Autumn Lord (16 page)

reaction to his gallantry. What was wrong with the woman?

He'd offered her the best his house had to offer. With his own hand. He, Baron Simon de Argent,

Lord of Marbeau, had made it clear to the world how high his regard was for her. In front of the world,

she had rejected him. She had forsaken his care, his patronage, looked as if she were sick to her

stomach at the very thought of accepting his courtesy. How was he to court someone who treated him

so? Why should he?

For her sake, Jacques might have said, had he been there. For duty's sake, his own conscience spoke

up. How? he wondered, when she'd insulted him so blatantly. Even Alys had never been so unkind.

Even Genevieve had never rejected any honor he showed her. Who was this Diane to make a public

show of her contempt?

Why? He couldn't help but wonder why. He looked around him for an explanation, but all he saw

were the avidly curious and secretly contemptuous faces of his retainers. There was no explanation to be

gotten from that crowd of carrion crows.

He would just have to get the reason from the source, he supposed. Rebuff him Diane might, escape

him she could not. He would have an accounting from her whether she could speak or not. Still furious,

he went after the woman he was supposed to make love him.

******************

"Cry?" Simon pushed the old man aside. "Made her cry?"

"What have you done to that poor child?"

"Me? Ha!"

Simon went past the protesting wizard to get to the bed. Diane was curled up on it, shoulders shaking,

face hidden by the heavy fall of her hair. Simon did not allow himself to feel a grain of compassion for her

obviously upset condition. He was the offended party here.

"Come with me," he said, and grabbed her by the wrist. He hauled her from the room over Jacques's

vehement protests. "We're going to discuss this in private," he called back to him. Then he dragged her

down the stairs to his own chamber.

"Now, just what was that all about?" he demanded when the door had slammed behind them.

Diane pulled out of his grasp. She flung her hair from her face as she swiped away tears with the back

of one hand. She took a proud stance and looked up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but

her glare had the strength of a basilisk's deadly gaze.

He towered over her. "I should beat you," he told her. "Any sane man would beat a woman who used

him so."

She lifted her stubbornly set chin, and pointed at herself.

"Yes, used me," he responded. "I've never been so insulted in my life."

The half-moon arcs of her eyebrows shot up in incredulity. She took a step back, pointed at him, and

gave a silent laugh.

Simon crossed his arms. "I did nothing offensive."

Diane came forward again. She jabbed him in the chest with a sharp forefinger. Then she raised bent

wrists to her chin, and panted.

It was his turn to be incredulous. "Treated you like a dog? What are you talking about? This makes

no sense. It's you who treated me no better than a cur."

Her expression turned questioning.

He refused to believed this pretense. "I offered you my heart on a trencher and you—Don't look at

me like that. I'm not lying to you." She gave another laugh, no less mocking for being soundless. He

sighed. "All right. Perhaps I'm lying a little. A man's supposed to lie when he's courting a woman. I don't

know why," he responded to her skeptical look. "It's part of the rules."

She tossed her head, and turned her back on him.

He found himself looking with great concentration at her still, slender form. Her proud gesture left him

wanting to run his hands through the thick hair that fell halfway down her back. He found he suddenly

wanted to put his arms around her. He found that he was no longer angry. He didn't know how she'd

done it, but he'd gone from fury to a more tender, but equally strong, emotion within the blink of an eye.

He stepped closer to her. He took care not to touch her, for he well-remembered the wounds Thierry

had made on her emotions. He did come close enough to inhale her scent, to feel the heat of her skin,

and knew that she felt the heat of his. He closed his eyes. They stood that way for a long time. He waited

until she was surrounded with the awareness of him, large and looming but unthreatening behind her, and

then asked, "Why are we shouting at each other?"

She moved with reaction to his voice, just enough so that her back skimmed his chest. A faint shiver of

laughter passed through her and he felt it ripple along his skin. Heat spread out from that subtle, delicate

brush of her body against his. Still not touching her, his hands reached out and circled her slender waist.

He wanted to draw her to him, enfold her in his arms, rest his head on her shoulder and breath in the

scent of her night-dark hair. He did none of these things. He waited, breathless with arousal, afraid of

rejection. He had never felt this tender need toward anyone before.

Diane didn't know what was the matter with her. One moment she was furious with the man. The next

— well, she wasn't quite sure what exactly she was feeling at the moment. It was pleasant, strange,

heady. She was warm and tingling, and it wasn't because she was standing too close to the roaring fire in

the grate. It was because of the man who was so dangerously, deliciously close.

She could barely remember why she'd been angry. He'd made her laugh, and that made up for

everything. It almost made up for Thierry. It would be so easy to move to face Simon, to put her arms

around his neck, to turn her mouth up for his kiss. It was what would happen then that was frightening.

Simon had never felt this kind of vulnerability before. He knew what it was to feel helpless. It was an

all too familiar sensation. This was just a new variety of the same old hated feeling. He knew every love

song, every poem from the Courts of Love. He had even composed some of them himself, to flatter a

queen. Now he understood all the allusions to the power women held over the men who desired them.

It was not right that a woman should have power over him. It was all very well to desire Diane. For

what better way to make her love him but by worshipping her with his body? His emotions were already

threatening to go past desire into a trackless realm. Had Genevieve felt like this, he wondered, when she

met Berengar? As though she were about to step out of herself and be lost?

He made his hands drop to his sides. He took a step backward, and another. He put distance

between himself and the thing he desired. Bitter cold seeped through him the moment he slipped away

from Diane. It was a familiar feeling, one that had permeated him for a long time, but one he hadn't even

noticed until it had begun to thaw.

"You should go," he told her.

When she turned to look at him, he almost went back to her. She blinked, and looked dazed. As

though she was coming awake from a dream. She looked around her. Then at him. He was almost glad

she couldn't speak. He moved further away from the fireplace, into the shadows so she could barely see

him.

"I think you'd better go," he told her. "Let's just assume that neither of us meant to offend the other

and get some rest."

Diane thought that if the man was trying to make her fall in love with him he was doing a poor job of it.

Which was just as well. Or so her mind said. Her heart was saying something else, and her body was

being totally rebellious about her determination not to get involved with this man. She was confused. So

confused she didn't even remember what they'd been arguing about. It didn't matter. He wanted her to

leave, and that hurt.

Leaving was for the best, she told herself. Her steps still dragged as she crossed the room. And she

could feel his gaze on her even after she closed the door.

"Now, where were we?"
Simon asked as she entered the room the next morning.

He looked up from his writing table with a smile Diane thought was as bright as the sunlight that filtered

in the window behind him. Which was to say, it made the effort, but it was still November. It told her that

he'd remembered his mission to make her fall in love with him for her own good. She'd been a little worri

ed about Simon's intentions when he'd sent a guard for her after breakfast.

She smiled in response as he waved her forward, somehow pleased that the man was still making the

effort despite his obvious distaste for the job. She'd left here the night before with her emotions in rags.

She'd cried herself to sleep. She'd told herself she hated him, that she never wanted to see him again.

Yet, here she was in the same room with him, and happy to be here. It made no logical sense. She could

only conclude that logic had flown out the window the moment she arrived in Fantasyland.

Simon purposefully wanted the width of the heavy table between them since he wasn't sure he could

deal with the possibility of physical contact just yet. He thought he was under control, but he wasn't going

to test it until he could make love to Diane with the same indifference he'd felt toward Alys. The point

was to give Diane pleasure, to rouse her tender emotions. He'd spent much of the night forcing his own

emotions back under control. He'd also spent the time thinking, trying to decide the proper course to

take with the exceptional, confused and confusing Diane.

He'd decided on honesty.

More or less.

He had been prepared for more tears, for more fury. He hadn't expected her to meekly settle into the

chair opposite him and turn a knowing smile on him. She actually looked concerned for his welfare. He

gave an inward sigh of pleasure. Trust Diane to make this easier than it should be. She would be easy to

love. What a pity he couldn't. No, the real pity was that he was very hard to love indeed, fust ask every

member of his family. Fortunately, for her sake and his, Diane was unable to.

"You take rejection better than most women would," he said as he leaned forward to rest his elbows

on the table. "Were you, perhaps, a nun in your own time and place?"

/
might as well have been,
Diane thought as she recalled the circumscribed life she'd mapped out for

herself back in Seattle in the two years since she'd graduated from college. She'd had her work, and that

was it. She hadn't had a boyfriend in over a year, and hadn't wanted another one, either. She'd enjoyed

watching other peoples' stories on a screen, so much so that she sometimes forgot there was a world

outside the films she loved. Now that she was caught in her own melodrama she wasn't sure she was

enjoying it, but she was aware that she'd been numbly moving through life instead of living it. She didn't

want to think about which was better. She did know that meeting Simon was—

She shook her head in response to Simon's question.

He laced his fingers together and propped his chin on them. She found the gesture artlessly charming.

His gaze on her was steady, assessing. She was fascinated by his eyes, their sharp intelligence and

feline-gold color. She knew his device was a dragon, but to her Simon of Marbeau was leonine, a big,

dangerous, seductive cat.

After a moment she found it easier to look at his hands than into his eyes. He had such long-fingered,

elegant hands, like a musician's. It was a pity they were marred by the faint lines of old scars. Battle

scars, she assumed. Or, maybe Alys had scratched.

Diane hugged herself tightly. She was aware that the sick wave of emotion going through her was

jealousy. She fought it, and looked away from Simon altogether. It didn't help, because even though she

concentrated on the Square of light coming in the window at his back, she was all too aware of Simon's

presence.

You're not in love with him,
she told herself.
This is just lust.
To prove the point, she tried her

voice.

When her mouth worked but no sound came out, Simon stood up and came around the table. "Not in

love yet, I see." He tried to make his words sound light, but the joke fell flat for both of them. The look

she turned on him was anguished, as was the twist of pain around his heart. "Perhaps I want someone to

love me," he admitted. "Though I didn't realize it until just now."

He was lying, of course, Diane told herself. Though she had to acknowledge he looked and sounded

good as he mouthed the words meant to seduce her. She fought hard to remember it was a deception as

he took her hands in his. Beautiful as those hands were, they were hard. The man was all controlled

strength, but his touch was gentle.

He stroked his thumbs across the back of her hands as he said, "Sweet Diane, I fear we understand