"And this is the man that you love?" Isabell said, giving Jocelynn a piercing look. "Someone who treats the lives and futures of young girls like barrels of pickled fish to be bought and sold at market?"
"Are they really that different?" Jocelynn said bitterly. "Wasn't my sister sold to Owain's family in the name of an alliance? Am I any different?" she added darkly. "At least I can love the man my family wants an alliance with. I can, I can find happiness with him," she said though she grew less confident in her words as she went on. "Or, at least, I thought I could find happiness with him," she said in a very small voice.
"My lady," Isabell said, reaching out to pull the young woman into a tender embrace, as if she was her own daughter. "I had thought better of your father, the count, than to treat you like fish at market, but perhaps I misread him because he treated the guilds so well. I'm sorry," she said as she gently stroked Jocelynn's bright, golden hair.
