Forever His(117)

“You ... bitch!” he rasped out, staggering to a half crouch. Celine stood her ground. “You traitorous little bitch, you will pay for that!” Still gasping for breath, he straightened—and hit her so hard, he knocked her off her feet. She fell to the forest floor, dazed with shock and pain, her head ringing.

“You are dead!” he snarled, towering over her. “You have been dead from the beginning! I had it planned perfectly. You were going to fall through the ice on Lac du Clermont. Your husband was going to die trying to save you. It would have appeared completely believable—loving husband attempts to save his new bride, but both tragically drown in the freezing lake. No one would have found your bodies until spring! There would have been no evidence by then that you had both been strangled.”

He yanked her to her feet. “But you have ruined my plans for your ‘accident,’ Christiane. The snows are past and the ice has melted—but I shall devise something else. Something better.” He spun her around and shoved her toward his horse. “And until then, you and your husband shall live out your last few days in my dungeon.”

***

Etienne felt the blood beneath him. His blood. Everywhere. And pain. Layers of it. Wrenching, blazing pain. It felt like his left side was on fire. Darkness tried to drag him downward again, even as he struggled to find enough strength to open his eyes. He did not know what had awakened him.

Until his stallion nudged him.

He would have laughed, except that it was agony just to breathe. Damned loyal horse. He opened his eyes. Only tiny pinpricks of starlight and a glimmer of moon penetrated the dark forest. He felt cold. Unnaturally cold. And too weak to move.

Guard her with your life.

He had failed Sir Gaston. Again. But he had at least done one thing right: he had had sense enough to play dead. Lying there, he had held his breath and kept still, knowing he could not fight them.

He had heard enough before he passed out. Tourelle had taken Sir Gaston and Lady Celine to his chateau.

Guard her with your life.

Somehow—he was not sure exactly how, because he fainted once during the process—he ripped a length of cloth from his sleeve and bound his wound as tightly as he could, biting his lip at the pain. Then he made it to his knees. Leaning against his horse’s leg, he pulled himself to his feet. He rested there for a moment, his stallion twitching nervously at the smell of blood.

“Nay...” he croaked. “Easy.”

The night-draped forest danced crazily before his eyes. He had to get help. Had to ...

Trying to steady himself, he glanced down, and noticed Lady Celine’s bundle. He bent over and almost fell as he picked it up. It had seemed important to her, and he did not wish to leave it behind. After several tries, he managed to get his foot into the stirrup and heave himself into the saddle.

Groaning, leaning over his horse’s neck, he urged the stallion forward. Sir Gaston’s chateau was still several hours away. Captain Royce would be there. He would know what to do.

Etienne was going to either get help or die trying.





Chapter 23


Awakening only traded one darkness for another. Time passed in a hazy blur, hours of cold and blackness sliding one into the other until Gaston was not sure how many days he had spent in the small cell, with no heat or light, no food or water, and no idea why he was still alive.

Mayhap Tourelle meant to leave him here until he slowly starved to death. The hunger gnawing at his gut was matched only by the ache in his head from the blow he had suffered when Tourelle’s men attacked him. He had killed one of them before they overpowered him, but that fact was small satisfaction.

Most painful of all was not knowing what had happened to Celine.

He could only hope that she had escaped with Etienne. Unless she was being held elsewhere. He had called her name, but there had been no reply from the darkness. No sound penetrated the dungeon save the echo of his own voice.

His efforts to escape proved just as useless. Digging at the clammy stone floor and walls was futile, and the solid wooden door did not give way no matter how hard he kicked it or how many times he threw his full weight against it. Despite all the noise he made, no guards came to subdue him. He was left utterly alone in the darkness.

Left alone to worry about whether Celine was safe.

It was a torture worse than any other Tourelle could have inflicted. Gaston almost would have believed the bastard was doing it apurpose, except that he could not know.

Could not possibly know how much Celine meant to him. How much he cared for her.

He had not truly known it himself, until now.

Left with naught to do but sleep and think, he found himself unable to sleep because all he could think of was her. He did not care what happened to him, as long as Celine was safe.