Autumn Lord (12 page)

"I'm old," Jacques responded. "My vows will not let me perform magic that will do harm. People

know they have nothing to fear from me. You, on the other hand, can rouse terror with the lift of an

eyebrow. It's up to you to protect Diane."

"I didn't bring her here."

"But you care for her."

"I care for peace in my household. She's different," Simon went on angrily. "People fear the unknown.

She's a beautiful, exotic stranger, an entertainer with no status, and under a curse besides. One man's

already been tempted by that combination. Others will be, too."

"Not if you—"

"No."

"Ah, but you must."

Jacques sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. Simon was warned by the calculatingly

innocent look on the old man's face.

"What?"

"You want to do something to help the girl, don't you?"

"I want to keep peace in my household. All right, I want to help her," Simon conceded after a long,

skeptical silence from Jacques. "But making her my lover isn't what she needs."

"It's exactly what she needs."

"She was nearly raped last night. She won't want a man."

Jacques shook his head. "Listen to my words, lad, not to your own notion of how the world should

be. I said she needs you. She needs to love you."

Simon laughed. The sound echoed through the room, colder than the autumn wind that moaned

outside. "I'm a dead man, Jacques. We both know it. The last thing anyone needs is to love me."

Jacques casually waved his words away. "You act as if you know exactly what the future will bring."

"I have a fairly good idea."

"You're far too much the pessimist."

"Realist," Simon countered. He knew it would do no good to continue the argument with Jacques.

Jacques always saw the best in everyone and a ray of hope in the darkest situation. So he took a deep

breath, kept his voice quiet, and asked, "Just how is it that Diane needs me?"

A bright smile broke over Jacques's features. "You mentioned it yourself last night."

Simon could remember no conversation from the night before. He remembered a rare, burning fury.

He hadn't felt any emotion so intense since the day he'd learned his daughter had been abducted and

there was nothing he could do about it. No, last night his anger had been even more intense, somehow

more personal. At least there had been a way to save Diane, and that surely counted in part for the

protectiveness he'd felt holding her in his arms.

"What did I say last night?"

"That if she had her voice back she could have called for help."

Would anyone have come to help her, he wondered, even if she could speak?

"Of course," Jacques answered the question he hadn't voiced. "But the point is, she needs to get her

voice back."

"You laid the
geis
on her," Simon reminded the wizard. "You can break it."

Jacques shook his head. "You never have understood that magic has rules, and that those who use it

have to abide by them."

"I've never understood magic," Simon agreed. "What was it you said would break the
geis?"

Jacques's shaggy brows lowered in annoyance. "She has to fall in love. Have you forgotten?"

He had forgotten. Deliberately. Simon got up and built the fire without bothering to call a servant to do

it. When he moved back to the waiting wizard, he said, "With me, specifically?"

Jacques tugged on his beard. "Yes."

He was lying. Jacques always pulled on his beard when he lied. Simon crossed his arms on his chest.

He deliberately did not look toward the bed, though he thought he'd seen the curtains stir when he turned

from the fire. Whether she was awake or not, he didn't think Diane could have overheard their

whispered conversation.

"The Second Coming might arrive first if we have to wait for someone to love me," Simon said.

"Bah. You're too modest. Why, I remember tales of you from Court. All you have to do is—ah,

Diane! Good morning, child."

Simon found himself across the room at Diane's side, almost before he saw her. He'd scooped her up

and deposited her in his own chair before she had a chance to flinch away from him. "You've had a bad

beating and a worse fright," he told her as he set her down. "I'm not giving you a chance to faint on my

floor as well the moment you're out of bed. Yves!"

Simon's deep, rich voice, full of faint amusement along with genuine concern, was the most comforting

thing Diane had ever heard. She hated it. Hated the yearning to hear his voice that had made her brave

the world outside the shelter of the curtained bed. She hated the comfort she'd craved, and gotten, from

his momentary embrace. She'd woken up wanting him. Wanting him to hold her, to comfort her. To

protect her.

She hated that longing. It made her feel weak and stupid and inadequate. She hated needing him. She

hated the blind trust and faith in the power of Simon de Argent that had been born in her while she

watched him kill a man. She should have been frightened of him. She was, but not because he was a

murderous bastard with a long, bloody sword. She was frightened because she'd woken up wanting to

run to him and hadn't been able to fight that longing for more than a few minutes.

What was wrong with her? She used to be strong, capable, independent. Now she had this deep

feeling that she needed Simon to make everything all right. Just because he'd saved her. Just because

he'd taken care of her. Just because. Now she watched him with hungry eyes while he ordered his

servant about, and longed for him to turn a reassuring smile on her. He did finally, and she basked in the

warmth his attention brought her.

Humiliation for her own weakness twisted inside her. She couldn't give in to the weakness. She had to

fight Simon de Argent's hold on her emotions. She had to stay strong.

It took a great deal of effort for her to turn her gaze to the fire rather than continue to stare at him like

he was the sun, or God, or somebody she could trust.

This place is hell,
she reminded herself as the memories of what Thierry had done, and what he'd

promised to do, forced their way to the surfape.
They're all monsters. Even Simon's kindness is a

trap. He can't hurt you if you don't care about him.

She hated being weak and vulnerable. She hated herself, and she hated him because of how she felt.

But hatred was good. If she could just hold onto it, she'd survive.

"I've ordered you a bath. It seems I'm always ordering you a bath." He laughed.

She drank in the sound, but she would not let herself turn back to look at him.

"I'll send a serving woman up to help you bathe and dress," he went on. "Come along, Jacques. Let's

leave Diane some privacy."

She heard the old man get up. She heard the two of them move toward the door. She wanted to

chase after them, after Simon, to tug on his sleeve like a child begging a grownup not to leave her alone.

She wasn't a child. She didn't move from where she sat but she did draw her knees up and shake with

terror after he'd left. Fortunately, by the time the servants came in with the water she had managed to get

herself under enough control to get in the tub and try to wash the memory of Thierry's touch off of her.

He'd seen the look
on her face. He'd never wanted anyone to look at him like that. Fortunately,

she seemed to be well aware of her actions, and didn't like them any better than he did.

Simon realized that it would be easy to make her love him.

It would be for her own good.

But dependence born out of gratitude had nothing to do with real love.

He couldn't do it.

Simon sighed with relief when the decision was made. He sat back in his chair on the dais and

surveyed the doings of the hall, and tried to decide what he could do. The main room of the castle was

distinctly quiet this morning. People were watching him furtively as they went about their business, trying

to gauge his mood, no doubt. He wished someone would tell him if they decided just what it was,

because he wasn't sure himself. A moment before he'd felt relieved, but now that the decision was made

he was beginning to feel irritated. At least his usual sense of melancholy hadn't had any time to settle on

him since his return to Marbeau.

"Futility, yes," he murmured as he stood and stretched. "Melancholy, no."

He went to stand by the great central hearth that heated the room. The constant fire burned low for the

moment. He gestured to the boy whose job it was to tend it and watched the lad scurry forward with a

supply of fresh logs. The trestle tables had been taken down after the morning meal, leaving plenty of

space in the center of the room. As flames roared up, Simon stepped back from the stone rim that

circled the firepit. He looked up as thin streams of smoke began to curl toward the louvered openings in

the ceiling, then spread out like a mist across the upper air since the louvers were closed against a cold

autumn rain.

The season was hurrying on too fast for Simon's taste. He used to enjoy fall. The turning of the leaves,

the harvest, the feasting had all been a pleasant marker of his prosperous household's transition to the

quieter winter life. Now, with no peace in his heart, and only one last battle to fight come spring, the

prospect of the coming winter brought no sense of serenity.

All he had wanted was to get the season over with, to get through the interminable cold, dark days

with the mindless round of habit. He'd thought to get by with the fixed winter occupations of church and

chess, wine and hunting. He hadn't expected anything more between the first frost and the spring thaw.

Now he had Diane.

He wasn't even sure what that meant. He didn't want to think about it. Fortunately, he was spared

from having his thoughts spin toward the darkly lovely, mysterious Diane, when a cold, damp wind

alerted him to the opening of the hall's outer door. He turned to see Sir Joscelin coming toward him.

"You looked soaked to the skin," Simon observed as the young knight handed his cloak to a servant.

Joscelin joined him by the fire. After he tucked his gloves in his belt, he held his hands out toward the

flames. "The rain made the ride from Domiere a misery. I left Lady Alys in good hands at the abbey," he

added. "The abbess will send word of just who comes to fetch her."

"Perhaps she'll take the veil," Simon suggested.

The knight gave him a shocked look, then smiled when he realized Simon was joking. "I have my own

opinion, my lord." He looked around, as though wary of being overheard. "If you wish to hear it, that is,"

he added quietly.

Simon rubbed his thumb thoughtfully over the pommel of his dagger hilt. Now, here was a new thing.

Joscelin had always seemed trustworthy, good-hearted as well, though Simon no longer had much faith in

his own judgment in these matters. Was Joscelin thoughtful and observant, as well as loyal?

Simon cocked an eyebrow in question. "If you're about to tell me you don't think Alys spied only for

my son, I would have to say I agree with you. She's a greedy child," Simon told him. "I'll miss her."

"But my lord—"

"She and her brother were informers I knew about. I'll have to ferret out whoever will replace them."

"Your people are true to you, my lord!" Joscelin protested.

"Except for those who revolted against me last summer."

Joscelin looked away, blushing. "Yes, but—"

Simon clamped a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Even the king's sons revolted last summer.

Perhaps it was something in the air. Or some new courtier's fashion for sons to repudiate their fathers.

We at Marbeau have always followed court fashion." He heard the bitterness in his voice, and looked

around quickly for another subject to share with the embarrassed young knight.

As he glanced up he saw Jacques coming down the stairs from the tower entrance. Diane trailed

slowly behind him. A serving woman followed her, blocking any hasty retreat back up the narrow

staircase that the reluctant Diane might wish to make. The old wizard was no doubt bringing the young

woman to him for the sake of beginning this therapeutic romance.

Simon frowned hard at the old man, but his attention still focused on Diane as she drew near. His

glance was drawn to her like a lodestone to iron. As hers seemed to be to his, for their gazes met and

locked as if they could do nothing but look at each other and never get their fill of the sight. Stranger still,

he found his heart racing at the sight of her. It took all his will not to cross the room and sweep her up in

his arms once more. The woman was light as a feather, it would be no burden to carry her from place to

place with her soft cheek resting against his heart.