Page 37 of A Most Forgettable Girl

Hal turned back to Gunnilde. “To answer your question,” he said, harking back. “I came with Sir Ned. He and Attley swapped squires after he was injured at Kellingford. Did you hear about it?”

“No!” Gunnilde replied, stunned. “You never wrote of it!” Hal was here with Sir Ned? She felt suddenly a little sick. “Whyever did they swap? Who in the world would trade you for Ancel?” she asked, thinking of Sir Ned’s regular squire who was known far and wide as thoroughly useless.

“Attley broke his arm, and the bones did not knit as they should, so he’s gone home to lick his wounds but thought it a shame to make me miss the Revels. Instead, he suggested Sir Ned take me to Aphrany and he could take Ancel home with him. Even Ancel could not mess up fetching and carrying for an invalid when there are plenty of other servants around to help.”

“Oh, that was nicely done of him,” Gunnilde acknowledged. “You should not have to suffer because of the misfortune.”

“And it is not as though Ancel will be missed at the Revels by anyone,” Kit said scornfully. Cuthbert pressed his lips together. “Why do you look like that, Ames?” Kit demanded. “Do not tell me you will miss the little weasel!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cuthbert said vaguely. “He’s not all bad.”

Gunnilde was as surprised as Kit. She had on many occasions heard all three boys lambast Ancel roundly.

“You’re raving!” Kit jeered. “Ever since you saved him from drowning that time, you’ve been soft on the churl.”

“No, no,” Cuthbert said hastily. “I just meant...without him around we do not know who will come in last place in every event.”

“Oh.” Kit seemed to accept this readily enough. “In any case, Hal has a good chance of winning the wrestling and the staff fighting events, so it made sense to send him in his stead.”

“Oh, I am sure,” Gunnilde agreed. “In any case it was fortuitous timing for us,” she said, looking across at James. “For now, we both have a brother apiece to commend our marriage, do we not?”

11

Their visitors had finally left sometime in the early hours. Neville bade them a sleepy good night, and James bolted the door and made his way through to the bedchamber, somewhat surprised to find himself still barefoot and wrapped in a bedsheet. He should have gone and dressed himself decently. Even so much as a week ago, he would have done so, punctiliously.

Still, their guests had not been conventional ones. Conventional guests would have taken immediate leave upon finding their hosts already abed. A conventional host would have gone and put his clothes on, James acknowledged. But getting dressed was the last thing he had wanted to do. He had wanted to get his bride back into bed. Those kisses...

Now, however, the moment seemed to have passed, more’s the pity. She had fallen quiet and distracted during the last hour. The boisterous company had more than made up for her subdued spirits, but still James had noticed the sparkle had gone out of her eye. For some reason, she was putting a brave face on things. Why?

She was inordinately fond of her brother, he knew that much, so it could not be his appearance that had discomposed her. What was it, then? The contrast of seeing her kinfolk compared to his own, he wondered, for plainly Kit and Cuthbert were like cousins to her. To his mind, Neville had slipped back into the role of squire with an almost troubling ease. He had shown no more maturity than the other boys.

Which left only him to strike the false note. The thought disturbed him. Did she regret their kissing? Mayhap she did not want their visitors to leave her to his lecherous clutches. Walking into their bedchamber he found she had shed her blanket and was remaking the bed clad in only her shift.

He cleared his throat, and silently, she held out her hand for his bedsheet. James shrugged it off and threw it on the bed. They both made haste to straighten it out and tuck it in, then climb under the covers. Gunnilde blew out the candle and silence reigned. For some reason, instead of welcoming it, James found it intolerable.

“The fire’s gone out,” he heard himself remark. The room was chilly now only embers remained.

Gunnilde flung a chubby leg over his own. “Better?” she asked sympathetically.

He made a noise in his throat. “Ahem, yes,” he clarified. Perhaps she was not cringing away from him after all. The thought encouraged him, and he shifted a little closer until their sides fully touched from shoulder to hip. He felt warmer already.

“Are you upset you weren’t invited to the Vawdrey Solstice celebrations?” he asked as the idea occurred to him. Mayhap that was why she had grown so silent and still.

“No, of course not.” She sounded surprised by the idea. “I stayed with Eden almost three months in the summer. Besides, there has been so much building work at the Keep and she will have so many family members there, my poor friend will have enough to contend with.”

“I’m sure your presence would have been a help rather than a hindrance,” he answered with a frown.

He felt her head rustle on the pillow as though she had turned to look at him. He wished he could see her in the darkness. “Well, I hope I am always helpful and willing. After all, that is my reputation.” A note of sadness entered her voice. “A nice, good-hearted girl. Nice and...eminently forgettable.” Her throat closed with emotion on the last few words, and James could scarcely make them out.

“Nice and what?” Surely, he had misheard her?

“That was what he said.” She gave a muffled sob and rolled into his side. Was she crying? James froze. What was one supposed to do with a crying near-naked woman in your bed? After a few moments of agonized indecision, he reached across to pat her shoulder, and Gunnilde’s arms came up to clutch at his sides as she took a few shuddery breaths.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s stupid of me.”

Mercifully, her tears had put a stop to the stirrings James had experienced on feeling her leg atop of his. He was not a monster. James allowed his tentative pats to become a back rub. She had rubbed his shoulders when he was confronted with that hellish jester he remembered, and took that for his inspiration.

Very likely he should say something. He cast about fruitlessly for a moment, discarding “There, there” or “Dry your tears” as beneath him. Instead, he would go for plain statement of fact. “Eminently forgettable women do not become ladies-in-waiting to Her Majesty,” he said sternly. “You do not possess even half the claims of other ladies to such an honor, yet you surpassed them all to snatch the distinction for your own.”