Go back to Gobignon and never see Sophia again? She, at least, would not think less of him because the grand alliance had failed. She probably felt sorry for Alain. Perhaps even felt responsible for his death. Simon should go and reassure her.
And then what? Bid her farewell?
He and de Puys on the other side, two knights behind each of them, slid Alain's body with a dry, rasping sound along the unpainted gray wood of the cart bed. The red ribbons on the four tall cartwheels fluttered in the slight breeze.
A thought that had fleetingly occurred to Simon before now formed itself solidly in his mind.
What if he were to take Sophia back to Gobignon as his bride?
Many there were who would rail against him for doing it. His grandmother in particular, herself the daughter of a king, would be beside herself with fury. King Louis and Uncle Charles might even try to stop him. But he was the Count de Gobignon, a Peer of the Realm, almost a king in his own right, and he had tried to do what his elders expected of him, and he had failed.
Twice he had loved women whose lands and high birth made them proper matches for him in the eyes of the world, and twice he had been prevented from marrying the woman of his choice because of Count Amalric's legacy of wickedness.
Well, the devil take all of them. If they would not accept him as a member of the noblesse, then he was not obliged to behave as one.
Surely his mother and father, considering the way their own marriage had come about, would understand and approve his choice.
And somehow he doubted that Cardinal Ugolini would raise any objection to his marrying his niece, Sophia.