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The ever-changing location of Marie DuPont’s hands on his body was making it increasingly hard for Aramis to devote his complete attention to the poetry he was meant to be reading to her. The room was awash in candlelight, but Aramis knew it was not their pitiable flames which contributed to the rising heat in his cheeks.
“My dear,” Aramis said breathlessly, her palms inching upward from his thighs. “For all you assured me that these cantos would be to my taste, you seem determined to ensure I cannot focus on them.”
“Perhaps,” she said, hands sneaking up further, “a bit of a break is in order, hmm?”
Aramis set the book of poetry aside on the engraved oak table as Marie led him, her soft hand in his, to her magnificent tufted bed. She parted the curtains and ushered Aramis in as though she were the driver helping the master into the carriage, but for the chaste kiss she pressed to Aramis’s knuckles and of course, the increasingly less chaste kisses which followed, snaking up his arm to his shoulder and then his neck. Her lips parted the cambric of his shirt away from his skin deftly, and Aramis moaned his pleasure.
“Wait here a moment,” she whispered, chin brushing against Aramis’s ear as she spoke. With a mischievous grin, she snapped the curtains shut, leaving Aramis with her tantalizing silhouette as she slipped off her outermost garments.
Aramis peeked out his head. “You wicked, wicked woman.”
Marie smiled at him and retrieved a clear bottle from the stand nearest her bed. She flicked a few drops of the transparent liquid therein upon her fingers and patted them on her cheeks, her neck, her breasts. Immediately, Aramis was assaulted by a sharp, pungent scent that may have been pleasant had his nose been able to get over the shock of smelling it. As such, the very air he breathed felt ticklish and itchy.
He sniffed once, hard, hoping that this might help him acclimate to his new surroundings. Marie hummed as she dabbed more of the liquid on her wrists, clearly mistaking Aramis’s sniff as one of approval, or at least of interest, and not a desperate attempt to stop the feeling of insect wings whirring in his nose.
“It’s a new perfume,” she said, giving the bottle a shake. “Sandalwood. My husband procured it for me from one of his trading partners in the East and gave it to me as a parting gift before he left for Amiens. Isn’t it lovely?”
Marie came back and perched herself on the bed beside Aramis, who did all he could to subtly angle his head away from her without being outrightly offensive. Still, it was no use, the scent was wafting through the entirety of the chambers now, and already Aramis’s nose was running, his eyes starting to water.
“It’s– hihhh –It’s quite strong.” He scrubbed quickly, hopefully surreptitiously, at his nose.
She smiled at him, tracing a neatly-manicured finger along Aramis’s hairline at his temple. “Do you like it?”
He sniffled. On any other occasion, Aramis would have welcomed the contact, but as such it put his nose in even closer proximity to her fragrant wrist, a fact which was rapidly proving to be his undoing. “I think I’m–” His words were lost in two violent sneezes which tore from him.
“Oh, Aramis,” she cooed, stroking his cheek. “Are you well?” She slipped a gentle hand to the base of his head and pulled him toward her breast.
“Nnnn, it’s–” Frantically, as the whole of him began to leak ceaselessly, Aramis did his best to wrangle himself free, to push himself away from her, too desperate to worry about how such a motion would be received. “The p-perfume!” He sneezed and sniffled desperately. “I’m—” He sneezed again. “I think I’m–” And again. He swiped his fingers across his burning, streaming eyes, and croaked, “Allergic.”
“Oh, my poor Aramis.”
Marie frowned at him, which only deepened when three more explosive sneezes burst out of him, leaving him spluttering, gasping, and sniffling in the aftermath. “Here.” She reached for the cloth which rested beside a bowl of water on her nightstand. “Take my handkerchief.”
His breath already hitching with the promise of another sneeze, Aramis accepted the proffered cloth without question. But as soon as he pressed it to his nose he realized the folly of what he had just done; even as stopped tight with congestion as he was, he could still smell that the handkerchief was as doused in perfume as its owner.
Aramis groaned. “I n-nneed– ” A sneeze cut him off. “ - need to… “ Sneezing again and again, he supposed he should give up on ever completing a sentence in the near future. He sniffled and did his best to swallow around his inflamed throat, every inch of him on fire with the burning itch. “Need to go.”
Through waterlogged eyes, Aramis glimpsed Marie’s blurry figure rise alongside him. “I’ll escort you.”
“No!” Aramis cried desperately, all but sprinting away from her and to the door. “Please. Th–heh–the p-perfume.” He sneezed fiercely and sniffled. “I–” He could hold on no longer; the perfumed air of the bedchamber was slowly suffocating him, and so he was forced to dash out the door, down the staircase, without sparing a backward glance toward Marie nor her servants as he rushed forward with the singular purpose of reaching the outside and its sweet, unadulterated air.
Uncaring of the people he passed (and likely frightened), Aramis stumbled and staggered his way amidst sneezes and wheezing coughs until he ducked into a shady courtyard where he could be hidden from view and succumb fully to his affliction. He sneezed again and again until he whimpered for mercy between ragged gasps for air. Every inch of him was positively consumed, his eyes inflamed, his throat and chest tight, his vision blurred as hot tears streamed from his eyes.
And yet still the infernal sneezes came, one after another, until Aramis was sure he would never taste freedom from them again.
Gradually, as his nose began to settle and breathing became merely an arduous endeavor and not a torturous one, the memory of how urgently he had quit Marie’s chambers and scuttled out the door flooded back to Aramis’s mind, sending him awash in horror. He groaned, leaning his aching, heavy head against the trunk of the tree under which he had sought refuge, and shut his burning eyes. The chances that Marie DuPont welcomed him back into her home, let alone into her bed, after such an insult were slim, and though Aramis was confident in his ability to find another woman just as stimulating in mind and body as she (Paris was full of such beautiful creatures), he would surely miss her. The fact that the end of their relationship lay outside a jealous husband or a need to keep up a reputation and instead solely with Aramis and his own bodily weakness merely added to the sting.
Aramis sneezed again, then wiped his nose with his now-sodden handkerchief, releasing another groan at its pitiful, woebegotten state. Though the prudent choice of action would have been to take himself back to his rooms for a clean handkerchief to deal with the residual effects of this perfume, Aramis found himself drawn in the direction of the tavern where he knew Porthos and D’Artagnan to be playing dice, reasoning slightly deliriously in his foggy mind that such a place was as good as any to sneeze out any remaining irritation.
He entered the tavern, sniffling wetly and wiping at his eyes, but nonetheless spied his friend’s corner table almost immediately. Aramis trudged over, feeling every bit as exhausted as if he had spent the day in the saddle. Porthos glanced up at him as he approached, wide-eyed.
“Did the Madame DuPont kick you…” The rest of his question died on his tongue as he better surveyed his brother, narrowed eyes scanning the length of Aramis’s undoubtedly dishevelled frame. “What happened to you, Aramis?”
D’Artagnan winced. “You look a bit…”
Mercifully, the Gascon did not finish his thought, yet still Aramis found himself rankled. He dropped heavily into the chair beside Porthos with a thick sniffle, burying his still-itchy face in his hands and rubbing. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He gave a single, exhausted sneeze.
D’Artagnan narrowed his eyes further, his expression softening minutely. “Did you get sick?”
Porthos shook his head. “Nah, I think he’s…” He trailed off, brow creased in thought, until his face turned bright and he huffed an incredulous laugh, a loud guffaw that shook the table. “You turned allergic to Madame DuPont!” He grabbed at his rumbling belly, tears squeezing from his eyes. “Oh, that’s a new one.”
“I’m not allergic to her,” Aramis said bitterly. “Snf! Snf!…” He rubbed at his nose with his already-soiled (though mercifully unscented) handkerchief, releasing a low growl in his throat at the way the gesture irritated his already raw skin and gave another itchy sneeze.
He blew his nose hard enough that his ears popped, though he could still hear his friends laughing at his expense. “It’s– snf!-- her perfume. Sandalwood .”
D’Artagnan snickered. “Damn, I guess I’ll have to throw the bottle I just bought away.”
“Ha ha.” Aramis lowered his handkerchief with a pointed glare, and was gratified when the Gascon had the good grace to look at least a bit chagrined.
Porthos, too, took on an expression of greater concern. “Her perfume never bothered you before.”
Aramis sniffled, sneezed, then groaned softly at the pounding in his head, wishing that his friends would prove their merciful countenances genuine by putting a bullet through it. “That’s because it’s new.” He coughed, his throat still lamentably tickly, especially given all the time that had passed. “Her husband gave it to her before he left for his travels.”
“Her husband…” Porthos whistled lowly and shook his head, mouth turning downward in disapproval. “Jesus Christ, Aramis.”
For reasons likely related to the sheer misery he was experiencing, the words from Porthos rankled him far more than they usually would. “Well, that is typically how one becomes a madame , is it not?” Aramis snapped, the words hot on his tongue. He shifted his watery gaze to their youthful companion. “And don’t look at me like that, D’Artagnan. As if you don’t have your eye on Constance.”
Because Aramis had shut his bleary eyes to sneeze and buried himself in his handkerchief once more, he did not see Porthos mouth grouchy at D’Artagnan, nor did he notice the subsequent pair of grins at his expense that followed. All he did notice was Porthos’s hands, warm, firm, and steady on his shoulders as he guided Aramis to his feet.
“Come on,” Porthos said. “Let’s get you a bath and then to bed.”