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want you to teach him every note. He is a fine player of the lute and sings most sweetly himself. My father will hang on every word, remembering the joys of his youth, and the children will keep you at it from dawn until they are driven to their beds. They are never done pestering my father to tell them tales of giants and magic in Wales." |
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However uncaring of disapproval a person may claim to be, it was pleasing and reassuring for Rhiannon to believe that she had a shield against criticism. Although she would never have admitted she wished to be liked and accepted by Simon's family, the key to their regard that he had given relaxed her. Roselynde ceased to loom so large in her mind that it obscured all else. She began to ask questions concerning the greater purpose behind their betrothal, questions about the king and the court. |
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It was a theme to which Rhiannon returned again and again. Simon, who had initially given little or no thought to what she could accomplish, began to recast his ideas. Over the next few days Rhiannon extracted from him a wealth of information that he did not even know he possessed and had designed several tentative plans to ingratiate herself with the king. |
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"You know," she said thoughtfully one afternoon as they lay together in the woods, "even if the peace is broken and my father makes common cause with Pembroke, Henry will probably not blame mea mere woman. And if he likes me and I interest himnot as a woman, of course, but as an entertainerI could be useful when the terms of peace are made even in future times." |
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Simon turned a little more toward her and pressed his face into the hollow of her throat. He did not wish her to see the amusement and delight in his eyes. Rhiannon knew that her presence in the English court presupposed a bond with his family, and, more and more, she spoke in the long term as if their being |
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