Lost in the pages

Revelations

Athos put the glasses down on the table and pulled the cork out of it and poured it into two glasses and came over and handed one of them to me. He took off his hat and Cloak and put them aside and took the chair across from me

"So, are you going to tell me why you kidnapped me; and why we are sitting in a Manor house with someone calling you, My Lord?" I cradled the glass in my hands and swirled the dark red wine inside of it

"I did not kidnap you" he said taking a drink and sitting back in the chair

"Well, we will agree to disagree on that" I rubbed the back of my neck "Athos?"

"This is my home; was my home" he looked into the fire "I grew up here running in the fields. I am the oldest of the children so when my father died, I became the new Count de la Fere" he sighed "I was just nineteen when that happened, and I was here when a beautiful woman came one day; I became utterly besotted with her. She was five years older than me, and as I look back, I was so naïve; she was already a woman with experiences, she made me a man" he looked at me "so I married her" I felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room and I tried to take a deep breath.

"You're married?" I stammered, I felt sick and got to my feet and walked to the window relishing in the cold draught that filtered through the shutters "Now it makes more sense as to why you..."

"I am not married any more" he interrupted

"She died?" I asked regretting the hard tone it came out with

"In a way" he nodded looking back at the fire "Her name was Anne and I found out that she was a woman that had had two other husbands. The first had been murdered in his sleep, his throat slit from ear to ear" I knocked back my drink "There was a suspicion that it was Anne that had killed for his money, but she had left in the middle of the night after they had buried him. She changed her name to Sabine and moved to the south of the country and married a Lord, he discovered her past and vowed to turn her over to the family of her first husband and he branded her it with the M for Meurtrier (Murderer) on her shoulder, but she managed to run from him and she found her way here and called herself Anne again" I walked over to the wine bottle and filled my cup and lent on the back of the chair I had been sat in "I was blinded by love, she may as well of been a witch for the infatuation that took my mind" He closed his eyes and inhaled "We were married for just over a year and a man came to the house and told me about the woman that had been found to have killed one husband and run from a second. I flew into a rage and threw him out of the house, but something about what he had said ate away at me and that night while she was sleeping, I found the brand on her shoulder"

"Okay I have to ask after a year of marriage you had never seen your own wife naked?" I frowned

"No" He half chuckled "I was not a man of experience when we met; she was always in control, and I did what she asked of me" I sighed and shook my head a little

"What happened?" I asked

"She woke up and she had a look of horror on her face when she realized what I had seen" he looked at me "we fought and she begged me to forgive her for lying to her, but I was in a blind rage she and I were not married in the eyes of the church and she had committed murder, and bigamy. She told me she did it because she married her first husband because he was old and she thought he would die and when he didn't, she took it into her own hands so she could take his fortune" He held his cup out to me and I filled it with wine, I sent for the magistrate from the next town and he passed sentence that she should hang" I sat heavily back in the chair

"You, did it?" I asked almost in a whisper

"No, there was a hangman that traveled to do it" Athos said as he sank the cup of wine "I was a broken man; I watched as the noose was put around her neck, and I turned the reins of Hades and I set him off at a gallop. I never looked back until I reached Paris and I trained as a Musketeer and that was ten years since" he looked up at me and his eyes swam with tears He took a deep breath "My heart is hardened like a stone in my chest"

"I don't know what to say" I put my drink down and rubbed my temples there was the sound of the outer door being opened and the stamp of feet. Athos got to his feet his hand resting on his pistol

"My Lord, I am so happy to see that you are back here" a larger women smiled at him as Gaston walked in carrying a black cooking pot "It has been far too long" she looked at me and I could tell by the expression on her face she had seen the cut on my cheek and the split on my lip "I have made some food for you and Gaston is going to check on the fire in your room"

"It is good to see you again Mary" He offered her a tight smile "Thank you for the food"

I turned back to the fire and tried to let what Athos had told me sink in. Half of me felt sorry for him and what he'd been through but the other half of me wanted to still yell at him to take a chance and try to find his heart around me.

"Estelle" I jumped at the weight of his hand on my shoulder "You should eat"

"I'm sorry" He frowned at me "I can't imagine the pain you've been through" he sat down "I need to get some air"

I got to my feet and walked out of the warmth of the room and into the chill of the large hallway I looked out of the window and rubbed the glass with my hand clearing the ice from it as lights flickered in the small houses in the distance. I felt tears prick my eyes as I realized how far in all meanings of the word I was from home, from everything that I knew