Page 15 of The King's Man
Unlikely. But possible.
Diadre seemed like a woman with the physical strength to do that. Which only made her even more dangerous.
We couldn’t be bonded. It would be a curse on both of us.
Unless that was exactly what God wanted?
Isthatwhy my eyes didn’t change? Because I was destined to taste the life I had always wanted, but have no time to savor it?
My blood ran cold at that thought—against my will, my mind conjured images of Diadre, her body thick and full of my babe, her cheeks full and hair glossy… and then her laying in a sickbed, but those fuller cheeks now pink, her hair stuck to her temples, her body curled around a swaddled babe and smiling, first at his perfect, tiny face—then at me.
Her eyes sparkled as she extended that calloused hand, reaching for me. “Come meet him. Come meet your son, Jann.”
My heartleapedin my chest.
I cursed. Unable to bear the thoughts, I shoved my horse forward, passing Diadre at a point where the path widened, and kicking him on, into a gallop. I needed the wind in my face and my body active because I couldn’t…I couldn’tgive in to that impossible dream.
But the images would not leave me.
Come meet your son, Jann…
It was theworstkind of torture.
6.Battle of the Genders
~ DIADRE ~
Riding with Jann at my back was an odd kind of torture. When he wasn’t being an ass, I could appreciate his smile—and his flirting. But it scared me too.
He was…ferocious.Watching him fight during that battle had been breathtaking. And terrifying.
With few exceptions, my life was a testimony to the unreliable character of men.
When I was an adolescent, it had seemed the world bowed to men. I’d wanted to be one. Cursed my body for being smaller and weaker, for having breasts, for producing tears. But while I was still young and not yet a soldier, I’d learned the power my body held over those very same men.
That was an eye-opening time in my life. And one I mostly regretted. Expecting admiration—perhaps even love—I’d given myself far too easily and far too often to men who provedunworthy of the gift. Men who were either selfish, or disregarded me once they had what they wanted. Some had merely wanted to prove their strength to themselves by breaking mine. I’d been what my mother described aswanton,and she’d lived—and died—in terror that my indiscretions would be discovered by noble society. I couldn’t count the number of times she’d told me to stop acting like a man. That I was not a man, and living like one would destroy me.
Neither she, nor any other woman, had ever been able to explain to me why men in our society wereexpectedto live promiscuously—if discreetly so—while the women,who were their bedmates,were condemned for the very same activities.
“That is the way of the world, Diadre. Grow accustomed to it. It will not change,” my mother said with a sniff when I was seventeen years old, and ranting about yet another man who’d used me, yet was celebrated at Court.
In my late teens I was forced to make a decision. Would I submit to my fate as arealnoblewoman as my mother put it? Take a husband, produce a family, attend the Queen at Court?
Or would I become a soldier?
Jhonas had been training me for years, and commented that I was faster, and more balanced than many of the men he trained. But I needed more brute strength and wouldn’t find it without devoting most of my time to it.
I wavered on that line for almost a year.
Then I met Walt.
Walt was beautiful. And strong. A capable fighter. And a keenly intelligent mind. He was twelve years my senior… and married.
He flirted, and cajoled. He discovered my secret training with Jhonas and Yilan, and rather than judging me, took an interest.
He said he saw the things in me I’d always wished a man would see: Strength, beauty, desirability, and intelligence.He applauded those things, even told me he wished his own daughters would grow up to be like me.
I’d never had a man appreciate my differences before. I was besotted with him. And very, very quickly, seduced.
