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Page 305
finding a new dwelling and the money with which to rent and furnish it. Joanna did not blame Geoffrey for Lady Maud's admirationno, not at all! Merely it showed that any woman, even one whose heart should have been given elsewhere, would be glad to have him. There was little chance, Joanna thought, of a marriage of convenience where an indifferent wife would not strive to win Geoffrey's affection. And even if he loved Joanna now, would not that in time wean him to a new love? It must, and Joanna knew she would be a monster to wish it would not.
Jealousy could be repressed but not quenched entirely. Joanna could not resist writing a note to Geoffrey to warn himjestingly, of coursethat he had better be careful lest he make a conquest which would turn a friend into an enemy. She enclosed Lady Maud's letter, which she felt would be self-explanatory.
At the time when Geoffrey received Joanna's packet, it would not have mattered if Lady Maud had said baldly that she was madly in love with him. He would have made no better sense of that than he did of Joanna's more subtle hints about a letter of thanks that contained one graceful reference to his services. Geoffrey might well have been amused if he had comprehended his betrothed's jealous misreading of a most innocent missive, but he was beyond amusement by anything at all. In the early morning of the fourteenth of August, the sky had fallen in.
The court had been near Derby in a keep so small that Geoffrey was sharing his father's bed. Thus, he had been among the very first to hear of the message John received to the effect that Llewelyn had openly joined the rebels at last, that Aberystwyth had fallen and been razed, and that the Welsh princes boasted openly that not a single king's man would remain on Welsh soil. Although he must have known that these events were very likely, John seemed stung into madness by the news. The court was roused and a council held. There was no holding back. All were agreed that the Welsh must be punished.
Such was the unanimity of opinion, that Geoffrey did not

 
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