All for One (20 page)

Panting harshly, Benoît stared at the wall, trying to catch his breath, trying to decide what to do next, hoping against hope Aristide would take the decision out of his hands and simply pull him back into an embrace. He wouldn’t resist. He just didn’t know what to say or do next.

In growing impatience, Aristide waited for Benoît to offer some explanation for his behavior, some reason for his rejection—to say anything at all. When the moments stretched on and Benoît could not even look at him, a roil of anger churned in Aristide’s gut. He should have known the blacksmith had not really changed. This was all a game to him still. A wordless growl started deep in his chest, his hands clenching in rage. With a roar, he slammed a fist into the wall hard enough to tear the skin on his knuckles. He did not trust himself to stay in the same room with Benoît without seizing him, whether to shake him or beat him or strip him and fuck him until the fire in his blood was slaked. Near blind with fury, he grabbed the first tunic he saw from the hooks on the wall, pulling it over his head and all but tearing the door from its hinges as he stormed out.

Legs still trembling from the unexpected climax, Benoît turned at Aristide’s exit, eyes widening at the angry shout. His face fell. He’d obviously lost his chance with the musketeer, his inexperience enough to drive Aristide away. One more thing to add to his list of failures. Grabbing the bottle of wine, he walked slowly to the stairs. He’d drown his sorrows in drink and hope things made more sense in the morning.

Aristide wasn’t sure how long he walked blindly, driven by anger and frustration, until the red haze began to clear. He stopped and leaned against a building, breathing deeply in an effort to restore his shattered self-control, but his mind kept returning to Benoît pulling away from him as if revolted by his touch. He cursed himself for giving in to his longing. If he’d been able to rein in his lust, he might still be holding Benoît in his arms, kissing him…. He rubbed a hand over his face, his cock stirring again just at the memory. Would he ever be able to look at the smith again without reliving those moments? It was likely a meaningless worry, he told himself, wondering what the chances were that Benoît would still be there if he returned.

Glancing around to get his bearings, he realized he was not far from the street where the English ambassador had rented a house. Perhaps Teodoro Ciéza de Vivar would have some common sense advice to give him on dealing with this hopeless desire. If nothing else, a few hours of crossing blades with the swordsman might dull some of the fire burning in his veins.

He turned his steps toward
vicomte
Aldwych’s lodgings, hoping he would find the Englishman and his companions at home. As he neared the building, it became apparent that the ambassador was entertaining. Torches lined the street in front of the residence, illuminating grooms and footmen who met the carriages rolling up, assisting their elegantly dressed occupants to step down and lining the stairs to the entrance. He watched for a few minutes, debating whether to approach one of the liveried footmen to carry a message to Ciéza de Vivar. The Spaniard would never leave his lover unguarded, Aristide realized, even at so tame an event as a soirée, where the worst danger would be a clumsy partner treading on one’s feet. He envied the pair that unquestioned certainty that the other would always be there, at each other’s back and each other’s side.

Heartsick, he turned away, but there was no way he could return home yet, whether Benoît were still there or not. The whicker of a carriage-horse behind him prompted an idea. He headed toward
l’hôtel de M.
de Tréville with quickened steps. The three-quarter moon was bright enough for riding. He’d saddle Orphée and head out of the city. Feeling the wind in his hair and Orphée’s strength beneath him would be enough to settle his rampant emotions. He hoped.

F
INALLY
off duty, Perrin and Léandre arrived home with matching sighs of relief, discarding their red tunics immediately, dropping them on top of the one already in the salon. “I wonder where Aristide has disappeared to tonight?” Perrin asked idly, though he didn’t expect Léandre to have any more of an answer tonight than any other.

“He mentioned something about sparring with the Spaniard, didn’t he?” Léandre remembered. As much as he hated Aristide’s absences, he could almost be glad the older musketeer was out. It was far easier to find pleasure with Perrin without the dour presence brooding in the next room.

“He did indeed,” Perrin replied, clinging to the flimsy explanation that allowed him to focus on Léandre without feeling guilty for Aristide’s absence. “I guess he won’t mind us doing some sparring of our own, what with being gone and all.”

“Last night’s reaming was not enough to convince you of my mastery? Then by all means, let us put it to the test again,” Léandre retorted, green eyes glittering. He spared a quick glance at the stairs to the upper room, then pushed the consideration from his thoughts. They had done their best to silence their natural reactions—for neither of them was a quiet lover—on the rare occasions they had fucked since Aristide cut them off, but it hadn’t improved the blacksmith’s attitude any that he could see. Be damned to him, then! He was of a mood to hear Perrin’s lusty shouts, and if it put Benoît out, so much the better.

“Oh, I think tonight I’ll prove
my
mastery,” Perrin countered, grabbing Léandre’s arm and spinning him so they stood back to front, his swelling cock nudging the blond’s arse. “After all, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on a reaming of your own.”

Léandre was not at all adverse to that hard, thick shaft filling his cleft, but it wouldn’t do to make things too easy for Perrin—especially when the tussle for mastery involved so much contact with the darker musketeer’s firm body. “Bold words,” he drawled, pushing back and rubbing against the stiff rod. At Perrin’s blissful groan he broke free, grabbing a hand full of arse cheek and squeezing hard. “Let’s see who’s reaming who before the night is done.” Seizing Perrin by the shoulder, he dragged him into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them. There, he’d done his part toward discretion.

Perrin let Léandre drag him along until they crossed the threshold to their room. Then he took control again, shoving Léandre forward onto the bed, following him down with every intention of pinning him there for a long, hard ride. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.”

“I haven’t taught you well enough, if you think you can take care of anything with all these clothes in the way,” Léandre scoffed, a hand on Perrin’s broad shoulder holding them far enough apart to palm the erection straining his lover’s breeches. Working open the lacings, he slid his hand under the fabric, following the trail of soft hair until he could clasp the heavy shaft.

Perrin bucked into the seeking hand. “Maybe I just want to convince you of my superior skill by making you come in your breeches,” he taunted, rubbing Léandre through the cloth. “And then I’ll fuck you properly.”

Léandre’s cock throbbed, as much at Perrin’s husked words as at the rough caress, but he was not a youth in his first tryst with a maid to be undone so quickly. “Does finesse mean nothing to you?” Sliding a second palm under his lover’s garment, he worked the fabric downward, baring warm flesh to the cool air. “Think how much more you might arouse me by the touch of skin to skin.”

“Do you need more arousing?” Perrin retorted, wriggling free of his breeches and rubbing harder against Léandre’s still clothed cock. “You feel more than hard enough to me.”

“No wonder you go through so many lovers,” Léandre baited, the jesting insult part of the game. Leaning up into Perrin’s chest, he flipped them over, his position on top freeing him to strip off his remaining garments. Straddling Perrin’s hips, he held his weight up on his forearms, letting their cocks brush together with tantalizing friction. “With your technique, no one but us would have you more than once.”

“That may be, but you can’t seem to get enough of my technique, rough or not,” Perrin snapped back. “Just for that, I’m going to make you wait until the bells toll midnight before I let you come. And you’ll be begging me for it by then.”

“’Tis your own control you need to look to, not mine,” Léandre retorted, though in truth, another hour of Perrin’s attentions was more a gift than a hardship. “Besides, you seem to be forgetting that
you’re
beneath
me
.” He let more of his weight settle to reinforce his point, with a cant of his hips to drag their cocks together against the firm muscles of their abdomens.

Those words were probably true, but that didn’t mean Perrin wanted to admit it. He planted his feet and rolled hard, pushing Léandre beneath him again. “We’ll see whose control gives out first,” he challenged, grabbing the blond’s wrists and pinning them to the bed. “Now, are you going to stay there or do I have to tie you down?”

Léandre may have had no real desire to escape Perrin’s grasp, but pride demanded at least a token resistance. “Talk, talk,” he growled, bucking beneath the younger man. “At this rate, you won’t need to tie me down; your droning will put me to sleep!” Arching more strongly, he drove a shoulder into Perrin’s chest, working himself free. The wrestling match that followed evoked much panting and grunting and disarrangement of linen, the mock battle stirring the blood and firing the arousal of both combatants.

As arousing as he found the playful fight for dominance, Perrin wanted more, his earlier conversation with Aristide having struck a chord deep within him. Succeeding in getting Léandre on his back again, he stilled their movements, kissing his lover softly. “
S’il te plaît
,” he murmured against the blond’s lips. “Lie still and let me love you.”

Caught by the unexpected tenderness of Perrin’s request, Léandre abandoned the struggle and simply gave himself over to the kiss. When they broke to draw breath, he reached up to ruffle his hand through Perrin’s shortened hair. “Much better,” he complimented with a smile. “I’ll make a lover out of you yet.”

Perrin debated a reply but settled for simply kissing Léandre again, lapping at his lips as if the rest of their bodies, indeed the rest of the world simply did not exist, narrowing their focus to the touch of mouth against mouth, tongue against tongue as they twined together lovingly, invitingly.

This slow, gentle wooing was a side of the younger musketeer Léandre hadn’t seen before, but he had no complaint. While Perrin feasted on his mouth, he let his hands drift slowly over the broad shoulders and strong back. He knew Perrin’s body nearly as well as his own, but he traced its contours as if learning them for the first time, exploring dips and curves and knots of muscle, judging the sensitive spots by the quiver of warm skin beneath his palms and the hitch of Perrin’s breathing, returning to caress those places again and again.

Perrin gasped softly into the kiss, delving deeper, as if he could somehow touch Léandre’s soul, not merely his body as they kissed. His lover’s touch should have been no different than any other time they had lain in this bed similarly naked, but he felt a reverence in the way Léandre’s hands moved and in his own slow caresses that was new. And too alluring to resist.

The deep chime of the Saint-Sulpice bells marking the hour claimed Léandre’s attention from the intensity of Perrin’s kiss. He touched Perrin’s shoulder, pulling back just enough to murmur against his lover’s lips. “It’s midnight. Make love to me.”

Chapter 18

L
ÉANDRE
roused slowly, a dull pounding sound in his ears waking him from a deep sleep. He stirred fitfully, hoping to recapture the dream he could not quite remember but that he was sure, judging from the thickened state of his cock, had been a pleasant one. The pounding continued, and he opened one eye, stretching and groaning. He was curled against Perrin’s frame, his head pillowed on the dark hair-dusted chest. Remembering the previous night’s unusually tender coupling, he smiled, his shaft stirring to full hardness. He wrapped an arm around Perrin’s waist and nestled closer, debating whether he’d rather sleep a bit longer or wake his lover and see if they could recreate the same magic, when the pounding grew louder and faster. Realizing it was not Perrin’s heartbeat he’d been hearing, he sat up, the loss of his warmth causing Perrin’s eyes to blink open too.

“Come back to bed; it’s too early to be up—or at least, come share being up with me,” Perrin murmured in a sleep-husky voice.

“Someone’s all but knocking our door down—can’t you hear it?” Léandre paused while pulling on a pair of breeches to admire the arousing sight of Perrin stretching nude in their bed. “Let me get rid of whoever it is, and then I’ll take you up on that.”

“Where is Aristide?” one of the young recruits asked when Léandre opened the door. “He was supposed to report in this morning, but he didn’t show up.
M.
de Tréville sent me to fetch him.”

Léandre’s pleasant morning mood disappeared in an instant. “He didn’t show up for an appointment with
M.
de Tréville?” he repeated, dumbfounded. Even after the worst evening of excess, Aristide had never failed to report for duty, usually far less the worse for wear than either of his companions. If he had failed to appear today, something was very wrong. “Perrin!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Get out here. Aristide’s missing!”

Perrin stumbled into the room, pulling his shirt over his head to preserve some modicum of decency. “What’s this?” he demanded. “Aristide would never shirk his duty.”

“He isn’t here, then?” the recruit asked.

“No,” Perrin affirmed. “We haven’t seen him since he went off duty last night, well before we did.” He glanced around the room and saw the pile of red tunics. “He must have come home, but he was gone again before we got here.”

Léandre met Perrin’s troubled gaze for a long moment. Duty and honor were the hallmarks of Aristide’s life. He could think of only one thing that might possibly mean enough to the musketeer to have taken precedence over his responsibilities.

Turning toward the narrow steps that led to the upper level, Léandre’s expression hardened. He had more sympathy for their guest’s awkward circumstances than Perrin did, but if Benoît had done anything to contribute to Aristide’s absence, he would answer to Léandre himself. Too angry to speak his name, he bawled up the stairs.

“Blacksmith! Get your sorry arse down here, now!”

More than a little hung over and upset to be disturbed, Benoît stumbled down the stairs in his smallclothes to be greeted by the sight of two half-naked musketeers, both wearing angry expressions. “What?” he questioned sullenly.

“Where is Aristide?” Léandre demanded, too upset to care for subtlety or discretion.

“How should I know?” Benoît retorted. “He stormed out of here last night like he never wanted to see me again.” The remnants of wine and anger loosed his tongue, allowing the rash answer to slip free.

Frowning, Perrin waved a dismissal to the recruit. “Tell
M.
de Tréville we’ll find him and bring him back as quick as may be.” When the young man was gone, he turned to Benoît. “And why would he act like that when he’s wanted nothing more than to be close to you for weeks?”

“Close to me?” Benoît parroted. “He has an odd way of showing it, fucking the two of you every night.”

“Aristide hasn’t fucked either of us since the night before the Cardinal’s first summons,” Léandre answered coldly. “If you had the brains God gave a slug, you’d realize he’s been in love with you since he found you half-dead on the side of the road—where I’m beginning to wish we’d left you.”

“It’s not only brains he’s lacking,” Perrin added scornfully. “He has no heart.”

“I didn’t have one,” Benoît agreed, trying to reconcile the older man’s behavior with the information that he hadn’t been the one whose sounds had drifted up to Benoît’s room every night. He wanted to believe it—and truthfully, the musketeers had no reason to lie to him—but that made Aristide’s departure last night even stranger. “It died when my wife did, but Aristide brought it back to life. Except he doesn’t want it. He left me last night, not the other way around.”

“Just what happened last night?” Léandre asked, though suspecting he could guess. “You turned him away again, didn’t you?”

“No!” Benoît insisted, face flushing as he remembered coming apart in Aristide’s arms. “I kissed him.”

“And you expect us to believe he didn’t kiss you back?” Aristide might be honorable to a fault, to Léandre’s mind, but even he wasn’t noble enough to turn away from what he had wanted for so long if it was freely offered.

They were going to make him tell every last, personal embarrassing detail. “He kissed me back,” Benoît replied softly. “Kissed me until my head spun, and I fell apart in his arms. And then he stormed out before I could even catch my breath.”

“That makes no sense!” Léandre paced the small room in frustration. He knew Aristide’s lusts as well as any man alive, and he’d wager a month’s pay that after weeks of self-imposed celibacy, he wouldn’t be satisfied with a kiss, no matter how passionate. “If you were willing, there was no reason for him to leave. He’d have had you….” He trailed off, Benoît’s scarlet cheeks recalling him to a belated sense of decorum.

“And I’d have let him,” Benoît whispered. “I just needed a minute to catch my breath, but he left.”

“It doesn’t matter why he left,” Perrin interrupted impatiently. “The fact is, he did, and wherever he went, he didn’t show up for duty this morning. So where would he have gone?”

“Instead of reporting for duty? Nowhere,” Léandre protested, then rubbed his chin. “I suppose we could check the taverns, though I can’t imagine him drinking so much that he’d forget his responsibilities.”

“He might have gone to
vicomte
Aldwych’s,” Benoît suggested softly. “He seemed to have developed a rapport with the ambassador's bodyguard. Even if he left after that, they might have seen him and had some idea where he intended to go. He could be hurt somewhere. You’re always telling me it’s a dangerous city, and if he did start drinking….” His heart clenched at the thought of Aristide lying somewhere in a pool of blood. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong last night, but he did know he wasn’t ready to lose the musketeer.

“Aye, he and Ciéza de Vivar are two of a kind,” Léandre agreed. “Let us hope they simply drank so much that he hasn’t opened his eyes yet this morning. He’s taunted us more than once for being hung over on duty; ’twould be a rare jest were he to be the one suffering its effects this time.”

Perrin was afraid the answer was far more sinister than that, but he’d hang on to hope for all he was worth. Turning back to the bedroom, he pulled on breeches and removed his black uniform from the clothespress. “Get dressed,” he called to Léandre. “If we’re to awaken the ambassador at this early hour, we’d best do so looking presentable.”

“You, too,” Léandre growled to Benoît before turning to hunt up some clean garments for himself. He was still not convinced the blacksmith hadn’t contributed to Aristide’s unusual behavior somehow. A nagging sense told him it would be best to have him with them when they located the missing musketeer.

Benoît nodded and climbed back up the stairs. He pulled on his shirt and breeches, swiping a hand through his hair and scrubbing a rag over his face. It wouldn’t do for Aristide to realize how badly he’d upset Benoît with his disappearance.

The trio was quiet on the walk to the English ambassador’s residence, each man lost in his worries but reluctant to voice his concern aloud. Léandre was the first up the stairs, his heavy knock answered after a moment’s wait by the ambassador’s elder secretary, Javier.

“We’re sorry to disturb you so early,” Léandre began apologetically.

“Have you seen Aristide?” Perrin interrupted. “He left our townhouse last night and didn’t report for duty this morning. We hoped maybe he’d come here.”

“
Lo siento, señores
,” Javier said. “We were entertaining last night, but he was not among our guests. I could check with
Señor
Ciéza, but I don’t think he strayed far from the ambassador’s side the entire evening.”

Nor since
, Léandre wagered as the two men appeared at the top of the stairs, the Spaniard still buttoning his dark surcoat over an open-collared linen shirt, while the ambassador’s hair looked decidedly bed-tousled.

“We heard voices,” Christian announced, his unrepentant smile trumping his companion’s less readable expression. “What news brings you here at such an early hour?” The smile faded as he recognized the musketeers wore their black tabards in place of the Cardinal's red livery.

“Nothing good.” Léandre’s faint hope that Aristide had spent the night drinking with Ciéza de Vivar extinguished, he could not hide his concern. “Aristide is missing. He did not report for duty this morning.”

The pair exchanged glances before starting down the stairs, even their brief acquaintance with the musketeer sufficient to recognize he would not neglect his responsibilities lightly. “Perhaps he was summoned by your Cardinal?” Teodoro suggested, stroking his moustache.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Perrin allowed with a deepening frown, “but why would he have summoned Aristide and not the rest of us?”

“I don’t know,” Christian admitted, “but it’s the only explanation that comes to mind.”

“Wouldn’t he have put on the Cardinal’s livery, in that case?” Léandre stalked from one side of the small entrance hall to the other, unable to stand still. “It was lying on the floor beneath ours this morning.”

Teodoro’s hooded gaze noted the blacksmith’s reddened cheeks before meeting his ambassador’s eyes again. “Perhaps we should split up to search for him. The three of us can try the taverns or any… other diversions he may have visited, while Cristian and Benoît pay a call on His Eminence the Cardinal.”

“That’s as good as any plan we have now,” Perrin admitted. “If you don’t mind, blacksmith?”

Benoît shook his head. “I don’t mind, if Christian doesn’t mind being seen with me.”

Christian laughed. “I’m hardly one to be concerned with appearances. An English ambassador with a Spanish retinue. I don’t fit anyone’s idea of normal except my own.”

“That’s settled, then,” Perrin declared. “We’ll meet at
M.
de Tréville’s in no more than an hour.”

Teodoro paused only long enough to fasten his sword at his side and swing his cloak around his shoulders. Before he could set his wide-brimmed hat upon his head, Christian took him by the shoulders, and, unmindful of their audience, pressed a kiss to his lips. Teodoro touched a finger to the ambassador’s cheek before bowing deeply, gesturing for the musketeers to precede him out the door.

“You are so very at ease with him,” Benoît said softly when the others had left. “I envy you that.”

Christian smiled and reached for his own sword, affixing the belt and adjusting it comfortably. “He is my life and breath,” the Englishman replied. “I would not be here were it not for him.”

“He saved your life?”

“More times than either of us cares to count anymore,” Christian replied as they walked outside, “but even more than that, he—his faith in me—made me what I am. Before I met him, I didn’t think I would ever be able to follow in my father’s footsteps. Teodoro was the first to believe in me, and from that, I grew to believe in myself.”

Benoît sighed and smiled sadly. “I think perhaps I could have had that with Aristide.”

“Could have had?” Christian pressed, catching the turn of phrase. “Why not can have? Surely you don’t think him dead?”

“No,” Benoît denied quickly, “but quite put out with me, I’m sure. The others were too kind to say it, but Aristide’s disappearance is at least partially my fault. I don’t really know what I did, but he left last night in a fit of anger and never returned.”

“You know he was angry but not why?” Christian questioned. “You’ll have to explain a little more than that if you want my help.”

“I came undone in his arms like a blushing virgin,” Benoît admitted softly, “and when I pulled away to catch my breath, he stormed out of the house. I just needed a moment to compose myself.”

“And he thought you were rejecting him, no doubt,” Christian posited.

“Surely not after I started things last night!”

“I know your musketeer’s type,” Christian insisted. “I live with one cut from the same cloth, remember. He would never force himself on you unwilling, and if he thought for one instant that he had trespassed where he was not welcome, he would torture himself over it for hours, if not days. Whatever your reason for acting as you did, he almost certainly thinks he took more than you were willing to give.”