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The early morning sun shines bright through the window, the beam of light cutting through the dust floating in the air and bouncing off a head of honey gold waves, warming beneath the attention even as slender fingers part the hair with the expertise of someone who has done this a multitude of times on friends and cousins and friends of cousins. A smaller, less tameable head of blonde locks kicks off from his chair pushed into the corner of the room and bounds over, stopping right in the middle of the light so that it forms a halo, or, more fittingly, a crown, atop that curly mop of his.
She thinks it may just be the spirit and joy of the day, but either way Constance can’t help herself. She plucks a daisy from the basket resting on the bed beside her and tucks it behind the Dauphin’s ear, and the way his nose scrunches as the petals tickle his skin is just as heart-warming as the giggle that escapes his mother, seated where she is on a stool positioned between the very tips of Constance’s knees, back to her.
“I want to help, mama,” the Dauphin says, watching Constance’s handiwork with curious eyes.
“Oh, come up here then, sire,” Constance says before the Queen can reply, because for one, she thinks he should have a part in this very special occasion, and for two, who is she to deny the King of France, six year old boy or not?
She frees a hand from the plaited tail of gold and uses it to pat the empty spot on the bed on her other side, lest she wants the boy to crush the flowers Sylvie and Elodie had so helpfully picked out earlier. He does as he’s directed, climbing on with his fists curled for leverage in the comforter (it really is a rather tall bed for a convent, all things considered), and settles himself in so close that his dangling feet get caught up in her skirts.
King of France, six year old boy or not. Despite the fact that the Queen probably considers Constance her best friend and Constance realizes that the feeling is mutual, she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to being this close in proximity to the royal family. Or that she’d be here, helping the Queen get ready for this particular day.
“You can help me add the flowers, yeah? I’m almost done,” Constance tells the boy, and he nods his head and doesn’t take his eyes off of her fingers as she finishes weaving and secures the end with a band she slides off her wrist.
“Today is such a very beautiful day,” the Queen says all of a sudden, her voice having a dreamy quality to it. She tips her head back to gaze out the window. “The sun is shining so big and bright that it almost eclipses the sky, it's almost the exact shade as the walls in this room. And this is a very special room, did you know that, Louis?”
The King, as entranced as he is as Constance slides the flower basket in her lap and lets him pick out a few to start with, manages a barely interested “why?” in that little voice of his.
“Because this is the room where God gave you to me,” the Queen answers, and that certainly grabs his attention, his fingers pausing in where Constance is directing him to tuck the violet he’s got ahold of in one of the folds of his mother’s plait.
“He did?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Is it because you asked for me, mama?”
The Queen turns her head a fraction so she can catch her son’s eyes over her shoulder, and Constance scrambles not to crush a poppy into her hair with the sudden movement. “I didn’t have to. You were a gift.”
Constance can see the childlike confusion on his small features, but he beams when the Queen smiles at him, like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be happy about but is simply happy that his mother is. And that makes Constance smile because she thinks that, after all these years, after everything that’s happened just this year alone, the least both of them deserves is some happiness.
She pictures her other friend in the room across the hall, probably pacing around and being withheld from coming in here by a thread (or maybe Porthos’ meaty hands on his shoulders) and thinks, all three of them deserve happiness.
Constance helps the King tuck the wildflowers in the strands, showing him where to disperse the different types so that the Queen ends up with a beautiful array of color in the hair cascading down her back. She tells him about the flowers as she does so, lets him smell each new one before they join the rest and even laughs when he sneezes once, his smile sheepish but bright behind his fist as he rubs it across his nose. The three of them laugh and smile and talk about the day’s upcoming events, except the last part is mostly just Constance and the Queen because the young boy doesn’t rightly know what they’re doing here in the first place, just that he’s on a secret field trip away from the palace with his mother and closest friends, and that seems to be enough for him.
Curious as he is, he doesn’t actually question much. It’s amusing, Constance notes, how he definitely didn’t inherit that trait from either of his parents.
They finish a short while later, and she glances into the basket to see that she has just enough (and just enough time, she supposes) to make a different sort of crown for the King to wear today. But that’s a task for later, as right now she stands from her place on the bed, swipes the handheld mirror from the side table, and walks around to face her Queen and closest friend.
“You look gorgeous, Majesty,” Constance says, beaming and holding the mirror up for the Queen’s inspection.
Her eyes widen and her lips part a little in surprise, and if Constance wasn’t so busy fighting back a sudden burst of happy tears then she thinks her heart would probably swell with pride. It swells anyway, actually, but the fighting—and losing, in the end—takes precedent.
“Anne,” the Queen says then, turning her head to smile down at her son as he hops off the bed to stand beside her, resting his head against her arm. “Constance, today, I am simply Anne.”
*
“You nervous at all?”
Aramis stops where he’s been walking back-and-forth in front of the doors separating him from the mainroom, the mainroom separating him from another door, and that door separating him from—well, he can’t believe he’s doing this, he can’t believe this is happening. And he doesn’t appreciate the humor Porthos doesn’t even bother to try hiding from his voice, so it’s rather easy to scowl in his friend’s direction instead of thinking about what’s going on in that other room across the way.
“No, I’m not nervous, don’t be ridiculous,” he snaps. Porthos gives him a look, d’Artagnan raises an eyebrow, and Athos actually smirks. It’s enough for Aramis to look down and realize he’s wreaking havoc on his thumbnail with his teeth. “Okay, maybe I’m nervous. Just a little. Were you this nervous?”
The question is directed at d’Artagnan, whose eyes crinkle in a smile even as his lips don’t. “Somewhat,” he replies, and Aramis doesn’t like the way his voice adopts a teasing sound to it either. “But you wouldn’t have known that, would you? Considering you weren’t there. Too busy priesting about and all.”
“I already apologized for that to the both of you,” Aramis replies with a pointed finger as d’Artagnan and Porthos laugh at his expense. His frown is interrupted as he feels a hand suddenly clamp around his shoulder, glances to the side to see that Athos has come closer.
“He’s teasing you,” he says rather needlessly. The mirth in his own eyes doesn’t pass by Aramis unnoticed.
“You’re all teasing me,” Aramis says, watching as Porthos shrugs with his mouth and cocks his head, as d’Artagnan shakes his own and rather unconvincingly mouths, “us? Never,” and as Athos fetches a bottle from a nearby table and pushes it into Aramis’ clammy palm.
“Drink this,” he tells him.
“I’m trying not to throw up here.”
Porthos grins. “I thought you said you were only a ‘little’ nervous?”
*
“Oh, dear,” Elodie says, gazing over her daughter’s fine-haired head at the door at the far end of the room. She can hear slightly raised voices coming from the other side, whereas the room opposite it has been entirely tranquil since she sank into the pew she’s sitting in a few minutes ago. “Do you think Porthos is giving Aramis a very hard time?”
“I’m thinking nothing else,” Sylvie replies from beside her and without taking her eyes off the last-minute embroidery she’s working into the Queen’s skirt. “I’m also thinking that the other two aren’t helping.”
“Not even Athos?”
“Please,” Sylvie scoffs. “We’ve been away from Paris for three months. He’s missed all their teasing terribly.”
“Oh, dear,” Elodie says again, and Marie-Cessette coos in her lap in agreement.
*
Far away from the prying eyes of the court, and in keeping with the informal formality of the day, no one bows to Louis when he pushes open the door to the room Aramis and his former comrades are standing in. The boy doesn’t really notice the skip in propriety, just blinks up at the four men with wide brown eyes until they set on Aramis where he’s standing near the window and makes a beeline to him, the crown of flowers lying atop his head bouncing lightly with each step.
Aramis can’t help that his nerves settle a little at the sight of him, especially as he walks on over and latches on to his pant leg, shyly peering around the edge of his thigh up at Porthos, Athos, and d’Artagnan. Aramis shares a look with his friends—Louis knows who they are, of course, but it makes Aramis warm to say that he knows him just a little bit better, that Louis finds and seeks safety and comfort in his presence.
He kneels, gently unfurling Louis’ grip from his trousers but keeping his tiny hand clasped in his own. “You remember Captain d’Artagnan, don’t you, Louis? Madame d’Artagnan’s husband.”
Louis chances a shy glance at where Aramis knows d’Artagnan is offering him a kind smile, and nods wordlessly.
“And Athos, he was Captain of the Musketeers before d’Artagnan, back when they were your Musketeers,” Aramis continues, watching as his son slowly opens up to the friendly grins of his companions. He leans in and lowers his voice to a conspiratory whisper. “And that big brute is Porthos, my best and oldest friend. He may not look like it, but he loves to play all sorts of games.”
“Even hide-and-seek?” Louis asks, voice just as low.
“Oh, especially hide-and-seek,” Aramis replies, and as Louis turns his head to regard Porthos with open curiosity (to which his friend clearly tries not to bow and squirm underneath the newfound scrutiny of the most powerful six year-old in France), he tentatively brings up his fingers to brush along the flower petals and soft, honeyed strands of his son’s hair. “Did Madame d’Artagnan make this for you?”
Again, Louis nods. “And she let me help put some in mama’s hair, too,” he says, then presses his lips into a thin line and casts his eyes downward. “Oh, I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”
“I won’t tell, I promise,” Aramis replies with a wink. “It’s very handsome. I bet your mama looks beautiful too.”
“Don’t go fishing, now,” Constance’s voice suddenly rings out as she enters the room, her stern glare mostly for show. Aramis offers her an innocent smile, then smiles wider once he notices Louis doing the same. All of his friends glance between the both of them and it’s clear on every single one of their faces that they’re sharing the same single thought, the one that’s crossing Aramis’ own mind. This is his son.
“It doesn’t hurt to know some things as long as I don’t actually see her,” Aramis defends himself, standing but never letting go of Louis’ hand.
She ignores him in favor of addressing the trio a few feet away. “How bad has it been?”
“Had to stop him from walking out the door a few times,” d’Artagnan answers.
“Almost sat on him the last time,” Porthos chimes in.
“And I only interfered with that because I figured a punctured lung would have really ruined the pleasant mood of today,” Athos finishes.
Constance shares a grin with all of them before glancing over her shoulder at Aramis. “Thought so. Which is why I thought seeing Louis might do you some good.”
“It is,” he replies. He glances down at his son, smiling at him when Louis looks up and blinks again in that curious way he does. “Genuinely. Thank you, Constance.”
“Of course,” she says, features softening for a fraction of a second as she takes in the sight of them, hand in hand. “Now let’s do something about that hair of yours.”
*
Aramis tries not to fidget as he stands at the front of the nunnery’s chapel, tries even harder not to run his hand through his hair and ruin Constance’s fruitless attempt at taming the strands into something proper, then combs his fingers through it just because it’s a nervous habit he can’t help, and Anne once told him how much she liked how wild it was anyway. He doesn’t think Constance will really fault him in the end (today’s about them, after all), but he’s a little relieved she’s off doing last minute preparations so she can’t glare daggers at him for screwing up her handiwork.
The Mother Superior does the job on her behalf, however, and Aramis sheepishly winces in apology while his three friends snicker like the orphans in Douai behind him. They’re quickly silenced by the stern look the Mother sends them, their laughter being abruptly cut off by clearings of the throat and well-placed coughs, and it’s Aramis’ turn to smile. Their endless teasing or not, he’s missed the four of them being together. He’s glad they’re here with him, his brothers, his family, on this day.
And it really is such a beautiful day, not even noon yet and the sun is hanging high and wonderous, and Aramis can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, they’re being blessed. It’s a selfish thought, he knows, and perhaps even a dangerous one. But while he’s always been a religious man, he’s never been a particularly superstitious one, so he lets himself have this. Today, with the weather warm and clear, with his friends at his side and his son roaming around with flowers crowning his head and the woman he loves about to walk down the aisle towards him any moment now, they’re blessed.
Aramis catches himself with a half-step forward as he’s suddenly nudged in the arm, but when he turns to look at Porthos the man is already pointing toward the door where Constance is leaning around the corner, her smile beaming even as the thumbs-up signal she gives them sends all of the air rushing out of Aramis’ lungs.
“It’s time,” Athos whispers as if he’s afraid Aramis hasn’t absorbed anything in the face of trying to keep his wits about him, and it’s a fair assumption, really. But they don’t tease him anymore. When he glances back at them with an expression he knows is equal parts panic and excitement, they take turns squeezing and patting his shoulders.
“You got this,” d’Artagnan says, and Aramis nods, not trusting his mouth to form words, and takes a deep breath.
It seems like forever before Louis’ silhouette appears in the doorway. He’s got his head turned up and to the side as a pair of hands poke out and gently urge him forward, then he’s walking ahead and scattering some more flowers in his wake. He stops to sniff some of them, tucks a few others into the pockets of his simple white trousers, and Aramis’ cheeks ache with how wide he’s grinning. When his son takes his place at his side, Aramis allows himself this—he kneels down and hugs him, and he accepts the jasmine flower Louis tucks into his hair with as much warmth and pride as if he were being awarded a medal of valor.
“Are you crying, Aramis?” Louis asks, staring into his eyes.
“Not quite yet,” he replies with a laugh.
“Mama says only the bravest men allow themselves to cry.”
“Your mama is the wisest woman in the world, don’t you think?”
“I do,” Louis says, gravely serious, then perks up as if he’s suddenly remembering something of vital importance. “Mama told me I’m to sit with Madame Boudain after I was done with the flowers.”
Aramis smiles at Sylvie, who’s got a finger playfully locked in Marie-Cessette’s baby fierce grip, over the top of his son’s wild blond head.
“I think you’ll have fun. Have you met Marie-Cessette yet?” Louis shakes his head no, and once again Aramis leans in as if he’s got an important secret to tell. Louis seems to enjoy when he does that, or maybe he just likes being entrusted with secrets in general. “She’s very young, but you’ll be great friends one day.”
“How do you know?”
“Because her papa is General du Vallon, my great friend I told you about. So you’ll be seeing each other a lot.” A movement catches Aramis’ eye and he looks up to see Constance at the doorway again. He places a hand on Louis’ back—and it never fails to amaze him just how tiny his son is, how his entire hand splays across his spine and shoulder blades, how one day that won’t be the case anymore and how Aramis will actually live to see that day and all days in-between—and gently guides him to the pew where Sylvie and Elodie are sitting.
“Ladies like it when you give them flowers, you know,” he murmurs with a grin before returning to his designated spot. He shares a nod with Constance, who slips back behind the wall, and when she steps out again she’s got another woman on her arm.
There, standing in the doorway to this chapel and backlit by the sun as if she were an angel, is Anne, except the beautiful image of her is watery with tears Aramis suddenly realizes are trapped in his eyes. And if his cheeks were hurting before, nothing compares to the sweet ache in his face now as he watches Constance escort Anne down the aisle. She looks gorgeous, she always looks gorgeous, but he’s never seen her look so free. It makes all his breath catch in his chest, fighting to get out but not quite knowing where to go.
She’s worn gowns to make any woman green with envy, a crown sitting on her head. But the sight of her now, in her airy, white dress and with flowers dotting her hair to match that of their son’s, with her own eyes sparkling with unshed tears and a dimpled smile on her face—that smile is for me—Aramis could collapse to his knees.
Distantly, he hears Louis say, “Madame Boudain, did you know Aramis is very brave?”
Using one hand to swipe at the tear that dares an escape down his cheek, Aramis uses the other to accept Anne as Constance hands her off and takes her place a few steps away. Anne squeezes his fingers. He lifts hers to his mouth and kisses the back of her hand.
“You’re,” he begins, the word rolling thick and dazed off his tongue so that he has to start anew, “You’re a vision.”
Anne smiles at him, a few tears of her own falling free, and he straightens and raises a thumb to swipe them away for her. But her eyes are fixed on his middle, her lips slightly parted as she reaches out to trace the jeweled crucifix resting amongst the buttons of his doublet.
“You’ve kept it after all this time?” She murmurs.
“Always,” he says.
The Mother Superior smiles between them. “Shall we begin?”
*
(“Madame Boudain, did you know Aramis is very brave?”
Sylvie blinks down at Louis where he’s sitting between her and Elodie, his legs dangling over the edge of the pew and kicking into space. The King. She can think that in the safety of her own head, even if today they call him by his given name and don’t bow whenever he enters a room. It makes no difference to Sylvie, really. He’s a boy, a child, and he should be able to live as children do even if she knows, realistically, that he can’t. That even if he is to play with kids his own age, with Marie-Cessette and her own child and Constance and d’Artagnan’s kids if they have any, they’d be within the confines of the palace grounds.
She can’t believe her child will be friends with the King of France. She can’t believe Aramis is the father of said king.
When she, Constance, and Louis were running through the streets of Paris, she had no clue about his true parentage. Not even the desperation on Aramis’ face when she told him about Saint-Sulpice gave it away, though she supposes she had just never considered that Louis could be the son of anyone but the late king. But now, sitting here with Louis’ tiny face staring up at her, she sees Aramis in his eyes; in the way his hair falls around his forehead and ears, golden like his mother’s but so very wild like Aramis' own.
“I did know that,” Sylvie answers, remembering how Aramis had tackled Marcheaux’s man to the ground without any doubts, a father thinking of nothing else but saving his son. “But what makes you say that now?”
“He’s crying,” Louis replies, as if the answer is obvious.
“It’s very brave to let people see you cry, I’d say,” she tells him, voice dropping into a whisper as the Mother Superior commences the ceremony.
Louis visibly brightens but also notices her low voice, matching her. “Mama told me the same thing, that brave men cry. But, Madame Boudain, I thought people only cried when they were sad? Aramis isn’t sad, is he?”
“He’s the very opposite of sad. He’s happy. You’ve never been so happy you cried?”
Louis shakes his head. Sylvie allows herself to imagine him one day, perhaps older, perhaps not, but she imagines him all the same. Aramis is standing at his side as his First Minister, but Louis knows in his head and heart that this man is also his father, that this man will do anything in the world to ensure his safety and to ensure that Louis knows he loves him as much as he loves his mother, even if that love isn’t evident for all of Paris to see. And he’d understand why.
Paris, she thinks, doesn’t deserve that privilege anyway.
“One day,” Sylvie tells him, “One day, you just might.”)
*
It’s freeing, Anne thinks when the Mother Superior says those words and Aramis leans forward to capture her lips like he’s never wanted to do anything more in his life, it’s freeing being able to kiss the man she’s wanted for so long without having to hide her desire, her merriment, her love.
She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him back just as fiercely, until she can barely breathe and her pulse beating in her ears is so loud that it drowns out the cheers of their friends around them.
She allows herself this because today she’s just Anne, and Anne can spend the rest of her life with the man she loves.
*
“Never in a million years would I have ever thought I’d be attending the Qu—this wedding, of that woman,” Elodie mutters excitedly, the words half disappearing into the side of Marie-Cessette’s head.
Porthos smiles down at his daughter’s peacefully sleeping form and smiles even wider at the loose circlet of flowers crowning her courtesy of Louis, made by the six year-old’s inexperienced but determined hands. Elodie’s got a violet of her own poking out from behind her ear, and he can see the bright orange of a poppy resting in Sylvie’s curls where Athos is spinning her in a dance across the room. Porthos has a feeling that he, d’Artagnan, and Athos may very well be next in the boy’s quest for floral decoration. He doesn’t really mind the thought. From what he can remember, his own mother really loved flowers.
“She looks so radiant, so regal, even now,” Elodie’s rambling continues as she watches Anne and Aramis wrapped up in their own dance, foreheads bent together and seeming as if they were the only two in the room in each other’s eyes. “Oh, I really hope she liked the dress I made her. And Sylvie’s embroidery.”
“Elodie,” Porthos cuts in, his smile gentle as those bright blue eyes fix upon him. “It’s beautiful.”
“But she’s the—she’s her.”
“ She’s a dear friend of mine, and she’ll soon be a dear friend of yours,” he tells her. “And Louis will be a dear friend of Marie-Cessette’s”—he heard that one from Aramis earlier, but God knows it will be true—“and you’ll stop worrying about what she thinks of you. Because she’ll love you. She loves all her friends in a special way of hers. Well, I think she was very lonely for a long while, growing up and living as she did. So she cherishes those she cares about differently than most others do, you know?”
Elodie observes Anne out of the corner of her eye. “It warms my heart to see her looking so happy now, then.”
Porthos watches his own friends, watches as Louis walks up to them and tugs on skirt and trouser leg with two flower-scented hands, and as Anne and Aramis take either of those hands in their own. They lead him together in a slow, made-up dance, Louis’ face bright with giddy laughter when they take turns twirling him, and Aramis dramatically feigning pain whenever Louis steps on his toes.
Aramis, his best friend. Porthos has seen him smile quite a lot in the fifteen years they’ve known each other, but he’s never seen him look as happy as he does now.
“Mine too,” he tells his wife. “For the both of them.”
*
“I think you’ve awoken a calling in the young man,” d’Artagnan whispers into Constance’s ear, sneaking up on her as she loads her plate with food and earning him a damned hard smack on the arm. He’s got no armor to protect himself from her knuckles today. “Ow, hey, now.”
“You shouldn’t creep up on women, especially when that woman is your wife,” Constance scolds, her features softening in amusement as she turns and gets a look at his new pair of accessories. “Oh, dear. Louis got to you too, did he?”
d’Artagnan grins, the movement making the stems of the flowers tucked behind his ears shift a little. He fixes them gently; it wouldn’t do if Louis’ handiwork fell to the floor. Idly, and foolishly, he wonders if a six year-old could declare treason for that if he wanted. As if Anne would allow that—though Aramis might, just to get payback for all the teasing.
“I’ll pray for the state of the palace gardens. Who knows what he’ll do to them when we return to Paris,” he says. “You’ve seen Athos and Porthos, right?”
“I have. Could you imagine General du Vallon riding into battle with a flower folded into every curl atop his head?” d’Artagnan laughs at the image, but no amount of daisies could take away from Porthos’ physical presence. “Louis seems to have gone rather overboard with him.”
“Aramis thinks it has something to do with Louis subconsciously staking him as his favorite uncle,” he replies with a pout.
Constance giggles, reaching up to pat him on the cheek. “You still have plenty of time to win over Sylvie and Athos’ baby.”
“What about Marie-Cessette?”
“Sweetheart, do you really think Aramis would accept anything less than being Porthos’ daughter’s favorite?”
d’Artagnan must look crestfallen enough because Constance pecks him on the lips, then shoves a tear of bread into his mouth when he opens it to argue his case further.
“Alright,” he concedes after he chews and swallows. “Point taken.”
“If it helps any, you’re my favorite.”
He grins. “Well, when you put it like that,” he says, then takes her plate out of her hands and sets it down, ignoring her half-hearted protests as he drags her out for a dance.
*
Anne slips into her room, kicking her slippers off rather unceremoniously before the door is even closed and reaching up to handle her earrings as she walks towards the vanity. She’s exhausted and it’s been a very emotional day, but she hasn’t been in such good spirits in so long that she doesn’t want the day to end. Their friends said goodbye thirty minutes before they reached Paris’ gates in order to not attract any attention, and the three of them have been back at the Louvre for hours now. The sun has long since set, the moonlight is shining through the windows and melting in with the warm, caramel glow of the candles dotting her room. But she refuses to let this day end despite all the signs. Not yet.
She slips her earrings into the drawer of her jewelry box and smiles; he moves with the instilled grace of a Musketeer but Anne is attuned to him, she always has been. Even with her back to him, even with the bare soles of his feet cushioning the sounds of his movements, Anne knows Aramis is behind her before he even wraps his arms around her waist and buries his nose into her hair.
“Still smells like the flowers,” he murmurs, and she can feel his beard tickle the nape of her neck as he grins. His arms squeeze tighter around her middle and it’s all the warning she has before he’s suddenly lifting her off the floor and twirling the both of them around so that she’s facing the room again.
“Aramis,” she breathlessly laughs, turning in his embrace once he sets her down and playfully poking at his chest. He ignores the jab in favor of snuggling into her again, this time tracing the sharp point of his nose along the line of her neck. He’s either forgotten or simply doesn’t care that she’s ticklish, and she rather doubts it’s the former.
“My darling wife,” he says into her skin, and she shudders with the words, with the feel of them against her throat but also the truth that lies within. Today was not a dream. Today actually happened. Today she married a man, not to solidify an alliance between two countries, but for love. For selfish love, for selfish happiness, and God forgive her but she doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt for either. “My darling, beautiful wife.”
“Are you going to keep calling me that?” She giggles again, leaning back so she can look him in the eye. He’s all boyish innocence right now, eyes soft like the lashes that line them and grin refusing to budge from his face.
“Whenever we’re alone like this and for as long as I breathe,” he replies resolutely. “Do you take issue with it?”
“Not in the slightest,” she replies. She leans forward and captures his lips, soft and sweet, and murmurs against them, “Say it again.”
He obeys her automatically. “My wife.” His voice is a low, throaty mumble, and it strikes through her body like fingers against the strings of a finely tuned lute. “My wife, my wife, my wife.”
She untucks his shirt, hands roaming on their own accord, and takes the words off his tongue as she slants her mouth against his properly. His own hands find purchase in her hair, thumbs brushing the shells of her ears (she’s ticklish and he knows it ), and her gasps get sharper as her fingers get quicker and clumsier when she reaches up to untie the strings holding his shirt closed.
He breaks for air once she drags her fingertips down the fine hair of torso, wide-eyed and panting. He looks at her as if he can’t believe this is happening, like he hasn’t known her touch and kiss before, no matter how long ago it was.
“I can’t believe today was real,” he says, echoing her earlier thoughts. “I keep expecting to wake up—like this is all some kind of dream, and I’m going to wake up in the garrison or, or maybe even Douai.”
She traces her thumbs along the fine edge of his beard before bringing them up to smooth along his cheekbones, then down the line of the scar he received while protecting her in the gardens. It seems so long ago.
“It’s real. Aramis, it’s—” She pauses, looks back and forth between either of his eyes, so dark yet so warm and familiar, so full of love. Tenderness. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted and so much more, and it’s real.”
“It’s everything I’ve ever wanted too,” he admits, turning his head to kiss the palm of her hand. “I love you.”
“And I love you,” she replies, smiling. He kisses the dimple it forms, then drags his lips lower and latches them against her collarbone. She sucks in a sharp breath of air and her hands resume their quest in discarding his clothes; when her fingertips curl into the waistband of his pants, she steps back and drags him with her.
“My darling husband,” she tells him, feeling mischief and giddiness and desire coursing throughout every inch of her body, “take me to bed.”