would do it.”
“You are easily satisfied, then.” But as she reached down to pat Ahmer, her veil slipped, as if by chance, and his pulse quickened, for she had skin as golden as her eyes and a full, ripe mouth made for a man’s kisses. She did not attempt to replace the veil, instead saying coolly, “Staring like that may not be rude in your homeland, but it is very rude in mine.”
“Mea culpa, demoiselle. But I could not help myself. For you are truly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”
“Indeed?” She sounded very skeptical. “I assume you are one of King Richard’s men. So surely you’ve met his sister, the queen.”
“Yes, I had that honor this morn.”
“Then either your vision is flawed or you are a liar, for the Lady Joanna is far more beautiful than I am.” Drawing the veil across her face again, she moved around him and began to walk away.
Morgan was not about to give up yet. “Yes,” he called after her, “but can the Lady Joanna swear in Arabic?”
She didn’t pause, nor did she answer him. But Morgan watched her go with a grin, for he was sure he’d heard a soft murmur of laughter floating back on the breeze.
JOANNA HAD NO TROUBLE reconciling her memories with reality; the nineteenyear-old brother who’d escorted her to Marseille and the waiting Sicilian envoys was recognizable in the thirty-three-year-old man who’d pried open the door of her gilded prison. But for Richard, those fourteen years had wrought dramatic changes in the little girl he’d remembered with such affection. “Are you sure you’re my sister?” he joked. “I have never seen such a remarkable transformation. Well, not since I last saw a butterfly burst from its cocoon!”
“Are you calling me a caterpillar?” Joanna feigned indignation, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow, so easily had they slipped back into their familiar family roles. “I was an adorable child!”
“You were spoiled rotten, irlanda, for you took shameless advantage of your position as the baby of the family. You managed the lot of us like so many puppets.” Richard paused for comic effect. “Though I suppose that was good training for marriage.”
“Indeed it was,” she agreed, for she believed that a woman with brothers had a decided advantage over other women when it came to understanding the male mind. “But I was not the baby of the family. That was Johnny.”
Richard did not want to talk about John, for he knew that would inevitably lead to further conversation about Hal and Geoffrey and then their father. So far he’d been successful in avoiding a serious discussion of their family feuding, but he knew sooner or later he’d have to answer her questions. Just not yet. He sensed she’d be hurt by the truth—that he’d detested Hal and Geoffrey—for she’d had an inexplicable fondness for the pair of them. She did not know how Hal had plotted with rebel lords in Aquitaine to overthrow him, how Geoffrey had twice led armies into his duchy, once with Hal and then with Johnny. He held no grudge against Johnny, for he’d been only seventeen at the time. But he was not sorry that Hal and Geoffrey were dead. Nor was he sorry that their father was dead, although he did regret that the ending had been so bitter. He’d not wanted it to be that way, had been given no choice. How could he expect Joanna to understand all this, though? A pity their mother would not be here for months. It would have been so much easier if he could have left the explanations to her.
To deflect any questions about their family’s internal warfare, he said quickly, “When I warned Tancred that you must be released straightaway, I demanded the return of your dower lands, too. Moreover, I told him to include a generous sum as recompense for your ordeal.”
“Did you truly, Richard? Very good!” By Joanna’s reckoning, Tancred owed her a huge debt, and she thought it was wonderful that she had so formidable a debt collector in Richard. “Tancred owes you a debt, too.”
Richard was immediately interested. “What do you mean?”
“William died without a will. But he meant to leave our father a vast legacy, to be used in freeing Jerusalem from the infidels. He would have wanted that legacy to pass to you now that Papa is dead, for the fate of the Holy City mattered greatly to him.”
“Do you know what he intended to