< previous page page_396 next page >

Page 396
to take my place." Her voice stumbled a little over those last words.
Llewelyn had to hide a smile, but he only said, rather flatly, "I do not think so. I knew Simon's father when we were both barely men. I was seventeen and Ian the same age. He was in love with Lady Alinor thenI heard enough about her to choke a horse. She married his lord and best friend, Sir Simon Lemagne. Ian never touched her nor even looked at herin the sense of being a womanbut he loved her still. Oh, there were other women to warm his bed, but not one warmed his heart and he never married until Simon Lemagne died. Then he took her for whom he had longed forwhat? Near twenty years, it had been."
Rhiannon had stepped away and was staring at him with wide eyes. She had accepted the fact that Simon would be faithful to her if he became her husband because he had chosen, as Sybelle said, out of knowledge and not out of ignorance. It had never occurred to her that he might have told the truth when he averred he would be faithful whether or not she accepted him. Yet his father had done just that, and without any hope of satisfaction for his love from the beginning.
"You are not by nature cruel, Rhiannon," Llewelyn said into the silence that fell after his last words. "Perhaps you have not looked at the matter from both sides. Consider whether to ease your own fears it is right to inflict a life of loneliness and childlessness and sadness on a man who loves you. His constant nature is not by his will or sheer stubbornness but something with which he was born."
"Then I must be the sacrifice," Rhiannon exclaimed bitterly.
"Only you can judge that. If it is truly a sacrificea laying down of your lifethen perhaps Simon, who will live because he has duties and obligations that he cannot slough off, must live with his endless longing." He reached out and pulled her close again. "My love,

 
< previous page page_396 next page >