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known to her and Walter had already seen all there was to see and was clearly well content. There had been no crude jests, nor was every second or third phrase a salacious innuendo. Not that Sybelle was prudish or so silly that she never saw there was a ridiculous side to making love. She could call a spade a shovel with the bestbut she had never felt that the tender time in which two people were united for life was the proper moment for such sallies of wit. |
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When the last good wish and kind word was uttered, the bed curtains were drawn, and the wedding party left the chamber. As he heard the door close, Walter got out of bed and pushed the curtains back. "I like to see what I am doing," he said, looking with approval at Sybelle, whose golden glow of hair and eyes was softened but not extinguished in the dim light of the night candle. "And now for my gift to you." |
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Sybelle smiled slowly. "Was it immodest to remind you of those words?" |
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"Yes," Walter replied with mock seriousness, still standing by the edge of the bed and staring down at her, "of course it was, but I did not choose you for your modesty." |
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"For what, then?" Sybelle teased. "My great inheritance?" |
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She felt his eyes on her but she did not look up to catch his expression. There was no need. She was watching his shaft thicken and harden and start to rise. It was a thing she had never seen before, since Walter had always been fully ready by the time she saw him naked. But the process stopped abruptly at her last words, and Sybelle raised her head in time to see Walter shudder. |
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"Do you know that when I came into the hall and I understood what your gift to me signified, I wanted to run away," he said. "Every man thinks he desires to be rich and powerful before he considers what that truly means, but I am not a fool, and of a sudden I saw that it is harder by far to rule than to take orders. I wanted no part of it. But then I saw you. . . . You may not believe me, Sybelle, but I swear that even before I thought clearly of what it meant to be husband to the lady of Roselynde, I offered to take you with nothing." |
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"I believe you," she murmured, leaning toward him and encircling his hips with one arm so that she could rest her head against his abdomen. "My father told me. Do you think |
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