The Champion. Heather Grothaus

temperature of the room had risen slightly, signaling to Simone that Didier’s fit of pique was subsiding. Her teeth no longer chattered, and she could almost feel her fingers.

      “How do you mean?”

      “I know not, exactly,” Didier said, a frown wrinkling his face. He flapped a hand at Simone’s robes. “Let me sit with you.”

      Simone lifted the covering aside with a grimace as Didier climbed into the chair beside her, bringing a little extra chill with him.

      “I’m sorry ’tis so cold,” he offered, snuggling as best he could to Simone’s side.

      “No matter.” Simone tried to give him a reassuring smile. “’Twill soon pass, as it always does.”

      Didier was silent for several moments as the pair stared into the hearth, waiting for the room to warm. When he did speak, his tone was filled with concern.

      “What do you think Papa will do now?”

      “I have no earthly idea,” Simone sighed. “I suppose ’twill depend on Lord Halbrook’s reaction.”

      “Will he still marry you?”

      “For all our sakes, I hope so.” Simone’s mouth thinned as she thought of the scene on the balcony and the baron’s blunt admission of her willingness to yield to him. Her ears burned once more as she recalled the wanton embrace the pair had been caught in.

      Cad. Traitor. Drunken, selfish fop!

      But, oh, how she’d felt in his arms! Free and treasured and desirable. Simone wondered if she was incredibly naïve for a man’s attentions to affect her so. She also wondered if Lord Halbrook’s embrace would elicit the same reaction, but the possibility was squashed as a vision of the fattened elder filled her mind.

      She shuddered.

      When she had been betrothed to Charles Beauville in France, she had, over time, granted him certain privileges with her person: a kiss here, an embrace there. She had known Charles her entire life and, if not passionate, his touch was comforting and safe. If there had been one person besides her mother that Simone felt she could trust with her greatest confidences, it had been Charles Beauville.

      And still, he had betrayed her.

      Tonight, the Baron of Crane—a veritable stranger—had kissed her and touched her and made her feel terrifying sensations. He had been crass and painfully blunt in stating what he wanted from her. He did not love her, would not court her, yet she would have given herself to him readily.

      And he had betrayed her as well.

      “Do you care for the baron?” Didier asked in a small voice, interrupting Simone’s visions of blue eyes and damnably soft, masculine lips.

      “What?” Simone sent her brother a frown. “Of course not. Why would you ask such?”

      “I’ve not seen anyone kiss like that.” He grinned up at Simone before adding, “Save for the tavern wench in the village at home.”

      “Didier! That woman was a prostitute!”

      The boy giggled. “I know.”

      “So you would liken your sister to a common harlot?”

      “Then explain why you went off with him,” Didier demanded. “Why risk Papa’s plans with a man you care naught for?”

      When Simone hesitated, Didier offered her a sympathetic smile. “Sister, are you in heat?”

      “Didier du Roche!” Simone shrieked and bolted from the chair. She stalked to the bed, and her cheeks throbbed as she crawled upon the mattress.

      “Well, are you?” Didier appeared, seated, on the bed. “That’s how horses and dogs—”

      “I am neither a horse nor a dog and I most definitely am not”—she sputtered—“in heat!”

      “Very well—calm yourself, Sister. ’Twas merely a question.”

      “If I could, I would smack your backside for asking it.”

      Didier guffawed and stretched out alongside Simone. “So then, tell me: why Lord Nicholas?”

      Simone stared up at the canopy in the flickering quiet for a long while. How to explain her reckless impulses to an eight-year-old boy who was, in truth, no longer a boy, but a ghost. She could not grasp the reason herself why she chose to behave with such reckless abandon on the eve of what could possibly have been the most important night of her life.

      Of all their lives.

      After her mother’s and Didier’s deaths and Charles’s betrayal, rumors of Simone’s descent into madness had quickly spread. Portia du Roche had been quite liberal with the funds of Saint du Lac, and after her death it was discovered that there was no coin left to solicit a family of even modest means. Should she not marry well in England—and soon—she and her father would be paupers at the mercy of a foreign people.

      With this weight resting solely on her shoulders, that she would jeopardize her father’s efforts for a few moments in the arms of a known seducer baffled her.

      The Baron of Crane is not worth the dust on my slippers, she reasoned. So why? Why?

      “I know not, Didier,” she finally sighed. Her answer seemed to leave the boy unsatisfied, so she reached for any possible explanation. “Perhaps ’twas because he was so handsome and I was so miserable at the feast. Perhaps, for once, I merely wanted to do and say what I pleased.”

      “You chose a poor time to do so.”

      Simone sent her brother a wry smile.

      Didier gazed thoughtfully at her. “Would you do the same if given another chance?”

      “Oui.” The answer passed her lips before she’d taken time to think on it properly, and Simone was surprised by the truth of it. “Oui, I would do the same. I cannot explain it to you, or even to myself, really.”

      The memory of the baron’s kisses flooded her mind so that she rose up on her knees and began untying the bed curtains to distract herself. She could feel Didier’s gaze on her back as she struggled with a knot.

      “Perhaps you needed his touch,” Didier offered in a small, uncertain voice.

      “What do you mean?” Simone let the freed curtain fall and crawled to the next post at the end of the bed.

      “’Twas something Maman used to say,” he replied. “When she was feeling sad or out of sorts, she would hold me very tightly.” Didier’s voice grew wistful. “She would say, ‘Come here, my lovely boy, and sit upon my lap.’ She told me that, oft times, when a person is lonely, they need only the touch of one they love to make them feel happy again.”

      Simone let the second curtain fall and sat back on her heels, tears welling in her eyes. She turned and crawled back to Didier, the remaining ties forgotten, and slid beneath the furs. She held up a corner of the coverings, and Didier joined her.

      “Didier, I do not love the baron,” she explained softly. “He was merely…convenient.”

      “I know.” He avoided her gaze, smoothing his hand across the soft fur. His small fingers disappeared as they passed through a fold and reappeared on the other side. “I miss her.”

      “You will see her again, chéri,” Simone encouraged. “We must simply bide our time until we can learn why she passed on and you did not.”

      “Do you think I’ll go to Hell, Sister?” he asked in a small voice. “Is that why I am still here? Because God does not want me in Heaven?”

      “I most certainly do not!” Simone whispered fiercely. “God and Maman will welcome you into Heaven, into their arms, one day very soon. You must believe that.”

      Didier nodded half-heartedly and then looked