The Countess de Winter — The Three Musketeers

Buckingham rides D'Artagnan into London without slowing for anyone he knocks down. In a hidden chapel he opens the casket of diamond studs under Anne of Austria's portrait, then cries out: two of the twelve are gone, and the ribbons have been cut with scissors. He names the thief at once. The Comtesse de Winter made peace with him at a Windsor ball eight days earlier. He now reads that peace as the work of a jealous woman who serves the cardinal. The Paris ball is still five days off. That is enough time if the stolen stones can be stopped at sea.

He writes orders with his own hand and sends his secretary to the Lord Chancellor: no vessel may leave any British port. If the king asks why, the answer is to be that Buckingham has chosen war, and the embargo is his first act against France. Then he locks the Irish goldsmith O'Reilly inside the palace with a sentinel at each door, pays three thousand pistoles apiece for two matching studs in two days, and adds a thousand more so the man will not complain. D'Artagnan watches a minister spend a kingdom to repair a love token.

When the copies are finished, Buckingham keeps the empty casket and offers payment. D'Artagnan refuses English gold. He came for the queen, and for a woman he will not name, not for the duke. He takes only the password Forward, a chain of fresh horses, and a brig to St. Valery. Passing the waiting ships he thinks he sees the woman of Meung, the one called Milady. By nine the next night he has ridden nearly sixty leagues into Tréville's yard. Tréville presses his hand and sends him straight to duty at the Louvre.