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"Prevent Queen Berengaria from forbidding the marriage," Alinor responded promptly. "You know she will try to do that, she is soso bitter just now." |
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"But not unkind," Joanna protested. "Berengaria is very fond of you. She would not do anything to hurt you." |
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"She will be trying to save me from myself, not hurt me," Alinor said. "It will do no good to tell her I love Simon and he loves me. She will say she loved Richard and he loved her. Nothing I tell her will make her believe that Simon and I are different and marriage will increase, not destroy, our love." |
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"There is a real difference," Joanna said stiffly. |
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"Madam, you know it and I know it, but will Queen Berengaria admit she knows it? You know what she is like." |
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"Then you can wait to be married until you are parted from her." Joanna liked Alinor, but the principle that a lady's good must always give way before the smallest whim of her mistress was very firmly fixed in the mind of the Angevin princess. "It is your duty." |
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Only Joanna had met her match. "I do not give a pin for duty," Alinor said firmly, "and I will not wait. Do not mistake me, Madam. I do not desire your help to permit me to marry. I desire it only to save Queen Berengaria hurt. Simon has the King's permission. If necessary, I will bid Simon obtain the King's order that we be married. The King is not like to yield to his wife's wishes above Simon's at this time or on this matter. Of course, I do not know what is in the King's mind, but either I am Simon's war prize, in lieu of some great estate, or the King has some other purpose that makes it needful that we be wed." |
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Again Joanna looked stunned and again after a pause to assimilate what Alinor had said she began to laugh. "I can see that Simon knows his ward better than Berengaria knows her lady. You are, indeed, willful, disobedient, and bad tempered, as well as kind, |
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