Forever His (9 page)

“I am not a wench, and I wish you would stop calling me that. And yes, I miss my home,” Celine replied tartly. After a heartbeat, she added under her breath, “And as for my being impoverished, my father is one of the most renowned and wealthy heart surgeons in the world, and he flies—”

“Your father
flies?
” Gaston laughed so hard he almost choked on his wine. “
Ma dame
, your father died years ago, without a sou to his name. And never have I heard of him working as a barber-surgeon. Or having wings.”

Celine bit her bottom lip. She would have to be careful not to let pride run away with her. If she couldn’t keep her temper from getting tangled up with her tongue, she would find herself the newest resident of the nearest asylum. She was supposed to be trying to fit in. She was supposed to be Christiane—an innocent young thing who had spent her entire life sheltered behind the walls of a poor convent. “I ... I meant—”

“If only you had inherited his gift of flight,” Gaston said dryly, slouching lower in his seat. “There is naught I would like better than for you to fly away and be gone.”

Celine was uncomfortably aware that the dozens of guests in the hall were hanging on their every word. “Please believe me, monsieur, that’s exactly what I want, too. I’d like nothing better than to go
home
. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re stuck with one another, for now.”

Gaston leaned forward in his chair, slowly lowering his goblet to the table. He looked at her with a curious expression, eyes glittering. “If you truly mean what you say, there is no need for us to be ‘stuck with’ one another at all. All you need do is go to the King and reveal whatever it is Tourelle is planning. You can be home within the month.”

Celine looked away. “I can’t explain anything to the King. Not for the reasons you think—I just can’t. You’ve got to believe me. I’d get out of your life right this second if I could. Really. I’m
not
in on any plot against you.”

“You are not?” His voice dropped a note lower. “
Ma dame
, mayhap I have misjudged you. Mayhap you have been forced into this against your will.”

Celine turned toward him. His face was only inches from hers, his expression one of seeming misgiving and gentleness that made her stomach feel all fluttery—even as she told herself she couldn’t trust him. “Yes, actually, in a way I was.”

He smiled, a low-beam version of his knee-weakening dazzler. “Then, if you do not wish to be here, you would agree to help me obtain an annulment?”

Celine almost said yes—then stopped herself. If she agreed to that, she would no doubt be sent packing in the wink of one of his dusky lashes. She would find herself alone and vulnerable in a world she knew nothing about. For now, Gaston was her only protection. “I’m ... I’m not sure that would be—”

“Come,
ma petite
,” he coaxed. “Do not allow loyalty to Tourelle to sway you. Your faith in your overlord is misplaced. Have you forgotten so quickly the lessons learned in your convent? It is not always easy to choose good over the temptations of evil—but you
know
the right course to choose in this: admit the truth before the King.”

Celine’s heart beat unevenly. There was something unnerving about hearing him say the word “temptations.” And it seemed ironic, to say the least, for a man who looked darker and more dangerous than the Devil himself to be offering her a lecture on good and evil. “I ... I can’t.”

He leaned closer, his voice as persuasive as it had been last night in his bedchamber. “Has Tourelle threatened you in some way? Do you fear him? I will protect you, Christiane. I will escort you home to your convent personally and see that you are well guarded. With our marriage annulled, you will be free to take your vows and join the cloister. Is that not what you wish?”

She turned away, unable to withstand the urgency in his gaze. “You don’t understand.”

“Nay,
chérie
, I do not. I do not understand why you would be so stubborn when it is within your power to end this with but a few words.” He reached out and gently placed a finger beneath her chin, turning her face toward him. “Stand with me before the King and admit what scheme Tourelle intends. It is best for us both. Our liege will forgive you your part in this.
I
will forgive you. You will be safe.”

Safe?
Celine could hardly steal a breath, feeling the warmth of his touch, the contrast of his rough, callused finger against her skin that had been softened by years of pampering and expensive facials. His eyes held hers, and Celine felt herself falling deep and then deeper still into those hot, lavish-lashed pools of darkness. Danger and drowning waited within, yet tempted and compelled at the same time. “Gaston,” she whispered, “please don’t ask me to—”

“Has he promised you some boon for your part in this?” he replied, leaning even closer, his breath warm against her mouth. “Jewels? Wealth? Is that what you seek, rather than life in a convent? I will double whatever he has offered. Do what is
right
and you will want for naught.”

He was so urgent, so persuasive, Celine almost wished she could do what he asked of her. She clenched her fists in frustration against the worn velvet of her gown. It was impossible. She couldn’t explain Tourelle’s plot to the King. She had never even met this supposed “overlord” of hers. Even if she tried to make something up, it wouldn’t sound plausible.

And if her marriage to Gaston were annulled, she would be banished from the chateau. She wouldn’t be able to stay close to that window in the upstairs bedchamber—which just might be her only way back to her own time.

“I can’t!” she cried, pulling away from his touch. “I can’t explain why, but I can’t say anything to the King and I can’t agree to an annulment!”

Gaston stiffened. The softness in his expression vanished and he straightened with a jerk. “Your misplaced loyalty to Tourelle will be your ruin,
ma dame
.”

Celine didn’t know what upset her more—the sharp emphasis he put on the word “ruin,” or the fact that his eyes, his voice, his words shifted so quickly from warmth to cool hostility. “You weren’t thinking of me at all just now, were you?” she accused, incensed that Gaston’s easy, powerful charm had almost reeled her in when she should know better. “You don’t care what happens to me. You were just saying what you thought I wanted to hear.”

He smiled again, but this time it had a cold, cynical edge. “You wound me,
chérie
. I wish to do what is best for us both.”

“Best for
you
, you mean. What kind of knight are you, anyway? What about honor? What about chivalry?”

“What of them? As I warned you,
ma dame
, refuse to help me and you will discover how I earned the name Blackheart.” His expression hardened. “I was one of the good Christians who took part in the slaughter of two hundred Saracens at Jaffa in 1290. I returned home and became a mercenary purely for the booty and the bloody love of battle. I stole the very castle you are sitting in now by cheating in a tourney. I have oft found honor and chivalry to be most inconvenient. You would do well to remember that. And you would be wise to change your mind. Quickly. Do what I ask, speak to the King, and get as far from me as you can.”

Celine could only gape at him, numbed by the litany of his ruthless past—and by the threat in his tone. This was
not
the kind, sensitive, noble knight of her childhood dreams. Meeting the real Sir Gaston was a very rude awakening indeed.

He kept staring at her, as if he were unused to meeting with defeat, as if he could force her by sheer, overpowering will to do what he demanded. “You will not succeed in your scheme,” he grated out. “And you will live to regret any harm you bring to this place and my people.”

“There
is
no scheme and I’m not going to harm anyone,” Celine replied in exasperation. “The only thing I want to succeed at is
going home
.”

“Aye? Then let us drink to that.” He stood suddenly, the force of the movement pushing his massive chair back several inches. The whispers of conversation in the hall instantly fell to a hush.

“My friends and loyal retainers,” he began, lifting his silver goblet, “I wish to offer a
salut
to my new bride.” He turned to Celine, his eyes piercing. “Short may her stay be, and swift her departure.” He drained the cup and thrust it back down onto the table so hard that a reverberating clang sounded and the metal edge marked the wood.

An uncomfortable silence deepened in the hall.

“She is not to be trusted,” Gaston continued, his hand still on the goblet. “Nor is she to be left alone at any time. Etienne!”

A tall youth came forward from one of the tables—the blond teenager Celine had noticed last night. He dropped to one knee before the dais. “Sir?”

“I appoint you to keep watch over my wife. Whatever she may be planning, we will not make it easy for her to carry out.”

“Aye, milord.”

“And while she is here—however blessedly short a time that may be—she will fill some useful purpose. She will work as a servant.”

A gasp went through the hall. Apparently the thought of a knight’s wife—enemy or not—being forced into menial labor was utterly shocking.

Celine felt her cheeks grow hot. She bit her tongue to keep her pride in check. Let him try to humiliate her. Let him make her work like a dog. She wasn’t going to get upset.

Gaston glared down at her, as if expecting some protest. She looked back at him mutinously and tried not to feel the sting of this treatment, tried to tell herself he had every reason to be suspicious of her.

He gestured with the metal goblet. “You will do whatever Yolande”—he pointed to a slender, dark-haired serving woman of about forty—“bids you to do.”

Celine remained silent. Didn’t even nod.

He leaned down until his face was only inches from hers. “I mean to keep you well busy, my lady wife—too exhausted to venture anywhere near my bed. You will come begging for quarter anon. Are you certain you do not wish to reconsider your stubborn loyalty to Tourelle? Will you not go before the King and admit the truth?”

“I can’t tell the King anything because I don’t
know
anything,” she insisted. “That
is
the truth.”

He shrugged. “The battle is joined, then.” Filling his cup, he turned back to his people and raised it again. “I promise you all, mark me, that this marriage will be ended as swiftly as possible, and that Lady Rosalind will soon be mistress of this castle!”

Everyone seemed to brighten at this. A few people were barely able to restrain applause. As for the looks directed at Celine, the ones that had been hostile since her arrival, they subtly changed.

Now they were both hostile and smug.

Gaston snagged a flask of wine and stepped off the dais, leaving her alone at the high table.
“Bonsoir, ma dame
. Sleep well this night—if your conscience so permits.” His boot heels echoed dully on the rush-strewn stone floor as he exited the chamber.

Celine sat frozen, smothered by the ensuing silence in the crowded, cavernous room.
Her
conscience? How could he talk about her conscience when
he
was the one being so awful? Everyone stared at her with wide eyes, clearly expecting her to burst into tears or race after her husband and beg for mercy.

Slowly, silently, she unfastened her fingers from the folds of her skirt, pushed herself back from the table, and stood, looking from one expectant face to another.

Then, chin high, she began clearing the dirty dishes.

***

Alone in his solar, the private audience chamber off the great hall, Gaston looked glumly into the bottom of the goblet he had emptied many times over the past hours. He swirled the cup with a flick of his wrist, watching the last few drops of golden ale shimmer over the silvered metal in the hearth light.

He had finished the entire flask of wine sometime after the sun had set, then switched to a stronger mead in an attempt to lose himself in drink. It did not succeed.

He had built up too great a tolerance over the years. Years he had spent fighting in hostile lands. Fighting as a mercenary here at home. Fighting to take and hold this castle. Sometimes it seemed his entire life was made of naught but blood and blades.

‘Twas difficult to believe that he was now a landed lord, with many chateaux and men at his command, and influence that reached all the way to Paris.

Gaston de Varennes. The Black Lion. The mercenary called Blackheart. The younger son, who had cheated and fought his way to every bit of glory he had ever possessed, now had more wealth, more power, more duty, and more responsibility than he had ever imagined in his life.

He kept hearing Tourelle’s words to the King echoing through his head:
Varennes is not capable of managing such holdings. Nor is he deserving of them.

And he did not know if it was true.

He knew only that he had no choice. Most of what his father and brother had worked for was now his, and soon he would reclaim the rest. And avenge them both.

‘Twas a cruel trick, to have battled for so long, gained so much, come so close to having the justice he sought—only to be forced into marrying a wench who could undo it all. A minion of his enemy. A she-cat in the guise of an “innocent” novice, sent to sink her claws into him and then end his life when he expected it least.

He smiled humorlessly as he gazed down into the goblet. Fate, it seemed, would not allow him to set aside his weapons. Not now. Mayhap not ever. He must keep fighting ... and truth be told, he was tired of battle. Bone-weary tired. A pox on his fierce reputation. He had planned to spend this time of his life strengthening his holdings, learning to tend to his lands, making sons, and watching them grow tall and strong. After a lifetime of destroying, he had looked forward to discovering what it was to build, to create.

Never had he imagined spending his wedding night this way.

Were it Lady Rosalind who wore his ring, he would be getting himself an heir even now.

But as he looked down into the cup, watching the wash of gold over silver, he frowned, perplexed. For it was not a fantasy of gentle Rosalind’s petite form in his bed that tormented him.