Forever His (15 page)

Celine knew that idea should strike fear in her heart and make her want to run in the opposite direction—but it didn’t. She wasn’t thinking of herself, but of Gaston.
Wounded.
She couldn’t explain the emotions that gripped her, yet she didn’t stop to question them. She needed no urging from Etienne to hurry back to the keep.

Near the front entrance they passed servants who were leading away the hunters’ horses and carting off the catch, several deer and a huge bristly boar. Celine barely glanced at them—except to notice that Gaston’s black horse had huge smears of red on its saddle and down its right side.

By the time she and Etienne rushed inside and reached the great hall, she was ahead of him, her pulse pounding.

A crowd of retainers, servants, and the men who had gone on the hunt had gathered around the dais before the hearth all talking at once. It was impossible to hear what was being said amid the clamor of anxious voices. She couldn’t see Gaston. Was he stretched out on the floor? Was he too badly hurt to stand? She blindly handed Groucho to one of the younger serving girls and started pushing her way forward with Etienne, asking those in front of them to move aside.

Suddenly Gaston’s voice boomed above the noise—and Celine felt a wave of mingled surprise, relief, and dread at his words.

“What do you mean, you allowed her to
cook?
”

“But, sir, she has done no harm,” a male voice insisted.

“Milord, you must taste this wondrous delicacy she makes, called
quiche
,” Yolande said.

Celine finally managed to nudge her way to the front of the gathering. Her heart slowed only slightly when she saw that Gaston was seated in his carved chair before the hearth, looking whole and healthy—except that his right leg was wrapped in a scarlet-soaked bandage.

“Are you all right?” she blurted breathlessly.

The crowd’s chatter dropped to murmurs as Gaston turned his glowering attention on her.

He swept her from head to foot in a single glance, his eyes darkening, his fingers tightening around the arms of his chair. An unfamiliar expression flickered in his gaze, just for a second before it vanished.

A cold smile curved his lips. “I see that you have made excellent use of my absence, you treacherous, scheming, murderous little wench.”

Celine flinched, taking an involuntary step backward, startled by such an unexpected attack. What in the world had she done that made him so furious?

He didn’t give her a chance to speak before he turned his anger on Etienne. “What do you mean by letting her wander around the grounds
unescorted?
” His voice grew louder with each word until this last was a bellow that shook the rafters..

“M-milord, she has worked most diligently these past days, and she has proved both helpful and trustworthy—”

“Trustworthy?”
Gaston snapped, “Has everyone in my command lost their senses? What knavery might she be carrying out while you are all busy filling your bellies?” He cast another glare at Celine. “And why is she going about garbed as richly as royalty? From where did she get these ...” He gestured at her leggings and tunic. A muscle in his jaw worked and he seemed unable to speak for a moment. “These masculine garments?”

“I made them for her, milord,” Yvette, the seamstress, said. “In gratitude for a favor she bestowed upon me. She created the most wondrous devices which cut fabric so quickly and easily—”

“Saints’ blood.” Gaston’s expression was getting stormier by the second. He flicked a glance at Etienne. “Is this how you repay my confidence, lad? I appointed you to guard her—and you have all but handed her my chateau and all I own.”

“Nay, sir! I have watched her most carefully. This afternoon is the first that she has been alone for even a moment. She has done naught that could be considered at all threatening, milord. In fact—”

“Of
course
she has not. It is all part of her plan. I am gone but four days and everyone here has forgotten who and what this woman is! She is
Tourelle’s ward!
Sent here to ease us into unwatchfulness, that she may better carry out her lord’s plans.”

“Excuse me!” Celine finally managed to interject. Stunned by his overblown anger, she could only attribute it to the fact that he must be in great pain. He was roaring at them like a wounded lion. “Could we please argue about me later? You need to have that injury looked at.”

Gaston speared her with an icy glare. “You have no need to act the attentive wife. You may have woven some spell over my people—but you will find me a better adversary.” He thrust himself to his feet, though the movement obviously caused him pain.

Celine bit back the urge to respond in kind. He was furious enough without her provoking him further. His every move must hurt. “I am
not
—”

She broke off abruptly.

I am not acting.
That was what she had been about to say.

“I ... I ...” She gazed up at him, feeling desperately confused. He was standing there snarling at her, his weapons gleaming at his waist, his hair ruffled from the wind, four days’ growth of beard on his cheeks, blood soaking his clothes, more angry and dangerous-looking than she had ever seen him—and she wasn’t the least bit afraid. All she could feel was concern. For him. It didn’t make any sense, yet it was the truth.

But he wouldn’t believe that. “I’m ... I’m merely curious about what happened,” she said at last. “Were you gored by a boar?”

The captain of his guards, the man everyone called Royce, spoke from behind Gaston. “Nay, milady, naught so dire as that. It was an injury suffered when we stopped at a tavern.”

The murmurs of conversation around them died down, as if everyone knew what Royce meant by that.

Celine didn’t get it. “A tavern?”

“Aye,” Gaston said. “To celebrate our successful hunt with a bit of drinking—and a bit of wenching.”

His answer landed a cold punch to the pit of Celine’s stomach. She was sorry she had asked. Gaston’s blunt comment told her more than she wanted to know, but he kept right on explaining.

“I suffered the injury while falling out of a lady’s bed. I was in a hurry to enjoy myself, and undressed so quickly that I was less than careful about where I left my weapons. When I rose from the bed—”

“He tripped in the dark,” Royce continued for him. “It became quite a melee after that—he had to call for assistance, and the lady in question was so stricken that she insisted on helping, and then we arrived on the scene. It was more difficult peeling her off him than binding the wound ...”

 The men in the room were chuckling by now, but Celine’s cheeks were burning, her insides knotting up, three words spiraling through her mind:
How could he?
He had been married less than a week, and he had already—

But why was she even thinking of it that way?

What was wrong with her?

The vows they had spoken hadn’t meant anything. To either one of them. This marriage wasn’t real. It was a colossal mistake, a trick of time. She was going to catch the first moonbeam out of here, back to 1993. What did she care if he slept with another woman or a dozen other women?

She told herself it was just the way he was boasting of it so publicly. Gaston had every reason to hate her: he believed she was Tourelle’s ward, an enemy, a threat to his life, to his people. But this was a new low, even for him—and she didn’t understand why he was doing it.

Anger and jealousy and hurt and a tumult of other emotions squeezed into her throat, choking off both voice and air. It was ridiculous to feel this way! He had never been anything but honest: he felt nothing for her and he had no intention of curtailing his lusty ways. He had told her so when they said their vows. She didn’t care about him.
Why should she feel hurt?

She could have faced him and everyone in the hall without flinching—except for the looks she was getting from the women.

The men were too busy guffawing over their lord’s escapade to notice, but the women were looking at Celine with expressions of sympathy, even pity.

Celine would have far preferred the hostility they had bestowed on her a few days ago.

Gaston kept staring at her, as if waiting for some kind of reaction. She returned his gaze evenly, forcing down all the crazy emotions tangling inside her with every bit of strength she possessed.

“You are bleeding all over your great hall, milord,” she said coolly. “I suggest you have the wound tended.”

“Then fetch some water and linens,
wife
.” He spat out the word as if it were poison. “You will tend me in my chamber.”

***

Gaston stalked from his bed to the hearth and back again until he had trampled a path in the rushes that carpeted his chamber. He barely even sensed the pain in his leg. A storm of pure black fury blotted out all else.

Not because of the changes his wife had wrought in his absence, or the outlandish masculine garb she wore, or even the way she had tricked his people into her grasp in a matter of days.

Nay, he felt furious because of the strange little leap his heart had made when he saw her again.

What bothered him even more was that the incident at the tavern hadn’t happened the way he had told it.

He stopped before the hearth, bracing his arms against the stone, hanging his head. He kicked a charred chunk of wood back into the flames.

He had not bedded the tavern wench.

By God’s breath, he had had every intention of doing so, had traded smiles and jests with her half the night, then taken her to his room. It was all a familiar ritual, a sport of seduction that usually ended with him feeling happy and satisfied.

But once alone with her, he had been surprised and annoyed to discover that he felt no real desire for her. At first he had feared there was something wrong with him, something physically wrong. Her kisses had left him cold. He had removed his boots and weapons and started to undress, fully intending to take her to bed, when he had suddenly, inexplicably, changed his mind.

His injury had occurred when he turned a bit too quickly in the darkness, tripped, and cut his leg on his own carelessly placed sword.

That infuriated him more than anything. Never in his life had he been careless with a weapon—but his mind had been such a muddle, filled not with thoughts of the woman who was offering herself to him, but with images of Christiane’s form and face and ...

Fie
, but this unwanted bride of his was dangerous! She had seized such a hold on his senses that he had lost interest in other women. Lost control over his own
thoughts
. He was utterly unable to explain it.

When Royce and his men had arrived on the scene, they had jumped to the wrong conclusion, and Gaston had let their mistaken belief stand. Even now he was unwilling to examine too closely what had happened.

All he knew was that he was ...
drawn
to Christiane by some force he could not name and had never felt before, in such a way that he found the company of other women unappealing.

The maddening truth of the matter was that he suspected the tavern maid had caught his eye only because she had red hair.

Like his wife.

The wife he must not take to his bed.

He straightened and lurched away from the hearth, prowling to the window, tearing open the shutters. A blast of wintry air poured into the room. He inhaled deeply, welcoming the cold, hoping it would freeze the fire burning in him even now.

The desire that had ignited the instant he laid eyes on Christiane again.

God, the sight of her wearing that outrageous garb—the cloth clinging to her long legs, showing every curve of calf and knee and thigh. He had been parted from her but a few days, yet he had felt like a lost Crusader taking his first draught of water after wandering a foreign desert. Her breasts had seemed more lush than he remembered, the tilt of her chin more proud, those sea-storm eyes—

By nails and blood, this was intolerable!
He slammed the shutters closed and turned away, pacing, trying to force the images from his mind.

This was dangerous. Deadly. If she were to discover that she had such a potent effect on him, it could prove the perfect weapon in her hands.

He had to hide these unwanted ... unwanted ...

He searched for the right word, then, finding it, grimaced.

These
feelings
for her. Bury them beneath a stronghold of defenses.

A sudden, unbidden memory of his brother invaded his thoughts: Gerard and the mad passion he had had for his wife, Avril. The pair had spent every day, every hour, every breath together almost from the moment they had wed. Gerard had called it “love.” A woman’s word. Gaston had recognized it for what it was: an all-consuming desire that had so turned Gerard’s head around that he ...

He had become softened by it. More husband than warrior. He had allowed his fighting edge to be so dulled by his
feelings
for Avril that he had been less of a knight, that one second when it counted most. Had he been more cautious, more wary, more
himself
that day at the tournament, he might still be alive.

Their father might still be alive.

It was a mistake to feel passion for one female above all others. A lethal mistake. Gerard’s death was proof enough of that.

Gaston sat on the bed, running a hand through his hair. He must rid himself of this foolish desire. Rid himself of Christiane. She was Tourelle’s ward, for God’s sake. Sent here to do exactly what she was doing. Trick him. Lure him in. Seduce him.

He must have an annulment and marry Lady Rosalind de Brissot as soon as possible. Not just for himself, but to protect his people. The three chateaux that were now his had too great a distance between them. Separated, they were vulnerable—to Tourelle, to the simmering Flemish, to any marauding rogue who happened along. Only when he had united his holdings with the de Brissot lands that lay between could he hope to stand strong and defend them against all threats.

But first, he must rid himself of Christiane.

Gaston barely heard the whisper of the door opening.

She didn’t knock. Bold little wench. One moment he was alone, and the next she was there—standing in the portal, holding a basin and soap and several lengths of linen. And a wine flask. She kept her gaze meekly lowered, but every inch of her body was taut—whether with anger, defiance, or some other emotion he could not tell.