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.
