Autumn Lord (27 page)

you out of my sight."

"I want you to stay here," he told her.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why? Because you're marrying someone else and want me out of

the way?"

"Of course not!"

He had answered her too quickly, too adamantly. The echo of his shout filled the quiet garden, and set

a pair of startled doves on the roof to flight. His reaction to this accusation was so fierce that it frightened

him. He wanted to grab her and shake her for daring to think he'd want anyone but her. He'd never

wanted
anyone but Diane, not really. He'd known lust, he'd known marital duty, he'd never known the

need he felt for her before. He burned with wanting her, he knew he would fight the world for her, took

delight in her pleasure and bled with her pain. Being with her was joy. To be away from her was an

ordeal.

He supposed this must be what it felt like to be in love, and it came to him too late.

Knowing that he loved Diane, he had to do what he could to protect her. Even lie.

He forced his features into a mask of indifference, made his voice neutral. "Yes," he told her. "Because

I am going to marry someone else."

Diane didn't want to believe him. But she was the one who'd brought the subject up. She'd spilled her

insecurity out into the frosty morning air. It was her fault if he used it against her. She wished she'd kept

her mouth shut.

No, she never wanted to do that again. She was never going to keep still, or quiet, or diplomatically

silent about anything again. She wasn't going to find her voice and not revel in the power being able to

communicate gave.

She had a great deal to say to Simon de Argent. Starting with, "I love you."

From his lack of reaction she might as well not have her voice back.

She hid disappointment as she waved a hand in front of his face. "Simon? Hello?"

He brushed her hand away. He took a step back. "I heard you." He turned away. "That's not

important."

She stared at him, watched the corded muscles of his shoulder tense beneath the blue wool of his

tunic. She didn't have to be silent anymore, but no words came to her as the seconds stretched out. The

morning light grew stronger. The nuns began to sing a different song. This one was more somber, more

like a dirge than a hymn of joyous praise. It suited the moment. It suited the situation.

Diane hated living her life to a soundtrack.

She turned and walked into the room off the garden where she'd cleaned up Simon's wound. She

closed the door against the sound, against the sight of Simon. She didn't know why. She should have

stood her ground instead of retreating at the first sign of indifference from him.

The room held a heavy table, two chairs, the walls and floor were stark gray stone. There was a plain

cross on one wall. A small barred window let in a little light, and an hour candle burned on the table. The

place was empty of life, sterile. Peaceful, maybe. Simple.

Felice had looked radiant at the idea of spending the rest of her life praying in this plain, peaceful,

simple altogether dull and lifeless place. Diane wondered how long it would be before she started

screaming with boredom with her newfound voice.

How long had she had her voice back? she wondered. Surely, she hadn't just fallen in love with Simon

the moment she saw Alys try to kill him. It must have happened in little, step-by-step, small,

imperceptible increments that snuck into her subconscious while she fought so hard not to let love

happen. There was so much about him to love.

How was she going to fall out of love with him? She could tell from the pain in her heart, and her gut,

and her head, that it wasn't going to happen in an instant. She couldn't turn off something that still felt

wonderful despite the pain that laced through her. Not because of one knife thrust of indifference from

him.

He had to do better than that.

She'd retreated, but she hadn't given up a fight that was barely started. Diane took a deep breath, and

walked back out to the garden.

She was both surprised and immeasurably relieved to find that Simon was still there. She planted

herself before him and put her hands on her hips. "I have a few things to say."

He folded his arms over his chest. "I'm sure you do."

Simon knew very well that he should have taken the opportunity to leave the convent. The

arrangements for both the women he loved were taken care of. They needed time to settle into their new

life, not a man fussing over them in this tranquil refuge of women. Instead, he'd lingered, and told himself

that he was listening to the beautiful plain chant coming from the chapel. He told himself that he wanted to

see his daughter one more time before he went about his business.

He'd stayed because he wasn't yet strong enough to say good-bye to Diane.

"You're a great deal of trouble," he told her.

She smiled. The warmth it sent into him was far superior to the winter sunlight. "So are you."

He should have bid her farewell, perhaps asked for one last, chaste kiss before making his way from

the garden. Instead he asked, "If I trouble you, why do you want to talk to me?"

She gave him a shrewd look out of those dark, dark eyes. "Why did you hang around to listen?"

"Hang?" He touched his throat. "Only peasants get hanged." His life would no doubt end on a sword

point. He didn't trouble her with that knowledge.

She didn't think he mistook her meaning at all. Words were a better shield to hide behind than silence.

"You're the only person around here I can really talk to," she told him. "Besides, we have so much to talk

about."

He tilted an eyebrow at her. "Such as?"

"Are you going to marry this heiress person?"

He had expected her to begin with an explanation of how she had come to love him. That she would

want to discuss how Jacques had been right about how to break the
geis.
He wanted to tell her how

happy he was that she had her voice back. He wanted to tell her so very much. But since she had chosen

this topic of conversation, he answered her as directly as she had asked.

"Yes."

"Do you love her?"

"I've never met her."

"You can't marry someone you haven't even met."

"I've done it before. It's not as hard as you seem to think. You appear before the church door, make

your vows, and live as best you can with the stranger you go home with."

"You didn't know Denis and Felice's mother before you married her?"

He might have laughed at the appalled look on her face, if the situation had been the least bit funny.

"No. Why should we? Genevieve and I were fourteen and fifteen when our parents—"

"That's not even legal! Your ages," she added at his questioning look.

"I'm told the DeHauly girl is sixteen."

"You're kidding." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-four."

"And you're marrying a teenager?"

"A what?"

"A sixteen-year-old."

He nodded.

"That's disgusting."

"Yes," he agreed. "But politics demands the poor girl end up with an old husband. I doubt she'll have

to complain about her misfortune for long."

"She's sixteen!"

He didn't understand why Diane kept hammering at this point. "I doubt she's much younger than you."

Her mouth fell open. She pointed at herself. "How old do you think I am?"

He looked her over, head to toe, carefully memorizing each sweet detail of face and form and attitude

to cherish after he'd left her. She blushed in the unintentional heat of his gaze.

He looked away as he answered, "Not yet twenty, I'd guess."

"Twenty-four. I'm twenty-four. And I'm not from China," she went on before he could register his

admiration at how well-preserved she was for her years.

"Are you from the future?" he asked. "Jacques never lies, but I began to wonder if he'd made a

mistake when Father Raymond said you were from Cathay." He reached out suddenly, putting his hands

on her shoulders as an idea struck him. "If Jacques accidentally snatched you from a land at the other end

of the Silk Road, you can make the journey back."

"No, I can't."

He glared at her, as if she was merely being difficult. "It's a long way, I know, but certainly possible.

You can go home to Cathay."

Diane didn't like the way this conversation was spinning out of control. The original point was that she

didn't want him to leave her at the convent, but their words had flown off in all directions instead of

sticking to the subject. She supposed it was because they had stored away so many things to discuss

during the time they'd been together. Now he was talking about sending her to China, which was as

impossible as being left in a convent. She decided to settle this one point, then get back to the matter of

most immediate importance.

"I am not from China, or Cathay, or whatever you want to call it. My mother was born in Hong Kong,

my father in Glasgow. They both have British accents. They moved to America when they were married.

I was born and raised in Seattle. I don't speak more than twenty words of Chinese, I own a wok but

hardly ever use it, my math scores were terrible on the SATs, I think
The Joy Luck Club
was great, but

I really don't identify with anybody in it. I'm half Chinese, half Scottish, damned proud of being both and

you don't understand a word of what I'm saying, do you?"

Simon rubbed his thumb along his jawline. He looked thoughtful, and gave her one of those faint

smiles that always melted her defensiveness. "What I think you mean, is that you want to be judged as a

person and not as being from a certain people."

Which was exactly what she had meant, though she hadn't been able to articulate it herself. The man

could understand her, whether she could speak or not. She nodded.

"But you still belong in a place," he persisted.

"Not in this convent," she told him. "Not in China." After a pause, she added. "Maybe not back in

Seattle, even if I could get there." She had changed so much since meeting Simon. Her old life meant

nothing to her.

The gentle understanding left his expression. The grip on her shoulders became hard. "You're going to

try to tell me that you belong with me."

"I don't have to tell you. You already know we belong together."

He gave a sharp shake of his head. "You belong where you'll be safe."

"Where you won't feel responsible for my safety, you mean."

"Where no one can hurt you."

She saw his desperate determination to protect her. It infuriated her. "I'm responsible for myself. You

let me make my own choice in front of the king."

"That was different," he said. "That was yesterday."

"What? I get one day a year to make my own choices, and you make them the other three hundred

and sixty-four?"

"That sounds about right," he answered in his insufferably superior drawl.

"Everybody makes their own choices, every day." She didn't know when she'd come to believe that,

but she knew it was true. She also knew it was a lesson Simon had taught her, maybe unintentionally, but

it was a part of how he lived. She just didn't think he knew it.

"What an odd way you have of looking at things. Proper behavior is to subordinate one's will to God

and those above you; peasant to vassal, vassal to liege. Woman to man," he added with a significant lift

of his eyebrow.

"You don't live like that," she told him.

"Yes I do." He knew that he wouldn't be in such trouble if he wasn't intent on keeping his feudal vows

to Henry Plantagenet. "I live by my word, by my honor."

"Which is a code you've
chosen
to live by."

Why was he talking philosophy? And with a woman at that. Diane constantly distracted him, even

when she couldn't talk. Now that she could it would be too easy to get lost in knowing her, as a

companion and a lover. It simply could not be.

"I choose to marry another woman," he told her. "I choose for you to stay at Sacré Couer if you won't

go back to Cathay. It is my will. That is the end of it."

Her reply to his adamant declaration was a loud, "Ha!"

The nuns were filing out of the chapel, two neatly ordered rows of black-garbed women. These were

serene women, who knew their place. Many of them were elderly, having lived long, fruitful lives of

prayer behind the sheltering walls of Sacré Coeur. Simon could give Diane nothing better than this, no

matter how much it hurt him to leave her.

Simon took Diane firmly by the arm. He didn't answer when she protested. He took her to the abbess.

"Treat her well," he said as he pushed Diane toward the woman.

Without another word or look toward the woman he loved, he turned and walked from the convent,

onto the streets of Paris.

"Coward!
"
Diane shouted after him.