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“Your Eminence!” I shout as I run. “Your Eminence!”
The frost bites my cheeks and my décolletage, my opened fur doesn’t give much protection from the cold but I cannot care less. I desperately try to catch up with the small escort – and be loud enough to attract attention.
My efforts don’t go in vain. As I chase them, one man turns his head, sees me and gives a signal. Guards in heavy red coats immediately stop and look behind them, slightly confused. Truth, the view is unusual. The First Minister is often chased by couriers, messengers, occasionally by a more important member of the government. But a young woman, with her fur barely staying on her shoulders… No, that’s not an everyday occurrence.
“Your Eminence!” I shout as I run. “Your Eminence!”
A figure of red immediately steps forward. He wears an ecclesial robe, his winter coat and hides his hands in a muff – and oh God, when I see him again, I choke on the air. Not only because I am running.
Armand.
I finally stand before him, gasping, cheeks flushed, my skin stinging from the cold. It’s good because the harsh weather cools down my temper and saves me from a potential embarrassment in public.
“Your Eminence,” I repeat with some difficulty and I curtsey lightly – not overly lightly but enough to satisfy the basic etiquette. I gulp, trying to keep my breath even but my lungs don’t obey me yet. “Pardon my abruptness…” I gasp out. “I won’t take a lot of time. A minute in private… is enough.” I curtsey again, this time looking at him.
The surprise gleams in brown eyes. “Oh?” he says and the frost makes his sigh visible as it escapes from his lips. My own tremble at the sight so I discipline them by smiling widely and I straight myself up.
My God, how beautiful he looks!
I’ve fallen in love with him in a middle of summer; therefore, it’s only natural during the first year to enamor myself anew when the seasons change because each one reveals new things. In summer I burned fiercely and brightly – each glance at him was igniting me, each word he spoke was enough. To my luck, his summer robes were lighter, easy to remove. No wonder why everyone speaks about the newly-found romances during the warm seasons. The weather conduces the zealous determination and makes every rendez-vous easier.
When the summer passed and the sky darkened with the autumnal grayness, my feelings, although not lacking in passion, became a bit more sedate. Meanwhile, Armand started to don warmer robes – silks red like fruits of holly, heavier, larger, more complicated, with white ermine trims. I mused over their beauty in silence, watching him, allowing tenderness to take me whole. But my fire burned steadily by then and was somewhat… controlled. So controlled that I learned just how lovely Armand can act when he hopes for something from me. When he lets his body speak, when his hands spasm and eyelashes flutter but his lips don’t dare to call what he hopes for with a proper name.
I didn’t expect for winter to surprise me but oh – how wrong I was. Today it’s the first true day of coldness and look at me now! I leave the Louvre, I barely have the time to grab my coat, I race after him in sheer desperation and although the frost hurts my naked skin, I don’t feel cold. Because I burn, I burn, I burn and I will not abide burning alone.
For the first time I see him in this kind of attire. The robes he’s going to wear now appear to be similar to those he had on himself in September, October and November – the same heavy, heavy yards of silk adorned with white trims. But if during autumn even leaves seemed to be envious of his elegance and started to trade their greenness for a rich carmine… Now, in winter, no one tries to compete anymore. Among the surrounding whiteness, the red silk is almost a shade or two lighter, it glows like a ruby. A completely new detail for me, though, is the fur pelt Armand put on today. Asymmetrical, with the right side reaching his elbow and the left side slightly folded, covering only his arm; it is so white that the snow looks dirty in comparison. I’ve seen how in Louvre he absent-mindedly reached out to stroke the fuzz from time to time – a gesture impossible to repeat now, because he hides both of his hands in a matching, soft ermine muff. The frost forces his cheeks to rose, enriching the alabaster carnation with pink. He’s made out of redness and whiteness, those two contrasting colors, with no neutral shade in between.
He’s beautiful and I have to tell him this. Immediately. As soon as we’re alone, as soon as I can call him by his first name…
“It must be… urgent if mademoiselle ran after me all the way,” he says gently and looks at the hem of my dress instead of me, trying to hide the shining of his eyes under long eyelashes. Ah, happy already? True, I didn’t plan on meeting with you today, did I? “If mademoiselle desires a moment of a private talk, I invite her to my carriage then. It’s no use talking in the cold. I plan to return now to my Palais and the short ride should be just enough for mademoiselle to… state her case.”
“It will be!” I breathe out. “It certainly will be!”
The road from the Louvre to the Palais-Cardinal takes around ten minutes by foot. By a carriage, it takes five. Five minutes in the safety of a closed carriage, five minutes of an intimate moment to let him know how I feel. I don’t plan on wasting any second.
Armand waits till one of the guards opens the door for him. As he steps inside the carriage to take his seat, he casts me a fleeting half-glance over his shoulder and later tries not to stare when the same guard offers his hand to help me. I recognize the longing right away. Oh, the sweetest one, you still want that – to be able to let me go first, to be able to assist me in public like every other gentleman. If not for these ecclesial robes you wear…
That’s why I politely shake my head at the guard and I get inside on my own. Blame my infamous foolhardiness for this non-adherence, monsieur, I care not. I take my place vis-à-vis Armand, as decency requires. I won’t be decent for too long anyway.
The door is finally closed and I finally, finally can stop minding myself.
“Oh, God!” I squeal joyfully.
His head jerks up and brown eyes widen at the sound. “Ma… Marie?…” he asks, unsurely.
“You’re beautiful!”
The frost might have rosed his cheeks before but the frost cannot compare with the power of my words. Hearing the compliment, Armand blushes. Heavens preserve me – he blushes, the fur lies softly on his shoulders, his hands are hidden in a muff and I burn, burn, burn.
Five minutes to make him burn with me because I will not abide burning alone.
“I couldn’t take my eyes off you,” I purr. “I arrived to Louvre in order to… oh, who cares, of what importance that is!… Because as soon as I saw you… You stood at the top of the wide stairs of the east wing, in red and white, in your long robes and that fur, talking with some courtier and I immediately forgot about my plans for the day. Dear God, how beautiful you were! How olympian! How distingué! Not a mere man, not a prince of the Church even, but more! Elegantiae arbiter in every inch…”
His eyes widen even more, these beautiful pale, slim lips part in a gasp. He’s still slightly perplexed but at the same time – I already see it – so eager to listen.
“What… M-me?” he utters out. “This is just my… winter coat…” he adds in a small voice.
I hear a muffed yell of the coachman and the carriage moves. The clock starts ticking, I remind myself in thoughts. My precious seconds are measured now by the faintest sound of the hoof steps. Five minutes.
I raise up from my seat, I get up and I throw myself in his direction, lips to lips, breath to breath. I grab his ermine pelt and I clutch it tightly, holding onto him to keep my balance in the swaying carriage. I lean forward, I lean close - but not close enough to kiss, not yet.
Armand’s gaze slides over my intoxicated face, it slides down to my bosom that – currently uncovered by my winter coat – falls and rises with my rapid breaths. A genius, a politician, a cardinal, he’s also a man and the gasp that escapes him is much louder, much more whimpery. He quickly looks back up and the blush covering his cheeks deepens into a fierce, red color of excitement. Oh, the sweetest one, but your eyes are still confused. Clouded with want, yes but confused, as if you couldn’t believe I was real. I wasn’t meant to meet you today. I wasn’t supposed to stand in your carriage a breath away from you, half-mad from lust.
“I’ve watched how you walked down the stairs, how you moved!… You walked like on air, in that aura of gentle refinement you possess, so effortless and natural. It’s winter now, so you wear the most voluminous cappa magna, with a long train that flew after you with each step and the sight took my breath away. At the bottom of the stairs you stopped, for a moment – oh, the blessed moment in which I could feast my eyes!… And then you adjusted your fur pelt, and you turned your head to the side and hid your lips in the ermine fuzz. You see, right – here…”
Looking him straight in the eyes, I mirror the action. I turn my head and I place a lustful kiss at the very same spot his lips touched before.
His whole body spasms at that; he squirms in his seat, spreading his legs and I can lean over him now, getting even closer. “Marie!…” he moans. Painfully, desperately, he moans my second name nobody addresses me with, except him. “Marie!…” He gulps, his Adam apple bobbing just above the rim of the white collar.
“Only your winter coat, you say. Lord, have mercy on me!” I laugh bitterly. “Today is the first day of winter and look at me, in what state I am already…” I shake my head. My lips curve in a smile. “The whole season ahead of us and you’ll be wearing such furs daily. I thought I’d finally regain at least a small portion of my dignity. But how can I if I find new things in you to enamor myself with?”
Because I stand between his opened legs, I can finally let go off his fur. I won’t fall either way and I need my hands free. I slip both of them under his muff and I slowly lift it to my face, as I would do with his hands, if they weren’t hidden inside.
“Do you plan to change this winter into our first summer, Armand?” I ask quietly, narrowing my eyes, purring out his name. “Do you want again to receive desperate letters that a day away from you is too much? Do you want again to read how often I dream of you? My covers already know your name. Whispered longingly in the morning when I missed your voice, shouted in the night when I yearned for you.” I place a kiss on the soft fuzziness.
He whines shamelessly. “M-marie…”
“But winter’s nights are longer…” I murmur, planting another kiss just next to the previous one, teasingly. Oh, I know how you want to feel my mouth on your skin – that’s why I kiss the muff. “Winter’s nights are so much longer…”
“Marie!…”
“A cold, lengthy night in a lonely bed when we’re apart,” I babble, now kissing the muff passionately, chaotically. My voice trembles. “Long nights when I cannot hold you, I cannot kiss you. Oh, these will be a curse.”
A flash of pure terror in his glassy eyes proves to me that he hasn’t thought of that yet. Now, however, I have made him see his misery and he lets out a quiet sob.
“But how quickly these long nights change into a blessing when we are together,” I say, smirking to myself. Like a thief stealing a gold coin from a stranger’s purse, I slip my fingers inside the muff and I take his right hand out of it. “My sweetest one, these long nights in your company… More time to be with you. More time to feel you breathing, walking, working…“ I look him straight in the eyes, I lift the hand close to my lips, my breath tickling his fingers. He whimpers again. “More hours to cares, kiss and savor every inch of you.”
And to illustrate my passion, I hungrily take his index finger into my mouth to suck on it.
“MARIE, OH, PLEASE!”
He cries out. He cries out, his eyes are wide and tearful, his cheeks are red and I feel how his hips buck wildly upwards. Both the view and the sounds he makes are wonderful and my body reacts to them immediately, a familiar scorching tension spreading through my chest and abdomen. However, a distant part of my mind, which by some miracle is still able to think, suddenly realizes that if his guards hear him, whatever is left of my precious five minutes is going to be snatched away. So I slip his finger out of my mouth, I put my hands on his shoulders and I crash my lips into his.
He tastes of the herbal tea and I fear I’m losing my mind. I devour his mouth like I haven’t been doing that in years, hungrily and feverishly. My intensity must be a thrilling surprise because he screams into our kiss and sinks into his seat until he’s half-lying and I’m on top of him. I feel something tugging my dress and I guess Armand must have clutched it with his free hand.
I finally have to pull away to catch my breath. I gasp deeply and only then, I estimate my work.
I’m no longer the only one burning.
Armand doesn’t even try to calm down his breathing, he pants in wheezing gasps. His thin, pale lips are wet, his long eyelashes are wet, his forehead is wet from the sweat. Before his silvery hair was perfectly arranged under the cardinal’s hat; but the hat must have fallen off at some point during my debauchery and now his locks are disheveled and messy. He opened his eyes and he looks at me but I’m sure he doesn’t truly see me yet, his amber orbs are opaque, dimmed by pleasure. I let him recover, waiting for his breath to even some more. Finally, his gaze regains some clarity - apparently enough for him to finally see me and remember, where he is. That he half-lies inside his carriage with his legs spread wide open while I press my body against his.
And then, once again I am reminded how lovely he can act when he hopes for something from me. When he lets his body speak but his lips don’t dare to call what he hopes for with a proper name.
He drops his gaze with that deferential charm he shamefully hides from the rest of the world. He bites his lower lip and his desperate clutch at my dress loosens as he starts to stroke the material with his fingertips, barely touching it, like he was unsure if he’s allowed to do it.
I recognize the wordless invitation, a hopeful offering. I’m yours, I’m yours, take me.
“No matter the season outside,” I say, slightly hoarse from passion, “you always taste of the sun.” I’m not exaggerating at all - his tea is made out of summer herbs, redolent roots and honey. “Greek nectars couldn’t compare to you, Armand.”
He doesn’t look up - he squirms and moans instead in a way that became so familiar to me. “More”. More of my deep kisses, more of my relentless passion, more of those sweet, sweet extolments he longs to hear.
I throb in ordinary, almost animalistic lust - absolutely literally, if we are speaking about the slickness between my legs. God, this is a man who enjoys my words as if each one was a real, physical caress and I’m a bloody poet. I’ll be writing and reciting for him until my last breath.
Three dull bangs somewhere at my left make me nearly jump out of my skin. I shot an alarmed glance at the carriage door and it dawns on me that one of Armand’s men had to knock.
I had five minutes. And they passed.
“Well,” I sigh philosophically, “fugit inreparabile tempus-”
Something yanks at my dress with unexpected force. “I HAVE NEW BOOKS!”
What?
Stumped, I look at Armand again - only to see an incarnation of a pure, unadulterated panic. His eyes practically howl at me to not go. I peek down and I notice his free hand clawed into my dress because gripping it is no longer enough.
“I-I have new books!” he repeats, this time making a valid effort not to yell that out. “New translations of Greek poets and… a-and…” His tongue flicks over his lower lip in distress. “And a couple of new essays from the Académie française that haven’t been published yet-”
“The sweetest one,” I say, unable to keep the bewildered mirth from my voice, “do you really want to bribe me with books?”
He cuts off immediately and judging by the paleness of his face, he completely misinterpreted the source of my cheer. He rapidly lets go off my dress.
“I-I just…”
“Won’t father Joseph be irritated that I dare to distract you today?” I tease.
“He will not!”
Now this particular assertion is a lie. As Armand’s closest aide and friend, father Joseph finds my talent for steering away the First Minister’s attention from his work an irritant. When I am around, complicated treaties and political intrigues suddenly lose their priority. Instead of reading pages and pages of documents, Armand prefers to leaf through my favorite books, reading them to me aloud. Instead of unfolding maps of Europe on his desk to study, he shivers in joy when I allow him to study the map of my body with his caresses and licks. When I visit, his greatest obligation is to keep my goblet of wine always full and his greatest responsibility is my comfort. This gracious attitude is a source of never-ending despair for father Joseph, but I guess it can be expected. I always had very little interest in His Eminence, cardinal Richelieu. The only one who interests me is Armand.
Dear Lord, he is such a generous man, with a heart as gentle as his intellect is formidable. I often question myself if what I give back to him is enough. But his eyes gleam in joy when I whisper to him, he sighs in relief when I allow him to kneel before me and when I bandage fingers he bit to blood again in distress, it seems like my affection is just… enough. After all, not many women love cardinals. Even less people love first ministers, especially this one. But I always had very little interest in His Eminence, cardinal Richelieu. The only one who interests me is Armand.
My kind, accommodating Armand who sits in his carriage right now and looks at me beggingly. My Armand, who thinks he has to tempt me with his library to convince me to stay. My Armand, who deems himself unworthy to simply ask.
I shake my head and reach out for his face. I cup it in my hands like the most fragile, most beautiful gem. His breathing hitches, his eyes are wide and almost disbelieving. Yes, Armand, yes, I am real and I am here.
“Does my sweetest one, my only one wants me to stay?” I inquire with a smile.
The moan I receive could be enough for an answer but he doesn’t stop there. He licks his lower lip before trying to gather his thoughts to form a somewhat coherent sentence.
“Y-Yes, I… I would like it very much i-if you…” I stroke his cheeks with my thumbs. It effectively prevents him from any attempt at speaking and instead he shuts his eyes close, whimpering quietly.
“If my sweetest one asks me to,” I lean in for a kiss, “then I shall stay,” I breathe out and I join our lips together.
He moans happily into the kiss. Something tugs at my dress again. I cannot help but smile against his mouth.
My Armand.