Forever His(68)

He frowned down at the flattened piece of pastry. “I see.”

Neither of them said anything more for a long moment. He didn’t look up. She didn’t move. She felt frozen—no, not frozen. Electrified. Stunned breathless merely because they were in the same room together for the first time in days.

Finally he turned away without looking at her again. “Bonsoir.”

Once he was gone, logical thought returned, gradually. And with it a fresh flood of hurt and outrage.

“So it’s Isabeau tonight?” Celine wondered aloud. “He’s been retiring to his chamber with a different girl each night this week, hasn’t he?”

She had heard some of his men chuckling about the way their lord passed his nights by “playing tables with pretty wenches.” Is that what they call it in these times? she had thought, something inside her clenching in a painful little twist. She had tucked the term away in her mental medieval dictionary, along with “se’nnight” and “raiment” and “destrier” and “trencher.”

Yolande hung her skillet on an iron hook beside the hearth. “Milady,” she said gently, “it is the way he has always been, and men find it difficult to change—”

“None of his others are half so fair as you, milady,” Gabrielle said staunchly. “Mayhap, in time, he will come to realize how fortunate he is to have you as his wife.”

In time, Celine thought. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said numbly.

Yolande came to Celine’s side, her stern features softened by a warmth and sadness Celine hadn’t seen before. “Lady Celine, do not let it hurt you. Men speak oft of loyalty but give little to their wives. They have naught but stone where their hearts should be. It is the way with all of them.”

The older woman’s eyes were glistening with sympathy and, Celine sensed, a pain that was both old and deep.

“It’s all right.” Celine said with a shrug. “He’s free to do all the wenching he wants. I don’t care.”

Yolande shook her head. “You are most generous and forgiving, milady. Mayhap too much so. A woman with a heart so tender cannot help but have it hurt ... if she entrusts it to a man.”

“I have not entrusted anything to anyone.”

Gabrielle expressed her opinion more plainly, darting a glance at the door and speaking in a whisper. “Even so, you deserve better treatment than such as our lord has offered, milady. He has not given you a fair chance.”

Celine’s head and heart were swirling with confused thoughts and feelings, and Yolande’s and Gabrielle’s support only added one more: she never would have believed it when she first arrived here, but Gaston’s loyal retainers had started to give her their respect. Even their friendship.

But she didn’t have a speck of either from their lord. And never would.

And the truth was that she wanted both ... and so much more.

She felt a rush of heat prickling behind her eyes. “I’m sorry, but would either of you mind if we ... we finish our lesson another time? I’m tired. I think I’ll go up to bed.”

“Of course, Lady Celine,” Gabrielle said. She dropped into a deep curtsy.

It was a gesture of honor and regard that she hadn’t used before.

“Sleep well, milady.” Yolande curtsied as well, as low as if she were bowing before a queen.

Celine wanted to hug them, but she didn’t trust herself to linger. She barely managed to make it to the door before tears started to slide down her cheeks.

And as she dashed through the darkened great hall, she realized that she had just made yet another mistake: she had thought for a moment that they really could finish their cooking lesson another day—but she had just seen Yolande and Gabrielle for the last time.

And Gaston.

And the lesson would remain unfinished forever.

Because tonight was the night.

***

Celine wished she had a wristwatch. Even a wrist-sundial would do. But that wouldn’t work at night. Maybe a wrist-moondial? It was next to impossible to tell time here, and she had to get this exactly right. Down to the split second.

To keep calm, she kept busy: snuggling Groucho one last time; writing a note to Yolande to ask her to take care of him, hoping someone would be able to make sense of her handwriting; changing into her amber-colored silk-and-lace teddy. Her palms were sweating. She started breathing deeply, in to the count of four and out to eight, in to eight and out to sixteen.

Over the past few days, Celine had started paying attention to the church bells that rang throughout the countryside, marking the divisions of the working day: prime sounded at six A.M. to urge people from their beds for prayer and work; nones at noon, when the day’s main meal was eaten; and couvre-feu at eight, time to bank the fire and go to bed.