She grabbed the brightly colored paperback. “Because I didn’t have my purse. And I don’t know what’s going to happen—but this might.” She flipped to the page that described her family’s chateau. “Here it is. Manoir La Fontaine ... it probably mentions you in here somewhere. Maybe it’ll talk about what happened with you and Tourelle.”
She scanned the small print, weighing whether it was wise to tell someone of his own future. Especially someone as headstrong and reckless as Gaston. But she could not bear to see him worry needlessly, not if she could reassure him that everything was going to be okay.
“Here you are,” she said, reading. “It mentions that you were one of the original owners of the chateau ... and that you were married, and it says here that—” Her voice choked. “Uh-oh.” Her fingers gripped the book as she read it again. “Oh, no. Oh, my God, what have we done?”
Chapter 20
“What do you mean?” Gaston demanded, walking over to her from the hearth. “What is it we have done?”
Celine didn’t look up at him. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the book, from the painful words spelled out in inescapable black and white.
“What does it say?” Gaston asked impatiently, looking over her shoulder. “Has it aught to do with Tourelle? Tell me the truth of it—even if it is the worst.”
“No, it’s ... it’s not the worst at all. There isn’t anything here about Tourelle.” Celine flipped to the index in the back of the guidebook, her heart beating strangely. “He apparently wasn’t important enough to merit a mention ... his name isn’t even listed.”
“Then what does it say about me?”
Celine didn’t want to tell him. She wished she had never thought of looking in the damned book. The black ink dots swam dizzily before her eyes, but she couldn’t lie about what they said. “It ... it isn’t so much what it says about you. It’s what it says about your ... family.” Her voice shaking, she read the section aloud. ‘Seldom did the chroniclers of the medieval period record the names of—’ ”
“The ‘medieval period’?”
Celine glanced at him. “The Middle Ages. The time between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance—your time. I’ll explain it to you later.” She started reading again. “ ‘Seldom did the chroniclers of the medieval period record the names of women, who were not seen to be as important as men when it came to the matter of making history—’ ”
“As indeed they are not.”
“Would you please stop interrupting?” she snapped. “ ‘Seldom ...’ Oh, to heck with it. I’ve read that three times already. Here’s the important part: ‘... and that is the case with the wife of Sir Gaston de Varennes. History has recorded her only as Lady R, but the couple provides one of the most interesting and little-known footnotes in this period in the Artois region. Not for their own accomplishments, but for that of their son, Soren, who saved the life of King Philippe VI, founder of the Valois dynasty, in a bold maneuver at the Battle of Cassel in 1328...’ ” She let the book slide from her trembling fingers. It fell onto the pile of her things on the bed. “That ... that’s all it says about you. It goes on to talk about how important the Valois dynasty was.”
When Gaston didn’t say anything, she looked at him.
He was standing there with a peculiar expression on his face. “I am going to have a son?” he murmured. He started to grin. “Not only a son ... but a bold son.”
“Don’t you get it?” Celine choked out. “You’re supposed to have that son with Lady R. Doesn’t that ring a bell? Lady Rosalind. You’re supposed to marry Lady Rosalind!”
Gaston’s smile faded and his dark eyes locked with hers. “But that is impossible. The King will never grant me an annulment, now that we have—”
“Exactly! That’s just it. We’ve changed history—I mean the future. I mean ...” She raised a hand to her forehead. “Oh, God, I don’t know what I mean anymore. But we’ve changed what was supposed to happen. If you can’t marry Lady Rosalind, your son will never be born. Which means King Philippe VI might die in that battle, and the Valois dynasty might never be founded, which will alter the entire course of history.” She sank down onto the bed, mortified by the impact of it. “Everything will change because of what we did last night.”
One small event, one night, one moment in each other’s arms that had seemed so right. Like it was meant to be. But that single fragment of time touched dozens of others.