“Oh, good. You’re not so lost. Because, of course, it would not do. I suspect you could no more be faithful to a wife than I could be faithful to a husband. So I’m very glad you’re not willing-quite yet-to marry your Violette,” she said, and, on the instinctive, immediate reaction to the name, she looked surprised.

“I’d marry her in a second, madam,” Aramis said, primly, hoping this would stop the flow of words. And hoping above all it would stop De Chevreuse pronouncing a name he tried to avoid even thinking too loudly, in the privacy of his own mind. “Were it possible.”

The Duchess was sitting in the midst of her disarrayed clothes that rose like a frothy foam of fabric at her waist. She looked like a picture some Italian painter might do, slightly altered. Venus rising from the sea, perhaps, though the sea probably shouldn’t be on a bed. At his response, she widened her eyes. “Oh, married is she? My condolences, D’Herblay, but I must own that leaves the field open to the rest of us who are perhaps not quite so skilled as to imprint ourselves upon your mind and heart so indelibly.”

The idea that his love for Violette was based on skill-that type of skill yet-made Aramis start. “She’s not married,” he snapped. “She is dead.”

“Oh,” De Chevreuse said, and, as her face fell, “Oh, but her name was not Viol-”

“Please don’t pronounce it,” Aramis said. “Please don’t. She was that to me. It was the name she first gave me, and to that name we clung.” He shook his head. “Have mercy on a bereaved man and don’t drag your fingernails upon a still raw wound.”

She tilted her head sideways and regarded him curiously. It was very much the expression of a cat studying a small animal squeaking past. “How odd,” she said. “I believed you quite recovered from that incident, if indeed you had ever felt it.”

“What you believed matters not,” he said, and turned his back on her, walking to the wall and pretending to be allencompassingly absorbed in the portrait of a small child on that wall. Probably one of Marie’s daughters, he thought, as there was some resemblance to the mouth and the eyes.

He heard her get up and come towards him from behind. He felt her hand resting so half her fingers touched his neck and half his shoulder. “I could give you a child, you know?”

His head turned around so fast that it felt as if he’d dislocated something, and his normal suave manner deserted him. “What?”

She smiled at him, a contented smile. “To be sure I can. I can conceive very easily and I’ve had… bearing is easy. I’ve had more children than the obvious, you know? It’s not so bad-a trip to the country, and later, you send the baby to the father who can then do with him or her as he pleases.” She gave him an understanding look. “Someone bound to be a cleric could always claim it was a nephew of his and have him-”

“I am an only child.”

“Oh, that hardly matters. It’s only a polite fiction. The popes themselves have done. Everyone knew the nephews and nieces were truly-”

“No.”

“But yes, I tell you it would be the easiest thing. All society really would care for, of course, was knowing the child was of the first blood. And my children are always lovely.” She looked at him speculatively. “And if I have one with you, then he can’t help but be lovely. I feel sure the Lady your Mother would approve. Just because she means you for the church, it doesn’t mean-”

“Maman!” Aramis said, his mouth gone dry with feelings he couldn’t even describe. “Oh, yes, everything I do in life must be with the object of pleasing Maman.”

This got him an odd look and then a small nod as though De Chevreuse had decided he could not possibly but be telling the truth. “I thought,” she said smugly, “that was the origin of your great grief, for everyone knows the Duchess de Dreux was carrying her lover’s child. I never thought that lover would be you, though I knew you were one of her-” She stopped, abruptly, and Aramis was shocked to realize the reason she had stopped was probably because he’d strode towards her, and was now holding her small face in the vise grip of his large hands.

He didn’t know what his eyes showed, but he was sure they were intent. And, since he’d not meant to come here and hold her face; since, in fact, he had never thought of doing it; indeed since he couldn’t make himself let go of her, he must assume there was something very scary about his expression.

The impression was confirmed by a little squeal escaping De Chevreuse and then her hand coming up to cover her mouth. He looked intently at her a while longer, before his mouth found its own way to the words he must pronounce. “Do not ever pronounce the name of Violette again,” he said. “Not in my presence. Not if you live a thousand years and see me every day. I am a sinful man, despite my best intentions. I’ve had many lovers and will probably have many more, whether I take orders or not.” He paused. There was something in her eyes that told him only the fact that his gaze was still intent, his hands still immobilizing her face, kept her from giggling. “Violette was not one of those lovers, taken to satisfy a human lust. Something happened between us. Though we were never married, it was the first time I understood the biblical order to leave your mother and father and cleave to your wife.

“Violette and I were like that, one body, one blood, one flesh. As long as I live, though what you might call grief might die down-will die down, I daresay, since human memory does-I will be half a creature, a half of me having been ripped away and sent to an early grave. I will never know wholeness again till, God granting it, I meet her again in the ever after and we can be one once more. A child…” His mouth went dry again, and he had to stop, while his eyes filled with unaccountable moisture. “Should there have been a child from her, I would have moved heaven and Earth to have him by my side and to make him my heir. Other than that, a child is of no consequence to me. I’ve lived since I can remember in the expectation of being a priest one day, and of leaving no descendants. My lands and title will devolve on a distant cousin with a numerous family, and I wish him joy of them.”

Now his body allowed him to pry his fingers away from De Chevreuse’s face-as though he were prying them away against their will. She looked at him, her mouth half-open, like a startled child. And Aramis thought that he’d ruined it, now. He would be leaving here never to return, the one palliative he’d found for his pain over Violette’s death gone forever.

He stepped away and bowed correctly. “My apologies, your grace. I regret having upset you or scared you. It was scarcely my wish to do so. I beg you will forgive me and that when we meet again, you will show no signs of your anger at me.”

“Oh, but I’m not angry at you,” she said, suddenly. “And you’ll come see me the day after tomorrow, of course.”

He raised his eyebrows. “After my… insufferable behavior?”

She grinned at him, raising an ingratiating dimple on her cheek. “Your behavior,” she said, “insufferable though it might be, shows you to be a man of deep passions and sudden anger.” She shrugged. “It is in my nature, you know, to embrace danger. Much of my life has been lived in seeking it out and following it wherever it may lead.”

“Oh,” Aramis said, and stopped, remembering the rumor, more or less confirmed by Monsieur de Treville. “Your grace wouldn’t be happening, right now, to be involved in a conspiracy?”

She flicked her fingers, casually. “I am always involved in a conspiracy,” she said.

“To murder the Cardinal?” he said.

She looked surprised, her eyes wide. “Oh, I’d devoutly love a conspiracy that does that, or even attempts it,” she said, eagerly. “Is there one? And can I join it?”

“Unlike you,” Aramis said. “I don’t court danger for the love of it.” And then, with punctilious exactitude, “Unless it’s in duel where I must, of course, defend my honor.”