Work Text:
My Lovely Foe by Freya
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Disclaimer: Don't own, never did, never will. Frédéric Bourboulon and probably some others own.
Fandom: D'Artagnan's Daughter a.k.a Daughter of D'Artagnan a.k.a The Revenge Of The Musketeers
Summary: Post-movie: A meeting in the garden
Genre: Romance (I actually wrote one without Angst!!)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eloise/Eglantine
Feedback: Always appreciated at smaria86@yahoo.com
Archive: At my site. Everybody else please ask first!
Note 1: I was really frustrated when I found that no one, as in really no one no one, had ever published a fic dealing with the subtext between Eloise and Eglantine. I mean come on, it is so obvious!! So, I had to do it on my own. If I'm wrong and there is such a fic, then I was simply too stupid to find it and would be very grateful if you told me where to find it.
Note 2: This story I so totally not my style. I don't know how it came to life. Must have been in a particular fluffy mood! *lol*
Inspiration: "Face To Face" by Siouxsie And The Banshees. The title's a line from it. Lyrics at the bottom of the page ...
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It was over.
The conspiracy had failed and now Louis was the new king of France, young and a new hope to the people.
Crassac and his fellow-conspirators were either dead or locked away in the Bastille, hopefully rotting for the rest of their lives.
Some had been able to get away, though, by confessing their eternal loyalty to their king.
One of them was Eglantine de Rochefort, Crassac's favored woman.
It was her that Eloise D'Artagnan despised more than any of the others who were still alive.
She was the one that had killed the abbess, even though it hadn't been her rapier piercing her heart, but still she had held the responsibility for the soldier that did it.
She had fought her, bound and threatened her and yet she had offered this woman her hand.
If you help me, you wouldn't be so alone anymore.
What a fool she had been to believe Madame de Rochefort had been wrong when she'd said that people can change.
That good can become bad, but never the other way around.
She had exactly known what she'd said.
She had known that, even if she helped Eloise, she would still be one of the bad guys.
Still she had freed her, had unlocked the shackles around her wrists and opened the door.
But during the following fight she hadn't moved from Crassac's side.
If the fight had turned out differently, with Eloise ending up with a rapier in her chest, the woman in red would have stayed with him ... because as she once had said so herself, without him she would be lost.
Now he was dead and Eloise had seen the other woman almost every day.
She didn't look lost to her.
Instead she didn't seem to be missing the man the slightest bit when she was walking the endless corridors of Versailles,
where the king had moved to, chatting and joking with other people just as shallow as she herself appeared.
But it was just a shell, as Eloise knew all too well.
She had read what the other woman had gone through, the rape, the prostitution, every single horrible thing that had ever happened to her.
Still she was here now today, due to the protecting shell she had built around herself, understanding fully well the importance of such protection for a woman like her.
A woman like her, Eloise thought wryly as she wandered the endless paths of the royal garden, watching from afar as the group of women gathered around Madame de Rochefort broke into another fit of giggles.
She hoped that there was no other woman like her, because Eloise didn't know if the world could handle another one like her.
She didn't know if she could handle one.
Her thoughts were already too occupied by this one woman, mysteriously smiling in her red dress, never quite directly at her and still always seeming to look at her, right through to her soul.
She didn't know what to do with Eglantine de Rochefort.
Should she keep on seeing only the bad in her, as she had done whenever their paths had crossed, or should she follow her instinct that said there was something about the other woman that wasn't all that rotten, all that bad.
That deep in her heart she was still the woman the cloister's abbess had loved in her own, sometimes not quite clear ways.
What would the abbess say now, if she could see them, circling each other like wild animals, aware of each move the other one made?
They appeared to be constantly alert, not quite able to put the finger on whatever made them not trust each other.
As much as she wanted to, Eloise couldn't simply put it off as mistrust, a result of having fought the other woman.
As much as she wanted to, she knew that there was something else that made her keep her distance.
What that was she didn't know and with a deep sigh she decided that now wasn't the best moment to think about it,
with the person her thoughts kept returning to standing just a few feet away.
Without her noticing she had almost completely closed the gap between herself and the group of women.
Madame de Rochefort shot her a curious look when she noticed her presence but didn't say anything, instead turning back to her companions, ending another one of the tales she kept telling to amuse and entertain.
Sitting under a tree, her knees drawn up to her chest, Eloise listened only with one ear, not really interested in the story but in the way those unbelievably red lips moved while forming the words.
She watched as they moved into a smile, baring just the slightest bit of ivory white teeth, their sharpness hidden behind luscious lips just as her sharp mind was hidden behind gossip and rumors.
She had never told anyone of these thoughts that seemed to be even more permanent than any other thoughts involving
Madame de Rochefort.
Thoughts of hidden looks and touches, forbidden images that yet brought her such pleasure that she had never dismissed them.
At first she had tried, remembering what the nuns had taught her about love and lust, that the first one existed only between man and woman and that the second was completely wrong, a sin, just like the love between two women was.
Still she couldn't help the warmth spreading through her body every time the other woman was near.
A warmth she had never felt before, not even when Quentin, her fiancé, kissed and touched her.
And just like the warmth was always present the guilt was as well.
The guilt that she was with Quentin, wearing his ring, making him believe she loved him when deep in her heart there was only one person she wanted.
Ever since that one night not long ago, which she'd spent bound to a headboard, painfully conscious of the body next to her, so close but not quite touching.
It wasn't until she'd struggled against her boundaries that the other woman would move, pressing her whole body against hers from behind, reaching a hand up to test if the shackles were secure enough to keep her prisoner from fleeing.
She couldn't remember how often she'd tried the security afterwards, so desperately wanting to feel that body again.
But since then there hadn't been any more touches between them.
Both had noticed that night which effect they had on each other and both had avoided eliciting such feelings again.
Three months had passed since then.
Eloise sighed.
Three months was such a long time when you were denied what you craved and still were surrounded by it almost every day.
But she had learned to life without it, had accepted that she would never own it and so she had chosen the path of marriage.
A shadow suddenly fell over her face, blocking out the sun, and she looked up, surprised to see Eglantine de Rochefort standing in front of her.
Her face displayed the same curious look she had received minutes before.
Now it also held a silent question.
"Eloise D'Artagnan, what a pleasure to meet here when I heard you were so busy these last days. What brings you here?"
The tone of her voice was too sweet for Eloise's liking and she knew that it was once again time for their old game, the game of faking over politeness and mistrust just like every time they met.
"The same that must have lead you here, Madame de Rochefort. I suppose it is the sunny weather, don't you think?"
Her eyes became challenging as she followed the rise of dark eyes to the sky as if weighing her answer carefully.
"Yes, I think you're right, Mademoiselle. The sun seems to be at her brightest today!"
Her gaze met Eloise's and with a small smile playing around her lips, the voice just a deep whisper, she continued.
"Just as you are, Eloise."
Abruptly she sprung to her feet, feigning offense while her heart was pounding like mad and her thoughts were running wild in her head.
"Why do you say so, Madame? You know I won't fall for your false compliments!"
"You won't fall?" The smile on her face stretched a bit in amusement.
"How stupid of me! And here I am thinking you have already fallen for me and my compliments!"
She hit her forehead mockingly with her hand and turned to leave when a hand on her upper arms stopped her.
Turning her head slowly she looked into the slightly irritated face of Eloise.
She stumbled over her words, hastily, as if they were burning her tongue.
"What do you mean with that? How would you come to believe that I had any kind of interest in you?"
"You mean apart from all the looks you're throwing my way like daggers? Nothing, to be exact. But your daggers are sharp, Eloise. Always remember that."
Again she turned to leave, just to be stopped again by the other woman.
"And that's it? You simply accept it as it is and move on with that new knowledge?"
Madame de Rochefort nodded simply, her expression neutral and unreadable.
"How heartless of you, Madame!
I was stupid to believe that underneath that cold shell of yours there was a heart as pulsating and alive with feelings as mine!"
Eloise heaved a heavy, furious sigh.
"There are no feelings for there is no heart. No heart would mock me like you do."
Now she turned away, sinking back to her place beneath the tree, hugging her knees tightly to her chest.
"Please leave, Madame. We have nothing more to say to each other."
She expected the other woman to follow her plea but was surprised when she sank down in the grass next to her,
softly touching her hand to her shoulder.
"I apologize, Eloise. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings by saying something as ... inappropriate as what I've said."
She paused for a moment, her fingers idly drawing little circles on the bare flesh near Eloise's neck.
"Believe it or not", she continued after some time, "there is a heart inside my chest."
Her hand clutched at her chest.
"But I haven't shown it in a long time. Only Crassac was able to revive it, by promising me the life I'd always dreamed of.
Wealthy, secure, accepted. And then there was you."
Both hands stilled and then fell limply into her lap.
"Do you have any idea what it meant that I freed you that day in the dungeon?"
Without waiting for any reactions she continued, shaking her head.
"No, you can't possibly know what that action meant. What, if the end had turned out differently, Crassac would have done to me for stabbing him in the back."
"Not literally of course", she added with a slight smirk, despite the seriousness of the situation.
A silent pause stretched between them and Eloise absentmindedly wondered what time it might be and how long they had been sitting here when the woman next to her stirred slightly and moved her hands from her lap to clasp Eloise's.
"You have a right to know, Eloise. You have the right to know why I did what I did, even if you're not interested in it. I have to get it off my chest."
She moved again, facing Eloise fully before she started.
"That night we captured you ... it changed me. My whole life. You know who I was. The prostitute, the murderer. But you never knew the girl growing up in a cloister."
Her eyes fluttered shut as memories crossed her mind, memories of a childhood not as pleasant as it should have been.
"I remember the day I first saw you. It was the winter I ran away from the cloister, a cold and cruel winter. I ran away, but I stayed close to the cloister for days, not even knowing why.
One day, while I was stalking in the bushes behind the church I saw a two horses nearing.
I was curious who it would be and so I stayed instead of hiding as I had done until then when strangers had come.
I watched as the first rider climb off his horse and then help the second down.
They went to the gate and waited until a nun opened. But before they went inside the second person turned around,
their hood thrown back and I beheld the view on the most beautiful thing resident on earth.
She saw me behind the bushes, our eyes meeting for a brief second before she disappeared in the building.
Shortly after that day I left for Paris and I thought I'd never see you again. See how wrong I was!"
Although a smile was playing around her lips, her voice as well as her eyes were serious.
She lifted one of her hands up to Eloise's cheek, slightly brushing her fingertips over her cheek, a touch so light Eloise almost believed she had imagined it.
"I'm glad I was wrong", the other woman ended, not able to pull her eyes away from green eyes that had captured her years ago when both she and the owner had been too young to know what that electrifying energy between them meant.
Now they knew and both were aware that they couldn't deny that truth.
Eloise covered the hand on her cheek with her own, faintly squeezing.
"Me too", she said with a shy smile, feeling the familiar warmth creep into her face, reddening her pale skin.
As if on instinct she leaned forward, feeling a mysterious urge pulling her towards the other woman until their lips finally touched for the first time.
It was a hesitant kiss at first, both learning the new and unfamiliar texture of each other, until one of them, or both at the same time, it was impossible to say, let out a soft moan,
using this opportunity to deepen the kiss.
Time went on but simply without them.
All they were aware of was each other, they way they moved to hold each other tight, the way their tongues danced an ancient dance of love and lust.
Only when the need for air became too much to bear they pulled apart but didn't let go, staying so close Eloise could feel Eglantine's breath painfully sweet on her lips.
With her eyes still shut she closed the short distance between them again, showering the other woman's face
with little butterfly kisses while muttering words that sounded like magic in Eglantine's ears.
"I love you. My sweet, precious Eglantine, I love you so much. So much ..."
She trailed off, covering the redhead's mouth once again with her own, her hands trailing over the body pressed against her, into her hair, to the small of her back.
To her, the moment couldn't have been more perfect.
Here she was, on a beautiful day at a beautiful place with the woman she loved in her arms.
She had a father who loved her and a king who respected her and owned her his life.
It was as close to perfection as possible and when those magical words sprung from Eglantine's lips she knew that everything would only get better from here.
~Fin~
The lyrics to "Face To Face"
(c) Siouxsie And The Banshees
Face to face -- my lovely foe
Mouth to mouth -- raining heaven's blows
Hand on heart -- tic tac toe
Under the stars -- naked as we flow
Cheek to cheek -- the bitter sweet
Commit your crime in your deadly time
It's too divine -- I want to bend
I want this bliss but something says I must resist
Another life -- another time
We're Siamese twins writhing intertwined
Face to face -- no telling lies
The masks they slide to reveal a new disguise
You never can win -- it's the state I'm in
This danger thrills and my conflict kills
They say follow your heart -- follow it through
But how can you -- when you're split in two?
And you'll never know
You'll never know
One more kiss -- before we die
Face to face -- and dream of flying
Who are you? -- who am I?
Wind in wings -- two angels falling
To die like this -- with a last kiss
It's falsehood's flame -- it's a crying shame
Face to face -- the passions breathe
I hate to stay but then I hate to leave
And you'll never know
You'll never know