Lady of Magick Read Online Free Page B

anyone.”
    Roland had, Joanna remarked not for the first time, a very stubborn set of the chin.
    â€œShe would not give up the man she loves, for any consideration,” he said; “I call that noble and admirable.”
    With an effort, Joanna refrained from rolling her eyes. “You may call it what you like,” she said, “so you do not attempt to follow her example. You had much better take up a less dangerous pastime than writing sonnets to unsuitable young ladies.”
    â€œI do not write sonnets to
unsuitable young ladies
,” said Roland, visibly stung; “only to you.”
    Joanna’s face heated, whether in outrage or embarrassment she hardly knew. “Roland, you cannot—”
    â€œMy dearest Jo!” He strode forward and, before she could retreat, had trapped both of her hands in his and was gazing earnestly down into her face. “You must let me tell you—”
    â€œLet me go.”
The words emerged with surprising firmness, considering the flailing panic of her thoughts, and he obeyed her at once, stepping back a pace with a look of some alarm. Immeasurably relieved, Joanna drew a breath and said more calmly, “I am going to give you some good advice, such as you might receive from your wise and sensible elder sister, if you had one.”
    Instead of which, you have got Sophie,
she added, to herself.
The gods help us all.
    Roland groaned, but Joanna persisted: “If you must write love-poetry, choose some other object—the Lady Venus, perhaps, or the beauties of Gaia.”
    â€œI am not in love with Venus, or with Gaia.”
    Joanna nearly laughed aloud. “And you suppose yourself in love with me? Roland, you know I am extremely fond of you, but you have not the
least
idea what it is to be in love.”
    â€œWell, no more have you,” said Roland, looking wounded.
    â€œIn any case,” said Joanna, “even were your father inclined to let you choose your own bride without interference—which, for very sound reasons, he is not—there is not the least possibility of your everbeing permitted to marry me. I must conclude, therefore, that you wish to persuade me to some dalliance; and that, I tell you plainly, you shall never do.”
    â€œThat is not what I—that is not at all—” Roland stammered, crimson-faced. “I wish to persuade you to an engagement.”
    Joanna was so shocked that she laughed aloud. Surely,
surely
, he could not be serious? Quite apart from the far grander marriage which his father was already secretly arranging for him, how could he possibly imagine such a thing?
    Roland’s stiff posture grew stiffer, and his red face redder, at this effrontery.
    â€œI do not see why my father should object,” he said. He began to pace, forward and back around the near rim of the fountain. “My father likes you very much, in fact.”
    â€œAs the Kergabets’ protégée, and Sophie’s sister, he may,” said Joanna, who was herself rather fond of King Henry. “I daresay he finds me amusing. But your mother does not; and in any case it does not follow that I should for one moment be tolerated in the character of your wife. Roland, the daughter of a convicted traitor! You cannot seriously suppose it. But this is all beside the point, because
I do not want to marry you
.”
    This, at last, seemed to make an impression; he stopped in his tracks and regarded her with a gobsmacked expression that nearly made her choke.
    â€œWhy not?” he demanded.
    â€œFirstly,” said Joanna, “because I am very fond of you and your brothers, and wish you every happiness, which is exactly what you should
not
have, if you married me. And, secondly”—raising a hand to forestall his protest—“because it is my dearest ambition not to be a princess.”
    This was not strictly true, in that Joanna had many ambitions more definite and positive than