Autumn Lord by Susan Sizemore

Author:Susan Sizemore [Sizemore, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B005LSC5TA
Barnesnoble: B005LSC5TA
Publisher: susan sizemore
Published: 2011-08-30T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

"You most certainly are going."

Diane shook her head one more time. She stomped her foot. The servants and soldiers waiting to

leave with their lord and his luggage looked around nervously. Simon glared.

She refused to be impressed by his leonine glower. She wasn't going. The fact that Jacques stood at

her back, blocking the entrance to the castle, and that Simon was looming down from his large stallion,

kept her from stomping off.

She had spent the night coming to grips with the fact that this wasn't some alternate universe but that

she had traveled back in time. She hated knowing that there were a lot of things that neither Simon nor

Jacques had bothered to tell her. She'd forgiven them for their omissions. She didn't suppose it was all

that important. For all intents and purposes, this ancient France was about as alternate a world as Oz.

She was over being angry about all that.

What she had no intention of doing was attending Simon's wedding.

It had nothing to do with how she felt about him. It wasn't love, it was pride. She wasn't letting any

more strangers ogle and insult her. She was not going to be the entertainment at the reception. She

wasn't going.

"You're going."

His household had spent the night preparing for the journey to Paris. No one had gotten very much

sleep. The knights and foot soldiers who were to accompany him were still weary from days of fighting.

They deserved a rest. He deserved a rest. Simon had little patience with the recalcitrant young woman

he'd had to have fetched from Jacques's chamber.

"Your clothes are packed. Your serving woman is on the cart. Everything you need is here." He

pointed at Diane. "You are getting up behind me on this horse and going to Paris. Today." He looked at

the sky. It was just past dawn, clear and warm for the season, 'it will be a pleasant journey."

Diane was not going to get up behind him. There was a sort of narrow seat with a footrest attached to

Simon's saddle. It looked uncomfortable, dangerous and degrading. She pointed at it and shook her

head.

"So you don't want to ride pillion, is that it?"

That wasn't it at all.

Before she could indicate any differently, Simon spoke to one of the waiting grooms. "Saddle a palfrey

for my storyteller." He looked past her to Jacques. "It seems the woman can ride as well as write in her

own tongue."

"She's clever," Jacques answered. "But she might make surly company if she doesn't want to attend

you."

"Nonsense."

Diane pointed at her sore leg.

When she would have lifted her skirt to show off the bruises, Simon warned, "Don't." He cast a

concerned glance at Jacques. "Can she ride with that leg?"

"She won't enjoy it, but she can ride." Diane turned a venomous look on the wizard as he asked, "Isn't

it safer for her to stay here?"

Simon gave a cold bark of laughter. "I'm not leaving her alone again. Even the men she's nursed still

call her foreigner and make the sign to ward off evil when her back's turned. Ah, you didn't know that,

did you?" Simon asked when he saw Diane's indignant expression.

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