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Page 315
Sybelle had come to Walter's chamber ready to make love, but still she was not as sexually aroused as heand that reminder about her promise of resistance, that was a plea for help. She turned her face fractionally aside.
"You are not happy, dear heart," she sighed. "That is no way to join in love."
Slowly, reluctantly, Walter's good arm loosened and rose from her hips to embrace her shoulders lightly. "Your parents left you in my care, and I have not been such a guardian as they expected," he said.
Walter stroked Sybelle's cheek, but he was thinking of Marie and the unhappiness he believed his unbridled lust had caused. He was by no means as sure as Richard that Marie was not with child. She had never actually admitted she was not, and it was clear she was terrified of her brother-by-marriage. She might have backed down out of fear. And whether she was pregnant or not, it was bad enough to have brought sorrow to her by the sin of lust. To chance that Sybelle might be punished for the same cause was unbearable. Better they both suffer the minor torments of chastity until their mating was no sin. Walter was sure their marriage could not be long delayed if the attack on Shrewsbury was a success.
Although Sybelle was young, she had considerable experience with every male reaction to trouble. In the loving and open family life of Roselynde, Sybelle had seen and heard a great deal. Simon usually laughed and ran away. Ian and Adam raged and roared. But her father locked his trouble inside himself, smiling with his lips while his eyes were dark and shadowed. So Sybelle was able to recognize the signs; Walter was hiding something. She suspected she could pry it out of him by a combination of sexual temptation and pleading, but Walter was too clever to fail for long in understanding what she had done. That was too high a price to pay, for he would end by distrusting her and himself.
There would be time enough, Sybelle decided, to discover what was troubling Walter without pressure or subterfuge. Most likely they would stay at Knight's Tower for some time, definitely until his shoulder healed. It was apparent to both that Sir Heribert's statement that the property was in poor condition was all too true. The serfs were sullen and half-starved, the headmen of villages sly and evasive, the servants

 
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