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Page 119
if seeing them in the same room had reminded him, but after three days of fruitless pursuit he gave up. He sought out Guillaume the page, who knew Alinor by sight and would not have to ask for her, thereby bringing his message to everyone's attention, and sent him to summon Alinor to the Queen's garden on a matter of business. Guillaume opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it. It was not his affair if Sir Simon wished to drown. It was not yet raining, but the skies were most ominous.
The weather was the least of Simon's discomforts. He was not at all happy to have to broach the matter in this manner. If Alinor was drawn from some delightful pastime, she might take against the whole idea just to spite him. However, he dared delay no longer. He had heard that Richard was on the move and might soon be in England. Actually, Simon did a double disservice to Alinor's heart and head. She was never spiteful, although she might be sharp tongued, and she was so bored with the "maiden" pastimes available that she would have welcomed a task as a washerwoman, just to have something real to do.
Thus, she arrived so swiftly on the heels of his message that Simon was caught with his opening speech quite unprepared. He had expected Alinor to resent his summons, and the mildest of her ways of showing resentment was to delay. Instead she looked happy and quite eager. She did not even make a caustic comment about the black clouds, which were hanging lower and lower each second.
"I am come, my lord. I hope there is no trouble?"
"No. Noertrouble. At least, not with your men or lands."
Alinor cocked her head to the side in a birdlike look of enquiry. That Simon had summoned her out into the garden in the teeth of a violent thunderstorm signified a need for privacy. Simon had said business, yet

 
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