Love Beyond Time Page 7

  “I have not decided yet whether to marry or not.” She wished he had not asked those questions. Michel was forcing her to think about a subject she had avoided since learning of her father’s wish that she should decide whether to marry or become a nun. She thought about it now.

  She would never willingly marry Clodion. Of that much she was certain. She found Clodion repulsive. But she could marry Redmond, or return to Chelles to live with no disloyalty to Hugo’s memory in either case. At Chelles she would remain a virgin all her life and dedicate herself to good works in service to God. She did not think Hugo would have objected to such a decision. If she married Redmond, Danise could still remain loyal to Hugo, for Redmond, much as she liked him, did not and never could engage her heart as Hugo had done.

  As for the man standing before her here in the forest, he was a dire threat to her love for Hugo. Danise sensed that if she allowed her reactions to Michel to guide her, he would soon eclipse Hugo in her thoughts. She could not allow that to happen. Hugo had loved her with a deep and tender devotion. He had died a hero, doing his duty for his king. She had a duty, too, a duty to keep Hugo’s image bright in her memory for as long as she lived. However compelling Michel’s attentions to her might be, she could not allow him to take Hugo’s place.

  “Danise.” She tried to look at him without being captured by his brilliant eyes, but it was an impossible task. “If I can learn my true identity, and if I prove to be the nobleman your father and all the others I have met here at Duren seem to think I am, or if I am in some other way a worthy person, would Savarec accept me as one of your suitors? Would you?”

  She could only stare at him, unable to speak. Thrilled and terrified at the same time by his suggestion, she began to shake her head, to reject his idea.

  “Answer me,” he prodded gently. “Tell me what you are thinking.”

  “I do not know what my father would say,” she whispered.

  “And you? What would you say?”

  “That you disturb me. That you make me feel things I ought not to feel. That you threaten to turn my life upside down until I do not know what to say to you, or how to act.”

  “As soon as I was well enough to think about it.” he said. “I wondered if mv attraction to you was just a classic case of a patient becoming attached to his nurse.”

  “Perhaps it is.” Eagerly she grasped at the possibility he offered. “I was the person who was with you most often during the time when you were terribly confused and ill, so it would be natural for you to begin to depend upon me, rather than upon my father, or Guntram, or even Clothilde. I have heard of this sort of thing before. It is not unusual for wounded warriors to think they care about the women who nurse them back to health. It happens all the time, even when the attachments are most unsuitable. When the men are well and back in armed service once more, they sometimes joke about their former emotions. So I have heard.”

  “This is no joke,” he said, stopping the nearly desperate flow of her words. “I cannot believe that what I am feeling is no more than an injured man’s dependency.”

  “Yet it must be so,” she insisted. “As your body recovers from your injuries, so will your emotions.”

  “What if I don’t want to recover?” he demanded. “Through all the confusion and the uncertainty since I came here, the one thing I know is that I want to hold you in my arms. I keep telling myself it’s crazy to feel this way, but I can’t stop wanting you.”

  She stared back at him, unable to tear her eyes away from his intense face.

  “Danise. vou can’t be seriouslv thinking of going into a convent. You are too young, too intelligent, and far too beautiful to give up on life.”

  “I have not given up, I am merely undecided,” she replied. “Sister Gertrude would tell you that a decision to enter a convent is not a rejection of life but a positive act.”

  “It would be a rejection of your womanhood. Would Hugo want you to be lonely and unfulfilled? If he was the kind of man you could love so deeply, then I think he must have been unselfish enough to want you to be happy. So, I ask you again, if I can discover who I am, will you accept me as one of your suitors?”

  Danise felt weakened, her maidenly defenses battered by Michel’s tenacity of purpose. Could he be right? Would Hugo, if he could speak to her, tell her to let another man share the innermost space in her heart where until now only he had lived? As was her custom, she took refuge in honesty.

  “I am as confused as you were when first I met you,” she said to Michel. “You use incomprehensible words and your foreign ideas disturb me. But I ought to be as fair to you as I would be to any other man who offered for me. If my father has no objection to your suit, then neither will I object. Beyond that, I can promise nothing.”

  “It’s enough for now. We’ll have to take it one step at a time,” he said. “The first step was getting your agreement. The second step will be finding my identity and my memory. After that, well decide what to do next. In the meantime, may I ask one favor of you?”

  “What is it?”

  “One kiss more, so you’ll know what you will be getting in me.”

  “You have already kissed me twice,” she protested. “Neither Redmond nor Clodion has yet kissed me on the lips. Nor would I allow it if they tried,” she added, thinking of Clodion with a shudder.

  “Grant me this favor and in the future I will behave with the utmost propriety. I swear it.” He smiled at her, his rather plain features coming alight with humor and warmth, his remarkable eyes sparkling. “It will be difficult, but I will keep my word. I warn you, if you refuse this one request, I will pursue you relentlessly and kiss you more than once, when and where I find an opportunity. Public or private places will be all the same to me.”

  “You are threatening me.” She did not sound as severe as she wanted to sound. His smile was too contagious for her to remain shocked or angry for more than a moment.

  “Are you afraid?” The laughter lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled more deeply.

  “Certainly not.” Instantly she rose to his mocking challenge. She was usually a person of some spirit, and she was chagrined by how cowardly she had appeared to be during this trying afternoon. She was afraid of his effect on her, but she did not want him to know it.

  “You may kiss me, Michel. But only once.”

  “A kiss cheerfully given by me and willingly received by you,” he murmured, reaching for her. “Let’s not delay. I don’t want you to change your mind.”

  “I am not a woman who breaks her word. It will be an honest kiss.” She went into his arms willingly, as he had asked of her, and lifted her face. His mouth touched hers, withdrew, then pressed hard. His arms caught her, holding her tight, while her hands crept upward around his neck. Danise stood on tiptoe, opening her lips to his thrusting tongue, responding honestly as she had promised.

  There was sweetness in Michel’s kiss, and warmth and tenderness, too, but no terrifying passion and no demands she could not accept. In some deeply buried segment of her mind she understood that he was skilled in romantic matters and was taking care not to frighten her. Part of her was grateful for his consideration, but another part of her, a rebellious, treacherous, well-hidden part, wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him when he was not being so careful. And because she was entirely too aware of that most unmaidenly bit of her own character, she reacted to his kiss by scolding him when it was over.

  “You promised to take but one kiss,” she told him. “Once again, you have taken two kisses. You count poorly, Michel.”

  “Ah, Danise, Danise.” He held her lightly now, resting his cheek against hers. Thus, she could not see his face, but when he spoke again she knew he understood and forgave her inner turmoil and her fears. “How I wish we could have met when my memory was clear, and your heart was whole.”

  Chapter 5

  “Savarec, bring your friends and join us,” called Charles from his place at the trestle table set in front of his te
nt. “We are discussing plans for the building of my new palace at Aachen. I want the site of my old hunting lodge to become a great and beautiful capital.”

  “With an important church at its heart,” added the tall, stoop-shouldered man in cleric’s robes who sat beside Charles.

  “Of course,” Charles responded. “We must create the finest place of worship to be found anywhere in Francia. I saw a church in Lombardy during my campaign there a few years ago. Beautiful columns. Lovely marble. If I could but bring those columns to Francia … hmmm.” He paused, his thoughts on a building far to the south, on the other side of the Alps.

  In her chair set on her husband’s right hand, Hildegarde stirred uneasily. Danise bent to adjust a pillow for the queen, and Hildegarde smiled up at her.

  “Always Charles talks about this new palace,” Hildegarde murmured. “It will take so long to build that I wonder if any of us will live to see Aachen completed.”

  “We can at least be grateful,” said Sister Gertrude, “that when men speak of building, they are not discussing the possibility of going to war.”

  “Yet I do believe there will be a short campaign against the Saxons this summer,” Hildegarde said.

  Michel was aware of what the women were saying, but most of his attention was fixed on Danise. This morning she had wrapped her braids into a silver halo about her head, and her green gown clung to her softly rounded figure. Her mouth curved into a smile as she looked from her father to Redmond to Michel, greeting each of them in turn. Michel was stung by a vivid memory of kissing those richly tinted lips. He grew warm just looking at Danise. She met his eyes briefly before she glanced away, blushing a little. He wondered if she was also recalling with pleasure the way he had kissed her. He hoped she was.

  “Must we endure the presence of that dreadful man?” Sister Gertrude demanded of Savarec.

  Thinking she meant him, Michel regarded the nun with some surprise, unaware of having done anything to offend her, unless Danise had felt a need to confess that they had kissed in the forest on the previous day. Somehow, he did not think Danise would talk about their tender embraces. He quickly realized that Sister Gertrude was not referring to him at all, but to Count Clodion, who was approaching the group surrounding the king.

  “I believe Clodion intends to speak to Charles, not to Danise,” Savarec said with his usual patience when dealing with Sister Gertrude. “You cannot banish him entirely from this gathering, so I must beg you to treat him with the respect due to his title.”

  “Respect must be earned,” Sister Gertrude retorted. When Savarec moved on to intercept Clodion and direct him toward Charles, she muttered, “I would banish Clodion from Francia if I could.”

  “I perceive that you like him no better than I do,” Michel said to her in a low voice.

  “I like Clodion not at all,” Sister Gertrude told him. “Nor did I like Count Autichar any better.”

  “Redmond has told me how Autichar left Duren in a huff,” Michel said. “I cannot imagine any man willingly walking away from the possibility of marriage to Danise.”

  Sister Gertrude regarded him with the same puzzled expression he was growing used to seeing on the faces of other Franks to whom he used words or phrases perfectly natural to him but foreign to them. Michel smiled to himself, imagining he could see her thinking through and interpreting what he had just said.

  “I also find it difficult to believe that Autichar would leave Dureñ so easily,” Sister Gertrude said. “I would not be at all surprised to learn that we have not seen the last of him. I cannot understand why Savarec, who loves his daughter so dearly, would allow either Autichar or Clodion to court her. He cannot wish to see one or the other as his son-in-law.”

  “Perhaps Savarec thought Autichar and Clodion would make Redmond look more attractive by comparison,” Michel said.

  “A clever idea on your part,” Sister Gertrude responded after taking a moment to interpret the meaning of his words. “However, Savarec is a straightforward man who does not think in such devious ways. No, I believe he was more interested in the titles and the lands that Autichar or Clodion could bring to a marriage. But neither man would make Danise happy. Why must men be such fools?”

  “Perhaps because we do not think like women.” When the nun’s dark eyes opened wide at this statement, Michel smiled at her. “You love Danise as if she were your own daughter.”

  “I will admit to a certain fondness for her. Danise has been an excellent student. Still, she can be willful, and at such times she must be sternly admonished for her own benefit.”

  “You love her,” Michel repeated, still smiling. “More important, you understand the pain she has endured since Hugo’s death. You see Danise’s life mirroring your own.”

  “How can you know about my life?” Sister Gertrude demanded.

  “From Savarec. I asked him. Danise herself told me about Hugo.”

  “I am astonished. She has scarcely mentioned Hugo’s name since the day of the funeral service at Agen.” Sister Gertrude looked hard at Michel. “Why would she reveal her deepest pain to you?”

  “Tell me,” said Michel, deliberately not answering the question asked of him, “do you think Danise would be happy with Redmond?”

  “Do you?” Sister Gertrude gave him such a searching look that words failed him. She did not comment on it, but he knew she had not missed his remark about not knowing how any man could walk away from marriage to Danise. This tough, outspoken woman was too intelligent not to take note of his words. In spite of her sharp tongue he liked Sister Gertrude and he shared her disgust for Clodion. Unquestionably, Redmond would be the better husband for Danise, but, much as Michel liked Redmond, he could not bear to think of Danise in Redmond’s arms. He had a feeling he and Sister Gertrude were in agreement on that, too.

  “Michel, come here,” Savarec called to him. Michel excused himself to Sister Gertrude and went to join the other men. He could feel her probing eyes on him until he had to force himself not to turn around and look at her again.

  Nor would he permit his glance to stray toward Danise, who stood just a few feet away from him at Hildegarde’s side. He knew if he did, he would not be able to look away from her. But while he greeted Charles, or talked with Redmond and Savarec, or exclaimed with honest interest over the drawings on parchment that were the plans for Charles’s new palace, Danise remained in his thoughts.

  “You have not yet met my friend, Alcuin,” Charles said, “though he has heard much about you.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” Michel said to the cleric who sat beside the king, “and all of it good.”

  Alcuin frowned as if struck by some peculiarity in Michel, and looked more closely at him. Michel was growing used to this kind of response. Charles having asked shortly after his appearance at Duren if anyone there knew of a missing man, or if anyone meeting Michel could recognize him, his situation was common knowledge. Most of the warriors and their womenfolk knew of men who suffered confusion after a hard knock or a wound to the head, though seldom did anyone survive for more than a week without recovering from the condition. Thus, Michel was looked upon as something of a curiosity.

  “Is anything wrong? Do you know me?” Michel asked Alcuin. With his intense awareness of Danise’s presence, he sensed it when she stepped away from Hildegarde’s side to move nearer to him. She touched his arm as if to offer comfort or encouragement. He was grateful for the contact, but he kept his primary attention on Alcuin, hoping to hear from the great scholar something that would provide a clue to his identity.

  “Nothing wrong,” Alcuin said, “only that I see in you a likeness to a woman I met last year at Agen. It is not a physical resemblance. The similarity is more in the way you act with others. There is in you the same independence of spirit. Danise, does Michel remind you of India?”

  “Alcuin, you are right,” Danise exclaimed. “I did not see it before, but now that you mention it, yes, it is so. There is something in Michel which
is very similar to India.”

  “Who is this woman?” Michel asked. “Is she here at Duren? Can I meet her?”

  “Her lover, Count Theuderic, died at Roncevaux with my Hugo,” Danise said, so low that Michel had to bend down to hear her. “Afterward, she returned to her own home. Michel, could you be from her land?”

  “I won’t know that until I remember who I am.” Michel looked over Danise’s bowed head toward Alcuin, who still sat beside Charles. The other men stood or sat about, talking among themselves – Duke Bernard, Savarec, Redmond, Clodion, and others whom Michel had met in recent days. He saw none of them. He gazed straight at Alcuin, sharing a long, deep look that told Michel the scholar knew, or suspected, far more than he had revealed.

  “We must talk,” Michel said to him. “Later, perhaps.” Alcuin nodded and then, breaking their intense eye contact, returned his attention to the plans for Charles’s palace.

  “Perhaps he can help you,” Danise murmured, her hand still on Michel’s arm. “How wonderful it would be for you if Alcuin can offer some clue to open your memory.”

  There was one in that gathering of men and women near to the king and queen who was mightily displeased by what he had just seen.

  “Savarec,” demanded Clodion, “do you always permit your daughter such familiarities with men whose origins are unknown?”

  “Danise meant her sympathy for me in a kindly way and nothing more,” Michel spoke up before Savarec could answer. Clodion would not be silenced.

  “Has this unknown man become another suitor for your daughter’s hand, Savarec?” Clodion’s voice dripped contempt for Michel. “If he has, I consider his suit an insult to me and to Redmond. I warn you, Savarec, to guard Danise more closely or I will withdraw as Autichar did.”

  “It would be a blessing if you were to do so.” Sister Gertrude moved to stand next to Danise and Michel. “Danise has done nothing wrong, nothing that any honest woman would not do for a man who has been ill and in her care.”