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Page 367
began to back away, all except Isabella who could not conceive of anyone offering violence to her sacred person. Joanna sprang from the bed and clasped Geoffrey in her arms so that he would have to knock her down and walk on her before he could get at the queen.
"Geoffrey," she cried, "the queen means no harm. She only wishes to protect you. She could not know of our private jest. Think! Think!"
The desperate urgency of the last two words penetrated the surge of anger. To attack the queen would be to undo all the good his marriage to Joanna had accomplished. Geoffrey's flush receded, leaving him with burning yellow eyes in a face the color of well-bleached linen.
"I assure you, madam, that the blood is my wife's," he said icily. "I had sufficient pain and trouble in taking her maidenhead to assure me ten times over of her innocence."
"And the kitten is here," Joanna added hastily, hearing Geoffrey's voice begin to tremble. She gestured toward the chair. "Here also is the bag in which Edwina kept it. You can see that the fur inside the bag is the same as the kitten's. I am sorry to have given you a fright upon your nephew's behalf, madam."
Isabella was not a clever woman, but she had told a convincing enough tale so that the women who had accompanied her had high expectations of a bitter confrontation between the houses of Salisbury and Roselynde that would end in further riving the kingdom. Great surprise and dissatisfaction was generated by Geoffrey's guarantee of Joanna's virginity and Joanna's open avowal of her maid's part in concealing the obviously healthy and content little kitten. This was written so openly on the faces of most of the witnesses that Joanna, rather than being angry, found great difficulty in stifling the impulse to laugh. She was enjoying the queen's discomfiture intensely. A joke that backfired was often the best joke of all.
"You may examine the kitten," she said gravely, although her voice was a little tremulous with inner mirth. "You will find it whole, without a scratch. I assure you, madam, it was brought to satisfy a private jest between my

 
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