Autumn Lord (35 page)

His eyes went round with shock. He held a hand out to her. "Please do not misunderstand me. While

Lord Simon lives, you are his lady. I will worship from afar until my time is come."

There was something rather unpleasant about what he had just said. Diane struggled to interpret the

words, and a chill ran down her spine. "What do you mean,
while
he is alive?"

"Fear not, you have many weeks yet."

"I do?"

"And all is taken care of for after."

"After what?"

Joscelin nodded thoughtfully. "I see I was right to ask to speak with you. Lord Simon loves you too

much to prepare you, but it must be done. I will take the duty of this burden for him. And gladly, dear

Diane, though it causes me pain to speak of what must be spoken."

Diane put her hands on her hips. Hands that were balled into fists. She wanted to tell him that it was

going to cost him even more pain if he didn't say something that made sense pretty soon, but she

restrained her terrified impatience.

She spoke to him gently instead. "Please, tell me, good knight, what both of us are loathe to hear."

Before I strangle you with my bare hands,
she added to herself.

He bent his head sadly. "Lord Simon is most valiant in war. But, alas, too many are ranged against him

for him to prevail."

"The odds are against him?" she interpreted.

Joscelin nodded.

Diane's heart twisted with pain. Her voice was rough with nerves as she said, "You think he's going to

lose."

That couldn't be true! She'd seen the man fight. He was good. Damn good. But if the odds were a

hundred to one against—

"It is not what I think that matters, dear Diane, but what Lord Simon says will come to pass."

"Simon?"

"When the time comes, he has asked me to care for you." Joscelin raised his gaze to hers. The look in

his eyes was fervent. "I will gladly be your champion, though it means I will not be at his side when he

goes into his last battle. I will make you my wife, if you wish it. I would do so even if Lord Simon did not

offer a dowry worthy of a royal lady for your hand."

Diane barely heard his last words. She concentrated on the most important thing Joscelin had said.

Simon was going to die. He was resigned to it. Prepared for it. Looking forward to it?

"I hope so," she muttered under her breath. "Because I'm going to kill him."

"What?"

The door opened and Simon stepped in before she could answer Joscelin. "What are you doing in

here?" the Lord of Marbeau demanded suspiciously as he looked at both of them.

Diane ignored him for a moment. She was icy cold with fury as she turned to Joscelin. She tucked the

strip of cloth into her belt. "Thank you for the Christmas present, Joscelin. And the information." He gave

her a slight nod.

His eyes darted between her and Simon. "If I have given offense—"

"On the contrary, you've been most helpful. Could you leave us alone, please?"

"Of course." He sidled past Simon, and was gone.

Diane closed the door behind him. She turned to Simon. He looked anxious.

"Diane?"

She smiled. She felt like her face was going to crack, because it was a smile made out of absolute zero

ice. She had heard the expression coldly angry, but now she understood it. Simon reached for her. She

put up a hand to keep him away.

"You are going to be sorry," she told him as she took a step away from the door.

"Sorry about what, my love?"

"Sorry that I ever got my voice back, you using, manipulating, son-of-a-bitch!"

"What do you plan to do, throw the fight?"

Simon didn't know what her words meant, but he had his suspicions about what Joscelin had been

telling her. There was only one subject he could think of that might make her use such an imprudent

tone.

"Was he speaking of the future?"

"It's about time somebody did."

Simon considered throttling Joscelin, but he needed the well-meaning lad too much to do any such

thing. "What did he say?"

"He told me about. .. your ..."

He saw her struggle with words she didn't want to think about. He didn't want to think about them

either, but she had brought the subject up. He supposed it was time it was out in the open.

"Death," he supplied for her. "Demise." He added brutally, "Did Joscelin describe to you how my

lifeless body would be devoured by carrion fowl while my son marches triumphantly into my

stronghold?" He shook his head. "No, he's too discreet to lay out the grisly reality of what is going to

happen."

She had gone from pale with anger to sickeningly white with shock as he spoke. She put her hand to

her mouth as though she were nauseated, then she recovered, and pointed out, "At least he was willing

to tell me a cleaned-up version of the truth. You didn't want me to know anything, did you?"

"No," he agreed. "I did not. Not until you had to know."

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and hugged herself tightly. "Why?"

His heart went out to her, but he kept his hands at his sides. "How could I tell you? You don't

understand. You can't."

"Why?" she repeated.

"Why do you keep asking me why?"

Her voice was still dead cold, but she was crying. "Because I want to understand. If you're going to

die, I need to know why."

“You keep asking me why. There is no why," he answered tiredly. "There is only honor."

"Bullshit."

Her crude dismissal of all he stood for made him furious. "You don't even want to understand."

"I understand that you're stubborn, and blind, and arrogant, and totally committed to acting like an

idiot. You don't have to fight your son."

He didn't want to go over this ground again. He might have walked out if she hadn't been standing

between him and the door. She looked as fragile as glass. He feared she might shatter if he tried to move

her aside. Besides, he didn't really want to walk away. He feared that if he did, a silence much worse

than a curse would descend between them.

He told her, "If wanting what is best for you is arrogant, then I am guilty of that sin."

"You
decided
what was best for me. You don't have that right."

"Yes, I do."

"Because you're Lord of Marbeau?"

"Yes."

"Because I'm your mistress? Your chattel? Just another piece of property to dispose of as you see fit?

What did you do? Put me in your will?" she asked mockingly. "To Sir Joscelin," she continued in a

high-pitched voice, "I leave my left-over girlfriend—to do with as he sees fit," she added in her normal

voice, but bitter.

"You are my mistress, and my property," he said, though he knew she hated hearing the truth. "What is

the matter with that? You are the most precious thing I possess."

"You do not possess me."

"I—" He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "I do not understand your attitude."

She made a sharp gesture. "I don't care if Jacques gave me to you as a present. Nobody owns me."

"My son will own you if I don't provide for you." Simon hated revealing just what her future could

hold. He hated the bruised look that came into her eyes as he spoke. "He, or all his men. You'll be

passed around for their pleasure if you are here when they ride in to Marbeau. No one but I—or Joscelin

—would ever think to ask you yay or nay about when or how you are bedded. Do you want my son to

make you into a whore?"

"Isn't that what you've already done?" she fired back.

"You are my
leman,"
he said. "My
midons."
Whatever language it was they shared, these terms

didn't translate. He could tell that she did not understand. "Concubine," he tried. "My heart and soul.

There is no dishonor for a woman to be kept by one who adores her."

"Whore," she repeated. "Slut. Property to be passed on." She turned away from him. "How did I let

this happen?"

Diane remembered the looks, the comments, the animosity from everyone around her but Simon, and

felt that she deserved them. The attitudes of Simon's people grated and ground into her conscience.

She'd been a toy from the beginning, and she'd let herself become even more of one. Because she loved

him, the position she was in now seemed inevitable. Looked at objectively, her actions were not

necessarily praiseworthy. She was totally dependent on a man, and gave her body to him as the price of

his protection. That was being a whore.

"Love should not make someone dependent," she said.

He came up behind her, and put his hands gently on her shoulders. "You are not dependent because

you love me. Never think that."

It was hard to think when he was touching her. He didn't try to draw her back when she moved away.

She found herself standing by the loom, studying the half-woven pattern someone had left to work on

her fancy dress. At Simon's command. Everything was at Simon's command.

He hadn't commanded her to love him.

All right, she loved him, and gave freely. She didn't want to be with anyone else, but that didn't change

the truth that she needed Simon to love her. Not just for her safety, but for her soul's sake. She hadn't

been whole until they'd met. Even if he didn't think that his loving her made them equals.

"I'm beginning to feel sorry for Alys," she said. "Or at least understand her place in this world." She

turned back to Simon and asked mockingly. "Do I make an adequate replacement, my lord?"

His face had assumed the indifferent mask he protected himself with, which was how she knew she'd

wounded him with her words. "You are not her replacement."

She hugged herself again. "I might as well be."

"I don't know why you would think so."

"Because I'm not a permanent part of your life," she told him. "Alys was a diversion. A dalliance, I

think you'd say."

"That," he admitted, "is true. To my shame. A diversion and policy. Nothing more."

She looked at him for a long time before she spoke. She saw the pain and confusion in his eyes,

though his hawk-sharp features were frighteningly unreadable. She knew how vulnerable this man really

was. How loving and good, but he was also wrong. Maybe he wasn't, not in his world-view, but she

wasn't up to adapting to that view. Diane only knew that the relationship they had, the love they felt was

so good and right, was based on something terribly wrong.

"I'm nothing more to you than a diversion," she said.

He shook his head. "How can you say that? My heart was dead before I met you. Yo'u've given me

everything to—"

"Live for?" she interrupted. "But you still plan to die." He turned his head sharply away, as though her

words had struck him like a blow. "I don't think life, love, mean anything to you," she went on. "I'm just

one last fling for Simon de Argent before he gets on his big black horse and rides off to one final,

glorious, suicidal battle."

He took a long, tense breath. He sounded as though he were in pain. "Suicide is a sin."

"But that's what you have planned."

"Not exactly."

"You can't kill your son. You won't abandon your loyalty to King Henry. So you'll go to war with

Denis, and you won't be coming home."

"You know me very well."

She wiped away tears. "All I know is that you won't be coming home to me."

"No," he said through gritted teeth. "I won't."

Diane couldn't take her gaze off his suddenly ravaged face. She saw his vulnerability, and wanted to

hold him, comfort him, apologize for hurting him. She wanted to tell him that the truth had nothing to do

with her continued anger, even though she was furious. She wanted to explain that the truth had to be

confronted, not hidden. To tell him that she was as angry at herself for willfully not seeing the flaws, the

futility, the impermanence of their love before, as she was at him. She was angry at him, but it was hard

to be blindly antagonistic to a medieval man for having a medieval attitude. Hard, but not impossible.

What she said was, "You have no plans for forever with me." It sounded petty, and stupid, somehow,

against his determination to make a noble sacrifice. She just didn't understand how this sacrifice was

worth it. "I can see how some wars are worth fighting, but this is a family quarrel—between Henry and

his kid, between you and yours. I can see why you won't kill your child. I love you because you love him

so much."

"He doesn't think so."

"He's an idiot. Why don't you just beat the shit out of him and drag him home? He's only seventeen!"

"He is a belted knight, with a hired army, a mighty sorceress, the support of Prince Henry and King

Louis. There is no way out of this battle, Diane."

"You could just refuse to fight!"

"And Marbeau will still be overrun by some army or another. If Denis defeats me, the land is his. If

someone else does the job, the de Argent lands go to the man who plants his troops in my family's