El Impostor Espanol

Chapter 9 - The Accused

She was on her knees before him; lip curled in a snarl as her shackles rattled against the hard wood floor behind her. Having her brought to his office instead of an open reception room had been a last-minute decision and now as he stared at her; eyes wild and hair matted from fighting against his men when they'd first arrested her, he knew it was the right decision.

Hearing that she had given up fighting his Red Guards almost as fast as she had started before publicly accepting his charges of treason had been...surprising. And so here they both were; her with her snarls at the restraints holding her arms behind her and him snarling at the woman offering a cloth to sooth the piercing pain shooting through his still bleeding left eye.

"Will it heal?" He asked the woman as she wrung out the cloth again. "Tell me the truth." He snapped as she avoided his gaze and swallowed hard. "Find me soothing to cover it." He snatched the cloth from her and with a growl had her running from the room.

"If it's any consolation..." He turned his attention back to his new prisoner who was slumping at the shoulders as she watched him press the cool cloth to his eye. "...it definitely adds to your whole image of being evil."

"I wasn't asking you."

She shrugged at his dismissal and seemed to settle into her position as she realised there was little point in snarling at him. Truth be told; when they had first met, he'd occupied his spare time by picturing her strung up alongside the other insufferable Musketeers but she had grown on him.

He'd finally figured her out too, he thought smugly as her gaze flittered around the office. He hadn't been able to comprehend why such a...competent woman had elected to pledge herself to that damned regiment in the first place and then he had observed her relationship with the Musketeer Athos. Whatever had once been between them was now waning and with a few well-placed questions he'd learnt of the man's former title and suddenly understood.

Mademoiselle Antoinette Beauchamp, only child of the former Comte de Poitiers, was a fortune follower. She'd replaced her lost status after her father's death with the gullible Comte de la Fere and now that his regiment was on thin ice she'd be looking elsewhere for her future.

And the Comte de Rochefort was the man to give it to her.

The Queen's violent rejection of his love had been a wake-up call and he realised that a life with an adulterous whore was not the one he deserved, no; this specimen before him with all of her skills and experience with the Spanish was where his future lay and it was now just a matter of getting her onside.

"What did your beloved say when the charges were read?" He asked and smirked when the snarling returned. "Not the reaction you were hoping for then?"

"We both know you aren't going to formally charge me with anything."

"Is that so?" He asked, perching on the edge of his desk and looking down on her.

"I could run through the palace spilling secrets and the King would do nothing." She told him, her eyes gleaming as she smirked up at him. "I'm too valuable."

"Someone clearly thinks a lot of herself."

"Almost as much as you do." She threw him a sickly smile before jostling her shackles again. "I'm uniquely positioned within the Spanish court so that I could walk back in at any time and pick up where I left off." She reminded him. "So, you can detain me for questioning as much as you like, but we both know I'll be walking out of here a free woman."

"A free woman with no friends, no lover and no regiment." He laughed at her confused look. "You don't honestly think they'd take you back after this? Oh poor, sweet Anna." He slid onto his knees before her. "Outside these walls, you're a nobody...and an untrustworthy one at that." He fingered her hair lightly as he let the words sink in.