Lady Blanche had come to see Renée, and was not at all happy to see Arsene. To the point of slapping him. As she poured out every offence he had committed against her family, a litany ranging from grave robbing to leaving her to pay a large bill, the other two found themselves rather shocked to discover just what depths Arsene had sunk to before becoming a musketeer. Katerina joined in with slapping him in the face. Renée made profuse apologies to Lady Blanche, but refused her offer of forgiveness if she agreed to stop associating with Arsene.
Finally the fight was defused to the point where Lady Blanche was willing to have the conversation she'd come for. She was quite convinced that Monique was the one who'd betrayed her to the Cardinal. Renée did not think her capable of such a thing. A plan was hatched, with the aim of both discrediting the Cardinal and determining Monique's loyalty. Arsene would tell the Cardinal that messages were being passed inside clocks made by a certain favourite clockmaker of the Queens by the name of Renault. Katerina would tell Monique that a planned meeting was to take place at a tannery rather than the intended location. If the Cardinal's forces showed up there, they would know that Monique could not be trusted.
Katerina and Arsene left the room, while Renée stayed behind to talk with Lady Blanche. She defending her association with Arsene. The motto of one for all and all for one meant too much to her for her to turn her back on her friend. Lady Blanche had a job for her. What was it? Something to do with talking to the Queen to explain things? But all Renée could think of was Lady Blanche's beautiful eyes.
Katerina had been intending to wait for Renée to join her, as for some reason she didn't seem to want Katerina to talk to Monique alone, but soon became aware that she was taking rather a long time over things. She listened at the door, and then found a gap where she could sneak a look into the room. She was on the point of ripping the door open to join them when Arsene intervened. She should let Renée have her moment.
Katerina's response was to turn her attentions to Arsene instead, dragging him off into another room. However, he insisted very strongly on keeping his trousers on, firmly stating his complete lack of interest in any such activities, and ultimately Katerina was left alone and disappointed while Arsene left to talk to the Cardinal.
While Arsene made a convincing case for investigating the clockmaker to the Cardinal, with the additional detail of Renée and Blanche being an item, Renée finally emerged from her lodgings in a fresh pair of trousers to find Katerina sitting morosely on the stairs with a bottle of wine. They went together to visit Monique, and had no trouble convincing her of the story about the meeting at the tannery. She also wanted a word with Renée alone. It seemed she had a bit of a thing for Katerina, and wanted to know if Renée thought Katerina would ever consider settling down.
Arsene went home after visiting the Cardinal, and found Adrian there. He had a job for the Cardinal that he thought Arsene might like to join in with: relocating some aristocrat to be under the control of the Cardinal. Arsene decided to go along with it, knowing that he'd be in just the right place to make sure Lady Blanche was safe if she did turn out to be the target.
As Arsene arrived at the house, he was being watched. Monique had gone to look for Lady Blanche after meeting with Katerina and Renée, and was watching him as he arrived, immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusion. But she was also being watched, by the mysterious hooded lady who had paid Katerina's bar bill. Who in turn was being watched by Katerina.
Monique went running in after Arsene. Katerina and Renée followed her in, counting on their flair for dramatic entrances to disrupt any trouble. And trouble there was, with Arsene fighting Adrian, the thugs attacking Monique, and Lady Blanche attempting to escape out of a window. But none of them were a match for the three musketeers working together, and soon the thugs were taken out and Monique was safe once more.
Lady Blanche, however, had made it out of the window, and into the arms of the mysterious hooded lady, with whom she was rapidly departing.
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