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her soul is corroded beyond hope with evil. The ugliest may have a sweet smile or a soft skin or a warm, gracious voice. Women are not fools. They may seem to desire and to accept untrue flattery, but if you praise what is truly beautiful in them, you will strike them to the heart."
The laughter vanished from Rhiannon's face and the contempt from her eyes. She stared unwinking at Simon, then shuddered slightly. "You are a very dangerous man, very. It would behoove me to have no more to say to you."
"Are you afraid?" Simon's eyes sparkled with challenge.
"Yes."
Simon laughed. "Your father has just told me that I should not reach for you lest my fingers be burnt. In response to that, I asked for your hand in marriage."
"No!" Gruffydd spat. He had been listening to them with a steadily blackening scowl, and now he exploded. "My sister will not be sold to a Saeson. I will bestow her on a suitable man in Wales when I"
"I will be sold to no one," Rhiannon interrupted sharply. "I will marry where I choose, when I choose, and not at all if I choose. You have no right to bestow me any more than does Lord Llewelyn. Do not be a worse fool than you can help, Gruffydd. You are allowing this Norman-English-Welsh matter to unsettle your thinking. Not all Cymry are paragons of virtue and not all Saeson are evil."
"Perhaps not all Welshmen are perfect," Gruffydd snarled, "but I still prefer to live and breed within my own kind. I say my sister will not go to a stranger"
"What a fool you are!" Rhiannon repeated in an exasperated voice and, in defiance, placed her fingers on Simon's wrist. "Let us go," she urged.
"I am sorry," Simon said as he led her away. "I did not mean to make a quarrel with your brother. Nor, I hope, will you misunderstand me. Your father

 
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