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cilely. He would be glad to fill his eyes with Alinor in the moonlight. It would be the kind of memory he would need in the weeks and months to come. When she stopped beside a bed of lavender, however, he stood well away. There was a dangerous temptation in the time and place and the knowledge of parting. The birds were quiet, but insects sang, and everything was a mystery of black and silver, even Alinor's face from which all color had been blanched by the moon. Her eyes were black pools when she raised them to him. Simon braced himself against he knew not what. |
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"If it meets well with your will, my lord, I will write at first light to Sir Andre and bid him bring to you, at what place and time you shall designate, the extra men-at-arms from Roselynde Keep," Alinor said in the flat, even tone she used to discuss business. "Since I have become the King's ward, and I believe the Queen intends to keep me with her, there is no need for so many men to defend Roselynde. They eat my substance and, having nothing to do, quarrel with each other or torment my serfs. It would be, I think, a happy solution to send them off to fight the Welsh." |
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The lovely setting, the sweet-scented air, and Alinor's ethereal beauty in the moonlight were so much at variance with the flat practicality of voice and thought that Simon burst into laughter. Disarmed, he stepped closer. Alinor moved closer too, placing her hands flat on his breast and looking at him in surprise. The touch, the gesture that mimicked resistance where no resistance was intended, the lips half-parted for a question that would never be askedone or all acted to shut off Simon's conscience. His laughter stopped abruptly and he dropped his head until his lips barely touched hers. |
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For ten long days and nightssince they had kissed with the three dead men around themSimon had seesawed between horrified rejection of the idea that Alinor could love him and an almost equally horrified |
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