Joanna grinned. “When did you guess the truth, Maman?”
“From the moment Raimond entered the great hall and I saw the way the two of you looked at each other, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist. I am very happy for you, dearest,” she said, leaning over to kiss Joanna on the cheek. “Were you lovers?”
Joanna actually blushed. “Of course not, Maman!”
“No?” Eleanor sounded surprised. “Well, that will make tonight all the sweeter.” And she smiled, remembering her own wedding night to Joanna’s father. It was a wonder she and Harry had not set their bed on fire, so much heat had been kindled. If her daughter found even half as much pleasure with the Count of Toulouse, she would be a lucky woman.
JOANNA HAD LEFT THE BED CURTAINS open a bit, just enough for her to see without being seen. She’d not had a bedding-down ceremony before. She’d been only eleven when she wed William, so there was no question of consummating the marriage on their wedding night. She’d been nigh on fifteen when he’d deemed her old enough, and that was done privately, with him simply showing up in her bedchamber. The memory brought a smile to her face, for it had been a pleasant experience. She’d been bedazzled by her handsome husband, eager to become his wife in every sense of the word. She’d known about his harim of Saracen slave girls by then, but she’d convinced herself that he’d get rid of them once he began sharing her bed. Her smile faded as she remembered how hurtful it had been once she’d realized he had no intention of putting them aside. Most wives expected their husbands to be unfaithful occasionally. Few demanded fidelity, only discretion. But even at fifteen, Joanna had seen a harim as a greater sin than a concubine and a far greater affront to her pride.
She could hear the clamor in the stairwell that warned of the arrival of the male guests and hastily put her old memories aside. They burst into the bedchamber like an invading army, many of them drunk by now, all of them eager to torment and tease the bridegroom, for this was an accepted rite of passage. She wondered if any bride or groom ever truly enjoyed being at the center of this circus. The risk of violence was always present, too, for wine was combustible and male humor could quickly cross the border from bawdy to obscene to offensive. From stories she’d been told, trouble often began when the wedding guests no longer confined themselves to jests about the groom’s manhood and began making lewd jokes about the bride. Most grooms had been drinking, too, and many were just as hot-tempered as the males in her family. So she was very thankful that she had such a formidable peacekeeper in her brother.
She was not happy to see that some of the men had brought flagons of wine with them, for that might make it harder to get rid of them. For reasons that escaped her, men seemed to think it hilarious to drag out the bedding revelries long past the point where the unhappy bridegroom had lost all patience. She occasionally saw a familiar face as they moved within her limited range of vision. Her nephew Otto looked as if he’d rather be elsewhere; she imagined he was not comfortable envisioning his own aunt in the throes of carnal lust. Her brother Johnny did not seem to be taking an active role in the bantering, either, and she wondered if he, too, felt protective of her. That seemed out of character for Johnny, but she could not rule it out, for every now and then he gave her an unexpected glimpse of the boy he’d once been. She could not catch everything that was being said, for it often seemed as if they were all talking at once, their words wine-slurred and interspersed with bursts of loud laughter. But the jests she did hear were rather tame, nowhere near as raw or crude as she’d expected, and she suddenly realized why; even men in their cups were leery of being disrespectful of the Lionheart’s favorite sister. Richard and Berengaria’s own bedding-down revelries must have rivaled a nunnery for decorum and propriety, she thought, stifling a giggle.