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explanation than that. Just yes.
    â€œAnd if I do not agree?”
    â€œThen you will be returned to the convent tomorrow.”
    He was garbed in shadows, but she had the impression that he studied her closely. “Why should I agree to such a thing, my lord?”
    â€œWhy should you not? I offer you the freedom of Langlinais to do with as you will.”
    She looked down at her hands. Freedom? To a villein it meant the ability to own his life. What did such a thing mean for her? No marriage bed, evidently. But what else comprised this spurious freedom he offered?
    â€œHave you a man of letters living here? And a library, perhaps?” Her question popped free before she could think it through.
    â€œWould you like a tour of Langlinais before you decide?” There was humor there, if only a small bit of it, a dry husk of amusement.
    She stared in front of her, wishing that she was not offered a view of herself in the night-darkened window. Her toque shone whitely, her skin as pale as her headdress. She looked away. She should think on this bargain he wished between them rather than noting her appearance.
    â€œYou would have me lie about our marriage.”
    His shadowed face turned in her direction again. “Who would dare ask such a question of you? Who would want to know if you lay with your husband? No one at Langlinais.”
    â€œMay I have some time in which to decide, my lord?”
    â€œNo.”
    There was no hesitation in his voice, as if this plan had been long considered and he was impatient with her participation in it.
    â€œYou wish me to choose this moment?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œTo be a wife without knowledge of her husband?” She clasped her hands tightly in her lap.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOr return to the convent?”
    â€œYes.”
    Would he say nothing more? Give her some reason? Or was she simply to be content with his assent? Yes and yes and yes.
    â€œWhy will there be no true marriage between us, my lord?”
    Her hands twisted together, a habit she thought she’d outgrown when she was a little child. She’d been cured of it by having her hands tied behind her back. She no longer twirled her hair around her finger either, another habit she’d been weaned of when one of the nuns had simply cut her hair to within an inch of her scalp. She had cried for a week, but she’d never adopted the habit again, not even when her hair had finally grown back to its former length.
    â€œI regret that I cannot answer your question,” he said.
    There, a few more words from him, but not an answer.
    She looked down at her hands. If she returned to the Sisters of Charity, she would forever be a wife without a husband. She knew neither of them could have their marriage annulled. To do so it would have to be proven that they were related closer than the fourth degree or that each had submitted to the marriage against his consent. They had both been children, eager to please their parents. Nor was there any relation between them. Only one of service; her father had been a loyal vassal to his. Yet, surely her marriage would be set aside if he did not wish to bed her? The laws governing such things were not known to her, but she doubted that her life would be made better by the simple dissolution of this marriage. She would simply be wed again, her dower lands taken back and given to another man. The fact that she had been wed to her father’s liege lord meant that the king would have to adjudicate such a thing. Timid Juliana, petitioning the king. Where would she find the courage?
    At the convent she would be able to do her workagain, but only within the confines of gray walls, subject to a regimented schedule. At Langlinais there would not be the tolling of a bell. She would not have to wake before dawn and retire at dusk. She would not ever have to weed a garden again.
    She studied him in the silence. “ Who would ask? ” he had said. Indeed,