Love Beyond Time

by Speer, Flora

  “We ought to save some of it for the morning,” he admonished.

  “I have been half asleep until this moment,” she murmured, wondering how she was going to control her unruly emotions.

  “I would say you have been in a state of shock. It’s perfectly natural, considering what you’ve been through. The food will help to bring you out of it. Have some more cheese.” He watched her eat for a while. “Do you feel like talking about it now? You said something earlier about Clodion and Autichar hatching treason between them.”

  “Hatching?” She smiled briefly at his choice of words. “They intended to use my abduction to cause a war between Charles and Duke Tassilo.” She told him everything that had happened since she had been taken from Duren, and all that she had been able to learn from Autichar.

  “This is serious business,” he said. “It really is treason those two have been plotting. Danise, did Clodion harm you in any way? If he laid a hand on you, I will personally tear him into pieces, though I may have to fight Guntram for the honor. Guntram threatened to castrate Clodion.”

  “I’m not surprised. Guntram’s fierceness is legendary. Still, there’s no need to do it in punishment for anything Clodion did to me during these last few days, though I am sure there are women in Francia who would applaud the act as vengeance for their own wrongs at Clodion’s hands.”

  “Your father and Redmond were ready to help Guntram,” Michel said, “but Charles insisted on justice. When he hears what you have to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if Clodion receives the worst punishment possible under Frankish law. In Merovingian times, the method of execution for treason was to tie each of the offender’s arms and legs to one of four horses, and have the horses whipped into running in four different directions. Queen Brunhilde was executed that way back in the early seventh century. The same punishment would serve Clodion right for what he did to you, and for what he was planning to do.”

  Danise watched him staring into the fire as he spoke, his face hard as any Frankish warrior’s. He was so deep in his thoughts of male vengeance that he did not notice the effect his words were having on her. She gulped back tears, brushing at her eyes.

  “I can’t,” she whispered, and he turned to her, startled out of his bloody reverie. “Michel, I can’t make light of what has happened, or talk about bloodshed and punishment. When Clodion took me away from the hunt, I was terrified. Autichar said he would let Clodion have me and then give me to his men. He said that afterward, if I still lived, I could go where I wanted, but what would there be for me after such shame? I feared I would never see you, or my father, again – or anyone else I love.”

  “I’m sorry. Danise, I am sorry.” He seized her, holding her tightly. “I’ve been thinking about my own anger at Clodion and forgetting how you must have felt. Your abduction never should have happened. We should have protected you far better than we did.”

  She clung to him, and the tears would not stop no matter how hard she tried to get them under control.

  “I am such a coward,” she sobbed. “I was afraid from the moment Clodion captured my horse’s reins until you took me onto your horse today.”

  “Anyone with any brains at all would have been afraid,” he said. “You had wit enough to stay alive and unharmed, and courage enough to escape. You got away from them on your own, Danise. You found us. You can be proud of that.”

  “But I can’t stop weeping!”

  “It’s a delayed reaction. Cry all you want. Soak my tunic. I don’t care. I’m so happy to have you safe in my arms that you can saturate every piece of clothing I own. Work on the cloak for a while if you like.”

  “Oh, Michel.” Poised between renewed sobs and laughter at his words, she looked into his eyes – and found she could not look away.

  Gently he wiped the moisture off her cheeks. When he was done, he did not remove his hand. He cupped her face, holding it steady while he kissed her. Danise made a soft sound, part whimper, part laugh, part cry of surprise. And then he was crushing her to him and his mouth was hard on hers. She felt his tongue and parted her lips to give him access, pressing herself against him while he searched out every sensitive corner of her mouth. She was dimly aware of the pounding noise of rain upon the roof of the little hut where they sheltered. She was more conscious of the warmth and dryness of the interior of the hut. And at the heart of that warmth, that shelter and safety, was Michel. He was the heart and center of everything.

  “I mustn’t do this.” He was pushing her away and Danise, half drowning in sensual pleasure, caught at his arms to keep him close.

  Michel knelt on the brown blanket, his features now softened by desire. Danise sat facing him, her legs drawn up beneath her, hands wrapped around his forearms, not willing to let him go.

  “I was sent to rescue you, not to violate you,” he said. “How can I return you to Savarec after taking you, when I would have killed Clodion or Autichar for doing the same thing? Worse, how can I take away your freedom to choose the life you want or the husband you prefer?”

  “You will not take anything away from me, you will give to me,” she cried. “I know you, Michel. You would not touch me if I did not want you also.”

  “You’re overwrought, you don’t know what you are saying. It’s a natural reaction to nearly losing your life.” But he did not move and he put no further distance between them while Danise spoke.

  “I did not have my time with Hugo. We denied ourselves in hope of greater joy at some later time. Will you also be taken from me, Michel? I know you believe it will not happen, but what if you are removed to your own time and I never see you again?”

  “All the more reason not to take advantage of you now,” he said.

  “What if Autichar has bested Redmond and his men? We do not know the outcome of that battle, Michel. Suppose Autichar should track us to this place and take us prisoner. I know what Autichar will do to me after I have escaped him once. He will not give me the chance to escape a second time. He will watch while his men make sport of me, and he will make you watch, too. And then he will kill us both, and what will your forbearance matter then?”

  “It won’t happen,” he said. “Redmond has twice the men that Autichar has.”

  “The lesson I learned from Hugo’s death almost a year ago,” she said, “and learned again in these last days, is that life is brief and most uncertain.”

  “That’s not reason enough for me to break faith with your father,” he declared. “I promised to return you to him unharmed.”

  “And what of me?” she whispered. “Can’t you think of what I want? I am a woman grown, Michel. My father gave me free choice in this matter. And you – you all but asked me to marry you. Have you changed your mind?”

  “Never. But I still don’t have anything to offer you, or your father.”

  “Honesty,” she whispered, nearly overcome by her longing to be held by this man. “Loyalty. Friendship. A good heart. I have recently learned how rare these qualities are. And how valuable.”

  “Danise.” Still he hesitated.

  “Have you changed your mind?” she asked again. “Don’t you want me?”

  “I’m dying for you,” he said with a groan.

  “And I for you. I have been since the first moment I saw you. Knowing that, will you lie beside me all this night and never touch me? Or do you plan to stand outside in the rain until dawn, guarding my virtue and your own?”

  His eyes grew dark, his face intent and serious.

  “I’ve never known a woman like you before,” he said, “never anyone so honest and open. Danise, are you absolutely certain this is what you want?”

  “Yes.” Looking into his eyes she knew her long time of mourning, and of longing for something she had believed lost to her forever, was over at last. “I would lie with you, Michel. I would have you make love to me.”

  “God knows, it’s what I want myself,” he said.

  “Then I am yours.”

  It was as though th
ey were entering upon some solemn ritual. In silence he moved the food and the wineskin to a far corner of the blanket, then smoothed out the woolen folds until the blanket was perfectly neat. Kneeling beside her again, he unfastened the hair she had tried to make tidy, unbraiding it until it hung in long, shimmering strands of pale gold. Once or twice during this slow process he touched her lips with his, very lightly, but they were not real kisses, they were promises of kisses to come. When he was finished and her hair was loose, he sat back on his heels, watching her breasts rise and fall beneath the linen of his undershirt.

  As slowly as he had dealt with her hair, he now put out his hands to cover both of her breasts at once. Danise kept her eyes on his face, memorizing the play of emotion upon his features. He rubbed a thumb across each nipple and she caught her breath. She knew her nipples were hardening at his touch. She could feel it happening. There was a warmth far inside her that grew in response to his caresses. When he bent his head to nibble at her through the borrowed shirt, she changed position restlessly, moving upward onto her knees and thrusting her breast against his mouth. There was no shame in anything they did. It was all natural, all meant to be. It seemed to Danise that their coming together had been fated long before they ever met.

  He caught the hem of her shirt, which lay upon her knees, and pushed it upward, his hands sliding along her thighs and then her hips. She raised her arms so he could draw the shirt over her head. For a moment she covered her nakedness with one hand and arm across her breasts, the other hand hiding the place where her thighs joined. Then she moved her hands aside, to let him look at her.

  She had been told by older women that she possessed a nicely rounded figure, but secretly she thought her breasts were too large. Michel did not seem to think so. He touched her again, without the linen to separate his hands from her sensitive skin. When he began to lick around the tip of one breast she cried out in shock at what the moist heat of his tongue did to her. The warmth inside her burned brighter still when he attacked her other breast in the same way. And all the while his hands caressed her spine, her hips, her shoulders.

  Danise’s heart was pounding, her head was spinning, she could barely breathe for choking emotion. Surely she would die soon if he did not – did not… She whimpered with aching, as yet unfocused desire.

  “You are still dressed,” she whispered, trying to break the intensity of what she was feeling. Girls and new wives often talked, and Danise had many friends at school and at Duren. She knew she ought to be apprehensive at what was about to happen. She was not. She trusted Michel and she wanted him to be close to her. She wanted it more with every struggling breath she took, with every touch of his hands upon her burning skin. But when, in answer to her complaint, he removed his tunic, she recoiled for an instant, her desire checked by the burgeoning evidence of his need for her.

  Now she understood the whispers of the other women. Michel had never been so large while she tended him when he was injured. She was not a very big girl and he was so huge. Surely that enormous, rigid part of him would split her asunder. Or would it fill her with unexpected pleasure, as Hildegarde had once hinted could happen? She stared at it, fascinated.

  “Are you afraid, Danise? You needn’t be.”

  “I am not afraid.” Miraculously, she was not. To prove it, she put out a tentative finger and touched the very tip of him. He caught his breath, but she was too entranced by the velvety feel of him to pay attention just then to his response. She ran her fingers down the length of him, curled her hand around him. Desire flared in her anew, bright and free from apprehension. On an irresistible impulse, she leaned down to kiss him. That was when he caught her shoulders, pulling her upward.

  “Was it wrong to do that?” she asked, not at all sorry for what she had done.

  “Not wrong,” he said. “Delightful. But you will drive me mad if you keep on like that. I need to be in control of myself, Danise. I don’t want to hurt or frighten you.”

  “You would never hurt me. Your very words prove you would not. Even large as you are, you will have a care for me and be gentle.”

  “You do know, don’t you, that the first time, just for a minute -?”

  “I know. I have been told.” She stopped his words with a finger at his lips. “I thought, when the time came, I would be afraid, but I am not. You have eased my concern. That first moment you spoke of is simply a part of our coming together, and since I want to be one with you, how could I fear it?” They were still kneeling, facing each other. Danise put a hand on each of Michel’s shoulders and edged closer to him.

  “May I kiss you again, on the lips this time?” she whispered. “I do like to kiss you, Michel.”

  “You are the most amazing woman.” He put an arm around her waist, pulling her closer still. With his other hand he moved her legs apart until she was straddling his thighs and her bare breasts were rubbing against the hair on his chest. With her eyes closed and Michel’s mouth on hers, she became intensely aware of the way he was holding her. She could feel the hard part of him caught between her belly and his. He loosened his hold on her and drew back a bit to watch her face as she wriggled around, not quite sure what it was she was searching for. Michel gave her time to find her own way. She knew he was observing her, knew he knew what it was she wanted. There was a hot burning between her thighs. She needed something to press against it, to ease her growing discomfort.

  She found it. The tip of his hardness slid into hot wetness. Never had Danise known such a sensation. She closed her eyes more tightly and threw back her head, the better to relish this new experience. Michel’s mouth seared across her throat. Every bit of her body came vibrantly alive. She pushed more firmly against his hardness, wanting more of him inside her. She felt a faint stretching sensation and winced. Abruptly, Michel withdrew from her.

  “No,” she protested. “Don’t go away. Come back to me.”

  “I couldn’t leave you now.” Though his movements were gentle, his voice was harsh with tension. He eased her down onto the blanket. His hands were on her thighs, separating them. He was pushing himself into her, pushing farther than he had been just a moment or two before, and she felt the stretching begin once more. He went slowly, and she helped him, she lifted herself to meet him. She wanted him inside of her, all of him deep and hot inside her, but still the stretching was uncomfortable. Just when it threatened to become outright pain her body gave way and accommodated him so that he was buried in her.

  At that very instant there was an explosion of thunder above them so loud and terrifying that Danise cried out and jumped, wrapping her arms around Michel and holding on tight to him. She heard his gasp and then his low laugh in her ear.

  “That was for dramatic effect,” he whispered, kissing her. “Are you all right?”

  “How can you speak? How can you think? I can only – only – oh, Michel, what are you doing?”

  “Loving you.” He was moving inside her, carrying her to a state of ecstasy beyond anything she had ever dared to dream. And she, without thought or will of her own, was moving with him, wanting everything he cared to give her, moaning and calling out his name until his mouth silenced her wild cries and she could scarcely breathe and there was nothing in the world but his strong, demanding body and her eager, receptive one.

  * * *

  Only gradually did she become aware once more of the drumming rain on the roof, or the rattle of thunder or, most important, Michel’s form sprawled atop her. She held him in her arms, loving the weight of him, loving everything they had done together.

  “If I am made yours by this,” she whispered, “then you are made mine as well.”

  “Always and forever,” he murmured.

  She had not been sure he would hear her. She had thought he was asleep. He moved to one side, taking his weight off her and she regretted the loss. He reached out an arm to pull the blue cloak over them, tucking it in around her. She lay contentedly in his arms while he kissed her face and her hair and told
her how wonderful she was and how happy she made him.

  “It did not hurt,” she whispered in answer to his concerned question. “It was beautiful.”

  “I’m glad.” His lips brushed hers. “You are beautiful, Danise. You are all any man could ever want.”

  She fell asleep with his voice in her ears and the sound of the rain in the background.

  Danise woke to the crash of the door swinging open at a blast of wind. Rain blew into the hut, dampening the lovers upon the floor. Michel leapt up to close and relatch the door. Danise turned her head to watch him.

  As he reached the door there came a near-blinding flash of lightning. In that long, sustained burst of blue-white light, Danise saw Michel clearly outlined – and saw, superimposed upon his being, Hugo’s face and form. The apparition lasted for only the blink of an eye, until the lightning was gone and darkness came again. The sight shook Danise to her very soul.

  In a blaze of comprehension akin to that lightning bolt she understood the meaning of what she had seen. Michel was not Hugo; they were two very different men, but some portion of Hugo’s spirit dwelt in Michel. It was what had drawn her to him, the reason she had been unable to resist Michel since their first meeting. It was also the reason for Michel’s immediate and unwavering desire for her.

  It was beyond understanding. Still, Danise was certain that Hugo’s boundless love for her had survived the centuries and had found a way to join with her so that, in Michel, she could discover the happiness she had for so many long, lonely months believed must be denied to her because of Hugo’s death.

  Very little time had passed since Michel had risen to close the door. He lay down beside her again. At some time in the future she would tell him about her astounding discovery. But not now, not just yet. For this moment it was enough that she loved him and was certain of his love. She opened her arms to him and drew him closer, holding him while he rested his head on her bosom and drifted into sleep once more.