SPOILERS!!!
The war in Venice changes everything. After losing her baby son, Joanna sinks into despair, but as time goes by, she gradually recuperates. Then the French troops threaten to invade Padua and Gaetano decides to go to Venice, as Padua is vulnerable. Yet, Joanna, who has realised she has become a shadow of what she used to, declines to go, so she tells him to get an annulment from the pope, gives his ring back, and says that she will start using her maiden name again. Gaetano is angry, but he realises that he can’t do much.
The emperor invades Padua, and Joanna lives quite happily on her own, tending her garden. Martin Godfroy has started visiting her when he heard that she had abandoned her husband. Martin falls in love with her, but Joanna doesn’t want him that way, so she lets him down gently. Then something terrible happened. A German soldier follows her home, kills her maid, and tries to rape Joanna, but she kills him. So she asks Martin for help, and the physician hides her in his rooms, but he knows that it is imperative for them to leave Italy, but he needs help. So when he runs into Toby, he uses the debt for saving his life as a push to help him.
Toby has become a soldier once again. The last commission from Renaud du Chantonnay didn’t go well. Toby had bought the painting in which Joanna posed as Judith. On his way back to Marigny, he was intercepted and beaten. When he regained consciousness, he was in the presence of a man. It was Hamon de Bohum, who had been nurturing hostility against Renaud for years. The man decided to keep the painting and send Toby his way. When Toby told Renaud, he was incensed and Toby realised that his days in Marigny were numbered. Since he was all black and blue from the terrible beating Hamon’s men gave her, Eleanor took him to the linen room to patch him up. There Eleanor couldn’t repress her feelings, and some kisses and caresses were exchanged. Then Toby told her that after that he couldn’t stay, which was a lie as he had decided to leave before this encounter.
So it is in Padua that Martin runs into him and forces his hand to help him. Then he tells her about Joanna and the German soldier. When Martin takes him to see Joanna, Toby recognises Joanna at once, and Martin can also see that there is something there between them and feels jealousy course over him. The three of them travel together, and everything is okay. Things change a few weeks later when Joanna and Toby dance and kiss, and then some time later they make love. Martin is mad with jealousy, and even though he knows that Joanna doesn’t love him, he can’t help himself.
Things change again when Toby runs into Guillaume du Chantonnay, Renaud’s cousin, who has been injured in the leg. Guillaume tells Toby that Renaud died after he suffered a hunting accident, and then he asks Toby to go to Marigny and give his condolences to Eleanor, and Toby accepts. That is a turning point. Martin looks after Guillaume, and when Joanna hears that Eleanor is beautiful, she gets jealous and realises that she has never had Toby. So she decides to play down what happened between them. Toby feels let down as Joanna tells him that he was a help to her spirits after the loss of her son and the problems of her marriage. She also says that she can’t offer him anything as she is still married, and he has nothing to offer her either.
The plan is for Toby to escort her to his parents’ where she will stay for a while, and then he will ride to Marigny. Before parting ways, Toby and Martin have a terrible fight, and thankfully, Joanna manages to push them apart. Martin stays with Guillaume, and Joanna and Toby leave. When they reach the town of his parents, Agnes and Paul welcome them with open arms. Agnes first thinks that Joanna might be Toby’s wife, so she is disappointed to learn she is not. Toby leaves days later promising to return. Joanna stays with Paul and Agnes, and even though she is happy with them, she is not accepted in town as she is seen as a foreigner without a husband or a parent. Agnes is also worried about Paul who is looking sicker and thinner every day. When the man collapses and takes to bed, Joanna decides to write to Toby to tell him about his father.
On reaching Marigny, Toby becomes young François’s bodyguard and Eleanor’s lover. We know that he doesn’t love her as he should, but he likes her presence and her warmth. Guillaume returns to Marigny just as the monk with Joanna’s letter also arrives. Guillaume has a purpose in mind: to marry Eleanor. She refuses his proposal but agrees to think about it. Toby has learnt about his father’s illness and knows he has to leave. Eleanor goes to find him, and she tells him that they should get married. Toby says it is crazy, but when he is on his own, riding away from Marigny, he decides that he has always hankered after the property as he thinks he is Renaud’s son, so why shouldn’t he marry Eleanor and become the lord of the place? Even though he is not in love with Eleanor, he thinks that there are marriages with less warmth between them.
His intentions are thwarted as once again Hanon’s men attack and beat him, and they take them to the man. Hanon tells him that he wants to kill him because he wants revenge. In terrible pain and on the verge of unconsciousness Toby tells him that he believes that Renaud was his father, and Hanon surprises him by saying that he (Hanon) is his father. So I imagine that Hanon and Blanche had an affair, and when she got pregnant and had the child, they had to get rid of him. The idea that Toby is Hanon’s son hasn’t softened the man, who intends to kill him.
I think that Toby won’t die, but how will he survive? And what will happen to Joanna? And Paul and Agnes? I have to say that Toby is not the warmest man, and I have difficulty liking him. Mind you, I don’t dislike him, but his attitude to women leaves much to be desired. I imagine that he and Joanna will end up together, but how will that happen?
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