cheerleaders, all tapping away into the night

Never before had Antoine pushed his horse to such speed.

No — that wasn't quite true. He had pushed Jacques like this one before — when leaving Grasse in his failed attempt to protect Laure from Druot's lust for murder.

Antoine almost faltered when he remembered the darkest time in his life, a time he seemed doomed to relive.

No, he thought to himself, whipping the reins to spur Jacques on. It will not happen again.

----

Being a fairly powerful man in Grasse, Antoine had little trouble demanding the world bend to his wishes when he decided that, so long as you were pregnant, you would leave neither the house nor his side and, therefore, he would not leave the house either.

Any business that might have called him away instead came to him. Men came to the house for meetings — even meetings of the town council were held in the drawing room — and anything that needed to be bought was either delivered or fetched by a servant.

One month before you were expected to give birth, however, Antoine received a summons he could not refuse: from King Louis himself, who was at his palace in Nice and inquiring into the failings of the police to properly investigate the crimes of Dominique Druot until it was too late.

Antoine hired guards, one at every entrance to the manor and two by your side constantly, to keep a vigilant watch day and night. He apologised, time and time again, for having to leave your side at such a time — and you assured him, time and time again, that you would be perfectly fine.

"I may be pregnant, mon cher, but I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself," you assured him as he fussed over you one last time before leaving. "With so many guards around, what do you think's going to happen? I can't even go to the lavatory anymore without someone following me in case somebody tries to climb in through the toilet."

"And if you were to fall from the toilet and nobody was around to help you?"

"I would simply help myself. Go, Antoine, and stop worrying! I'll still be here when you get back — we both will," you added, placing your hand over your burgeoning belly.

Antoine placed his hand over yours and smiled.

"Papa will be back soon, little one," he murmured to the baby in French. He hoped she might kick in response to his touch, but perhaps she was asleep. "You look after your mama now."

You laughed. "Antoine, go. You don't want to keep the King waiting."

Antoine nodded and kissed you on the forehead. "Stay safe, my love. I'll see you soon."

----

After a long meeting with the King over a very extravagent meal, Antoine retired to a bedroom in the palace which the King had granted him the use of overnight before travelling back to Grasse the next day. The bed was larger and softer than his own bed — which was already very large and very soft — yet Antoine struggled to sleep without your warmth next to him, and with only his worries to keep him company.

Just as the sun was beginning to rise, Antoine's broken sleep was interrupted by a loud knock at the door. He shuffled out of bed and crossed the room to open the door, where a servant handed him a note with a bow before leaving.

Antoine unfolded the note and held it up to the light of the rising sun that was seeping in through the window. He recognised your handwriting, though it was hurried and not as neat as usual.

Baby coming. Please come home.

Antoine dressed hurriedly, gave a servant a message to pass onto the King that he sent his humblest apologies that he would miss breakfast for his wife was giving birth, and was leading Jacques out of the stable within half an hour.

----

All you could do was sleep.

You had cried, you had screamed, you had hurled items across the room as if breaking a vase that cost Antoine more than he had paid for you would do anything at all.

Eventually, you had exhausted yourself. Physically, mentally, emotionally. So you slept.

You slept so deeply, that you didn't even dream. You just floated in heavy unconsciousness, the pain you felt numbed for now.

Somewhere past the safety of the nothingness in which you slept, you heard a sound. Breathing, strained — sobbing. Somebody was sobbing.

The sound grew louder, the cloud of nothing weighing you down getting gradually lighter. You didn't want it to go — you tried to sink back into sleep, but it melted away from you with no regard for what you wanted. Light — your eyes flickered open, blinking, squinting against the sunlight laying across you from the open window.

Bedroom. You were in your bedroom. Someone was still sobbing.

You blinked, and looked towards the source of the sobs — a figure knelt crumpled beside your bed, a man tall in stature but looking so small now, messy grey hair brushing against your arm as he sobbed into the bedsheet.

"Antoine?"

He looked up suddenly, red eyes wide with disbelief, face soaked with the tears that hadn't stained the bedsheet.

"[Y/n]…" your husband croaked, his usually soft voice raw and croaking as if he'd been shouting for many hours.

He sat up on his knees, hand reaching to cradle your face as if to check you were real.

"You're alive," Antoine breathed.

"Yes, I'm alive. Why wouldn't I be?"

"A messenger on the road… he told me…"

The words caught in his throat, too frightened to even speak them aloud, as if doing so would make his fear real.

You shook your head. "Not me." Your eyes began to sting before the words were even on your lips. "But the baby, she… oh, Antoine, I'm sorry —"

"Sorry?" Antoine repeated incredulously, eyes boring into yours. "You have nothing to be sorry for, mon cœur. It wasn't your fault…"

Tears were streaming down your face now as reality set in — the unavoidable truth that Antoine had bought you from your father for one thing, and you had failed.

"What good am I?"

"What good? [Y/n]… you are my wife. You are the best of women. You are all the good in the world."

"I couldn't — I can't —"

"Viens ici."

Antoine pushed himself up from his knees and sat beside you on the bed, pulling you into his arms.

You thought you had cried all your tears, but perhaps the deep sleep was only to replenish them. Perhaps it was seeing Antoine in despair, hearing his cries as he thought you dead, feeling his chest now breathing heavily as he tried to be strong as he held you tight. Whatever it was, your tears were back in full force, and Antoine held you through it all.

----

You buried your child in the garden, next to Laure — Antoine insisted on it.

Although the coffin was small, the gravestone was no smaller than those next to it.

Aurélie Richis

n. 3 mars 1769

d. 3 mars 1769

Notre bien-aimé.

Antoine stared down at the row of gravestones. Three now — three girls he had loved, and failed to protect. He hadn't found a doctor in time to save Thérèse from sickness — he hadn't hidden Laure well enough from Droit — and he hadn't ridden fast enough to even meet Aurélie before the umbilical cord wrapped around her tiny throat had stopped her breathing before it even began.

"I should have been here," Antoine muttered.

You slipped your hand into his, and almost immediately he felt more grounded.

"She was early. Too early… too small…"

"I should never have left your side."

"And say no to the King?"

Antoine's expression didn't change. He was devoutedly loyal to the Crown, but he showed no sign of devotion now. He had chosen the King over his own pregnant wife, and Aurélie had paid the price.

How long would it be until he failed to protect you? All it would take would be some sickness, some accident, some lunatic — and there would be a fourth gravestone in the garden.

You deserved a better fate than that. Anything would be better than being the latest in the list of Antoine Richis' failures, doomed to become nothing but fertiliser for the flowers beneath a weathered gravestone.

"You should go back to your father."

"…What?"

You stared up at him, frowning, thinking you must have misheard him.

"You should go home, back to England — marry someone else. Live the life you deserve, before you become…" Antoine gestured towards the gravestones.

"Who says I'll become this?"

"Every woman I have ever loved is lying in the ground beneath our feet," Antoine said bitterly.

"You didn't kill them, Antoine."

"No, but I failed them. It's only a matter of time before I fail you too."

"You think you did this? Thérèse was sick, Antoine. You're not a doctor, how could you have healed her? Laure was killed by a madman. Aurélie — if anyone killed her, it was me."

"No —"

"She came from my body with the cord around her neck. She turned around in my womb too much and was strangled. What part of that was anything to do with you?"

"If I'd been there —"

"Then nothing! The doctors were there and they could do nothing. She wasn't —"

You blinked the tears away uselessly.

"She was already dead, Antoine. I think she had been for a while."

Antoine tore his eyes away from the fresh gravestone and looked down at you. His eyes were hazy, distant, and heavy with pain.

"I can't do this again. I can't have a fourth grave."

You lifted your hand to his cheek, and Antoine leaned into your touch, the tension in his shoulders releasing ever so slightly, though they still carried the burden of his pain.

"You will not bury me, Antoine."

"You cannot be sure of that."

"And you cannot be sure that you will. The only thing we can be sure of is that one of us will bury the other, because I promise you, death is the only thing that could ever tear me from your side."

"[Y/n]…"

Antoine's eyes, heavy with the pain of loss and failure, bore into yours, as if trying to find some dishonesty within you, but he found none.

"Je t’aime de tout mon cœur," he murmured, voice so low you could hardly hear it, as if it were a secret only you and the graves at your feet could ever know.

"Tu es tout pour moi," you replied softly.

A small breeze blew over the ground beneath your feet, and the white petal of a carnation growing from Laure's grave fluttered upwards, carried by the breeze, until it came to rest on Antoine's shoulder.

You carefully took the delicate petal between your fingers and plucked it from his jacket.

"I think Laure's giving us her blessing."

Antoine glanced down at the petal. The knot in his brow relaxed, and the corners of his lips curled upwards in the first smile you'd seen on on his face since he had found you unconscious in bed.

"Perhaps she is."

He took the petal from you, and brought it to his lips to kiss it gently, before the breeze carried it away, swirling upwards into the sky until it was lost from sight.