Forever His(143)
Celine lay silent, still, deathly pale.
“Is there no one who can help her?” he demanded raggedly, not knowing if he was pleading with God or himself or the mystic woman. “No surgeon? No physician skilled enough?”
Brynna shook her head. “I know of none, milord. None who would dare attempt such a task. Not even the barber-surgeon who was in Tourelle’s employ—the man who assisted you—and he is the most skilled I know of in all the region.”
Gaston’s entire body shook with helpless fury. His wife needed him. She was lying there helpless and she needed him and he could not help her.
Think. He had to think.
Brynna rose and went to the table in the corner, where she had placed her sack of curatives. “I may at least be able to ease her pain if she awakens again.” She poured a cup of wine and carefully began mixing various dried herbs into it.
Gaston swore. He rose from the bed, pacing again, toward the window and back. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to force his thoughts and heartbeat under control. Trying to summon all his powers of reason and logic and cunning. Herbs and wine would not help her. A barber-surgeon would not help her. Celine needed a physician of skill enough to try to save her. Where could they hope to find such a man?
It was an impossible question. There was no answer. She needed a physician of her time. A surgeon of the future.
Dropping his hands in frustration, Gaston turned on his heel, stalking toward the window. There was no way to—
He stopped dead in the middle of the chamber, in the midst of the shaft of moonlight that spilled in through the panes.
That brilliant, silver moonlight. It blinded him, dazzled him. Not an enemy, but an answer from above. Why had he not thought of it before?
The moon.
The image tumbled through his thoughts and meshed with another, one that had been prickling at the back of his mind for days. He spun toward Brynna, watched her stirring the herbs into the goblet.
The goblet of wine.
Wine. Which could be used to cleanse wounds. To prevent infection. But only by those who had the knowledge.
And he had met only two people in his life who had that knowledge.
The moon ... and the wine.
“Brynna,” he said abruptly, the idea gaining speed in his head like a charging destrier, “you said that you knew of no other time-travelers—that my wife was the first you ever encountered?”
“Aye, milord.”
He came around the bed so fast she nearly dropped the cup. “But you said that your father knew of others.”
“Aye. But, milord, my father has been dead for—”
“But he knew of others.” He grabbed the goblet from her hand, staring at the wine. “Dozens of others, you said.”
“Aye.”
“And these people from the future—if they were unable to return home, if they lost any of the belongings they arrived with—”
“As happened often,” Brynna said, her face brightening as understanding dawned, “if we are to judge by my father’s notes—”
“If these people could not go back to their own time ... would they not still be here?”
The question hung like a glittering star in the silence of the night. For one breathless moment, Gaston thought he could feel his heart and Celine’s beating as one, strong and steady.
He shoved the cup back into Brynna’s hands, spun to the bed, placed his hands on either side of his wife’s slender form, kissed her. “Heaven will not be enough, my Lady Roussette!”
“Milord—”
He was out the door even before Brynna had a chance to begin her question.
Celine would not live long enough for a safe return to the future.
But there might be time enough to bring the future to her.
Chapter 29
“There seems to be much internal bleeding.”
“Progressive circulatory shock. She’ll need a transfusion, Arnaud. By our experiments, you’re type O. Universal donor. You’re elected. Mrs. Varennes?”
“Give me a needle, Thibault, quickly.”
“Mrs. Varennes?”
The strange voices floated in and out of Celine’s dreams ... so loud ... so distracting. She ignored them, floating back down into the comfortable darkness, toward a light that shone so near, beckoning her. A pure white light that drew her in like a loving embrace, to a place filled with gentler voices, with peace, with—
“You have to wake up, Mrs. Varennes.”
A pungent smell waved under her nose yanked her upward, away from the light. She groaned in pain, in protest, wanting to sink back into the numbing blackness. The smell forced her to awareness. She opened her eyes—into light so bright it hurt. Brilliant light, but not the same that had tempted her moments ago. This glare seemed to come from lanterns overhead.