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stop arguing and think about it. "I will see that you do not do so again, but what you did before I became King's warden is nothing to me." |
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"Then why," Alinor asked with such acid sweetness that, had the words been liquid, they would have seared Simon's skin, "are you examining the accounts of my expenditure over the full two years past?" |
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Simon's eyes bulged as he gasped for breath. His motive had been totally innocent. He had wished to protect thisthis viper, who needed protection about as much as a venomous serpent. And then, just before he burst, the termagant changed before his eyes. |
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"Let us cease this brangling," Alinor said in a quite normal voice. "I have no wish to challenge your authority, my lord. It is, indeed, your right and your duty to know what the estates yield and what the costs upon them are. So long as we are agreed that I am free and clear of any guilt for what was done before the King's writ came two weeks since and that what was mine then is still mine, to me, you may hold all else in your hand as it pleases you." |
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Momentarily Simon was rendered even more speechless by this return to sweet reasonableness. Finally his mind focused on a phrase. "Yours to you? Who seeks to deprive you of what is yours?" he asked agressively but no longer in a shout. |
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"No one. At least, I believe no one here," Alinor said. "What I seek to discover is what is mine and what belongs to the King. If five pounds that were collected last Lady Day lie in my chest, will you take those five pounds?" |
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"Are you accusing me of intending to steal from you?" Simon gasped. |
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"No, of course not," Alinor exclaimed hastily. She certainly did not want the King's warden to expire of a stroke in her keep, and Simon, at this moment, looked as if such a death might be imminent, so purple was his countenance. "I want to know whether the |
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