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no prude, and he would not think of troubling himself with moral regulations that were, in his opinion, the business of the Church and would make many of his dear friends miserable and resentful. |
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The gossip in itself was distasteful; Rhiannon was not in the least interested in the bed-hopping proclivities of people she did not know, but she was accustomed to such gossip. Her father's court was no different, though smaller. Where there are men and women there will be sexual games. The difference was that now, all too often, Rhiannon herself was the target of the tales. Although not all of the women had seen her performance, all knew of it, and many had carefully whetted knives with which to stab her. Thus she was the recipient of more than one broad tale of Simon's doings, delivered with every range of feeling from genuine concern to vicious venom. |
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At first Rhiannon was inclined to laugh, remembering how Simon had said that when she was warned against him the half of it would not be true at all and the other half, exaggerated. ''Were I what is said of me," he complained, "I would need seven of everything a man uses to make love. . . ." But when she finally got into the empty bed that night, she began to wonder whether the bed Simon was sleeping in was also empty. It was quite difficult for a woman to be unfaithful to a man. Confined to a home and an area where she was known, it required effort and secrecy to take a lover. That so many women accomplished it was a tribute to female cleverness. A man, on the contrary, had no such problems. He rode where he liked, most often to places it was very unlikely his woman would ever go. How could she know, Rhiannon wondered, whether Simon was true to the oath he had sworn to her? |
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She told herself not to be a fool. It was ridiculous to think a man who professed love and had made love so eagerly and with such tenderness the preceding night |
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