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them all that his bowels knotted. Meanwhile Joanna heard her own words. Safer? Geoffrey was going to war. He might be dead before she ever touched him again. Suddenly, a pain stabbed her breast and she was frightened, more frightened than she had ever been in her life. Stop it! her mind ordered. Geoffrey is a manonly a man. What you felt was sweet, but any decent young man can rouse that in you. If it is not Geoffrey, it will be another. |
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The pain and terror would subside. She would make them subside, Joanna thought. She would not grow like her mother, laughing with terror-haunted eyes that had lids polished and heavy with much weeping. To be a good wife to Geoffreythat was right. To take pleasure in him abedthat was right also. But all good men were alike good men and equally suitable as partners. Nonetheless. . . . |
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"Geoffrey," she said urgently. "Be careful. Do not permit yourself to be thrust into the forefront of the fighting." |
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Those were the sweetest words Joanna had said to him since they were betrothed. Geoffrey flushed a little with pleasure. Perhaps she did not think so little of him. She had been willing enough in his armsbut he had known she would be willing; that was her duty. Duty? To say she could not bid him let her be? Geoffrey let his eyes rest on her face, colorless in the colorless moonlight, framed in the red-gold of her hair almost like a picture an artist had forgotten to color. Perhaps in spite of all the men that followed her Joanna was innocent. Perhaps she believed her mother when Alinor said they followed the gold in her purse rather than her person. If so, his mother-by-marriage had done him an immeasurable good. A little wooing, now that the gold was already his, should convince her that he, at least, desired her person and should win a priceless prize. Or was Joanna, like Alinor, thinking of damage to her property right in her men? |
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"I will take every care that my men are as safe as may be consistent with their duty and honor." |
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"I know that," Joanna responded, "butbut I do not trust your uncle, Geoffrey. Mayhap I wrong him" |
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