The de Vere Inheritance

Chapter Seventeen - 28th August 1832

What choice had Elizabeth really had, but to trust the musketeer. She did not want to drag him into her domestic grievances if it was not necessary but it was quickly becoming clear to her that she was entirely out of her depth. She had nodded slowly to Athos, giving her agreement and consent but she had not trusted herself to speak. Porthos had offered to walk her home some time later, to which Athos abruptly protested.

"You must leave the way you came I am afraid Elizabeth. Myself, Aramis and Porthos must leave first and appear to return to duty. Then Constance and D'artagnan can help you get home. Eric must believe you to be as alone and vulnerable for our plan to work. He must be sure that you are in your apartment alone and without any protection. Therefore D'artagnan and Constance will take leave of you at your own front door. We can reconvene at the appropriate time in our chosen location. I know you still doubt our words but Elizabeth, this is the only assured way to prove all of this to you, and to entrap your husband."

Elizabeth sat quietly whilst three musketeers left, leaving her in the company of only D'artagnan and Constance. It was still not entirely clear to her how on earth Athos thought their scheme might lead Eric to her but she knew there was little option left for her. She was going to have to play the proverbial bait in their game.

~

The coldness of the apartment was something that Elizabeth felt keenly as she changed into her nightdress behind the screen and then stuffed her arms into the sleeves of a thick robe to warm herself. She carried out her nightly routine as she always did. She sipped from a vial of what someone might think was tonic or laudanum but was in fact just sugar water and ensured that she could be seen doing so from the window. Then she moved about restlessly from room to room as she might always have done. At length she lit the candles in her bedchamber and closed the door. She settled down with a book but she could not find the concentration to catch the printed words with her eyes. Her nerves were upset at the thought that Eric could even at that very moment be keeping watch of her apartment, waiting for the opportune moment when she was fast asleep to pounce.

After what seemed like a reasonable time to her, Elizabeth threw her book down to the end of the bed and lay down. She drew the counterpane up around her but ensured that it did not twist itself around her as she lay on her side. To be tangled within the counterpane was to place herself in a rather precarious position. There was no hope of sleep for Elizabeth because she could feel her hands trembling. She could hear every slight sound from within the house and from the street outside. She could hear her own heartbeat even as she tried to relax and slow down her breathing. She needed to appear to be asleep. So she lay in bed for hours with the terror and worry enveloping her as she waited for what Athos was sure would happen. She could not even decipher the time as the clock ticked absentmindedly because her mind was so addled.

It was when there was the softest creaking sound from the door of her bedchamber that Elizabeth really did freeze in fear. With her eyes clamped shut she desperately tried to keep her breathing steady and slow so as to appear to be asleep. The footsteps were too light to be heard, but Elizabeth could sense the motions of someone drawing closer to the bed, someone who desperately did not want to be discovered. Something moved at the bottom of the bed. She could still feel her book through the counterpane with one of her feet which left only the cushions she had thrown down to the other end of the bed to find more comfort. An icy hand of fear gripped Elizabeth's heart and she could not have breathed even if she wanted to. In her mind she imagined the crazed Eric standing over her as she slept, cushion in hand ready to smother her to death. She fought those images, fought to stop herself from screaming even as she sensed him coming closer.

It was the strangest few seconds, for Elizabeth almost thought that Eric was reaching out to touch her, perhaps to curl a few strands of her hair around his finger one last time.

"Don't touch her!"

Elizabeth's eyes flew open and she met the sight that had been her imagination, only there was nothing crazed about her estranged husband. No, he was so calm and collected that it was almost more frightening than the image her mind had conjured up. Athos appeared from behind the bedpost and curtains with his pistol drawn and Elizabeth sat up and scrambled across the bed towards him, putting distance between herself and Eric. She felt Athos's hand clamp tightly down upon her shoulder as she reached him. The door to her chamber opened again but with force and noise this time. The three musketeers who had positioned themselves in various hiding places within her apartment tore into the room with their pistols drawn.

Elizabeth turned back to Eric and saw the disappointment and shock in his face. She knew in that moment that he really had been about to kill her. Stood at the side of her bed with a cushion held aloft, he had been about to kill her in the most inconspicuous way he could conceive. Then he'd have smashed up the phials on the table to make it seem like she'd had some frenzied coughing attack and died alone. He'd have poured the tonic and the laudanum all over the bed and its curtains. He'd have made her look a sorry mess to the world. That was how little he thought of her. She really was a means to an end. She turned away from him then, deciding that she would never look upon him again, the man who had promised her freedom and contentment if not love, but had taken everything from her. She buried her head in Athos's doublet and tried to ignore Eric's fruitless attempts to fight the musketeers.

There would be no looking back, not for Elizabeth. Once he left the room she vowed never to think of him again. Athos held her tightly to him and Elizabeth for the first time in years questioned her own beliefs. If God were real, he might just have sent a man like Athos to her in her time of need. Although neither of them were ever likely to consider marriage again and were both so torn apart by what they considered to be love, they were still good people. It was a mark of reassurance that they could find one another and share emotions and feelings and still part as friends. That was what they would have to do, they would have to part. Elizabeth would have to leave and try to recover what she could of her life. If she really was to recover a little and win back the years of her life that Eric had almost stolen from her, she needed to do it all alone.

Could she grow to love a man like Athos? Almost certainly. She did not need to love another in her time of healing. It was a love for her own self that she needed to foster and grow. Athos would never love her the way she could potentially want him to, so she needed to release him from his obligations. She needed to set them both free.