Forever His (13 page)

But mixed with that emotion was something more ... a sense of surprise and wonder that Gaston was so concerned, so generous, with all his people, regardless of whether they were peasant or noble. She doubted that his egalitarian ideas were at all common in this time.

Never in her life had she had to worry about where her next meal was coming from—but here, it seemed, winter was something to be dreaded. Lives could hang in the balance of autumn’s harvest. Gaston had made a major sacrifice to help others less fortunate than he.

It was not only noble, it was ... caring.

“Th-thank you, Etienne,” she said at last. “You have ... explained a great deal.”

Etienne brightened. “So you will go before the King and reveal the truth?”

“Etienne ...” Celine shook her head sadly. “Believe me, if it were in my power to see the Duc punished for what he has done, I would. But ...” She was tired of saying
it’s impossible
. She was tired of everyone being suspicious of her. “Let me promise you this, Etienne: I
swear
, by everything I hold dear, that I’m not in on any scheme with Tourelle, and I will not bring any harm to Gaston or anyone else here. Even though I can’t speak to the King, I’ll do whatever I can to help. And I’ll leave just as soon as I possibly can, so your lord can marry his Lady Rosalind. How’s that?”

The young man’s hopeful expression wavered. “I pray, for your sake, milady, that it will be enough.”

A thunder of hoofbeats interrupted them as Gaston and a half dozen of his men rode past, heading for the gate, all bristling with long bows and quivers full of arrows and dangerous-looking pikes. Gaston glanced her way, wheeled his mount and brought the huge beast to a rearing halt a few feet from her.

“Have you changed your mind yet, my lady wife?” he called from atop the prancing war-horse.

Celine couldn’t answer for a moment. The sight of him mounted on his night-black stallion made an impact that stole her breath away. He cut a magnificent figure, like an image from a tapestry come to life, a warrior lord ready to do bold and reckless deeds. Rays of morning’s first light bathed his broad shoulders, struck sparks from his weapons, glistened on the embroidered black lion crouched on his tunic and the silver fur that lined his swirling cloak. He controlled the wild-looking stallion with ease, his gloved hands gentle yet strong on the reins.

A memory of those hands caressing her ever so briefly this morning left Celine shivering with heat and cold. She wet her lips and found her voice at last. “No, monsieur, I have not.”

A sardonic smile curved his mouth. “Then I trust you will have come to your senses when next I see you.” He set his heels to the stallion’s flanks and galloped off after his men, thundering over the lowered drawbridge and into the dense forests beyond.

“Wh-where are they going?” She couldn’t tear her eyes from the spot where he had disappeared.

“To the hunt, milady. The castle has need of food. They will be gone for several days.”

Several days. Celine knew she should be relieved to have her husband away for that long ... but she wasn’t.

God help her, she wasn’t.

“Y
our final duties of the day await you upstairs, milady, in your bedchamber.”

It took a second for Yolande’s words to penetrate what was left of Celine’s consciousness. She wasn’t sure what time it was, but she hadn’t finished cleaning the goose and chicken pens, dovecotes, and falcons’ mews until long after dark. The roaring fire on the hearth in the great hall couldn’t even begin to thaw her.

Every minute of the day’s labor was etched permanently into her aching back and frozen feet and raw hands. She never wanted to see another feather as long as she lived. As soon as she got home, she was going to have every down pillow and comforter she owned replaced with polyester. Good old-fashioned polyester.

Leaning on a trestle table for support, she blinked at Yolande in weary confusion, not sure she could keep her eyes open much longer. “My bedchamber?” she echoed.

“Aye, milady. Sir Gaston left specific instructions.” Yolande’s round face, as usual, betrayed no emotion. The woman carried out her duties with all the warmth of a drill sergeant.

She turned to lead the way upstairs, and Celine followed without further questions. One foot in front of the other. It was all she could manage. She had no energy left for anything so demanding as an intelligent reply.

All she could feel was dread, heavier and colder than the frost-encrusted cloak she wore. What new tasks had her relentless husband thought up to bend her to his will? Emptying and refilling every mattress in the place straw by straw? Scrubbing the blackened hearth in her room until it gleamed? Dangling out the window on a rope and scraping ice off the castle walls?

You win.
She ached to say it with every trudging step down the darkened stone corridors.
You win, you win, you win.
But she couldn’t say that. He asked for the impossible. She couldn’t give it to him. This battle between them wouldn’t end until she escaped to her own time.

If
she could escape to her own time. If she lived that long. Was the ache in her back really from the grueling work, or from something she didn’t want to think about? She could almost hear a clock ticking in her head, ominous, relentless. Precious minutes, hours, days slipping away.
Tick, tick, tick.
Like the timer on a bomb—and she had no idea when it might go off.

She hadn’t had two spare minutes to figure out how the lunar eclipse had sent her here and how she could get home. And it didn’t look like she would be getting a day off anytime soon.

When they finally stopped in front of her door, Celine almost sank to her knees in supplication. A little rest. An hour’s sleep. Just an hour ... Yolande stepped into the room, but Celine stood swaying in the doorway, gazing with bleary longing at the bed.

“Thank you, Gabrielle,” Yolande said. “I see we are almost ready.”

Celine forced her eyes fully open and glanced to her left, where a young serving girl was pouring buckets filled with water into ...

A tub.

A huge wooden tub, filled with water so hot that a fog of steam rose above it. Celine’s reddened nose only now caught the scent of fragrant herbs and dried flowers rising on the tendrils of heat: lavender and thyme and roses.

“I ... I don’t understand.” Celine couldn’t let herself take a step toward that luscious paradise of warmth and water. It was a mirage, an illusion, a trick. Gaston was purposely tormenting her. “So who’s getting a bath?” she asked in a shaky voice. “I suppose I have to help scrub the backs of half the household?”

“Nay, the bath is for you alone, milady. By Sir Gaston’s order.” Yolande held out a small cake of soap. The serving girl finished with the buckets and went to hang a length of thick white linen on a rack before the fire.

Celine felt like crying. It was too good to be true. She stayed where she was, suspicious. “Why would he allow me a bath, after everything he’s put me through?”

Yolande frowned, which gave her stern features an even more dour expression. “In truth, I wondered as much myself, but it was not my place to question. Mayhap he does not wish to be accused by the King of mistreating you.” She shrugged, holding out the soap. “Hurry, milady, before the water grows cold.”

Celine didn’t know why Gaston was granting her the bath he had teased her about this morning. Maybe he genuinely regretted making her work so hard all day. Maybe he was as chivalrous as Etienne claimed.

Maybe he really
was
capable of kindness. Even to her.

Shaking her head in disbelief, she took one tentative, uncertain step into the room ...

Then she went for the tub like a bargain hunter heading for the clearance table at Neiman-Marcus. The wooden edge, worn smooth by years of use, came up to her waist. A veritable garden of rose petals floated on the surface. She grasped the side, leaned over, and inhaled a deep breath of scented steam. Sighing, she slanted a look at the towel warming before the fire.

How could he have known what she wanted, down to every detail?
If she had any sense, she would be worried about that. The man had practically read her mind. But she was too tired, and the steam was already starting to defrost her stiff muscles—and as the feeling returned to her limbs, so did every little ache and pain.

“Oh, Yolande.” She held on to the tub and sank to her knees, resting her head on her forearms. “Please tell me this is real. Tell me you’re not going to snatch it away at the last minute.”

“Hmph,” Yolande muttered, helping her out of her stiff cloak. “It is real, milady. And naught more than you deserve, after your work this day.”

The serving girl came over to help unfasten her cloak and unlace her gown. Celine gratefully wriggled out of the filthy garments, hopped up on a stool, and went over the edge of the tub with a rather unladylike splash. Her cold skin and raw hands stung as soon as she hit the water, but she dunked herself and came up with a smile as the heat melted through her muscles. Slicking back her hair, she settled against the side with a long, deep sigh of relief. Not even her favorite five-thousand-per-week spa in Palm Springs had ever felt this good.

Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the heat for a blissful moment before she snagged the floating soap and started scrubbing away the mud and feathers and stench that clung to her skin, working up a frothy lather.

“Do you like the soap, milady?” Yolande asked. “It is a blend of wood-ash and oil of rosemary. I bought it at the village fair this Michaelmas past.”

“Yes, it’s very nice, thank you,” Celine replied with smile, sniffing the fragrant little cake in her hand. It was generous of Yolande to loan out her own personal soap ...

Only then did Celine recognize the change in Yolande’s attitude: the woman wasn’t acting at all hostile anymore, or even wary.

Come to think of it, neither was the other servant, Gabrielle, who was applying herself to washing Celine’s hair.

“Is that warm enough, milady?” Gabrielle asked as she poured a half bucket of water down Celine’s back to rinse out the soap. “I could run to the kitchens and heat some more, if you wish.”

“No, that’s fine.” Celine wiped the lather from her eyes and blinked at the pair of them through the bubbles. “Yolande, what am I to do after this?” she asked cautiously. There had to be some reason for their sudden about-face. Before now, everyone had made her feel about as welcome as a bag lady at a black-tie-only soiree.

“Sleep, of course,” Yolande said matter-of-factly. “Sir Gaston ordered only that you were to have this bath. Other than that, he left your duties up to me until his return.”

“I see. And what did you have in mind?”

“Well ...” The older woman pursed her lips. “Everyone was most taken with your cooking, milady—though I did not have any myself. I was displeased to learn that the cooks had given you such free rein in the kitchens. I feared you might poison us all.”

Celine gave her a pained expression. “I’m not the dragon lady everyone thinks I am, Yolande. I’m not here on any devious mission and I’m not going to harm a hair on anyone’s head.”

“Aye, well ...” The woman didn’t seem ready to make up her mind on that just yet. “Whatever the truth may be, no one heeded my warnings. There’s naught left of what you made. The meat pies, the breads, the odd flat pastry with cheese and onions—”

“Pizza,” Celine clarified. “And if I could get my hands on some tomatoes, I’d show you what a real one is supposed to taste like.”

“And the delicious small, flat sweet cakes you made, milady,” Gabrielle interjected. “What do you call them?”

“Cookies. Ginger snaps, to be exact.”

“Cookies,”
Gabrielle repeated reverently. “Even Yolande liked those.”

Celine turned to Yolande with a raised, soapy eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t eat anything I made. I’m dangerous, you know. Poison and all that.”

“Aye, well ... after several hours ...” Yolande cleared her throat. “When it became clear that no one was dying ...” She cleared her throat again, then slowly, grudgingly, smiled. “Gabrielle said they were delicious, and near forced one down my throat.”

“But then you ate a half dozen more when you thought no one was looking,” Gabrielle pointed out.

Celine looked from one to the other, shaking her head in pleasant surprise. “I’m glad everyone enjoyed my cooking.” She smiled. “I know this winter is difficult for you, and I only want to help, for as long as I’m here. Please believe me.”

“
I
believe you,” Gabrielle declared. “You must have been so tired last night while you were cooking, yet you made such wonderful dishes for us. After the way we had treated you.” She shook her head in wonder. “How did you manage to make such heavenly foods when our stores are so meager?”

“It’s not what you have, but what you do with it. I trained with some of the best chefs in France,” Celine said casually, “and they taught—” She suddenly remembered who she was supposed to be. “That is ... I, uh ... studied cooking at ... at the convent in Aragon. Traveling cooks came by and, uh, gave us lessons.”

Great. That was about as believable as Elvis having lunch with aliens at a McDonald’s in Kalamazoo.

Luckily, neither of the women questioned it. They both had visions of ginger snaps dancing in their heads.

Yolande was still smiling. “I believe it would be wise to put your talents to their best use—since Sir Gaston has left your duties to me.”

“Aye, most wise,” Gabrielle agreed, nodding eagerly.

“I suppose ...” Celine said slowly, sensing that she had some leverage at last. “Perhaps we could make a bargain: I’ll make meals that will knock your ... uh ... slippers off, if you’ll agree to give me something in exchange.”

“What might you wish?” Yolande asked, still a bit suspicious.

“A little time off.” She thought for a second, then added, “And a bath, like this one. Every day.”

“But you will become
ill
if you bathe so frequently!” Gabrielle protested.

Celine shook her head. “I’ll be fine. It’s the custom where I come from. All I ask is some time to relax and a bath. And maybe some new clothes. Do we have a deal?”