Open | Thou art so fair ....

[apprenticemusketeer]

While here there is no King to protect here, it seems d'Artagnan has no problem finding trouble. First, there was whatever sickness drove him to such extremes in his love of Lucrezia - to where even he could not imagine feeling anything so strongly. He had thought he had loved Constance, but that had paled in comparison to what he had felt in those weeks with Lucrezia.

Now that whatever spell had been lifted, he's left without her to occupy his thoughts quite so fully as she had. He misses her, though. He just misses her.

But d'Artagnan is a man of action. This is why he has a pen (what a strange contraption this is), and a sheaf of paper. He is under the sun at a table, surrounded by a blizzard of crumpled paper. He is attempting to write a poem. An ode or tribute to Lucrezia.

It isn't going well. Raised as a farmboy, he is lucky to know how to read and write, so anyone less determined would leave the poem-writing to someone else. Not d'Artagnan! While he might have been somewhat stretched in his wits in those weeks with Lucrezia, he will tell anyone who dares to question him. He will even draw his sword to challenge someone if his honor - or his feelings - are challenged.

Comments

[sempreborgia]

Something about the poem resting over d'Artagnan's heart seems right. Lucrezia presses her palm over his doublet where she knows the poem rests and leans in to brush her lips against his again. Just a delicate brush of skin on skin.

Then she leans back and moves to stand, brushing her skirts away from his lap. "I would rather not be apart from you either." That, accompanied by the gleam in her eye, says she wants him in her quarters this evening.

She holds a hand out to him even as she lifts her parasol. "Will you walk with me? I've a feeling the city has a surprise for me today."

[apprenticemusketeer]

"Does the city often surprise you?" d'Artagnan asks, folding her arm around his so they can walk together. That sounds so ... optimistic. He can imagine that Athos would be rolling his eyes at something like that. d'Artagnan himself likes to think that these things can happen.

He likes that gleam in her eye, by the way. When things were so heated, they did find a great compatibility in bed. It was quite wondrous.

[sempreborgia]

"Often in the same way in which it surprises everyone else." She says, her hand gently squeezing the crook of his arm as they walk. "Objects appear out of thin air, d'Artagnan. Is it not miraculous?"

The glance she sends in his direction is full of mischief. "Perhaps I cunningly focused my desires on something rather specific."

[apprenticemusketeer]

"Perhaps so." Maybe d'Artagnan focuses too often on people who don't, alas, appear from the ether. "What sort of surprise are you expecting today, then?" he asks, grinning.

[sempreborgia]

"I asked for a church in which to say my prayers and thank God for his blessings." The word 'blessings' is punctuated by a slight squeeze to his arm so that he knows that she counts him as one of those blessings.

[apprenticemusketeer]

But for what they wished to do together, surely God, seeing as they aren't married, would hardly approve.

d'Artagnan, himself, is not very religious, not anything like Aramis, actually. He doesn't think of things like heaven and Hell and God very much.

"I would imagine," he tells her, "that if there is suddenly a church, that we shall easy see it."

[sempreborgia]

Lucrezia thought that she had been put on the chopping block quite enough in the name of God's holy church of Rome. If her marriage to Giovanni was anything to go by, she had been hurled to the wolves in the name of keeping the peace in Rome. Surely even God himself could not fault her for wanting kindness and love in her life.

She gently squeezes d'Artagnan's arm in her hand. "We should remember to be thankful for what we have. For even as it is given, it can easily be taken away. I would not see us parted, d'Artagnan. Not when we have only just found each other."

[apprenticemusketeer]

"Parted?" he asks, shocked. "We will not be parted," he tells her with the certainty of youth and great stubbornness. "I have your words over my heart," he tells her, smiling. "That's surely strong enough to keep us both here, isn't it?"

It's just a heart beat when he speaks again. "They could not part us, could they?, if we were to marry."