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Page 19
lar problem. He frowned, pulled his arms from behind his head, and pushed Joanna's face up so that he could see it. The movement freed all the strands of hair that she had interlaced, and she smiled. Then she sat up beside her husband to ease the strain that looking at him had put on her neck.
"He almost did offer, but you sound as if you were pleased that I stopped him," Geoffrey said. "Do you have some objection to him? I must accept some offer for Sybelle soon. She is already sixteen, and she should have been at least betrothed two years ago. My excuses are running thin."
"I have no objection at all," Joanna replied, "or, rather, only a mild reservation. I am not sure that Walter will accept our terms. They are . . . unusual."
"To say the least," Geoffrey agreed, grinning. "But they are a sure guide to a man's feelings. Any man who agrees to marry, knowing that his wife will hold her own lands during his lifetime, desires the woman, not the land or the wealth that comes from it."
"So my mother and I hope," Joanna said. "But I wonder whether Walter will understand that this is a real thing, not a polite fiction."
"If he does not know after Sybelle chased his men back to his camp, burned off his ears for his carelessness and inefficiency in controlling them, and threatened that if it happened again she would have out the entire garrison of Kingsclere and hang him, personally, by the heels, he is far stupider than I believe him to be."
"Not stupider," Joanna demurred, running a hand down Geoffrey's hard-muscled chest. "He wants her. One can see that in the way his eyes follow her and in the difficulty he has looking elsewhere when she is in the chamber. Men lie to themselves when they want something. They forget the thorns while reaching eagerly for the rose."
"Women, too," Geoffrey pointed out, imprisoning her hand in his own.
Her caress was beginning to excite him, which he suspected was her purpose, and he wanted this subject thrashed out once and for all. Of all the men who had hung round Sybelle, Geoffrey preferred Walter. Despite her words, he sensed Joanna's reluctance to apply the pressure he felt should be applied to Sybelle to make her agree to marry Walter.

 
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