Forever His(113)

“And mayhap another opening, in the front.” His hand slid downward.

“And buttons,” she added, shivering. “I think it’s time to introduce the idea of a buttoned opening on men’s pants.”

“An excellent suggestion. You can make a new pair of leggings for me as soon as we arrive at my chateau.”

She giggled nervously, realizing that he had gone from kidding to serious about this. He wanted to make love to her on horseback. Out in the open. “Gaston, this is crazy. We’d never get away with it. They’d see us.”

“Pharaon’s gait will conceal our movement,” he assured her, kissing the curve of her jaw. “The only difficulty I foresee is in silencing the sweet music you make, wife, when I am inside you. How shall we accomplish that?”

She bit her lip, moaning softly, barely able to believe the outrageous suggestion he was making, or the reckless excitement rushing through her. “I don’t think we can. I can’t hold back what I feel for you. Not when you’re ...”

“Joined to you, so fully that we are one?”

“Yes. Yes, when you make me feel so complete and whole and ... perfect.”

He groaned. “My sweet Celine, I am going to make love to you,” he promised hoarsely. “By this time on the morrow, we shall invent a new way of riding. I mean to make you feel perfect until you faint with it.”

She made a small, hungry sound, holding tight to him as he pressed her close. Glittering needles of arousal and anticipation showered through her, making heat curl in her belly.

“But until then ...” He chuckled dryly and straightened, loosening his steely grip just slightly. “Mayhap you should tell me more of your time. It seems to make an excellent distraction.”

She had to wait for her heart to slow down a bit before she could catch her breath enough to talk. “Have I told you about telephones yet?”

“Aye, you did mention them. The devices that enable one to speak and be heard across great distances. And you spoke of the lights that burn without flame. And the cities, with their gray buildings stretching into the sky without a blade of grass to be seen. And the fact that ale is stored not in wooden casks but in small round metal objects called ‘cans.’ ”

Celine laughed. Even without looking, she could tell he was making a face. “You make it all sound so awful. Actually, we’ve made a lot of advances. There’s education and medical care. And people are free to live as they choose in most countries, whether they were born noble or not. Everyone has an equal say in how things are run. And people live a long time, some a hundred years or more—”

“And there are few kings. And no knights. And everyone works hard because they wish to buy many things, but homes are so stuffed with these things that some pay to have the excess stored elsewhere. And knaves steal goods, and kill, and bring terror to your cities and go unpunished. And your people so abuse the land that in some places the air is unfit to breathe and the water unfit to drink. The more you tell me of your century, the less I find to recommend it.”

“You liked the idea of cars.”

“Aye, the carts that race without horses. That I would like to see.”

“If we had one now—”

“Is it possible to make love in a ‘car’?”

Celine groaned. So much for distracting him. “Yes, actually, it is.”

He nodded in understanding. “Then I can see why men invented such a conveyance.”

“Men aren’t the only ones who invent things. In my time, men and women are considered equal. Women go where they want, and do what they want, without having to ask permission from husbands or fathers or brothers.”

“Even in France?” he asked incredulously.

“Even in France.”

“On the whole, I do not like the sound of the future.”

Celine grinned. He was incorrigible. And perhaps she liked him best that way. Persuading him that the twentieth century was a better place was a lost cause.

She didn’t know why she kept trying.

“If there are no knights in your time,” he asked curiously, “who keeps the peace? Who administers the laws?”

“We have people called lawyers and judges who administer the laws. But the police are the ones who keep the peace. They have special cars, and uniforms, and ...” Her smile faded. “Guns.”

Gaston’s arm flexed around her waist. “That is the sort of weapon that injured you?”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a moment. “How did it happen?”

She hadn’t told him about that night, not in detail. She had repeated the story so many times to so many cops and lawyers and reporters that she had done her best to put it out of her mind ever since. But somehow, with Gaston holding her so close, she wanted to talk about it. She felt safe talking about it. For the first time. “I was in Lincoln Park—it’s a place with trees and grass in the city, in Chicago. I went there with my fiancé—”