Musketeers fic: Something borrowed
Title: Something borrowed
Word count: 1520
Characters: Marguerite/Aramis, Anne/Aramis (implied)
Rating: 15
AN: Aramis. Aramis. Aramis. It’s not that I don’t understand *why* you did it…but did you have to play Marguerite quite so thoroughly? The fact that she’s superficially unlikable and you angst so very prettily doesn’t actually make it better.
AN2: Unpopular pairing ahoy!
SOMETHING BORROWED
Marguerite may as well be a statue. She is alive in that her chest rises and falls with the act of breathing but there is no spark of life in her such that would turn heads and make men stare and women wish to be her friend. She is quiet and pale and neatly dressed and entirely forgettable.
It has always been that way. Her father has drilled obedience into her from an early age. She knows her duty. At some point there will be a marriage arranged. She hopes her family choose well.
Marguerite is nursemaid to the Dauphin. It is an important position. She has fine clothes and enough food to fill her belly. She wants for nothing. Or, at least, nothing physical. She has few friends. She is reserved. It comes across as aloof. If asked, she would say she was happy. No one asks.
Queen Anne sparkles but that is helped by position and wealth. It is right that a Queen should draw the eye. Marguerite admires her mistress and takes care never to overstep her position. Her Majesty is always polite and takes care to greet Marguerite each morning. It is a mark of attention that means a great deal.
Then Constance arrives. Constance also sparkles. And it is not because of gold or position but from some inner light. Constance stands tall and looks men in the eye and seems to have no notion that she is only the wife of a merchant and in court on sufferance.
Marguerite has never attained more than cordiality from Queen Anne. Constance is her firm friend within a week of their acquaintance. It is not that Marguerite begrudges the friendship but that she has never been offered it and never thought to offer hers. Constance smiles and chats to Marguerite but never about more than trivialities. Marguerite knows that is her doing. Constance is as friendly as Marguerite allows her to be but Marguerite does not know how to respond. She takes refuge in good manners and small talk. Constance’s warmth noticeably cools. They both adore the Dauphin.
Louis is a good-natured child, never crying without reason, happy to lie in his cot watching the sunbeams, or to sit on a silken lap and be entertained by a jewelled rattle. Marguerite thinks his temperament must hail from his mother. It certainly does not belong to his father, the King, whose querulous tempers have the court dancing on pinheads. Louis can be witty and entertaining but these moods never last and always there must be someone else to blame for the fallout. Marguerite has learned not to catch the King’s eye. There are some instances where being forgettable in an advantage.
Into this life enters Aramis.
René.
But Aramis does not like to be addressed as such, even though it is a beautiful name, as handsome and distinguished as its owner, and he corrects Marguerite when she tries. She must call him Aramis as do his friends. As does all the world.
Aramis is like a hero from a fairy tale. He is handsome and charming and when he smiles it is as if nature stills. Marguerite would do anything for his smile. She knows he is a soldier and as at home on the field of battle as in a salon but his skill at fighting is as enticing to her as his courtly manners. He looks at her and for the first time in her life Marguerite feels that someone has actually seen her. She feels special. It is intoxicating. His gaze is headier than wine and leaves her heart thumping and her mind confused. Her cheeks are warm with a blush that has nothing to do with the heat of the day. She has no defences against his eyes.
“No! It’s not right. I should not allow it,” she protests as he begs some small liberty or other.
“Please, Marguerite,” he teases. “A yes is so much more pleasant than a no.”
“I do not think you have ever heard the word no,” she replies, trying and failing, to sound annoyed. “Do you know its meaning?”
His smile widens. “Of course! No is but a yes waiting to happen.”
She sighs and gives in. As she always does.
Aramis is fascinated by the Dauphin. He is forever asking about the child or wanting to see him or hold him. It is unusual but Marguerite does not see what harm it can do. After all, Aramis is a Musketeer and responsible for the protection of France. It is like having a private guard for the baby. Or so she tells herself. And Aramis is so good with Dauphin. Watching him, Marguerite allows herself a small fantasy that the child is theirs. Aramis’s baby would look a little thus, she thinks, dark eyed and skin touched with gold. And his child would be equally charming and happy and loved by all.
Of course they go to bed. In this, as in so much else, Marguerite’s no is just a yes waiting to happen. It will be fine. It is not a sin just an anticipation. God will forgive her when they are married.
Marguerite has never kissed a man before. Not like that. Aramis’s hands are firm and certain. His kisses are wide mouthed and hot-tongued, making Marguerite feel as if she is the only woman in the world, as if her pleasure the only thing that matters. Even in daydreams she has not thought to imagine a man’s mouth there and the pulsing delight it can be bring. It is wanton. It is shameful but Aramis laughs delightedly as she writhes under his ministrations. This must be love. She kneels before him and worships his body to completion.
“So serious,” he says, wiping his face with a dampened cloth.
“Is not love serious?” She pulls herself up on the bed, drawing the sheet around her in habitual modesty.
He grins at the gesture, showing his teeth. “Loving certainly is. It is a skill to be practiced long and often as with all swordplay.”
Marguerite talks of their future. She asks about his past. He listens, then brushes her questions away, but so skilfully that she only realises later that she has been side-stepped. In the end she knows as little about him as any street whore.
Because that is what she has been - except a street whore would have been paid in coin for her trouble. He has paid her in empty compliments and the attention of a giglet. She has been nothing but a convenient tool.
An unwitting fool.
She supposes she should feel thankful that she is no longer deceived but deception was much easier to bear. Did they laugh, she wonders? That would be hardest of all. Did everyone know of her weakness and stupidity? Where they laughing at foolish Marguerite thinking the handsome Aramis could be interested in her?
She finds out by accident.
A pleasure outing has gone wrong. What should have been a trip to see a mechanical wonder that will demonstrate the workings of the stars has instead brought the sky crashing down. There is bloodshed but thankfully the King, the Queen and the Dauphin are safe. Marguerite is with Queen Anne. They have narrowly escaped death. Marguerite wants nothing more than comfort - a brief touch of warmth to reaffirm that she is still alive after the horrors she has witnessed. Aramis barely acknowledges her. It is public, she thinks desperately, he will not sully her reputation in public. But then she sees how is looking at the Queen. It is a look of devotion. More than that, it is a look of love such that there is no mistaking.
It is a look that Aramis has never once gifted to her. Not even when taking her virginity.
Later she will think back and realise how many lives changed that day - the King’s mistress spurned, a husband publically repudiated, lovers unmasked, and a bastard child to be the heir of France. But for now she has no emotion spare for anyone but herself.
Why?
Why? Why? Why?
Then the answer comes to her.
This is the Queen. Marguerite’s thoughts are treason. But she sees Aramis with the Dauphin again and something shifts into place like the elaborate mechanism they came to see. This is indeed how his child would look.
There will be no baby. She should be thankful for that. He has been very careful. A consideration she now realises was as much for him as for her. She will still be able to marry. It is, after all, what one does.
She cries. The tears track down her cheeks in ugly lines. She sobs herself to sleep and cries when she wakes up. She gets up anyway and goes to her duties. No one has noticed when she is happy. They do not notice her heartbreak. She continues to breathe. Nothing changes. She wishes she was a statue. Statues do not feel. They can only shatter.
Still there is passion. Only now it is turned to hate.
*