Love Beyond Time (32 page)

“He may not be involved in the actual
fighting,” Redmond said, “but I for one would not be without him.
Savarec is able to understand a battlefield at a glance. He always
knows when and exactly where to send in fresh troops, when to press
forward, when to pull back. For years he has studied how the Saxons
fight. It is my hope that on this campaign he will stand upon some
nearby vantage point and direct the fighting, letting younger men
like myself and Michel and Guntram plough into the thick of
it.”

“God keep you safe, dear Redmond,” she cried.
“You and all vour men. And Guntram. And Michel. If Michel – if
Michel -” She swallowed the rising tide of fear and went on, saying
to Redmond her friend what she could not say to Michel her love.
“If Michel were killed, I would retreat to Chelles and never leave
it again. Nor would I live long without him, not even in that safe
and blessed place. My heart was broken once before when Hugo died.
I could not survive a second such blow.”

“I will do what I can, Danise, but in battle
-” Redmond broke off when Michel and Savarec approached.

“All is ready,” Savarec announced. “Now for a
hearty meal and a good night’s sleep. We will be up before dawn
tomorrow and away from Deutz ere the sun tops those trees over
there.”

“You sound happy,” Danise reproached him.

“Excited,” Savarec corrected. “The start of a
new campaign always makes me feel like a boy again.”

“Savarec,” said Redmond with a glance at
Danise, “may I ask your advice?” He drew the older man aside,
leaving Danise and Michel alone.

“Wait,” Danise cried when Michel would have
left her to join them. “You have not spoken one word to me since
last evening.”

“What do you want me to say, Danise?” He
looked as fierce and forbidding as any Frankish warrior whose
thoughts were on war and not on love.

“Say that you love me in spite of our
differences, that you forgive me for hurting you so badly. I wish I
had not spoken.”

“Whether you spoke or not, what you believe
would still be the same,” he said.

“Let us not part in anger, for we know not
what the coming days will bring. Say you will not stay away from me
tonight.”

“I do plan to join you,” he said, speaking
coldly and deliberately. The look he gave her, raking her from head
to toe, was chilling. “Every soldier wants a woman before he goes
off to war. Funny thing about women – they are interchangeable. Any
convenient one will do. And you are convenient to me, aren’t you?”
He spun on his heel and walked away, leaving Danise gasping in
shock.

Hurt, anger, and damaged pride warred within
her. She wanted to lash out at Michel, to say to him words as cruel
as those he had just tossed at her like the sharpest of spears. And
then she realized that she had already used words as weapons
against him. What Michel had said to her was causing her only a
taste of the pain he must have felt when she had told him about
Hugo.

“What has happened to us?” she cried after
him. “How have we so quickly destroyed the beautiful, perfect love
that was going to last until time and the world ended? Oh, Michel,
what have I done? And what have you done?” He did not answer her.
He just continued to walk farther and farther away until he
disappeared into a group of men who were loading up the last of the
baggage carts.

* * *

Danise sat beside Michel at the farewell
feast that evening. Though it was as lavish as Deutz could provide,
and ample proof of Savarec’s claim to set the best table east of
the Rhine, the meal did not last long. Savarec was insistent that
all the men leaving on the morrow must be in bed early. Those who
had women at the fort did not complain. The others obeyed their
commander in good humor, knowing he was right.

It was not yet dark on that midsummer night
when Michel appeared in the bedchamber he shared with Danise. Early
as it still was, she was waiting for him with her hair loose and
wearing the nightrobe she and Clothilde had made for her wedding
night.

“I do not want to continue our quarrel,” she
said, not waiting for him to speak or even to bolt the door. “We
have done terrible damage to the love we share. We must repair it
this night, before you go away.”

“What do you propose to do?” he asked,
regarding her with unchanged coldness. “Do you plan to dump me out
of a tree, or perhaps that window over there, to see if you can
induce a fresh bout of amnesia? If I can’t remember who I am, I
could just be whoever you want me to be. That might be easier for
both of us.”

“You are so angry with me because I hurt you
so badly,” she said, “which only proves the depth of your
love.”

He did not answer her. He stripped off his
clothing, letting the garments fall where they would. When he
approached her, Danise backed away. This was a Michel devoid of the
tenderness she had come to expect of him. She saw the pain and the
rage he was trying to control, and she feared what he might do if
some word or action of hers were to set that rage free.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said, coming toward
her as though he were some powerful beast of the forest and she the
prey he was stalking. “Get onto the bed.”

“Michel, please, wait.”

“The pleading should come later,” he snarled.
“In the meantime, if you don’t want it damaged, take off that
nightgown. Tell me, Danise, was it part of the bridal clothes you
made for Hugo?”

“No! It was made for your delight. I thought
of you and dreamed of your lovemaking with every stitch I put into
it. You are being unfair, Michel.”

“I am unfair? I don’t think so.” His voice
was like the low growl of an animal about to pounce. “I am just the
poor fool who fell for you. That’s a good one, isn’t it? I
fell
all right – fell out of a tree, into love, into a
situation I can’t begin to understand. Do you have any idea what
you did to me last night?”

“I am sorry.”

“You damned well ought to be sorry.”

He moved so quickly that Danise did not see
what was coming. She was standing near the bed. Michel grabbed her
left arm, spun her around, and flipped her onto the mattress. She
landed face down, with her arm twisted behind her. He did not hurt
her, but surprise made her cry out when she realized he was
straddling her thighs, his stiff manhood prodding at the cleft
between her buttocks.

“Michel, what are you doing?”

“Tonight I am going to teach you who I am.
When I leave this room tomorrow morning you will be convinced,
completely and for all time, that I am not Hugo.”

“I know you are not. I know you are Michel,
and you are the one I love. How many times do I have to say it
before you understand that what I believe does not detract from
you
, from who and what you are?”

“It is possible,” he purred into her ear,
“that you could prove to me during the course of this night that
you do have some small degree of sincere feeling for me. Or is it
just the physical part you enjoy?”

“Don’t make me ashamed to love you!” She
jerked her head around so she could see him better. She couldn’t do
much more than move her head. He still had a tight grip on her left
arm, and now he lowered himself until he was lying along her back,
his weight pressing her down into the mattress. His muscular thighs
were clamped over hers, holding her legs together so she couldn’t
use her knees to lever herself out from under him. When she tried,
he simply tightened his thighs around hers, and as he moved his
manhood rubbed hard against her.

Suddenly she was glad she was unable to turn
over, for if she could do so, he would be inside her in an instant,
and in his present mood he would not stop until… until… She
groaned, acknowledging what she would have preferred to deny. If he
were to take her in that way, hard and angry and unloving, still
she would welcome him, for her own growing anger at the way he was
treating her was fueling her desire for him. Even if he should take
her without bothering to turn her over first, still she wanted him.
She had to fight her own inclination to move against him in an
inviting manner.

“Don’t you think I’m the one who ought to be
insulted?” he demanded. “I fell head over heels for you, but you
didn’t want me at all. You were looking for Hugo.”

“If you could lay aside your jealousy for one
moment,” she yelled at him, “if you could forget your injured pride
long enough to think about what I said last night, you might begin
to understand that I was talking about something strange and
wonderful and beautiful. Something supernatural, Michel, a
circumstance so amazing and incomprehensible that it ought to
enhance our love instead of destroying it.”

“You are not going to blame me for this.
You’re the one who ruined what we had.” Releasing her arm at last,
he rolled off her, but when Danise tried to push herself up into a
sitting position he wrapped a hand around each of her wrists and
pulled. Before she could catch her breath she was on her back and
he was once more positioned across her thighs, facing her this
time.

“How did you do that?” she gasped.

“Martial arts. A twentieth century skill.”
His face and his eyes were cold.

“You have become like a Frankish warrior,”
she whispered, “hard and tough, ready to go into battle, there to
kill or be killed. But I am not your enemy.”

“That is something you are going to have to
prove to me,” he told her.

“How can I hope to prove anything to you when
you are holding me prisoner? I won’t run away from you, Michel. I
want to love you, not do battle with you.”

“Do you?” He lowered his body until his lips
were almost upon hers. His flat belly pressed on her own, and when
he drew in a breath of air, his chest rubbed against her breasts.
For a moment his eyes softened. “God, how I wish I could believe
you.”

“I mean it. I love you, Michel. I love
you
.”

“Sure you do.” His eyes were cold again. His
kiss was a brutal assault on her senses.

Though fully aware of his simmering fury
against her, Danise heard in his cry of distrust all the love she
knew he still felt for her. If she could reach that love beneath
the layers of pride and jealousy, of anger and disbelief that
cloaked his heart, then she might be able to draw forth the tender
emotion she cherished yet had lost by her own words and actions.
Nor could she deny that his newly harsh attitude was stirring an
answering fire in her.

With his mouth still grinding upon hers she
wrenched her wrists out of his grasp so she could wrap her arms
around his shoulders, meanwhile returning his demanding kiss with
matching passion. She raked her nails across his back, she bit and
scratched and pretended to fight so he could have the pleasure of
subduing her -until she was not pretending anymore, she was wild
with passion, desperate to hold him inside her yet struggling
against him. They wrestled like warriors in the ring at Mayfield
until, with a growl worthy of the beast she had earlier imagined
him to be, he rammed himself into her, thrust following hot thrust.
Danise screamed and screamed again, still struggling, still
fighting for her love, until their joined bodies erupted into a
throbbing, pounding climax that stopped the next scream before it
left her lips -that stopped her breath and his.

There followed a gentler time of warmer
kisses and kinder caresses. They did not speak. Danise feared if
she said one word they would begin to quarrel once more and all
Michel’s pain and her regret would pour out of them to taint their
last night together. For these few hours their bodies would have to
tell of the love their tongues might have ruined forever. When he
became hard again and came at her with a driving desire equal to
their first joining, she responded in kind, knowing it was what he
needed from her, knowing, too, that his ferocity would not hurt
her.

She thought he might well fear that if he
were tender and gentle with her they would both dissolve into tears
and remorse for what they had done to themselves and to each other.
She would not cry, not during that night or on the morning to come.
She would give him whatever she thought he required of her until it
was time for him to leave her. Only in that way could she prove her
love to him. And it seemed to her as the night wore on and he made
love to her again and again, that he was trying to prove his own
love to her. His kisses and the way in which he took possession of
her body became less forceful. It might have been the result of
simple weariness, or perhaps the slaking of a violent passion. Or
it might have been – please God, it was! – his realization that no
matter what he demanded of her, she would not deny him.

She dozed off once, and wakened later to the
touch of his fingertips on her face, brushing back her hair and
caressing the margin of her lower lip. His glance was tender while
he looked at her hair and her mouth, until he saw that she was
awake. Then his face became closed and tight and he put her hand on
him and made her rub until he was hard, while he stroked her into
trembling acquiescence. He rose above her once more to take her
with renewed fury, groaning and biting his lip at the end as if he
would conceal any indication of softer feelings. Danise, gasping
and shaking beneath him, cried out her love repeatedly, but
received no answer from him, though she believed he felt the same
despairing affection that she did.

She had not known there were so many
different ways to make love. Nor had she dreamed how much
tenderness or how much grief her heart could hold. When the notes
of a trumpet being blown in the courtyard called Michel from their
bed, Danise lay a little longer, sore, exhausted, her body sated
and her heart near to breaking, for not once during any of their
couplings had Michel said he loved her.