Forever His (11 page)

A shower. Complete with her favorite herbal shampoo and silky conditioner and perfumed bath gel to wash away all the grit from hours of work after the wedding feast. And then a few minutes in her whirlpool. Just a few. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for that. And a fluffy cotton towel still hot from the towel-warming rack in her bathroom.

And, best of all, her own bed to slide into ... with its satiny-soft, five-hundred-thread-count sheets, her thick eiderdown comforter, her feather pillow ...

Celine moaned softly. God, she wanted to go
home
.

Her entire body ached, right down to her fingers and toes. And her back. She couldn’t stop worrying about whether the soreness in her lower back was really from the long hours on her feet ...

Or from the bullet fragment.

It might be a relief to be put out of her misery right about now, she thought with black humor. Even the most grueling step-aerobics class had never made her feel this wiped out.

All night she had done everything Yolande had asked, without one complaint. She had scrubbed platters and bowls and knives until her skin was raw from the harsh soap. She had helped move the trestle tables and benches against the walls, cleared the hall of dirty rushes, swept the floor clean, and washed it, using a bucket and brush and more of the strong soap until the stone gleamed.

Then she had gathered new rushes from a storage shed outside, untied the bundles, and spread them out with a sprinkling of herbs. They had made the place smell surprisingly good, as “meadow-fresh” as any room she had ever sprayed with potpourri-in-a-can.

As the evening wore on, the servants had gotten fed up with having to show her how to do every little thing. When darkness fell, she had been assigned to go from room to room lighting the oil lamps and candles that sat on stone sconces jutting out from the walls—but Celine didn’t have the most distant idea how to use the pieces of flint and steel they had handed her.

Her best effort had ended up sending the flint flying in one direction and the steel sailing in the other, bringing laughter even from poker-faced Yolande. The woman had finally relented and sent Celine around with a small torch. Her eyes still felt dry and bleary from all the smoke.

By midnight, when she thought she would surely be allowed to trudge to bed, she had instead been handed over to the cook, to assist in baking breads and meat pies for the next day.

At least she had been able to show some skill there. She hadn’t trained at the Cordon Bleu for nothing. She might not know her way around a cauldron, but she had run one of Chicago’s finest restaurants for a year and a half. She made a pastry crust to die for. All the newspaper reviewers had said so, before she closed her little bistro to pursue a career in modeling.

Celine rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position on the bed, groaning as a muscle in her leg cramped in protest. She rubbed at her calf, laughing to keep herself from crying. If all of this weren’t so awful, it would almost be funny. Like Cinderella in reverse. A rich princess transformed into a servant.

She had never realized until now just how much she was used to living a life of ease, to having people around to take care of life’s bothersome little chores.

People to take care of her.

At least there had been one positive note to the night’s ordeal: Gaston slept downstairs, in his own room, the one he had given up during the King’s stay. Celine slept in one of the small upstairs bedchambers. She hoped that the distance and her duties meant she wouldn’t be seeing much of her surly husband.

Even better, her room was just down the hall from the bedchamber Gaston had been using the night she arrived. As soon as she figured out how to return to her own time, her window of opportunity—as she had started to think of it—would be just a few steps away.

She pulled the heavy woolen blankets closer, sighing with equal parts hope and misery. The room was not uncomfortable, really. A fire blazed on the hearth, and the homespun cotton sheets felt almost soft against her bare skin.

When the cook had escorted her here, Celine had asked for something to wear to bed, but the woman’s incredulous look told Celine she had made yet another mistake. Medieval people, it seemed, slept in the buff. Too exhausted to debate it, unwilling to sleep in her grubby gown, she had stripped and kicked off her red slippers.

At that moment, an image from
The Wizard of Oz
had danced through her head: perhaps all she had to do was click the heels of her ruby slippers three times and say, “There’s no place like home.” The crazy thought left her laughing until her sides hurt.

Then she had tried it.

With a wry little smile at the memory, Celine curled up on one side, watching firelight lick at the dark stone walls. She murmured the words again, under her breath. “There’s no place like home.”

She whispered the phrase over and over, until her eyelids drifted closed and sleep finally claimed her.

***

It seemed as if only minutes had passed when Celine felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake, though when she opened one reluctant eye to a slit, she saw that the fire on the hearth had burned almost out. “No,” she groaned, rolling away and pulling a pillow over her head. “Please  ... have to ... sleep.”

The hand touched her again.

Tickling her bare shoulder this time.

A large, masculine hand.

“It is time to awaken, my lady wife,” a familiar voice rumbled. “Your many duties await you.”

Celine sat up with an exclamation of surprise—remembering too late that she had gone to bed naked. She gasped and grabbed the sheet to her chin, but not before Gaston, standing beside the bed, had gotten quite an eyeful. “What ... what ...” she sputtered. “What are you doing in my room?”

He smiled down at her, a slow, lazy grin, his gaze lingering on that part of her anatomy she had just concealed with the sheet. “You seem to be forever asking that question of me, Christiane. And my answer is ever the same: the room is mine. I own all that is in this castle.”

His eyes finally rose to meet hers. His quiet, firm voice and the way he had said “all” made her uneasy. The dying embers on the hearth cast his angular features in a faint golden glow. She couldn’t read the expression in his gaze. Celine shivered, and told herself it was because the room had become chilly. “I didn’t mean ... I ...”

Without warning, he sat down on the bed. She forced herself not to flinch away, though he looked particularly large at the moment, a dark presence dressed all in black, blending with the shadows of the room. He wore a tunic that fit him like a glove. The cloth sharply outlined the breadth of his chest and the massive size of his biceps. A second, sleeveless tunic, embroidered with his crest—a crouching lion—hung loosely over the first. A cloak lined with silver fur swept back from his brawny shoulders. It fastened with a heavy chain at his neck.

Celine found her gaze on that spot, his exposed throat: the smooth curve of bronzed skin over muscle, encircled by the chain links. Her own skin tingled, suddenly and unexpectedly, a little rain of sensation that ran from the nape of her neck right down to the soles of her feet. “I-I thought I wouldn’t be seeing you,” she blurted. “I mean ... you appointed Yolande and your squire to be in charge of my work.”

“It occurred to me that I should take a more personal interest in your duties.”

Celine didn’t like the sound of that. And she didn’t like the uncomfortable feelings coursing through her, the intense awareness of how vulnerable she was beneath the white sheet, the way her eyes were slowly drawn to his hands. They rested on the bed. On either side of her legs. He wore black leather gauntlets that matched his cloak. “I ... I only just ... I’ve only had a little sleep.”

She chastised herself immediately for saying that. She had promised herself she would stand up to whatever work he dished out to her. She wasn’t going to be the weak, wimpy female he seemed to expect.

“You may stay abed all day if you wish,” he said, leaning to one side, resting his weight on one elbow. The bed ropes creaked with his movement. “I imagine you must be sore after working through the night.”

Before she knew what he was doing, he had snagged the bottom of the sheet and pulled it up, exposing her bare legs to the knees.

“Wait a minute! What—” She tried to sit up, too late. He had already captured one of her feet in his gloved hands—and she couldn’t wriggle out of his grasp without exposing even more of her nakedness. She froze, her breath coming in short, sharp little puffs.

“
Ma dame
, I only wish to do what is best for you,” he said, all innocence.

His gauntlets were soft and warm, the leather worn smooth by years of use, his fingers incredibly strong as he started massaging her foot, his thumbs pressing into her sole with small, circular motions.

Celine bit her bottom lip to repress a little moan of pleasure. “P-please stop that,” she requested as calmly as possible.

He kept right on working over every knotted little muscle, rubbing and kneading with perfect, gentle pressure. “I would not be accused of mistreating you, Christiane. If you are too fatigued to work this day, you may sleep as long as you like.”

Celine couldn’t speak; she was too busy holding her breath, trying not to let him know how absolutely wonderful it felt to have him do what he was doing.

After a long, slow massage, he released that foot and shifted to the other. A small sound escaped her.

His gaze leaped to hers, that small grin playing about his mouth. “I could arrange for a bath as well,” he offered. “A large tub of hot, steaming water, here in your room. Would you like that?”

God, this wasn’t fair. He was using really underhanded tactics now.
And he had practically read her mind.
She released a slow breath, not trusting a word he said for one second, but not wanting to end his tender attention to her aching feet, either. “And all I have to do in return is...?” She already knew the answer.

He tilted his head to one side, sending a lock of dark hair tumbling over his forehead. The look was incongruously boyish for a powerfully built man dressed all in black. “It is simple, Christiane. All you need do is admit the truth. I will escort you to the King personally. Simply agree to speak to him, and you need never lift another finger here.”

Wrapping both arms around herself to hold the sheet in place, Celine sighed and managed to move her legs beyond his reach. “As I’ve told you before, and as I will probably tell you again,
I can’t possibly do that because I don’t know anything.
”

His gaze sharpened. He didn’t try to recapture her. “Christiane, do you not see by now that your stubbornness serves you ill? You will give in now, or you will give in later,” he said quietly, “but you
will
give in.”

Celine just stared at him in defiant silence. She wasn’t going to argue it with him. He wouldn’t believe her, she couldn’t convince him, and that was that. All she could do was face up to whatever annoyances he heaped on her until she managed to get out of here and go home.

“Very well.” He shook his head, looking almost genuinely regretful. “Then you’ve no time for sleep or a bath, my lady wife, for your duties await. But I would have you remember, this is your choice, not mine.”

“Fine.” She started to get out of bed.

He didn’t move.

She stopped, her cheeks warming. “Would you at least turn around, please?”

He remained where he was, half reclining on the bed, looking very much like the lion on his tunic: all casual power, poised and ready to pounce even as he relaxed. His smile looked a little hungry. “Do I cause you discomfort?” he asked softly.

Celine swallowed hard. He was at it again, using his sensual skills on her—not to seduce or persuade this time, but to intimidate. He thought she was an apprentice nun, a girl who had spent her whole life in a convent. He
wanted
to make her uncomfortable. Wanted to make her run from him like a frightened rabbit, so shocked by his behavior, so fearful of what he might do, that she would say anything to anyone to be free of him.

Well, she wasn’t going to be intimidated. She knew he had strong reasons to avoid consummating their marriage. He wasn’t going to touch her, and she wouldn’t be shocked by anything else he might do.

“No, monsieur, you do not,” she said lightly, remaining where she was. “I thought I might make
you
uncomfortable. I wouldn’t want to be accused of trying to seduce you again. Believe me, it’s the furthest thing from my mind.”

“Is it really?”

“Yes. So, if you would turn your back—”

“Trust me, little nun, I am not so taken with your charms that a single glance will set me ablaze.”

“Fine. As long as you remember that this is your choice, not mine.” Celine finally let go of her white-fingered grip on the sheet and got out of bed, turning her back on him.

She hoped he couldn’t see her blushing in the low firelight; she could feel a wash of color chasing down her body, all the way from her cheeks to her belly.

Moving quickly—but trying not to
look
as if she were moving quickly—she picked up her yellow velvet gown from where she had tossed it last night and pulled it over her head. She did her best to appear casual, as if she got dressed in front of a strange man every day.

Her hands felt awkward as she wrestled with the dress. Her clumsiness was caused by last night’s dish-washing, she told herself, not by her silent male audience. She tried to fit into the too-snug gown, but getting it over her bust and hips required a bit of wriggling, which only made her blush all the more furiously.

The entire time, she was intensely aware of Gaston’s gaze on her back, tracing over every bare inch of her. Damn the man, anyway. He was enjoying this. It only made her that much more determined to ignore him.

“How did you come to have the scar on your back?”

Celine flinched, froze, then continued dressing. “You wouldn’t believe the truth if I told you.” She finally had the gown on, and laced it up the back, at least most of the way. She sure as heck wasn’t going to ask for help.