Forever His (20 page)

“Try counting to two with me. One.” He inhaled. “Two.” He let out the breath slowly.

She tried to do it along with him. All she managed was a bit more of a gasp than before.

“Good. Keep breathing, Christiane. To four this time. One ... two ...” He inhaled. “Three ... four.” He exhaled.

This time she did it.

“Excellent. But let it out more slowly. Try doubling the count when you exhale.”

“This ... isn’t helping,” she said in a shaky voice.

A grin quirked at the corner of his mouth. It obviously
was
helping, since she had managed a complete sentence. “You are most impatient, even for a female. Try it again, with me. To four this time.” He counted for her as they inhaled together. “One ... two ... three ... four.”

He soon had her breathing in rhythm with him: in to the count of four and out to eight, then in to eight and out to sixteen, and before she could argue with him any further, she had started to relax. He could feel her heart slowing to a more normal pace.

“Good ... keep breathing ... relax ... naught will harm you ... be peaceful ...”  He kept it up until calm seemed to restore a bit of her strength.

“You know,” she said after several moments, “I think I ... am starting to feel ... a little better. How did you ... l-learn to do that?”

“In the East, during my mercenary days.” He set her away from him again, still holding her by the arms to support her. “Are you all right?” She was shivering badly, and her teeth were chattering, but she had some color back in her cheeks.

“Yes. Thank you for ... for rescuing me. I didn’t know it was y-you behind me. I thought.... you were a bear.”

Now that she was safe, some of Gaston’s anger returned. “God’s breath, woman, do you not have the sense you were born with? Did you not hear me calling your name?”

“Well, why d-didn’t you ... let me k-know
before
that you were f-following me?” she demanded through chattering teeth. “H-how did ... you find me?”

“A blind man could have tracked you. You made little enough effort to conceal your trail. Did you think you could meet with Tourelle and I would not notice? When he chose you to carry out his plans, Christiane, he made the worst mistake of his life.”

“T-Tourelle?” she spluttered. “You think that’s what I ...” She shoved at him, as if realizing only then that he was still holding on to her. “Let me go. Get away from me.”

“Indeed, I shall. As soon as possible.” But instead of doing as she asked, he scooped her into his arms and stood up, striding toward the steep knoll. “But first I mean to make sure you do not catch your death of cold.” She was shivering badly, and it was getting worse with every second she spent in her wet garments.

“Put me down. I am fed up with your accusations!” she cried, pushing at his chest and being generally unhelpful as he carried her up the slippery incline. “I’m tired of trying to pretend to be what I’m not! I’ve had enough of this! You want the truth, you can have it, buster. Do you hear me?
I wish to tell the truth!
”

When they reached the top of the hill, Gaston set her on her feet, breathing heavily, more from exasperation than exertion.

He could not believe she would give in now after having been so stubborn for so long. “Very well, then, tell me. Where is Tourelle? Why did you go to meet with the mystic woman? What have she and the child to do with all of this?”

“Absolutely nothing. My being out here has
nothing
to do with you or Tourelle. If you really want the truth, here it is.” She faced him with clenched fists, her entire body trembling with cold. “I am not Christiane. My name is Celine Fontaine, I’m from the year 1993, and that woman was trying to help me get back to my own time.”

For a moment, Gaston just stared at her in stupefaction.

Then he threw up his hands with a laugh. “God’s breath, woman, if you are going to lie, can you not devise a new tale? Do you truly think I am going to believe such madness?”

“It’s the truth! I’ve even thought of something else that might convince you. Look! Look at this.” She took a step toward him and opened her mouth, pointing to bits of silver in her teeth. “Have you ever seen someone with
fillings
in their teeth before? And that scar on my back that you noticed before—it’s a bullet wound. A
bullet
. A small piece of metal, shot from a weapon called a
gun
. How can you possibly explain that?”

“As you said before, the scar is from an injury suffered in an accident. And mayhap your convent in Aragon has strange customs such as painting the teeth with silver. Religious orders are known for eccentric behavior—”

“
But that’s not it!
I’m from the
future!
You’ve got to believe me!”

He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a cynical smile. “Your teeth and your scar tell me naught, milady. Is there aught else you would show me to convince me?” His gaze lowered suggestively to the fabric clinging wetly to her breasts. “I believe I prefer the persuasive methods you tried before.”

She gave him a furious glare. “Is everything
sex
with you? Please
try
and listen to me for one second. I’m telling you the truth! An eclipse of the moon caused a ripple in time that pulled me from my family’s chateau and landed me here on New Year’s Eve. That’s how I ended up in your room.
I’m from 1993
. That’s why I have a strange accent. That’s why I have short hair. That’s why I didn’t understand any of the medieval servant-things you wanted me to do. That’s why I was able to make all the different foods and ‘strange devices’ for your people. What do I have to do to convince you?”

Gaston turned on his heel and started to walk away. “The cold water has addled your brain, Christiane. Strip out of those wet clothes.”

“What?”

He whirled on her, eyes piercing. “You heard me,
ma dame
. Even riding Pharaon, we will not be able to return to the castle for hours—and you will catch your death in this freezing air long before then. I will at least have you warm and dry before we begin the journey back.”

“But what about what I’ve just been
telling
you? You aren’t listening. You’ve got to believe—”

“I will never believe such insane lies. If you insist on your stubborn loyalty to Tourelle, you will at least spare me the feigned madness. Disrobe before you freeze to death.”

“Damn you!” she shouted back. “What would you care if I
did
die? You’d probably celebrate. You’d be free of your unwanted wife. You don’t care half a damn what happens to me.”

Gaston was suddenly shaking, not with cold, but with helpless rage at the knowledge that her accusation was utterly untrue. The idea of anything happening to his beautiful, spirited, headstrong ... wife ... Sweet Jesus, the way his heart had nearly stopped when she had tumbled over the edge of that knoll ....

“Nay,
wife
, I do not care,” he snapped. “But unfortunately for me, the King does. If aught ill befalls you, I will forfeit all I own, and you are not worth that price.” He turned on his heel again, tossing back a single growled word: “
Disrobe
.”

G
aston stalked off through the trees, muttering oaths under his breath, cursing himself, his wife, Tourelle, the King, everyone responsible for placing him in this impossible situation. A situation that was getting worse by the moment.

From the future
, she claimed. The
moon
had caused a ripple in time. What madness!

He would like naught better than to haul his lying little wife straight back to the castle, toss her into the dungeon on her shapely derriere, and let her stay there until she decided to tell the truth—the
real
truth about what she was doing out here in the forest and where Tourelle was hiding.

But he could not do that. If she fell ill because of her reckless river escapade tonight, he would be blamed. And the King would happily feed him to his royal hounds. In small pieces.

He had to at least get her warm and dry before the two of them took to the road, though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

Being near her, being alone with her, he had decided, was what made these intolerable, unwanted
feelings
creep over him. The more time he spent with her, the tighter they seemed to twine around him: a vexing melee of desire, concern for her safety, grudging admiration for her tenacity and strength of will, and an attraction beyond any he had ever felt.

God’s breath, he had to get this woman out of his life. As quickly as possible.

Making his way through the darkness to the road, he found Pharaon where he had left him. The destrier had been trained not to move once the reins were on the ground. Gaston snatched them up and led the stallion into the forest thickets.

“Females! Naught but scheming, untrustworthy, unmanageable little bundles of trouble,” he complained, grateful for an audience that did not argue with his opinion. “Especially beautiful, intelligent,
reckless
females.”

When he returned to the place where he had left Christiane, she was still dressed in her wet garments, still standing in the same spot—and shivering so badly in the wintry breeze, she could barely stand.

“By nails and blood, woman, must you disobey
every
order I give you?” He dropped Pharaon’s reins and stalked toward her. “If you refuse to follow this particular command, I will assist—”

“You’re going to believe me eventually,” she said, backing away from him as he advanced, her eyes bright with sparks of defiance. “I’m telling you the truth. I’m from the future. When the
real
Christiane shows up, you’ll have to believe me—”

“And when, pray, might that be?”

“Any day now, I’m sure, now that the roads are clearer.”

“So you
do
know where Tourelle is,” he accused.

“No, I don’t! I don’t know anything about him. I don’t even know what he looks like. But I know that whenever the real Christiane gets here, you’ll be eating your words.
That
I can’t wait to see. You need a few humbling experiences in your life—”

Her back came up against a tree trunk and she seemed to forget the rest of her speech. He stopped with less than an inch between their bodies and planted a hand on either side of her head.

“Mayhap, milady, I shall be humbled someday as you predict. But at the moment, I intend to make certain you are still alive to verify that I have not mistreated you, when Tourelle is found. You will take off those wet clothes,
ma dame
.”

“I’ll ... I’ll bet that ... when the real Christiane shows up,” she said in a small but insistent voice, “you’ll find out that she’s not even involved in any plot. She’s probably completely innocent. She is my ancestor, after all. We Fontaines have always been known for honesty and fortitude. She’s probably just a helpless girl caught up in a stupid battle between two men—”

He started to unfasten her cloak.

“Wait!” She reached up to stop him. “I can do that.”

Her hand covered his and he felt the contact strike deep and sudden, blazing through him like a blow from a hot blade. He did not say a word. His gaze locked on hers, he stood as still as one of the massive oaks around them, his fingers resting at the hollow of her throat.

“Then see that you do,” he said at last.

Shoving himself away from her, he stalked off into the black night, drew his sword, and hacked a few low-hanging branches from nearby trees. Stripping the dead leaves, he added them to what dry kindling he could find.

He kept his back to her, but no matter how hard he tried to ignore her, to distract himself, he was keenly aware of her every movement, every intimate sound she made as she peeled the wet garments from her body in the darkness.

First she slid her cloak from her shoulders. Then she kicked off her boots. Then—he swallowed hard—she pulled her tunic over her head, voicing a shivery little gasp. He imagined it must be from the shock of the cold air against her damp, nude breasts.

He shut his eyes, gripped the hilt of his sword with painful force, tried to shut out the vivid picture of her rosy nipples pinched to taut peaks by the touch of the breeze.

Then he heard her remove her leggings. He could almost
feel
them clinging to every curve of her hip and thigh, knee and ankle, as she wrestled them off.

His mouth felt dry. At that moment a battle began, there in the forest in the midst of the snowy winter night. A war against the most challenging adversary he had ever faced, fought not with cold steel and brute force, but with hot passions and ungentle desires.

And the enemy was himself.

A pool of heat settled low in his belly, a searing ache that tortured him. Yet he knew that the gathering storm of longings must
never
be allowed to break free.

It was, he thought cynically, as if he were being punished for a lifetime of pleasurable indulgence. Of all the women he had ever known, wanted, bedded ... the one he desired most, with a hunger beyond all hunger, the one who truly belonged to him by rule of Church and King, was
forbidden
to him.

Forcing himself to move, he concentrated on building a fire, his every move sharp and taut with the growing tension within him. He had a blaze burning in a matter of minutes, flames leaping into the night.

Spreading a ground covering of evergreen branches beside it, he made a soft, dry place for her to sit. Then he removed Pharaon’s saddle and the padded woolen square beneath, placing the wool atop the evergreens and adjusting the saddle so she could use it as a backrest.

When he had finished all this, he finally, slowly, turned to look at his wife.

Standing just beyond the edge of the firelight, she trembled like spring’s first flower in the winter wind, her sodden clothes clasped against her, her expression one of pure misery.

It softened something inside him, seeing her so vulnerable. “Come here, Christiane,” he said quietly, holding out his hand.

“My name is Celine.”

“I am not going to argue your lies any further.”