Timestruck (37 page)

“I can’t,” she said.

“What?” Charles was frowning at her.

She had never been frowned at by a king
before and it was truly frightening. Gina stared back at him,
knowing she was in for a major battle and fearing she wouldn’t be
strong enough to hold out against his will, because, deep in her
heart, she wanted to obey his command. She wanted so much to marry
Dominick and live with him to the end of their lives. But she
couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to him.

“Gina,” Alcuin said, “look at me.”

She did, meeting his honest gaze and knowing
that he was the only person in the room other than Dominick who
understood her predicament.

“I advise you to do as Charles orders,”
Alcuin said. “Obey the urging of your heart.”

“You know why I can’t,” she said.

“I know why you must.”

Alcuin’s cryptic statement left Gina so
puzzled and nervous that her stomach began to churn.

“Gina,” Dominick said, taking her hand,
“marry me. Please. I insist on it.”

Not,
I love you and I can’t live without
you
. Just,
I insist on it
.

“What a typical Frankish male you are!” she
exclaimed, and she heard Lady Adalhaid’s distinctive throaty
chuckle.

“Marry me,” Dominick repeated with an
intensity that suggested he might have some inkling of what was
going through her mind. “Say yes.”

“Yes?” All her doubts were in that single
word, making it into a question. She promised herself that, after
they got out of that cursed audience chamber, she was going to talk
to Dominick without the interference of well-meaning friends, and
she’d remind him why it wasn’t a good idea for them to marry. For
the moment, she just wanted to get away from Charles. She hadn’t
fully realized how manipulative the king of the Franks could be
beneath his relaxed, easygoing exterior.

“Good.” Charles was beaming his approval on
them. “I’ll let you go now. I’m sure all of you have a great deal
to accomplish in preparation for tomorrow. Alcuin will meet with
you about the marriage contract.”

“Contract?” Gina said. “I don’t have any
property. No dowry. I guess that means no wedding.”

“On the contrary,” said Charles. “I am
settling upon you the estate of one of the exiled traitors. Vincona
isn’t a very large estate, but the farmland is rich. So you now
have a dowry in Lombardy.”

“Lombardy?” Gina cried. “You mean it’s in
Italy?” She wanted to add, Are you crazy? but Dominick was thanking
Charles for her, and by the time she had a chance to say anything
at all, Charles had dismissed them.

Lady Adalhaid went off to bid farewell to
Lady Madelgarde and her other friends.

Gina and Dominick spent an hour in Alcuin’s
office while he and Dominick discussed the terms of their marriage
contract. Gina agreed to whatever the men suggested. It didn’t
matter what the contract said. She couldn’t marry Dominick.

“I shouldn’t have to explain it to you,” Gina
said.

Dominick had sent Harulf home, so the two of
them were walking unattended beside the Danube. Sunlight glittered
on the blue water. Tree leaves rustled in a gentle breeze. A few
puffy clouds drifted overhead. The grass was springy beneath their
feet. Altogether it was a perfect summer day.

Gina’s heart was aching.

“You know,” she said, stopping so she could
turn to face Dominick, “ever since I met you, I’ve been pulled one
way and then the other. I don’t know what to think or whether you
care about me or not. I can’t take it anymore.”

“Are you saying that you want to return to
New York?” His face was grim. His strong hands gripped her
shoulders so tightly that her bones hurt. “Look me in the eye and
tell me the truth. I will have nothing but honesty from you. I
deserve that much, after you’ve refused my offer of marriage
despite the king’s order and despite the fact that Alcuin is even
now dictating the final terms of our marriage contract to one of
his secretaries.”

“It wasn’t an offer of marriage, it was
Charles’s command.”

“Stop quibbling,” he ordered. “Answer me
truthfully.”

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his hard
gaze, and she knew if she didn’t speak what was in her heart, she’d
regret it for the rest of her life. No, she’d regret it for all
eternity.

“The truth is, if I were given a choice of
returning to the twentieth century or of staying here with you,”
she said, “I would choose to stay with you.”

“Then marry me.”

“Don’t you understand? I may not have a
choice. I don’t know how long I will stay in this time. What if I
marry you tomorrow morning, and I’m taken back to the twentieth
century tomorrow night? Or the day after? Or on the day when we
return to Feldbruck and I walk into your bedchamber?”

“I am willing to take the risk,” he said. “I
want to seize whatever time heaven grants us to be together. We can
move to a different bedchamber at Feldbruck. There is a large room
on the second level that I have never used because my needs were
those of an ordinary warrior.”

“There is nothing ordinary about you,” she
said, thinking of the grueling work he had undertaken to restore
his health and strength.

“The room is bare of all furniture,” Dominick
said. “Would you like to see to the decorating yourself? My
storerooms are full, or you may take furniture from the other rooms
if you like.”

“Pale blue walls,” she murmured, daring to
dream for just a brief moment, though she knew dreams were futile.
“Is blue wall paint possible in this time?”

“Anything is possible with you, my love.”

“A rug on the floor, a couple of chairs with
thick cushions – what did you say?”

“Anything is possible.”

“No, I mean after that.”

“I called you my love.”

“You love me?” she exclaimed, uncertain
whether to believe him or not. But why would he lie? Dominick never
lied to her.

“I thought you knew,” he said.

“How do you expect me to know something like
that when no one has ever – until now -?” She halted, still not
quite able to believe he had actually spoken the words she wanted
to hear from him.

“Let me say it straight out, so there will be
no chance of misunderstanding.” Using the name she had written on
the marriage contract, he said, “Gina of New York, I love you.”

“Oh, Dominick.” She saw him in blurry
fashion, for her eyes were swimming with happy tears. “I love you,
too. It wasn’t until I met you and began to learn what a fine,
honest man you are that I was able to understand what real love
is.”

“Nor did I ever love,” he said, “until the
morning I first looked into your beautiful green eyes.”

“But you did love before I came to Francia,”
she protested. “You love Charles and Alcuin and Pepin. You love
Lady Adalhaid, even if she was once your mother-in-law, and I think
you did love Hiltrude, too.”

“Say, rather, I respect Lady Adalhaid. And
for a brief time I was fond of Hiltrude in the way I would care for
a young and innocent sister.”

“For heavens sake, Dominick, you even love
your miserable brother!”

“Bernard would insist that you refer to him
as my half brother,” Dominick corrected her.

“You probably treat Bernard’s mother nicely,
too.”

“That is more difficult,” Dominick said
wryly. “And never did I love any of the people you have mentioned
with the kind of passionate, enduring love I feel for you. Gina,
you are my whole heart and soul. I will love you until I die. And
if we are ever torn apart as you fear, I will pray ceaselessly that
we will find each other again in the next world, so we can spend
eternity together.”

“That’s not fair to you,” she whispered,
making one last objection for the sake of her conscience and his
future happiness.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Please, Gina, marry
me. It is the deepest desire of my heart, what I want above all
else in this lifetime.”

“It’s what I want, too,” she said,
capitulating to the love in his eyes. Silently she vowed to do
everything she could to make him happy for as long as they were
together. “All right. If you are willing to take the chance, then
so am I. I will marry you, Dominick.”

He was still holding her by her shoulders,
but now he pulled her closer, and his hands slid across her back,
until she was right up against him. She lifted her face to him, and
his lips caressed hers, sweetly, softly. Gina whimpered, and
Dominick deepened the kiss, exploring her mouth until she went limp
with desire and hung on to his shoulders to keep herself from
falling.

“That was only a promise, for the future,” he
said.

“No.” She pressed closer, recalling the
frightening days when she had feared he’d have no future.
“Dominick, please, kiss me again. Then take me home right away. I
want to be as close to you as two people can be. I’ve missed you
so.” It wasn’t just his physical closeness she had missed; it was
his deep tenderness and the expression on his face in the last
seconds before his pleasure seized him in a whirlwind that always –
always – included her.

“I hope you understand,” he said, “that in
this century a wife is expected to obey her husband in all things.”
With that cool statement he took his hands from her and stood
back.

Her eyes opened wide in hurt surprise, and
she reacted with irritation bordering on anger. “I wouldn’t depend
on that if I were you,” she said.

“I am about to issue my first order.” He
actually shook a finger just in front of her nose.

“You aren’t my husband yet,” she reminded
him. “Where I come from, women have rights.”

“So have Frankish women, as you very well
know. My order is that, from this moment until nightfall, we will
not speak of any unpleasant subject, nor of any unkind or unloving
person.”

“Oh. Well, I think I can live with that.”

“See how easy it is to obey me? Here is your
reward.” Before Gina could respond to his teasing comments,
Dominick kissed her again, this time so thoroughly that she was
rocked to her very toes.

“Now,” he said, releasing her, “we will walk
along the river and talk and make plans as if we have forever to be
together. For it may be that we have.”

“Walk and talk,” she said. “Is that another
order?”

“It is a desperate scheme,” he responded with
solemnity, “intended to prevent me from dragging you back to my
house and into my bedchamber as you requested. It will be difficult
to restrain myself when I am burning for you and you admit that you
also desire me, but I would like to wait until tomorrow, until you
are officially my wife, before we lie together again. Then, on our
wedding night, we will celebrate a new beginning.”

“You are, without a doubt, the most
remarkable man I have ever known,” she said, touching his face
tenderly.
And the greatest optimist in the face of
uncertainty
, she added silently.

Gina wore a green silk gown to her wedding,
another of Hiltrude s dresses with the seams taken in so it would
fit her. She was no longer without jewelry of her own, for on their
return from their walk along the Danube, Dominick had presented her
with a necklace of heavy gold links set with green stones.

“I ordered Charles’s jeweler to make it for
you soon after we came to Regensburg,” he said. “There’s a ring,
too. You will see that tomorrow.”

Dominick set out for the palace early on the
day of the wedding, attended by all his men-at-arms except for the
two who were to escort Gina and the other women.

“That’s a good thing,” said Ella, bustling
about. “Imma and I are going to clean Dominick’s chamber and put
clean sheets on the bed for tonight. Cook is preparing a lovely
meal for you that you can serve yourselves. The rest of us will
carry our midday feast to the riverbank and enjoy it there.”

Lady Adalhaid was wearing her traveling
garments. Her belongings were packed, and she and Imma were to
depart from Regensburg as soon as Charles left.

“Let me say farewell now,” Lady Adalhaid said
just before they were scheduled to mount and ride to the wedding.
She embraced Gina warmly, kissing her on both cheeks.

“Don’t say good-bye,” Gina whispered, her
throat suddenly too tight for normal speech. “Visit us at
Feldbruck, and I hope we will meet at court, too. Dominick tells me
that he is required to attend Charles periodically.”

“I will travel to Feldbruck,” Lady Adalhaid
responded with a sly smile, “for the birth of your first child. I
think you will want someone there to counteract Hedwiga’s
bossiness.”

“That would be lovely. But who knows when, or
if, I will have a child?” Gina’s cheeks warmed at the thought of
what she and Dominick would do later in the day, which could, of
course, result in a baby, but she forgot her momentary
embarrassment when she heard Lady Adalhaid’s next, puzzling
statement, which bore no apparent connection to what she had just
said.

“Lady Madelgarde assures me most positively
that Fastrada is not with child. Apparently, Fastrada was greatly
distressed when the evidence presented itself right on schedule.
She knew a pregnancy was her last hope of holding on to Charles’s
affections, for he surely will not lie with her again.

“As for you, let me see now.” Lady Adalhaid
held up her hands and began, rather ostentatiously, to count on her
fingers. “As near as I can tell, it will be in late January or
early February. If I visit Hiltrude and Audulf at Birnau for the
Christmas festivities and travel on to Feldbruck immediately
thereafter, I ought to reach you with sufficient time to spare. Is
that arrangement acceptable to you?”

“What are you implying?” Gina asked. “Even if
I were to conceive tonight – well, It’s early August. How could I
possibly have a child in January?”