Forever His(65)

Celine closed her eyes, feeling more humiliated and lost and stupid than she ever had in her life. He had proved his point, in no uncertain terms: proved that he could make her respond to him with one kiss or a single touch, with no words of love between them.

He didn’t care about her. And he didn’t believe she was from the future. Speaking her real name moments ago had merely been a slip of the tongue.

He felt nothing for her. Nothing but what he felt for other women, all women, any woman. Lust.

While she ... she felt such a confusing clash of emotions for him that she couldn’t begin to put a name to them.

Except, at the moment, raw hurt.

But she couldn’t let him know that.

“You haven’t proved anything,” she said hotly, opening her eyes, blinking back tears. “There’s more to life than pleasure, Gaston. More than you’ll ever know. All you’ve proved is that we’ll be a whole lot happier without each other.”

He cast her an irritated expression, stood, and stepped around her to douse the fire. “Cling to your childish fancies if you wish. But it appears that you are now warm, and it is time for us to return to the chateau.”

Time.

She sat there feeling alone and helpless as he went to gather her drying clothes from the low-hanging branches.

Time.

She had to go home. As soon as the lunar eclipse occurred in three weeks. Because if she stayed here, she would die.

Either from the bullet in her back, or from the pain that was slowly sinking talons into her heart.





Chapter 12


A huge hearth dominated the castle’s kitchen, large enough for roasting an ox whole, the massive logs inside it generating a steady heat that made the entire room feel summer-hot, even the brick floor. Standing at the oak-planked table in the center of the chamber, Celine paused to brush a strand of hair from her damp forehead.

Her heart skipped a nervous beat when she noticed how warm she was. Was it a fever?

No. No, it was the hot room, not a symptom. She was fine. Her imagination had been running away with her ever since she returned to the castle three weeks ago. For a couple of days she had experienced an odd sensation in her lower back—a twinge above her right hip—but it had disappeared just as suddenly.

It might have been nothing. A pulled muscle, from the physical exertion of her run through the forest, her icy dip in the river, and ...

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, to the count of eight. She was all right. She had to be. And soon she’d be even better. Because tonight was the night.

Tonight she was going home.

Her hand shaking, she returned to her task, beating a bowlful of coarse flour, eggs, salt, and sugar, using her latest secret creation: a rotary egg beater, made with a little help from the armorer.

“Lady Celine, I do not understand why you do this.” Gabrielle handed her a goblet of milk, then a copper pan brimming with butter that she had melted over the fire. “I do not understand why you continue to cook when milord has granted you the freedom of the castle and said you no longer need work as a servant.”

Celine stirred in the milk bit by bit, then the butter, before setting the bowl aside. “I enjoy teaching you,” she said a bit too brightly, wiping her flour-covered hands on her skirt. “And I like feeling helpful.”

That was true, at least partly. She also wanted to keep busy, wanted to keep her mind off things.

Lots of things.

“I believe I am almost ready, Lady Celine,” Yolande said from beside the hearth, where she was heating a long-handled copper skillet.

“I will see if I can find some honey for our ‘midnight snack.’ “ Gabrielle hurried off in the direction of the larder, the cool-storage area that filled a separate room attached to the kitchen.

“Yolande, I think we should let this batch sit and thicken up a bit before we try it,” Celine said.

“Mayhap that would be best,” the older woman agreed sheepishly.

Most of the first batch of crepes had dripped into the fire or slid onto the floor. One had ended up on the ceiling. Celine couldn’t help but smile as she looked up at it. Her two French-chefs-in-training were nothing if not enthusiastic. Each night for the past three weeks, after the servants had finished their daily duties and the kitchens were empty, she and Gabrielle and Yolande had gathered for a cooking lesson.

They didn’t have the faintest idea how to dislodge that sticky little pancake up there, though, so the three of them had decided to leave it for one of the men to worry about in the morning.

Celine leaned back against the waist-high table, watching Yolande at her task. Slowly, her gaze was drawn to the flickering flames. It had been nice, these past weeks, to hear everyone use her real name. Not that she had tried to convince anyone else that she was from the future; they had merely accepted her explanation that it was a nickname from her convent in Aragon, one that she preferred to “Christiane.”