitchen is a lively bustle: Tatie May at her cooking, Bonne feeding Léon, and Bianca at the table with her shells and her bright chatter. His amused retort however, is skin-deep. Alessandra has marked the impatient beat of his heel against the stone doorstep, and how, every so often, his eyes stray to the garden. Not to where Guillaume and doctor Guenaud are debating the wisdom of planting bulbs early, but toward the arched pathway that leads down to the cove and as to the small chapel, from where Giulia, Colette, Mademoiselle Bourgeois, and the nurse are returning, slow-paced, as daylight falls. Something irks him, even though he keeps it close.
Seeing that her advice has little resonance with her daughter, Alessandra rises from the bench and walks up to Athos. She leans against the other side of the doorframe, arms folded, reflecting his posture. He scarcely notices, so fixed is he upon that pathway, where Giulia, Colette, Mademoiselle Bourgeois, and the nurse have stopped to talk with Guillaume and doctor Guenaud. It is not the sight that occupies his mind, Alessandra thinks, but what the sight awakens. She is reminded of Tatie May’s remark that Athos will not walk that path down to the cove, not so much the words themselves but the manner of them, as if there was more in his refusal. At last, Athos notices Alessandra. He clears his throat and attempts a smile so rueful that it pains her. It is neither the sight that troubles him nor a thought, it is a memory. She reaches for his hand and he attempts another smile, almost apologetic, just as Bonne, who is seated at the other end of the kitchen announces: “Ah! Our hatted hatchling was hungry tonight!”
Athos frowns. Bonne’s name for Léon irks him even though he pretends to have made peace with it. Alessandra squeezes his hand reminding him to be patient. “Bring him to me, Bonne. I will pace with him,” she tells the wet nurse.
Léon is exacting in his habits and after each feeding he will be carried about. He prefers to be surrounded by people and sounds, as if the world must move for his comfort. Gently, Alessandra takes him from the nurse’s arms and sets him upright against a clean linen towel on her shoulder. He makes happy gurgling sounds while Alessandra walks with him the kitchen’s length and back, rubbing his small back in slow circles until he falls asleep.
Athos leans to look over Alessandra’s shoulder, at the baby’s drowsy, smiling face. “Are you jealous?” Alessandra teases.
He answers with a half-shrug and a mischievous grin. Then he looks again. “Upon my honor, he changes every time I see him. Why, an hour past I would have sworn he was Raoul’s very image. Now he reminds me of Lucien.”
“Except for his hair, Papa!” Bianca declares with the grave assurance of one who knows best. “His hair is the same, and always different.” She has jumped down from the bench and she is dancing about her mother and father, singing a little song she has made up for her brother:
Mon briquet, mon petit Léon,
Tu as des cheveux comme un lion!
Roux et fous, ils dansent tout le jour,
Ils ne veulent pas rester autour!
Alessandra cannot keep a straight face. Bianca has caught her baby brother in a handful of lines.
“Is she not a wonder, Bonne!” Tatie May extols, while she works, finishing the sauce for the stuffed hens. She turns to Giulia who has walked into the kitchen with Mademoiselle Bourgeois, the nurse and little Colette. “Madame, you are most fortunate. Your pupil is the cleverest little girl there is!”
Athos sweeps Bianca in his arms. “A clever little cabbage,” he kisses his daughter’s cheek and Bianca giggles. “Papa, your face tickles!”
“Mademoiselle,” Giulia says at once, “be respectful to your father and lower your voice or you will wake up the baby.”
It displeases Alessandra that Giulia has grown strict with Bianca, and the set of Athos’ mouth signals that he agrees. But she will not contradict Giulia before the household. And Giulia is not entirely wrong. Once they leave the strange haven of this cove, once they are in Paris, Bianca can no longer be a precocious child dancing to her own tune in the kitchen of a country house. She will be the daughter of the duc de Richelieu, and, like her cousins, the daughters of the duc du Plessis, destined for a life that demands a kind of discipline that Alessandra has never known. Can she be the kind of mother it takes to raise that daughter, Alessandra wonders?
She keeps her tone light. “Bia will gather all her shells from Tatie May’s table and get ready for dinner.”
“Collette will help me!”
“Collette has other work to do,” Alessandra will not be pushed. “They are your shells.”
“You will do as Maman says at once,” Athos adds, setting his daughter down, “and then you will go with Giulia and Collette to wash and change for dinner.”
“But Papa…”
“Now, Mademoiselle,” Athos makes sure he sounds commanding enough, even though Alessandra hears that quiver in his voice, which signifies that he would yield to his daughter’s sweet machinations in a heartbeat. Yet, he knows, just as Alessandra knows, that raising a daughter has become a more delicate affair than either of them imagined.
⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️
“You have been on your feet for too long,” Athos moves to help Alessandra into the salon, but she gently refuses.
“I had to see the children to bed. And I am better than everyone thinks. Do you know who agrees with me? Constance d’ Artagnan.” He flashes a glare but eases immediately for she makes sure her tone is playful. “Shall we talk about it? About you and Constance d’ Artagnan?”
“No, because I will not change my mind, no matter how clever you have been about it.” He leads her to a comfortable chair so that she can sit sideways on his lap.
“Nothing clever about it. She was eager to ease her conscience,” Alessandra says, feigning an innocent tone.
He darkens again. “Yes that too. Unburdening her conscience on others.”
“In truth Athos, there were, in her recounting, things you’d never admit to me, or to anyone. By revealing all, she meant to substantiate the grief I caused you, which looking through her eyes is understandable, and to make her case that she loves and protects you.”
Inward anger touches his brow. “I do not need Constance’s protection and you caused me no grief. For that I have others to blame, myself included.” He fixes his eyes on Alessandra blinking as if in disbelief. “What? Are you defending her now?”
“I may have been ill, but I have not lost my wits. I admit that Catherine’s name coming from her lips startled me and not in a good way. How Constance d’ Artagnan could have found herself drawn in with the rest of them.”
“Harry died as he deserved and in Lucien’s hands. As for Comminges: it was one sword thrust. I told myself one thrust is more than the fiend deserved. I had promised you this for all his abuses. And Catherine will no longer threaten anyone. Lucien made sure of that. As for her son, I trust Raoul.”
“Athos, how much does Raoul know?”
He shakes his head. “It concerns me too, for he was with me, Alessandra, and must have heard Catherine’s rantings, her lies and her half-truths. Our son is a brilliant man and able to connect even fragments of the truth, if he must.”
“Oh Athos!”
He presses her hands, his voice calm and reassuring. “In all our exchanges since then, he has been discreet. He only cared for your safe return. He fought valiantly.”
Something in his tone leaves Alessandra unconvinced. “But there is more, isn’t there?”
“Call it father’s intuition. I can surmise what happened to Thomas de Renard. I suspect that Catherine’s vile son may be found wherever Henri Bernard was condemned to be buried alive. I believe that Raoul exchanged one with the other, the innocent with the guilty. But there is more, yes, and that worries me the most. I believe Raoul tried to speak to me about whatever troubles him and changed his mind. I have been asking myself why, I have been asking myself if it was something I said, but I have no answer.”
A heavy weight settles in her chest. “Athos, I wish I had not been so selfish. At Glénay all I cared about was that he was there. Alive. With us. I wish I could think more clearly when he was with me.”
“It is only an impression,” Athos says, “but I will not leave it at that, I assure you. He may be the Spymaster of France but I am his father.” He smiles encouragingly. “And I suspect you will not leave it at that either, thus, I presume that finally we see eye to eye.”
She pulls him into a tight embrace and whispers: “We have wasted so much precious time.”
He pushes her back gently and cups her face in his hands, stroking her cheeks. “Let us agree that if we must look back, from now on it will be without any grief or remorse.”
“Those should have been my words, Athos.”
He arches an amused eyebrow. “I have learned my lesson, it seems.”
“Do not say so,” she touches his lips with gentle fingers, “We both have learned. Painfully.” He kisses the tips of her fingers, and although he says nothing she knows what he is thinking. “We must return very soon, is it not so?”
He smiles wistfully, “we must indeed, although neither tonight nor tomorrow. Tomorrow I must…” he raises a coy glance. “Well, I decided to buy land not far from here… That venture with the brandy interests me, you see.” He sounds apologetic.
“Of course it would!”
“You don’t mind?”
“Why would I? You should tell Lucien. He trades in wines out of Bordeaux, I think.”
“Ah, I have no such aspirations for this venture. And… it is not so much a venture. It is rather an experiment.”
“You sound exactly like Raoul.”
“That is the best encouragement.” He returns a broad smile but darkens again. “I am not sure you will like what I have to say next. I went to Charon as you asked, and talked to Medart about his daughter. His wife was there. His sons too.”
“They insist that she comes with us?” Alessandra anticipates.
“I found it impossible to argue about choices, Alessandra. It is a privilege they cannot even fathom. They love their little girl as much as we love our daughter, but their choices, if they have any, are harsh. Medart will work for me now at the new vineyard and his sons as well. But a young girl’s prospects in these parts are…” He shakes his head. “I fear I have disappointed you.”
“No, not at all, I was rather thinking that you were right and I was wrong. What choice could this poor child have here? Tatie May became your mother’s companion at about the same age she tells me.”
“What choices do any children have, I wonder? What choices did we have, Lucien, you and I?”
“Only to survive.”
“In this, I was the most fortunate of the three,” Athos says.
We promised not to look back with grief and remorse she is about to say, but something stops her. Perhaps it is the hoarseness of his voice and the answering ache in her heart as he speaks. It strikes Alessandra, once again, how much she has misunderstood him. “This place is no haven for you, is it?”
She sees surprise in his eyes and realizes that, perhaps, he too begins to understand her only now. “There is a part that I remember fondly,” he replies cryptically.
He will say no more. Yet, Alessandra is certain that the other part, which irks and troubles him, lurks somewhere along the arched pathway behind the house where he refuses to walk. She leans closer, placing a tender kiss on his lips. “What was that for?” He sounds amused.
“Something else to remember fondly.” He reaches for her lips even before she finishes her tease, their kisses gaining in passion. A warm drop of pleasure which Alessandra has forgotten, spreads beneath her skin. His too. She can feel it rising in his breath.
He pushes her back, reluctantly. “Alessandra, I must not… we must not,” the words do not come easily but she knows his meaning.
“Is it because of what the doctor said?” He looks surprised. He did not expect that she would know. “Yes, he told me. First the doctor, then Mademoiselle Bourgeois, and the nurse repeated it a few times. I understood it the first time, of course.” She brushes her lips against his and whispers: “I understand this better.”
⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️
Dawn finds them in each other’s arms under Athos’ cloak, seated at the old wooden pier. It is a gentle dawn, pale-colored and mild, the sea barely rippled in pinks and roses. They sit silently, breathing in a land-breeze, which carries the spring fragrances of the blossoming plum and the cherry tree, and the murmuring of the leafy poplar, the fern, and the pine that line the canals and the wetlands. She will hold this moment in her heart, Alessandra decides, like the memory of the other dawn, the one that burned in crimsons, only different, because this night they loved each other for the first time.
He keeps his eyes closed, savoring the moment and the air. “Pine,” he says, opening them. “Pine with rosemary and a hint of salt. It is everywhere. Salt.”
“In your wine too?”
His eyes smile, bright in the shimmering purples from the sea. “Most certainly in the wine. If the experiment works that is.” He sighs. “I hope it does. For Guillaume, M. Emery, and their friends who have invested almost all they have in such a perilous venture. For Medart and his family.”
“What about other landowners?”
“Besides my mother you mean?” He darkens, and immediately she knows the name he will speak next.
“Rochefort!”
“Yes, Rochefort,” he confirms. “That is his land.” With his eyes, Athos points to the rocky promontory rising above them. “Strange things have been happening there. The land passed to the crown after he was deemed a traitor, and yet prospectors have been selling it piece by piece. To whom, remains a mystery although I suspect it was back to Rochefort that they were selling it through aliases and intermediaries. Now, I suppose, the land is his again and my only satisfaction is that he ended up spending money to buy land that was returned to him in the end.” She feels him tightening. “So close…He is too close.”
There can be no haven safe for us, Alessandra thinks, but she does not say it. She knows it is what he is thinking as well. “I saw him,” she says instead and there is surprise in his eyes and curiosity. “It was a dream, but I have been wondering about many of my dreams. I saw him. He spoke to me when I was a child. I was with my mother and father and on the same country road that we ride each morning from the cottage to this cove. He was a boy. Arrogant. Aloof.”
“I never knew him as a child,” Athos counters. “I first met him at court. He was my cousin I was told, his father a cousin on my mother’s side, although, of course, she was not my mother.”
“But he knew you. In my dream–nay, in what I remember–his father was with him that day. A cruel man, cruel to his son too, and I am certain that before that day I had never known cruelty. He demanded a painting and my mother refused.”
“This does not sound like a dream.”
“It was not. I am certain. The boy I met that day was older than you and Lucien, fair haired, blue eyed and he was…strange. I watch you, he said. I watch you with my spyglass from our house when you play at the cove. It makes my skin crawl as I tell it. Me! The woman I have become!”
“I ask that you please not make yourself upset over that fiend,” Athos says gently.
“I must tell you what I remember,” she protests. “He knew you then, Athos. He knew you and Lucien. And more importantly he knew about you. He called you names…I am sure you can imagine what kinds of names. But I was a child, and these were names I had never heard before.” He kisses the top of her head. “Sang dieu,” she whispers. “To think that he is still here. Lurking over that promontory, spying…”
“There is a house over that promontory. It is well concealed,” he points to the rocky outcrops, “those are caves and one can reach the house from them. The house has a sordid history as far as I could put it together. It was built by Richelieu, in the days when he visited these parts with the King while the fortifications of La Rochelle were being built. Now it belongs to Rochefort. It is where we found you. The doctor and the nurse too. Rochefort led us to you.”
“Constance d’ Artagnan did not tell me this. Only that he lured you to his château at Bourron-Marlotte.”
A faint smile crosses Athos’ lips. “Constance doesn’t know all, thank God,” and adds gravely, “perhaps we should hold that conversation another time?”
“No, I beg you,” she pleads. “I want to hear it, because I am convinced that I have more to say.” Athos no longer objects, and recounts how he and Lucien found themselves in Richelieu’s château over the promontory. How they found her: the empty house, the doctor, the nurse, the mercenary called Radu, who must have taken her out of Saintonge, and the carriage with Richelieu’s coat of arms on the doors. “Rochefort made it happen,” Athos says darkly. “The fiend plays games and has been using us like pawns.”
“He was there,” Alessandra says and he gasps. “I am convinced now. I thought that was a dream too, but it was not. He was there, in that house. I remember him sitting by my bed. I remember him speaking to me. I remember his words.” The light in Athos’ eyes turns to steel. “I will protect you, he said to me, as is my right.”
Under his cloak, Athos pulls her tighter in his embrace. “We must leave as soon as possible,” he says gravely. “Tomorrow even. I will settle the land and bring Célestine back with me tonight. But we must leave. We must speak with Lucien. Perhaps, even with my mother.”
⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️
She is so small, Alessandra thinks the moment she sees her. Even though the child must be seven or eight, she is scarcely taller than Bia, all elbows and knees and sharp little bones. She sits in the saddle, and Athos keeps her tucked in his cloak to protect her from the night chill. She has been prepared for this journey by a loving mother, her dress neatly-mended and clean, and her white linen cap tidy and crisp. She wears a knitted shawl, pretty, made for her alone by the same loving mother who has packed the small bundle she clutches close to her chest. Athos lifts the child like a feather from the saddle and sets her onto the ground. “Alessandra, this is Mademoiselle Rapin,” he says.
“Célestine, is it not?” The little girl nods. In the pale moonlight she looks unearthly, her blond hair shimmering in silver hues, her delicate little face a pair of enormous, blue eyes, wide with awe and wonder. “You have such a beautiful name. It suits you perfectly. I am …” Alessandra falters. She never thought about her own name before this moment.
“This is Madame la duchesse,” Athos interjects, and she is grateful.
“You must be exhausted and famished. Let’s go inside.” She holds out her hand but the child does not move, as if rooted to the threshold. “Come dearest, do not be afraid,” Alessandra urges, lowering herself to the girl’s height. “Do you know my daughter?” The girl nods again. “She is asleep now but you will see her tomorrow and then we will all set off on a great journey together.” She tries to make it sound like an adventure, but in her heart she feels a tightness for this is all too familiar even though she wrote it down years ago so that she could forget it.
“Are you a queen, Madame?”
Alessandra’s heart sinks to hear the same childish question she once asked, asked of her, a lifetime later. Her mind races. Can Athos take her back? Back to her loving family and to the life she has not yet lost? But she draws in a steadying breath and gathers herself. “Alas, my dear, I am only Bia’s mother.” She manages a playful tone. “But I know that Tatie May has a delicious supper waiting and there is a nice warm bed. Why don’t we go inside?”
Célestine breaks into a wide, trusting smile and slips her little hand into Alessandra’s without hesitation following her inside the house. “I am glad you are not a queen, Madame,” she says, “I wouldn’t know what to say to a queen.”
⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️
At the cottage gate there are tears and lingering embraces, vows to write, and to return soon. There are jars with Bia’s shells, baskets heaped with pastries still warm from the oven, tarts and fritters, and other baskets brimming with newly cut fruit and flowers, six large wooden chests packed tight with jars of pickles, preserves, honey, and candied fruits, and three smaller crates, set aside for Athos, Lucien, and Alfonso, stacked with bottles of Guillaume’s brandy.
At the other end, at the gate of Glénay, there are tears as well, kisses, and long embraces of welcome, the joy of a loving family reunited after so much anguish and sorrow.
“This is Célestine!” Bianca announces the moment she springs from the carriage. And before Alessandra or Giulia can so much as caution her not to dazzle the poor child with a flood of new names and faces, she has already taken Célestine by the hand, and is dashing toward Samy, Rayya, and Rosie. “These are my cousins! I have more cousins, but they are only babes, like Léon, and even more cousins in Paris! This is Célestine, my new beloved friend. Is it not the prettiest name in all the world? She comes to Paris with us. She will live with us now!”
“Good heavens, I almost forgot what a whirlwind she is!” Madame d’Aiguillon is shaking her head and laughing with her mischievous little granddaughter.
“Porthos and d’ Artagnan should be halfway to Paris by now,” Lucien remarks as they all go inside. He slips an arm about Athos’s shoulders. “I am told there is good brandy.”
“And much to talk about,” Athos says.
Twelve Years After 