George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham — The Three Musketeers

Mme. Bonacieux and Buckingham walk into the Louvre on a quiet lie. She is known as the queen's woman. He wears the uniform of Tréville's Musketeers, who are on guard that night. Germain is in the queen's interest. If they are caught, the blame will fall on a mercer's wife who brought in a lover. She accepts that cost. Inside the court she takes a servants' door, a dark stair, a long corridor, and locks him into a room lit by one lamp: remain here; someone will come.

He is not afraid. He already knows the letter that drew him to Paris was a snare, and he refused to leave without seeing Anne. Mme. Bonacieux's abduction froze the plan for two days; free again and in touch with Laporte, she has now brought him in. At thirty-five he dresses the hair his hat crushed, smiles at his own reflection, and waits. A hidden door in the tapestry opens. The queen stands there in white satin with Donna Estafania, the last Spanish woman still allowed near her.

He kisses the hem of her robe. She says she did not write, and she has come only to tell him they must never meet again: sea, kingdoms, and her vows all stand between them. He answers with the green-satin night at Amiens, the gardens, and the war he is building at Ré and La Rochelle so that peace will need him as negotiator. Thousands of men, he says, may pay with their lives for one more sight of her. She calls those proofs almost crimes. Then they share the same presentiment: a knife in the left side. She will not be perjured, but she will give him a pledge if he leaves France that instant. She returns with a rosewood casket marked with her cipher in gold. He kneels, kisses her hand, and swears that within six months, if he is not dead, he will have seen her again even if he has to overturn the world. Mme. Bonacieux is waiting in the corridor, and she leads him out of the Louvre by the same quiet path.