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For a week and a half, Joanna suffered a torment that, she thought, would make hell restful. There was, there could be, no comfort of any kind. Had she known Geoffrey to be dead, however dreadful the pain, she would have endured, absorbed it into her soul, and eventually taken up her life again. This she had begun to do, and then. . . . Now things were worse. She could not settle to making herself believe she would never see him, never touch, kiss, love him, again. Every time she told herself that, had he been still alive, news of his whereabouts must have already reached them, contrary notions, each more horrible than the last, presented themselves. Perhaps he was mad, or alive but completely senseless. Perhaps he had fallen into the hands of some madman who took pleasure in torturing captives. Perhaps someone was starving him to death slowly for Isabella's double ransom. |
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If Tostig and Roger of Hemel had not been so desperately ill, Joanna knew she would have lost her mind. They had made their way to Roselynde because their wills and desperation drove them beyond the real capacity of their bodies. Within the safety of its walls, with the added shock of learning their lord had mysteriously disappeared, both collapsed. Joanna had much to do simply to keep breath in their bodies at first and then to turn them toward life. As each made the turn, however, he unmeaningly tortured his poor benefactress by asking constantly if she had news of Geoffrey and when she told him "no," discussing over and over how the lord could have been lost. |
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She came away from the chamber in which they lay early one evening almost wishing they had died, and before she could reach the safe sanctuary of her own chamber she was waylaid by Sir Guy who told her a priest wished to speak to her. Joanna walked to the hearth with lagging steps, trying to firm her spirit. |
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"Are you the Lady Joanna of Roselynde, daughter of Lady Alinor?" |
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