Timestruck (29 page)

“If you ladies will be good enough to excuse
me,” Dominick said, “I am for the bathhouse. I am not fit to be in
your presence until I am clean.” Gently he freed himself from Lady
Adalhaid’s embrace. Then, after calling for one of the servants to
bring hot water, he headed for the back door.

“Go to him,” Lady Adalhaid said to Gina.

“What?” Gina responded with surprise to the
intense quality in the older woman’s voice.

“When Dominick wakened this morning, assuming
he slept at all last night, he believed he would die before the day
ended,” Lady Adalhaid explained. “He still may die; we cannot know
what Fastrada will convince Charles to do to Dominick. But for the
moment, he is a living, healthy man.” She began to push Gina toward
the back of the house, emphasizing each word with a gentle shove.
“Do – not – waste – precious – time.”

“You are a very strange woman,” Gina
declared.

“Do you think so?” As if she was offended,
Lady Adalhaid began to draw herself up in noble pride until Gina
impulsively hugged her.

“I meant that you are the most unusual
ex-mother-in-law I have ever met, because Dominick is so fond of
you, and you obviously love him,” Gina said. “You are also a good
friend to me. I will take your advice.”

Pausing only long enough to kiss Lady
Adalhaid on the cheek and then toss her cloak to Ella, Gina hurried
off to the bathhouse.

It was considerably smaller than the
bathhouse at Feldbruck, though it, too, was built next to the
kitchen so hot water didn’t have to be carried very far. There were
no windows. A pair of fat candles burned in dishes set on a shelf.
A small metal mirror was propped on the shelf, a razor waiting
beside it.

Dominick was already in the steaming water,
scrubbing his hair with soap he scooped out of a wooden bowl. The
old sheet that lined the tub dripped water onto the floor as
Dominick splashed.

Gina shut the door quietly, then kicked off
her shoes and pulled her gown over her head. Dominick still hadn’t
noticed her. He was humming softly, a tune she didn’t
recognize.

She wished she were clever enough to think of
something witty to say about the way he had come through the trial
with his skin intact. She couldn’t do it. She thought of all the
men who were being hanged or beheaded even as she stood there
listening to Dominick hum a silly tune and watching as he poured a
pitcher of rinse water over his head. She thought of the women who
loved the men who were dying, and who could never hold them again,
and she shivered, knowing Lady Adalhaid was both correct and wise.
While Dominick remained alive and relatively free, they could still
be together.

She wanted that. The strength of her longing
turned her knees to jelly. What she felt for Dominick was more than
simple physical desire, more than lust for a handsome and virile
man. Dominick’s heart called to her own heart. Without him, she
would survive, as she had survived before she knew him, but she
would be lost. In any century. In any country. And that certainty
terrified her.

She started for the tub. Dominick saw her and
stretched out a soapy hand, the cheerful, honest smile she so loved
to see lighting his face.

“Have you come to help me bathe?” he asked,
waving at the lightweight linen shift that was her only remaining
garment. A few soap bubbles flew off his hand to float slowly
toward the floor, shining in the candle glow as they drifted
downward.

“Am I overdressed for the occasion?” Gina
asked. There, she had discovered a light touch after all. She saw
his smile deepen at her teasing question.

“Slightly,” he responded. “But it’s a minor
problem, and one I can easily overcome.” He reached for the hem of
her shift.

“In my days at the royal court I have learned
decorum.” She took a backward step, putting herself beyond his
grasp. While she was with him she was going to continue to be
lighthearted, charming, cheerful. She wasn’t going to say a word
about the trial or about the fate that could await him if Fastrada
got her claws into Charles and talked him into doing something
terrible.

“You have always been decorous,” Dominick
said, grinning so she would know he remembered moments when she had
been anything but. “However, I am only a rude, unmannerly
warrior.”

He rose out of the tub, splashing water and
soapsuds onto wallboards and floor planks, and seized Gina around
the waist as if he really was a marauding soldier and she no more
than his helpless victim. When he sank back into the water, he
pulled Gina in with him, silencing her shriek of surprise with his
warm mouth.

She thought she was drowning, not sure
whether she was above water or below it, until she realized that
Dominick was reclining in the tub and she was on top of him with
her soaked shift floating upward and threatening to smother her.
Dominick tore his lips from hers long enough to rip off the sodden
linen and toss it to the floor.

“I see what you mean,” Gina gasped. “No
manners at all. A cold-blooded warrior. A man of steel.”

“Not cold,” he corrected her. “My blood is
hot. But steel, yes. Forged in passion.”

Taking her hand, he guided it to the hard,
flaring evidence of his desire. And while she caressed him, he let
his wet hands slide along her body, touching every sleek curve from
her shoulders to her toes. He explored her as if during the past
few days he had feared they would never be together again, as if he
was memorizing every inch of her in case they were torn apart
forever and what they were doing in the bathhouse was going to have
to last for all eternity. His intense concentration communicated
itself to Gina, threatening to demolish her attempt at
lightheartedness.

Still, there were amusing aspects to their
love-making. The tub really wasn’t large enough to hold two people.
Dominick sat with his back and shoulders against one side and his
knees slightly drawn up. Gina was forced to straddle him, a
position that made it easy for him to reach every part of her but
limited her access to his more intimate areas, unless she wanted to
duck her head under the water and keep it there for a while.

Then again, she held a very important part of
Dominick in her hand, and he didn’t seem to mind the restrictions
of a cramped space. He kissed her lips and eyelids and nose. He
nibbled at her throat and shoulders and lifted her a little so he
could lavish attention on her breasts.

“I must taste of soap,” she said, pushing
closer to his searching mouth.

“You are as sweet as honey,” he murmured.

Below the water, her fingers became busier on
him, until Dominick leaned back, a blissful expression spreading
over his face.

“Now!” he breathed, his hands still teasing
her breasts, making her whimper with delight. “This instant, Gina,
or I will disappoint both of us.”

“You could never disappoint me.” But she
could see that he had endured enough of her sensual tormenting. She
rose on her knees until his hardness probed at her warmth, and then
she impaled herself on him, leaning forward to kiss him as he
filled her.

His arms clutched her, and she felt his hips
lift once, twice. She heard his cry of release just before she was
swept into a state of joy so intensely sweet that she imagined she
was melting, running into the water, floating there, suspended in
unending pleasure.

She drifted thus for a long, lovely time,
until Dominick s renewed kisses brought her back to the reality of
rapidly cooling bathwater and thigh and calf muscles aching from
being forced into an unnatural position for too long. Still, Gina
discovered that she didn’t mind being uncomfortable as long as
Dominick was with her.

“I have missed you sorely these last days,”
he murmured, his lips against hers.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Gina
wound her fingers into his wet hair. “I never want to find out,
either. Oh, dear, that doesn’t sound right. At critical moments I
lose most of my ability to speak fluent Frankish.”

“I comprehend your meaning.” Dominick placed
a finger on her lips to silence her self-criticism. “I think you
understand me, too, for much lies unspoken within my heart and must
remain there until I know what Charles intends for me.”

“I cannot believe he will order your
execution.” She paused for a moment, choking on that terrible word.
“If he were planning to, he’d have done it today, along with the
other men he sentenced.” She stopped talking again when Dominick’s
arms tightened around her, and she rested her head on his broad
shoulder.

Gina expected Dominick to be sent into exile.
It wasn’t fair. His loyalty to his king should have earned him a
reward, not punishment, but exile was far preferable to death. She
began to calculate their chances of reaching Feldbruck if they were
to flee from Regensburg now. Once at Feldbruck, perhaps they could
locate the opening in his room, the gateway between the centuries.
They could escape to New York together.

She wasn’t sure Dominick would agree to such
a plan. He had refused the suggestion once, while they were still
at Feldbruck, and he was so honorable that he’d probably believe it
his duty to remain where he was and accept whatever Charles decided
to do to him. But, assuming that she could convince him to flee to
New York, and assuming they were able to travel across time without
becoming separated, what kind of life could Dominick create for
himself there? He was an eighth-century Frankish warrior and
landowner, hardly a good fit for America at the end of the
twentieth century. He was too accustomed to command ever to fit
into the restrictions of the modern armed forces. Moreover, he knew
nothing of computers or modern technology; he didn’t even know
about electricity.

The qualities Dominick did understand –
honor, valor, trustworthiness, loyalty -were attributes her world
desperately needed but probably wouldn’t accept from someone like
him. For Dominick was a man perfectly suited to his own time and
place, and, therefore, he belonged exactly where he was. With a
sigh of regret Gina concluded that she couldn’t expect him to
escape with her, not even to save his own life.

“You are cold,” Dominick said, kissing her
forehead. “Come, we will go to my room. I want to make love to you
again, and we have occupied this place too long. Others will want
to use it. It’s only polite of us to leave.”

“There, you see?” she said, forcing a laugh.
“I knew it. You aren’t a rude, unmannerly warrior, after all.”

In late afternoon three days after the trial,
Charles sent a man-at-arms to inform Dominick that he was to
present himself at the king’s private apartments immediately
following Charles’s return from morning prayers the next day.

“Lady Adalhaid and Lady Gina are to accompany
you,” the man-at-arms added. “An escort will be sent for you.”

“Charles is going to send all of us into
exile,” Lady Adalhaid guessed when Gina and Dominick found her in
the great hall and told her the news. “Either that, or he will send
you away, Dominick, and order Gina and me into convents for the
rest of our lives.”

“Perhaps Ella can get a message to Alcuin,”
Gina suggested. “He may be able to tell us what is going on.”

“No.” Dominick’s firm refusal put a prompt
end to that notion. “Alcuin has done more than enough for me over
the last weeks. I will not require more of his friendship. If he
angers Charles, his own position could be in jeopardy, and I won’t
do that to him.”

“Surely Alcuin could never be in danger of
losing his place at court?” Lady Adalhaid cried.

“We do not know what has been happening since
the trial,” Dominick said, “or who has spoken to Charles.”

Fastrada.

None of them mentioned the queen’s name
aloud, yet her malicious presence pervaded the hall as they looked
at one another.

“Well,” said Lady Adalhaid with a briskness
that could not conceal her fear, “I must decide what to wear
tomorrow and give a few instructions to Imma.”

“Are we to sit here like mice caught in a
trap?” Gina asked when she and Dominick were alone.

“In honor, there is nothing else we can do,”
Dominick responded. “I owe obedience to Charles. However, you do
not. If you wish, I will order Harulf and Ella to help you leave
Regensburg.”

“Don’t be silly,” she snapped at him, her own
fears threatening to overcome her. She told herself to be strong,
as Lady Adalhaid was. As Dominick was. “Charles has ordered me to
appear, too. Even if I could go without endangering Harulf and
Ella, I wouldn’t desert you. Or Lady Adalhaid. Tomorrow morning, we
go to the palace together, and whatever Charles has planned for us,
we face it together.”

Dominick made no verbal response to her
emotional declaration. He just took her into his arms and held her
close. They were still embracing when Ella returned from a late-day
foray to the marketplace. Her basket was loaded with a large fish
fresh from the river, a duck that was intended for dinner on the
morrow, and several bottles of wine from far western Francia.

“I have news,” Ella said, handing her
purchases to the cook, who, upon hearing Ella’s voice, had come
into the hall to collect them.

“What news?” Dominick asked.

“Lady Gisela has come for a visit.”

“Has she?” Dominick murmured.

It seemed to Gina that Dominick suddenly
became quiet and withdrawn, as if deep in thought. Not so the cook,
who spoke over her shoulder as she headed back to the kitchen.

“Aha!” said the cook. “That’ll show Fastrada
who really matters. And none too soon, either. I say it serves her
right.”

“What is she talking about?” Gina asked as
soon as the kitchen door closed.

“Lady Gisela is Charles’s sister,” Dominick
answered. “He loves her dearly and she visits him often. Fastrada
is jealous of their affection.”