He loves me. He really loves me. He really does want to marry me.
If he had taken that strange Saracen sword of his out and run her through with it, he could not have hurt her more. She had been thinking about sending David to kill him, and he had just entrusted all of himself, his family, everything he possessed, his body and his soul, to her.
If David went after him, this time one of them—Simon or David—would surely die. The luck of the Monaldeschi palace encounter could not protect both a second time.
She felt Simon's hands on her shoulders. She pulled away from him.
"Sophia!" She heard the anguish in his voice.
Tartars and Muslims were a thousand leagues away. If Christians and Tartars were destined to join forces and destroy Islam, it would happen. She willed herself to believe that. And if it was not destined, it would not happen.
David and Simon were here. To say anything to David about Simon's mission to France was to doom one man, perhaps both. It might be the man who loved her, or it might be the man she loved. And she did not want either to die.
"Sophia, I beg you, speak to me! Are you turning against me?"
She wiped her streaming eyes to see Simon standing before her, his arms hanging at his sides, his face agonized.
I cannot doom this young man.