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Page 343
The second private meeting between Joanna and Geoffrey had been a disaster. This time, knowing the filthy tales that were abroad, Geoffrey made no physical approach to Joanna, hoping that his restraint would communicate his respect for her. Naturally enough, considering her private fears, Joanna saw what was meant to be a tender consideration as a cold rejection. In desperation, Geoffrey faltered out some platitudes on his happiness at the nearness of their proposed union, looking so miserable all the while that his hesitant advances seemed like calculated insults.
"For God's sake," he had blazed at last, "if you want none of me, say so. Doubtless it will bring the kingdom down around our ears, but"
"You know and I know that it is absolutely imperative that we marry," Joanna replied stonily. "You can"
She was about to say that he could repudiate her later, if he could not trust her honesty, but fortunately she did not get that far. Geoffrey had flung the table near him right across the room, badly denting two gold goblets and shattering to pieces a priceless glass decanter. Then he had rushed out, slamming the door, before he flung Joanna after the other objects. Joanna knelt on the wine-soaked floor picking up the pieces of glass and sobbing softly.
"Broken, it is all broken," she wept when Edwina flew into the room five minutes later.
"Hush, dearling, hush," the maid comforted, holding Joanna against her warm, full bosom. "Life does not break like glass, love. Life mends itself."
It gave no appearance of mending over the last week before the wedding. Joanna and Geoffrey were not speaking to each other at all, except for icily polite salutations at greeting and parting. Strangely enough, the one emotion that did not wound Geoffrey was jealousy. He never doubted Lady Alinor's faithfulness to her first husband and, even if he had, did not care who Joanna's father was. The rumors about Braybrook, when he realized they were rife again, only pained him for Joanna's sake. His whole attention was concentrated on the agonizing fact that, apparently, Joanna

 
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