Forever His (12 page)

“You have lived all your life in a convent.” He persisted. “How did you come to be injured? An accident of some sort?”

“Yes, you could say that. An accident. Nothing that need concern you.”

“I am not concerned, little wife,” he replied quickly. “Merely curious.”

Putting on her red slippers, Celine turned around, her chin raised a notch. Gaston hadn’t moved an inch. He was still draped across the bed. That grin—she was starting to find it arrogant—still teased at his mouth.

But his body had gone taut, tense, utterly still.

And his eyes ...

His dark eyes held that
potent
look again. As if he were made all of flame, as if anything that chanced to touch him would be burned to a cinder.

Celine’s knees felt weak. She barely managed to remain standing.

She supposed she had realized what was happening to her, at some point, she wasn’t sure when: all these funny tingles, the flutters in her stomach, the way she blushed at the drop of a hat, the unsettling warmth that melted through her at one brush of his fingers. Much as she hated to admit it, she was attracted to her macho medieval husband on some deep level that was beyond her power to control.

But she hadn’t believed that she affected him in the same way, until now.

Until she saw it etched so clearly in the way he held himself. Saw it blazing so fiercely in his eyes.

It all lasted only a breathless second before he relaxed, the heat vanishing beneath cool control. He stood up, moving silently and easily as he picked up something from the floor beside him. Another cloak. He must have carried it in with him.

“You will need this,” he said in a low tone that played over her nerves. “Today you work outside.”

That snapped Celine out of her daze.
Outside? In this weather?
Forcibly suppressing a groan, she squared her shoulders and tried to take the cloak from his hands.

Instead he took a half step around her and settled it over her shoulders himself. When he fastened the silver chain beneath her chin, the back of his hand brushed the sensitive skin under her jaw. She shivered.

“Are you cold already,
ma dame?
” he whispered teasingly. “You may change your mind at any time.” He lowered his cheek to hers. “Save yourself from me.”

“That, monsieur, I can’t do.”

He chuckled, low and confident. “Then follow me.”

***

The first hint of dawn faintly lit the eastern sky as Celine followed her tall, dark, and irksome escort out of the castle. Her muscles ached with every step, and her breath formed a frosty puff of white as she yawned.

Even though she had been outside briefly last night, gathering rushes, it still made her feel disoriented to see how different everything looked. In her time, there had been floodlights, garages, ornate little gardens, walkways, paved drives; now nothing but snow and a scattering of hand-hewn buildings of various sizes loomed out of the darkness.

Even the air felt different.
Tasted
different. Clearer. Colder. Every time she inhaled, the sharp bite of it filled her lungs. It almost made her dizzy, as if it contained too much oxygen or something. Even when she had gone skiing with her cousins at Chamonix or Val d’Isere, she had never breathed air this clean. It was a far cry from the diesel-and-lead-flavored stuff she was used to in Chicago.

All right, score one for the Middle Ages
, she thought grudgingly.

Huddling deeper into her cloak, she trudged after Gaston. She didn’t comment on the fact that she hadn’t been offered any breakfast. She could hold out until lunch, for one of the meat pies she had slaved over last night.

Meanwhile, she wasn’t going to show any weakness. She wouldn’t give this big hunk of obstinate male striding in front of her the satisfaction. She couldn’t do what he kept demanding, and the sooner he realized that, the better. Maybe when he figured out that turning her into Cinderella in reverse was
not
going to get him the confession he wanted, he would give it up.

He led her to one of the large huts that hugged the inside of the massive stone wall. It was a sturdy-looking structure, with a thatched roof, wooden walls, and a little fenced yard attached. Etienne waited in front of it, watching while a pair of small boys herded a flock of chickens and fat geese into the open-air pen.

The squire smiled as they approached, bowing. “
Bonjour
, milord. And to you, mila—” The greeting hung unfinished as he looked at Gaston uncertainly.

“You may call her milady,” Gaston said. “She is, after all, my wife”—he turned to Celine with a cool smile—“for the moment.” He gestured to the inside of the hut. “There you are, wife. You may begin your work.”

“Work?” Celine echoed, peering into the dark, malodorous little building with a sinking feeling. There were rows of wooden benches built into the walls on all four sides, floor to ceiling, covered with nests. The smell of the place was so strong it made her eyes sting.

“The interior requires a thorough cleaning and the nests need to be replaced with new ones. When you are finished here, there are the dovecotes and falcons’ mews to attend to.”

Celine felt ill. It would take all day. If she didn’t faint from the smell first. Or get frostbite before she ever finished. Her feet were already numb. She rounded on Gaston. “This time, monsieur, you’ve gone too far.”

“I am sparing you the kennels and stables,” he said magnanimously, leaning on the wooden rail fence. “And you may accept this task or not, as you please. The choice is entirely yours.”

Celine clenched her fists within the folds of her cloak, watching the chickens and geese scramble about, squawking and flapping their wings. The closest she had ever been to a goose at home was the down in her pillows. “I’m
not
in on any plot against you. I wish you would believe—”

“Do not be so quick to be stubborn. You will never manage this, little nun. You know you will not. And I can think of many more duties whenever you finish here. You will not outlast me, Christiane.”

Gritting her teeth in frustration, Celine bestowed a silent, unflinching glare on him. Damn the man!

“Say the words,” Gaston prodded. “You want to say them as much as I want to hear them. Such simple words, Christiane: ‘I wish to tell the truth.’ Say them to me and free yourself.”

Celine gathered her cloak more tightly around her and turned to Etienne. “What do I have to do first?”

“The old straw must be cleaned out, milady.” He ducked into the shed and came back with a small, ineffective-looking pitchfork, which he handed to her with an unhappy expression.

Gripping the tool tightly in her bare hand, Celine turned to Gaston. “You’ll have to excuse me, monsieur. I’m burning daylight.”

She turned on her heel and stalked into the dark shed.

The overpowering odor smothered her senses. She tried not to inhale too deeply. Behind her, she could hear Gaston chuckling at her strange comment. She didn’t care if he understood it or not.

He walked away, his boots crunching in the snow. “Watch her well, Etienne, and when she is done”—he raised his voice, for her benefit, no doubt—“take her inside to Yolande. I will leave instructions for further duties.”

Celine felt her resolve flagging already. Left with no target for her righteous indignation, she could feel the full force of total exhaustion pressing down on her. She couldn’t have had more than an hour’s sleep. The thought of just curling up in a snowbank and falling unconscious was tempting.

Instead, her stomach growling, her strained muscles stiff and sore, she gripped the rough wooden handle in her dishwater-raw hands, stabbed a forkful of hay, and tossed it aside.

“That man is the most
arrogant
”—she skewered another forkful—“
insufferable
”—she picked up the pace—“pigheaded ... insensitive ... underhanded ... overbearing ... annoying ... tyrannical ...”

It took several minutes for her to run out of adjectives.

She set the pitchfork aside, breathing hard from the brief exertion. To her surprise, she had already cleared a respectable amount of hay. And she felt a little better. Smiling with satisfaction, she wiped away the perspiration beading her forehead. She couldn’t outlast him? Ha!

Etienne peeked into the hut during the momentary silence. “Milady?” he asked a bit timidly. “Is there aught I can do to help?”

“I don’t think your lord would like that, Etienne.”

“I do not think he means to make you suffer,” he said with staunch loyalty. “Sir Gaston treats all women with great care. He is always most chivalrous.”

“Chivalrous?” Celine stopped in her hay-pitching, looking pointedly around the reeking hut, then back at the lanky teenager. “I think we can safely say that isn’t true.”

“He would not do this if you would agree to what he asks.”

“I can’t give the King information that I don’t have,” she said wearily, tired of repeating that. “I can’t explain why, but no matter what Gaston does to me, I will never be able to tell him about Tourelle’s plan. It’s impossible.”

Etienne went a little pale. “Then I fear for you, milady.”

Celine stopped her work again and straightened, a tiny tremor going through her. First the King with his warning—now Gaston’s own squire. Why did everyone seem convinced he might do some sort of harm to her? “Etienne, he wouldn’t actually ... I mean, if he’s as chivalrous as you say, he would never ...”

“In this situation, I cannot say,” Etienne said ominously.

Celine tried to convince herself that Etienne was saying that on purpose, to make her afraid of Gaston so she would give in and confess. But a lump settled in the pit of her stomach.

“Why, Etienne?
Why
does he hate me so much?”

“Because of what happened to his father and brother,” Etienne supplied matter-of-factly.

Celine shook her head, not understanding. “What happened?”

“Everyone knows.”

“
I
don’t.”

He peered at her with a look of surprise and suspicion.

“Etienne, if it’s such common knowledge, there’s no harm in telling me, is there?”

“You truly do not know?” he asked warily. “You were never told?”

“No. I don’t know about anything that happened before I arrived here on New Year’s Eve.”

He considered that for a moment. “Mayhap it is as everyone has been saying—your caravan was attacked in the forest and you lost your memory due to a blow to the head.”

“Perhaps. I have no memory of what happened, in the forest or before.” That was true enough. “Please, Etienne—remind me?”

He brightened a bit. “Mayhap the truth will persuade you to change your mind about your stubbornness, and spare you from this onerous work. Very well, milady, I will tell you. Milord’s father and brother were killed last autumn, during a tournament with your overlord, the Duc de la Tourelle. Sir Gaston believes it was murder.”

Celine gasped, unable to speak for a moment. His father and brother
murdered
. “But ... why would he believe it was murder?” she asked, confused. “What if it was just an accident? Weren’t there people there to see it?” She thought of all the movies she had ever seen, of knights in bright armor charging one another on opposite sides of a fence, with ladies and nobles watching from nearby pavilions with colorful pennants.

Etienne looked at her strangely. “No, of course not. It was a
tournament
, milady. Not a joust.”

She mirrored his uncomprehending look. “Perhaps you had better explain to me what that means, Etienne. I ... uh ... can’t seem to remember.”

“A tourney is much like a battle,” he said impatiently, as if even a child should know. “Two teams of knights fight for days, over a field many miles wide, even through towns and forests. The knights seek to win prizes and ransoms and fame for their battle prowess—but it is not unknown for men to be badly wounded or even killed. The Church condemns it as a most un-Christian sport.”

Celine gaped at him. That sounded nothing like the festive events she had always seen in movies. “So ... that’s how Gaston’s father and brother were killed? In this mock battle?”

“Nay, milady. Their bodies were not discovered until the tourney was over—” He stopped suddenly, as if unsure he should be revealing such details. “The circumstances were ... suspicious. Especially as the Duc was the one who had issued the challenge to tourney, and made immediate claim on their castles and lands when their bodies were found. I fear that if milord had been there as well, he would have—”

“But why
wasn’t
Gaston there?”

Etienne paused, glancing at the ground. “That is unimportant, milady—I must tell you the rest of what happened.” He raised his head, eyes suddenly blazing. “Tourelle acted as if the spoils were already his to claim. He ravaged the Varennes lands, ordered his men to ransack the villages, to take all the food and valuables they came upon. And Tourelle himself ... some of the villagers’ wives and daughters ...” He hesitated, turning red.

“They were raped?” Celine whispered.

He nodded. “Tourelle and some among his knights used them most brutally. That, Sir Gaston will not let go unpunished. He is not like most noblemen—he cannot abide the abuse of
any
women, no matter their rank.” The young man folded his arms over his chest, a muscle flexing in his jaw. “And there is more, milady. Mayhap you wondered why your wedding feast was so meager. It is because milord gave away a great deal of his winter food stores—much more than he could spare—to the peasants living near his father’s and brother’s chateaux, because theirs was taken. So do you see, milady? If you did not know any of this, if Tourelle kept it all from you, do you see now the sort of man he is? Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Celine whispered. She understood a great deal. She felt her empty stomach churning with repugnance for this man she had never met: a powerful
duc
who would steal, murder, brutalize defenseless women, use force against those weaker than himself.

She understood, too, why Gaston hated Tourelle so much.

Why be hated
her
so much.

And she realized with a numbing sense of defeat that he would
never
trust her. Never believe she was from seven hundred years in the future. No matter what she said. He would think her wild story was all part of some plot to kill him.