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Page 494
Sir Léon and Sir Guy, "I will be at rest quicker and easier than any other way. Joanna, do not fret me further by arguing. Mount up and lead in the men."
Geoffrey did not look at Joanna. His eyes were blurring anyway. The excitement, which had given him that abnormal burst of strength had also drained him abnormally. Joanna stared after her husband. Was that all the greeting she was to havefirst insults and then laughter? Rage and relief, joy and anxiety, were suddenly rolled together even more confusingly than before by another emotion which had touched Joanna only once previously and then very briefly. When she asked of his health he had said, very quicklytoo quickly?that he had been well cared for. Just how well had he been cared for by Lady Gilliane? Well enough so that his wife's arrival was no pleasant surprise? Joanna gestured sharply and Knud came down from his mount to lift her to the mare's saddle.
As she rode past, Geoffrey did not even glance up at her. Joanna burned, too caught up in her own imaginings to think he might be too tired to lift his head or so near fainting he did not hear the horses. She entered the keep, slid down from the Mare into Knud's hands, and turned to look more closely at Sir Léon's wife. Lady Gilliane had not a glance for her either. She was staring outward with tear-filled eyes toward the three oncoming men. It never occurred to Joanna that the tears might have been to welcome her own husband. She weeps to lose a lover, Joanna thought, and tossed her head.
In fact, Lady Gilliane was not perfectly clear why her eyes were full of tears. The relief she felt at seeing Léon was enormous. No longer would she need to worry about whether the servants were doing their duty or how she could discover if they were not doing it. But the thought of losing Lord Geoffrey, of being bereft of the interest and courtesy that made her a person in her own eyes as well as his, of never again having a man look at her and see her, kiss her hand, pour wine and hand it first to herthere was pain in that.
"Will you count the gold now, or may that matter wait

 
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