Page 57

O n returning to their rooms that evening, Gunnilde found only Neville in residence.

“James isn’t back yet,” he said, looking up from the letter he was reading. Gunnilde recognized it as the letter that had arrived that morning.

“He said he was going into town to work on his music this afternoon,” she said, crossing the room to pour herself a cup of ale. She watched him set the letter down on the arm of his chair, frown, pick it back up again, and stuff it into his tunic. He cast a furtive look in her direction.

“Can I help you to some refreshment?” she asked, lifting the jug.

“Oh, no thank you.”

She thought he looked rather uneasy. “Did you spend a pleasant day?”

Neville seemed to cast about him as though trying to remember how he had passed his time. “Er, I went to watch the lance throwing this afternoon,” he said, brightening. “Cosgrave has a surprisingly good arm, you know.”

“Did any of our own pet squires advance to the final?” she asked with interest.

“Oh, all of them, your brother, Ames, Montmayne, Cosgrave.”

“What about Hadrian Kellingford?”

Neville shook his head. “He was being forced to run laps about the field dressed in full armor as the result of some misdemeanor or other.”

Gunnilde sighed. “If it’s not one of them, it’s another. Can they never stay out of trouble?”

Neville grinned. “There’s always something afoot with that company,” he said with relish.

“I am sure you and James must have been far better behaved when you were squires.”

“Yes,” Neville agreed forthrightly, “but I don’t think we enjoyed the experience half so much.”

Gunnilde smiled. “I suppose that must count for something.”

“I would say so.” Neville gestured to the seat next to his. “Won’t you come and sit here before the fire awhile?” He glanced toward the window. “I wondered if we might see snow before the day was out. The sky looked so white and there was such a bitter chill in the air.”

“I feel it may be too cold currently to snow,” Gunnilde commented, moving to collect a folded blanket off the bench before she seated herself in the chair beside his own.

She arranged the blanket around her shoulders like a shawl and settled back comfortably.

“At least Bennett is keeping the logs piled nice and high for our fires.”

“These days he is!” Neville said darkly. “But in past days it was cold as the grave in here with precious little cheer! It has been a good deal more pleasant living in these rooms since you moved in, sister.”

“Really?” Gunnilde turned to look at him.

“Oh, decidedly! I scarcely recognize my brother so amiable is he becoming!”

Gunnilde was pleased. “I’m sure it is at least partly because I have encouraged him to partake in regular meals,” she said earnestly.

“You must have noticed how he breaks his fast now. It seemed to me, when first we were married, that his irritability might be down to the infrequency of his meals causing digestive problems.”

Neville gazed back at her with an arrested expression on his face. “Really?” he asked in strangled tones.

“It is often the way with artistic types, I understand,” Gunnilde explained. “They get caught up in their creative work and forget to eat.”

Neville gave an explosive cough, then begged her pardon.

“It is certainly true that he seems a good deal calmer these days,” he ventured cautiously.

“But I would attribute it less to his stomach and more to another organ.” Gunnilde’s eyes widened.

“I mean his heart, of course,” he said hastily.

“He seems much lighter of heart, and I attribute that entirely to you, Gunnilde.”

“To me?”

He nodded and cleared his throat. “It’s very noticeable, to someone who knows him of old.”

“Like yourself?”

“Like myself,” he concurred. “You see,” he said, leaning forward in his seat, “James has always had a lot of worries heaped onto his shoulders by our family. A lot of expectations . He was never carefree, not even as a child. Our father, you know, was always entirely useless. My mother decided James was to be our salvation and simply burdened him with the responsibility of our family fortunes.”

“I see,” Gunnilde murmured. She had suspected as much.

“Father resents the fact we all treat James as the head of the family, that we have to apply to him for funds. He calls James a tyrant because he is the one controlling the purse strings. Mother is always taking offence over something or other, her feelings are constantly hurt. Father always has an injured air. Even I try to guilt James whenever I run out of funds,” Neville admitted, scratching his neck.

“We all point out his faults while simultaneously holding him to the highest standards. Our parents bemoan his lack of family feeling in private, whilst also lauding him to the skies to all and sundry as an exemplary son. Is it any wonder that James rarely wants to go home where everyone depends on him and makes constant demands on him? Or that he often has no patience for us?”

“No, perhaps not,” Gunnilde sighed.

“It’s different with you though,” he said, giving her a frank look.

“He does not try to run away from you. Quite the opposite in fact. His eyes seek you out, you know, across a crowded room. For guidance, I mean,” Neville said cryptically.

“Or perhaps I should say solace. Whenever he sees you’re there, he just.. .”

“What?” Gunnilde prompted when he fell silent as though searching for the right word.

“Unwinds,” he concluded. “His tension seems to dissipate. I’ve noticed it many times.

I believe your presence reassures him somehow.

” Gunnilde considered this, whilst gazing at the fire.

“I always thought he must sleep with a frown on his face, grinding his teeth,” Neville continued.

“I’m guessing that’s changed.” He shot her a piercing look.

“He used to get up in the night too and pace about for hours. Used to get a lot of headaches too.”

Gunnilde considered how soundly James slept, wrapped around her. “Well, I can see why,” she said slowly. “When he has had so many worries in his life to contend with.”

“Yes, it’s a good thing that his choice of wife does not add to them. I just wish everyone could see that.”

“Everyone?” Gunnilde echoed, hearing the frustration in his voice.

“Oh, the naysayers,” he said uneasily. “You know how there’s always someone to throw a spoke in any wheel.” There was a faint bitterness to his voice that concerned her. Did he count his mother among these naysayers? Had her letter indicated as such?

“He would have avoided Constance like the plague too, if he had ever married her,” Neville added distractedly.

“Installed her at Wycliffe Hall and simply left her there. I cannot for the life of me see why Mother cannot fathom that! The whole time they were courting he looked as though he would as soon face an execution! But there, Mother does not care a rush for James’s happiness.

Everything is about prestige and appearance and. ..and status with her.”

Gunnilde shifted uneasily in her seat. She was sure her lack of a dowry must be adding insult to injury when it came to his parents.

If only her father was not being so plaguey difficult about things.

Ought she to write to him again and explain how well things were going with her marriage?

She was just debating the matter when the door opened, and James came through it.

His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he walked right across the room without shedding his hat and cloak. “Here,” he said, thrusting a pouch into her hand. “I collected it on the way back from Master Gregory’s.”

“Is it my ring?” Gunnilde asked excitedly, pulling excitedly at the strings until she had opened it and extracted the gleaming gold posy ring.

She held it up and turned it in her fingers to read the inscription on the inside of the band.

“To my beautiful rose, from your undeserving worm,” she read aloud.

“Why James!” she gasped. “How positively scandalous!”

He laughed and held his hand out to her. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. “Give it to me.” She dropped the ring into his palm, and he reached for her other hand.

“Wait, let me move the other to my right hand first.” She transferred Mistress Bartree’s ring and then held out her left hand. James slipped the ring onto her third finger and they both looked down at it.

“What do you think?” James murmured.

“Oh, I absolutely love it.”

He caught her up in his arms and only broke their embrace when Neville coughed. James turned his head to look at his brother. “When did you get here?” he asked with surprise.

“I was here all along! Not that you noticed!”

“How was your afternoon?” Gunnilde asked quickly, reaching for the fastenings to James’s cloak. “Let’s get you out of these things.”

James looked down in seeming surprise to find himself still clad in his outdoor wear. “It was good,” he said with a slow smile. “Really good. I think this latest piece is one of the best I’ve ever written.”

“Really?” Gunnilde draped his cloak over the back of her chair and reached up to take his hat. “But that’s wonderful, James.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Who have you written it for?” Neville asked with interest.

“No one,” James admitted. “Though Lady Schaeffer did approach me the other day about writing something to commemorate her husband’s fortieth year in office.”

“You would not give him Mistress Bartree’s piece of music though!” Gunnilde protested swiftly.

“No, but I have at least three others that I wrote this year that I could repurpose,” James answered, his expression reflecting only the faintest twinge of a guilt at this proposal.

“We’ll make a man of business of you yet!” Neville said approvingly. “But why do you say this latest piece is Mistress Bartree’s?” He looked intrigued.

“It is inspired by her personal history,” Gunnilde told him.

James looked uncomfortable. “Gunnilde...”

“It is though, and I really want to hear it.”

“Do you? It is not entirely finished yet, though I have a few musicians meeting me at Barnabus Hall tomorrow to play a run-through of what I have arranged so far. We had an impromptu rehearsal this afternoon and it was...promising. I want to hear it in a building with a raised roof.”

“Really?” A request to join him trembled on her lips.

“Do you want to come along with me and hear it?” he asked tentatively.

“Could I?”

“Hold fast,” Neville interrupted. “Have you not heard? Prince Raedan arrives at court tomorrow. I hardly think you will want to miss that event, now, will you?”

James’s face fell. “Oh, well, another time perhaps.”

“No!” Gunnilde blurted, clutching at his tunic. “I mean, I want to come with you tomorrow! The prince will be at court for a while, so it will not signify. No doubt I will see him sooner or later, most likely at the Revels.”

Neville looked shocked, but a slow smile spread over James’s face. “You would rather accompany me, Gunnilde?” he asked.

She nodded. “Oh yes.”

“Good,” he said simply.