Blandford meets D'Artagnan: a sneak peak from book 3.

We marched into the middle of the room. D’Artagnan did not move as I pointed my pistol at him. Hugo stopped playing his tune, and the girls paused in their wanton jig. I noted, with a start, that one was Meg; her skirt around her waist showing off her legs and only barely concealing her buttocks now she had stopped shaking. Meg ushered the other girls out of the room. I waited for them to leave before dealing with Monsieur D’Artagnan. He was more presumptuous, speaking before Meg closed the door behind the punks.

‘Bonjour, Captain Candy. I have been expecting you. Would you care for a drink?’

I turned back to the French spy. He had a wide grin across his face.

‘You speak English?’ I said.

‘Apparently so, Monsieur. You speak French so very badly, that I feel ’tis the better tongue to converse in. Madeira?’

‘I speak French badly?’

‘And have a habit for stating the obvious.’

‘I state the obvious?’

‘And tend to repetition, Monsieur.’

I honestly did not know what to say. I stood silent, dumbfounded. I had expected him to run or to fight, not to offer me a glass of wine whilst taking lascivious glances at a woman I was... very fond of. I sat down and his tubby grey-haired manservant handed me a glass of sack. Madeira, my favourite. This damnable Frenchman was too clever-by-half. John and Sam kept their carbines on him. Meg came back in, with her skirts still hoisted, and D’Artagnan’s grin grew wider.

‘Are you looking at my legs, sirrah?’ Megan said, pulling her skirts down.

‘Non, Mademoiselle, I am above that...’

Megan actually blushed at the outrageous French swine, as if she had not been flaunting her undoubted charms at him mere moments before. He turned back to me once again before I could say anything, although I was still unsure what to say.

‘I surrender, Captain Candy.’

‘You are under arrest,’ I told him.

‘But I have already surrendered, so I cannot therefore be arrested.’

‘That be sophistry,’ I said, even more irritated.

There was something about this man; there is something about all French men: a latin temperament with a smug superiority that infuriates English reserve. Do not mistake me for Xenephon. French women are intoxicating and enchanting, ’tis the men that are difficult. The servant spoke to D’Artagnan as he topped up my glass of sack.

‘Avez-vous à les irriter, maître?’ (Do you have to irritate, Master?)

‘Oh, Planchet, you are une rabat-joie.’(a killjoy) The grin fell away from his face and he looked serious. ‘Take me to your uncle, Monsieur Candy. I have some information of interest to him, I think.’

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