Forever His (37 page)

Avril was the one who had given her directions here, without asking questions. The chateau lay along the winding route Gaston had been following south for the past two weeks, and it was no more than a few hours out of the way.

A few hours Celine thought absolutely necessary to spend on this little mission.

“I do not know why you could not have explained it to him
before
we left camp,” Etienne muttered. “He will not be pleased that we snuck away into the night. Like a pair of outlaws.”

“I left a note,” Celine said with a sleepy yawn. “Besides, I couldn’t tell him where we were going, because he never would’ve let me leave. I didn’t have to bring you along, you know, Etienne. I could have ridden off by myself. But I probably would’ve gotten lost.”

“Which is why I agreed to accompany you at all,” the young man grumbled.

“Very kind of you,” Celine said cheerfully.

He scowled at her, looking every bit like the threatening knight he would become someday soon. Celine’s tentative smile faded. She didn’t feel as cheerful as she was trying to sound. She had told herself that she needed to come here, for the sake of future history.

But deep down she knew her real motive: an illogical, emotional need to meet her rival face-to-face.

To see the woman who would so completely steal Gaston’s heart.

A brief conversation with Avril had already uncovered a positively nauseating list of glowing attributes: Lady Rosalind was so beautiful that poems had been written about her; so intelligent that she corresponded with leading Sorbonne scholars on matters of the day; so rich that she would soon inherit all the lands that lay between Gaston’s chateau and Avril’s. The lands it had taken
four weeks
to cross on the way north.

“Rich” was too small a word for it. In this time, Celine was a pauper compared with Rosalind. Even in her own time, she would be a pauper compared with Rosalind.

To top it all off, the lady was apparently gracious, too—because she didn’t keep her unexpected guests waiting more than five minutes before she came into the room to greet them, despite the early morning hour.

Etienne uttered a gasp and suddenly seemed to develop a breathing problem, not to mention difficulty keeping his mouth from hanging open.

Celine had to bite back a
Wow!
of her own. Lady Rosalind was everything she had been told and more. She stepped gracefully through the door in a slim swirl of topaz velvet, her white-blond hair neatly plaited, her eyes a luminous color that could only be called gold. Celine was willing to bet her last centime that those ruby lips had never once muttered a defiant word. Or chattered.

She was young, no older than Etienne. She was smiling at them with genuine warmth. She was petite. She was perfect.

She was Lady R
.

Of course Gaston would love her. He wouldn’t be able to
help
falling in love with her.

“My greetings to you both,” Rosalind said in a mild voice that suited all her other perfections. “My servants tell me that you are friends of Lady Avril?”

Celine had memorized a speech. A very calm, reasonable speech. A persuasive speech.

Instead she blurted out one sentence.

“I’ve come here to ask you for a favor.”

T
hreatening clouds hung low in the late afternoon sky as thunder rumbled in the distance. The coming downpour was naught as yet but a cool, silver silence, heavy in the air. The day’s waning light lanced through the gloom now and again, illuminating the trees with sudden brilliance, cutting long shadows along the forest floor.

Gaston was certain that he must have felt this worried and uneasy before, at some time in his life. At the moment, however, he could not remember when that might have been.

The entire day had near passed, and his wandering wife had not yet returned. He felt like a loaded crossbow: taut and dangerous and ready to explode at the slightest touch. But all he could do was wait. His boot heels had probably been worn down from his pacing. He had been doing little else the entire day, from the moment he had awakened to find Celine’s folded note propped on his chest.

God’s teeth, he could throttle her for taking such a chance with her life. Disappearing without word of where she was going. Concealing her trail so that he could not follow.

“I am certain she is unhurt, milord,” Remy said. The lad sat beside the fire, his dark head bent as he sharpened his knife with a whetstone. He was the youngest of Gaston’s guardsmen, little older than Etienne. “If they had encountered trouble, Etienne would have—”

“Shh.” Gaston held up a gloved hand to cut him off. Beneath Remy’s voice and the scrape of the whetstone, he thought he heard the distant rhythm of hoofbeats. He turned to look along the path, and the sound grew louder and separated itself from the thunder. Riders were approaching, from the south.

At a damned leisurely pace.

Within moments, Celine and Etienne appeared through the trees at the far edge of the clearing. As they drew near, Gaston could see that both looked flushed and tired, but unhurt.

He folded his arms over his chest to still the anger and relief that vibrated through his every muscle. “
Bonjour
,” he said, his tone dangerously mild. “I trust the two of you enjoyed a pleasant day meandering about the land?”

“Milord, we had planned to return sooner,” Etienne said quickly, “but milady’s horse came up lame and—”

“What excellent news,” Gaston drawled, glancing at the mare’s injured foreleg. “That will no doubt speed the remainder of our journey.”

Celine reined her limping horse to a halt and started to dismount. “Before you get angry, let me expl—”

“I fear you are too late, milady. I am several hours past angry.” He walked over before she was completely out of the saddle and lifted her to the ground. “Not only has your foolishness cost us time that we could not spare, but now it has cost us a horse as well. A fine day’s work,
ma dame
.” He glanced at Remy and Etienne. “Gather our supplies. I would speak with my wife alone. Ride ahead and we will catch up to you anon.”

“Aye, milord.” The young men hurried to carry out his orders.

“Gaston,” Celine whispered, “I don’t think that’s a good—”

“Remy, take milady’s horse as well.” Gaston fastened his hand around Celine’s arm and led her over to the fire. “We will trade the mare for another at the first opportunity. For now, my wife will ride with me.”

“
Gaston.
” Her voice was a high squeak this time. “That’s
really
not a good—”

“Silence.” He pointed to the rock that Remy had just vacated. “Sit.”

She clenched her teeth and did as he bade—with a flashing, indignant glare. Ignoring the unladylike words she started muttering, he turned his attention to helping gather the supplies and securing them to the horses. He tied Celine’s belongings to her lame mount, except for the bundle containing her pink pouch, which he fastened securely to Pharaon’s saddle.

“Do not favor the mare overmuch,” he instructed the two lads. “If she slows you too greatly, move these bundles to your horses and leave her.”

“Aye, milord,” Remy said, mounting his stallion.

“Sir? I am sorry that I—”

“Nay, Etienne, we have no time now to discuss your peculiar ideas of carrying out your duty—but we
will
speak of it later.”

The young man nodded, looking as if he wanted to sink into the forest floor. He mounted his horse. “Aye, milord.”

“Ride with all speed. The light is waning already, and we will have a storm to deal with before this night is out.” Gaston sent them away with a slap to each horse’s rump.

They trotted down the path into the deepening afternoon shadows. Even as the sound of hoofbeats faded, Gaston kept staring after them, not trusting himself to turn around and look at his wife.

Because he was shaking.

By nails and blood, he could not stop shaking. It seemed to be beyond his control.
Everything
seemed to be beyond his control. He had not been in command of himself or his life since the moment Yolande and Gabrielle had handed him that accursed, outlandish pink pouch and he had been forced to realize the truth.

Not only about Celine’s identity, but about himself.

He had been avoiding it all along. From the beginning, he had convinced himself that he would be able to keep his defiant lady with him somehow, and he had rigidly believed that he wanted only pleasure of her. But his unshakable conviction had begun crumbling even before he knew who she was.

And her disappearance today, that brief, bitter taste of what was to come, only served to make the truth agonizingly clear.

How could he not have seen it before? Even after they made love, while he felt guilty and furious at his carelessness, some part of him—some part buried so deep that he had not recognized it at the time—had been pleased.

Pleased that she was finally, truly his. Pleased that she was bound to him in that most elemental way, in every way. In ways that had naught to do with pleasure and far more to do with whispered words and the unsteady rhythm of his heart. Some secret corner of his soul had reveled in it: consummated vows could not be broken. She would be staying with him. She was
his
.

But all that had changed now. She was not his. She was leaving, and there was naught he could do to stop it. He had to let her go. It was beyond his control, and that infuriated him.

But what infuriated him even more was that it pained him. More deeply than any wound he had ever endured.

“Gaston, are you going to stay mad until nightfall or are you going to turn around and talk to me?” Celine’s voice sounded soft beneath the distant growl of thunder.

He remained where he was, staring up at the storm clouds, letting her believe he was refusing to look at her because he was angry. “Tell me, wife,” he said, fighting to keep his voice even, “what did you do today? That is to say, other than waste several hours and nearly break your mare’s leg?”

She was silent for a moment. “Don’t you think that sending our escorts off without us kind of defeats the whole purpose of having escorts in the first place?”

“Do not change the subject. Answer my question.”

“I left you a note.”

“Which was more infuriating than informative. What precisely was your ‘important mission’?”

“Please don’t say it that way. It
was
important.”

“So important that you rode off with only a squire to protect you?” He clenched his fists. “So important that you risked your
life?
”

“You sound as if you care about that.”

He jerked around and glared at her. “You act as if you do not!”

“I went to see Lady Rosalind.”

That blunt statement struck him dumb. If she had said she had visited a Saracen princess in the distant East, he could not have been more surprised. “Saints’ blood, woman,” he choked out on a suddenly dry throat. “Why?”

“Because you mentioned once that she didn’t want to marry you. You said she had so many suitors you weren’t sure she would wait for you. I ... I had to make sure. For the sake of ... for the future.”

Astounded, Gaston stared at her blankly. “And did you accomplish this important mission?”

Celine glanced away. The wind had strengthened, heavy with the promise of rain, and it played through the red-gold strands of her hair. “I told her that our marriage was going to be annulled, and that she was the one you really wanted—”

“I cannot believe I am hearing this.”

“She’s very beautiful, Gaston. And sweet and demure. Although I think she’s a little young for you,” she whispered, her voice trailing off.

“Pray, do not stop. Tell me more of this bride you have secured for me.”

She didn’t seem to catch his sarcasm. “She’s exactly what you want. She isn’t outspoken or independent. She’ll never defy you or even question you. Or argue. Or chatter.” Celine tucked in her chin. “And she agreed to wait.”

Gaston exhaled a sharp sound of disbelief. “This I must hear. How in the name of God did you persuade her?”

“It wasn’t all that difficult. I ... I told her ...” She looked up at him, and even in the gathering shadows he could see tears glistening in those stormy eyes he had come to know so well. “I told her that you don’t deserve the reputation people have given you. I told her that you’re ... a good man, and noble and compassionate and kind and—”

“You should not have lied.”

A peal of thunder roared overhead, and the rain began to fall, a gentle patter. “I didn’t lie.” She looked away from him, shaking. “I told her that despite your ... th-that beneath your ...” She raised a trembling hand to wipe the moisture from her cheeks, staring down into the fire, the flames hissing and steaming in the drizzle. “I told her that if she could look beneath that tough exterior, she would find a man worthy of all the love she had to give.”

Gaston felt like a rope had been closing around his throat all day, and her words had just tightened it one final notch, choking off what was left of his life. Words failed him. Strength failed him. He could not even raise his hood to ward off the rain. He struggled to regain the power of speech, fought the fate that was being forced upon him. “And if I do not wish to—”

“She’s perfect for you,” Celine said quietly. “She’ll make you happy. She’s everything you want in a wife.” With a pained little smile, she added, almost to herself, “I’ll bet she even plays backgammon.”

The anguish in her voice matched the feeling in him, a rending that left him numb and powerless, an unfamiliar, vulnerable sensation that sent him off-balance. Which made him angry. “Celine—”

“Sorry, I forgot you don’t know what that word means. Try ‘playing tables.’ Your favorite game. Avril showed me what it was.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I never really had a chance to ask you about that, not that it makes any difference now, but just out of curiosity, tell me—the whole time you were misleading me about what ‘playing tables’ meant, were you laughing at me behind my back?”

“Nay!” His anger slipped its tether at her bitter accusation. “I allowed you to believe what you wished to believe.”