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prehensible to her, was being received with equal or greater acclamation. Perhaps they danced again. By that time Joanna was so dazed that she had no idea at all of what her body did or her lips said. Suddenly, however, she wakened to find herself stark naked, shivering with cold, the focus of what seemed like hundreds of staring eyes. She nearly screamed aloud, thinking she had already been proven unchaste and was about to be punished for it. But her mother was there, her own dear mother and dear Lady Ela, and both were smiling. |
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A woman's hand gripped her hair and lifted even that curtain of modesty from her body and a warm hand on her shoulder propelled her around. ''Is she not perfect?" Isabella cooed in her sweet, lilting voice. "Look at that skin, like milk, how immaculatenot a single scratch or scar upon it." |
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Not punishment, Joanna realized sickly, her trial had not yet begun. She tried to whip herself into some action, into shrinking coyly from the gazes fastened upon her as a shy maiden might, into listening to the flying jests and sallies, but she could do nothing more. She stood like a statue, literally white as milk, even her lips pale, only colored by her flaming hair and the red-gold curls peeping from beneath her arms and glowing on her mount of Venus. |
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How long the torment lasted, Joanna could not guess. Not long, she supposed, for she did hear comments upon her shivering and Lady Ela's shrill voice bewailing the fact that if they did not soon warm her she would be dead of the cold before she was a wife. Soon after she was thrust into the bed with a goblet of warm wine between her hands. The crowd remained a while longer, teasing Geoffrey, but he drove them from the room at last with a laughing pretense of anger. Geoffrey was, in fact, truly amused. The blatant envy of every man and Joanna's apparent lightness of spirit since the feast had started had done much to cheer him. |
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Joanna looked down into the goblet of wine. It was too latetoo late to withdraw, too late to plead, too late to do anything beyond endure what fate had in store for her. The |
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