Page 115 of A Most Forgettable Girl

He looked so wholly contrite that Gunnilde found herself softening in spite of herself. “I forgive you, Sir Ned,” she decided impulsively, extending her hand.

His face brightened. “Really?” Carefully he took her hand in his.

“Yes.” She smiled at him and Sir Ned gulped. Before he could raise her hand to his lips, James appeared beside them and somehow Gunnilde found he was now holding it, while Bevan looked down at his own empty hand in bemusement.

“James!” she exclaimed in surprise, turning toward him.

He tucked her hand under his arm. “I’m afraid I must remove my wife from hence,” he said to Sir Ned coldly. “I trust this conversation is concluded.”

“Oh yes,” Gunnilde agreed happily. “We are quite reconciled, is that not so, Sir Ned?”

Sir Ned cleared his throat. “Quite so,” he said, looking from Gunnilde to James. Whatever he saw in James’s expression seemed to cause him to take a step back.

“I hope you will attend our banquet on the morrow,” Gunnilde reminded him. “Hal said he had extended you an invitation.”

“Oh, er, thank you, yes,” Ned answered awkwardly.

“Perhaps you could bring your witch along with you,” James suggested, a decided edge to his words.

Ned flushed. “She would not come even if I begged her,” he retorted, making Gunnilde’s eyebrows rise. He took his leave of them and beat a hasty retreat.

“Did you notice he did not disclaim any ownership of Mistress Fern?” Gunnilde whispered. “I thought that interesting.”

James did not reply, and when she glanced up at him, he appeared to be struggling with some unexpressed emotion.

“Not that I am attempting to make a match between them,” she said hastily. That distracted him alright.

“Between Mistress Fern and Bevan?” he said disbelievingly.

“Yes, why not?” She squeezed his arm. “Anyway, what are you doing here in the palace this morn? I thought you were rehearsing today at Master Gregory’s.”

“I was. I nipped back. We’re not meeting at Barnabus Hall until the clock strikes two, so I have time.”

“Time for what?”

“To see if you wanted to take your midday repast with me.”

“Oh.” She smiled at him. “You will not mind us sharing a table with Harriet and Winifred, I hope. Only I promised to meet with them in the Great Hall.”

“It is I who is the interloper,” he acknowledged handsomely, “so I can hardly object to sharing you.”

What lovely manners James had, she reflected over the next hour as he conversed politely with her friends. To think she had once thought him rude and unapproachable. She had been quite wrong in her assessment of his character. James was considerate, she decided, in the truest sense of the word.

He would not dream of describing either Winifred’s or Harriet’s appearances in a detrimental fashion to his friends. Of course, he did not really have much by way of friends. Master Gregory was a sweet, unworldly sort. She suspected he would be quite bewildered if James started discussing women’s appearances with him.

Of course, he had discussed her appearance with Neville, by his own admission. She tried to remember what he told her he had said. Something about her manner of dress being very shocking, she remembered and had to hide her smile. He had been flustered even in the retelling.

She was glad she had not married a tournament knight, she realized with some surprise. She did not dislike Sir Ned anymore and she was thankful for that fact. It felt rather like a barb had been drawn out of her flesh, leaving her feeling whole once more, and freed from its torment. But the absence of pain did not mean that her former admiration came flooding back. In truth she felt...rather indifferent toward him and indeed the whole parcel of them.

While her resentment had blazed, a new ideal had taken root in her affections. She, like Winifred, Harriet, and Eden, now admired the artist above all others, she decided, for James was a true artist. That afternoon she had spent watching and listening in Barnabus Hall had opened her eyes to something truly sublime and she would never feel quite the same again.

Gunnilde was sure she would still enjoy a tourney should the occasion arise, especially if her brother should happen to be competing. If the doors of Payne Manor were ever opened to her again, she would happily sit through her father’s tournament with a smile on her face, but she would no longer be filled with trembling excitement at the mere prospect.

No, that state of anticipation would be reserved in the future for James’s wonderful compositions, she thought. They awed and enthralled her. Since “I Cannot Show the Love I Owe,” she had heard another of his pieces performed, the one he had sold to Lady Schaeffer as a present for her husband.

That piece had been a good deal shorter and not as dramatic as Mistress Bartree’s, and she had not heard it performed by four musicians as it should have been played. Instead, James had played the melody for her on Hal’s lute. Still, it had taken her breath away, and at its conclusion, she had been moved to beg him to play it through once again so that she might savor the experience.

“What is it titled?” she had asked at the close.