SPOILERS!!!
Joanna learns soon that her decision to marry Gaetano has been the wrong one. Lying with him on their wedding night was a torture. She doesn’t love him, but his proposal felt right at the time because she thought that he would take her away from Venice, which was her great desire. Yet, when they get to Padua, things are not great. Gaetano has two widowed sisters, Caterina and Nannina, who live in the same house, and Caterina is really fearsome.
Soon Joanna realises that she is a mere object for Gaetano. His only wish is to paint her, and she has to model for her half-naked, but she knows she can’t protest. Then Gaetano starts getting paranoid, thinking that Joanna can be his ruin. He remembers the looks of all the men on her back in Venice, and he thinks that Joanna will be as faithless as all women. It doesn’t matter that Joanna is like a prisoner, locked in the house, he is crazy with jealousy. Then one day while Joanna is on the balcony, and a man greets her and throws a bunch of lilies to her. The man is Martin Gefroy, the English medicine student, who nursed Toby to health. Joanna and Martin exchange some pleasantries in the distance, and then Geaetano appears behind him, and he beats her until her face is black and blue.
Joanna starts hating Gaetano, and she wishes she could be like the woman in the painting, Judith who slayed Holofernes. Then Joanna realises she is pregnant, so it is a relief for her as in her condition Gaetano won’t touch her. I have the feeling that Joanna won’t accept this fate she has foolishly be compliant to so willingly. I don’t think she will run away, but I have the hunch that she will try to break her chains some way.
As for Toby, he is still working for Reynaud du Chantonnay. He has become a good friend to François, the lord’s son, and he is proving to be a good servant for Reynaud, who is a terrible man. I foresee problems because Reynaud’s wife, Eleanor, has fallen in love with Toby, and I think he is not indifferent to her either. We know that unlike François, Eleanor, and the other people in the castle, Toby is not afraid of Reynaud, so if circumstances are favourable, he might have an affair with the woman.
Toby is still curious about his origins, and he thinks that Reynaud is his father, but maybe the story is not so straightforward. Reynaud’s cousin mentions the return of an acquaintance of his, Hamon de Bohum, who was his first wife’s guardian, and Reynaud mentions that he married her without Hamon’s permission. I don’t know what to think. I have the hunch that Blanche could be Toby’s mother, but not Reynaud. Maybe Blanche had an affair, and when she had Toby, she had to get rid of him because Reynaud couldn’t find out.
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