Page 23

T heir 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.”

Gunnilde gave a watery sniff and settled further into his, well, by this point, it could be called nothing short of an embrace .

“Do you suppose that is why half of them do not like me?” she asked in a small voice, her breath tickling the base of his throat, distracting him from the sensation of her soft, full breasts pushing up against his chest.

“Well, it certainly is not because you are nice ,” he replied without thinking. She gasped, and to his horror he felt her start to tremble in his arms. “Wait, no,” he began in panic, “I did not mean—”

“Oh, James!” she gurgled, and to his immense relief he realized she was shaking with tremulous laughter. “Thank you.” She sounded so sincere he was instantly relieved. Mayhap he had not made such a mess of things after all.

To his astonishment, she wriggled up the bed, her warm body brushing against his until he felt her breath on his face. Then she bestowed a smacking kiss to his cheek, disentangled herself, and rolled onto her back with a sigh.

Gods, for a minute there, he had thought.

.. But no, that had been a dismissive good-night kiss, not like the others which had been of a more exploratory and invigorating nature.

It was just as well, James told himself firmly, despite the stab of disappointment he experienced at her retreat.

He felt decidedly disordered again, and the burgeonings below were back with a vengeance.

It was no surprise then, when he lay awake long after Gunnilde had fallen fast asleep, watching the gray light start to filter through the window.

He lay there puzzling over the conundrum, for he could make no sense of it. Someone had told his wife that she was “eminently forgettable,” and for some reason her brother’s arrival at court had sparked the memory afresh.

Could one of the lads, in the thoughtlessness of youth, have uttered such words? Kit Montmayne seemed the most tactless of the bunch but so far as James had seen he reserved his scorn mostly for his fellow squires. Oh, and for babies, he recalled belatedly.

Hal had said Gunnilde wanted babies. Five of them.

Oh, and a knight of her own. The recollection disquieted him.

Of course, technically , he was a knight, though he had never jousted in his life.

Five children though! He had never imagined himself in such a family role.

Family was a burden in his experience, not something to be pursued .

Giving his head a quick shake, he returned to the problem at hand.

Just who in the hells had called Gunnilde forgettable?

The nice part was more understandable. She was nice, for she had a core of kindness and decency that could not be denied.

She had a generous nature even if she was flaunting, flirtatious, and frivolous. But forgettable? That she was not .

He doubted her brother would have said such a thing.

If Hal Payne had found his sister forgettable, he would not have had so many thoughts about her future bridegroom.

Besides, he fancied Hal was also a gregarious type, when he was not in high dudgeon.

His friends treated him with camaraderie, even when he was plainly out of temper.

That left only Cuthbert Ames. James found he could not suspect him either, for the boy clearly regarded Gunnilde with an open and easy affection.

Ridiculous, of course, that Hal had thought to match his sister with him, but then boys did get odd notions at times.

Gunnilde had clearly found the suggestion as absurd as he, so he would not dwell on that any longer, he decided firmly, for he found it strangely annoying.

So, who had made the remark? Who had wounded Gunnilde Payne so deeply that she still cried to think of it even now?

Could it have been the father who had not bothered to find her a husband?

Or perhaps her stepmother was the more likely culprit.

Were uncaring parents the reason she had fled to court in the first place?

Then he recalled her muffled words, That was what he said . He . So no, it could not have been her stepmother. Suddenly, he remembered that cryptic utterance the Queen had given about his wife. She will never fade into the background, that one... She will no longer allow it.

What the hells? A sudden suspicion flooded his thoughts, and he turned to look at Gunnilde’s sleeping face in the gray morning light. Had she confided in the Queen? And if so, why was he so damned put out about it?