Gwynn is dispensed from kissing beards

Lady Gwynn was not ordinarily a shy girl. When it came to greeting guests, she was always first in the fray, and especially when they were favorite friends.

A few days before, she had managed to kiss Lili and Mouse, Cat and Flann, the baby and the boys, all before her stepmother had the chance to greet them. She had omitted only Egelric as she flitted beelike from lip to lip, and had missed only Ethelwyn, who would not be kissed before he could pay his respects to the Duchess.

These guests had not received the same treatment, though not because they were less well-​loved. Sir Godefroy was one of those adorable gentlemen who did not think it cute to tease little girls who preferred to think themselves young ladies, and Lady Leila was possessed of an entire exotic culture’s worth of fairy tales. As for little Odile, there was no doubt she was eminently kissable.

But once Gwynn began distributing kisses, she feared she would be expected to share them all around, and Godefroy and Leila had made the matter awkward by coming in the company of two boys.

She knew them both, of course, but only of Cedric could it be said that she knew him well, and then only because he had lived with her for a few months at a few different times in the past, back when they were but children. But Cedric was far shyer than she, even in her present timidity, and he was nearly a year younger than her besides.

However, he had come with his stepbrother Conrad, Godefroy’s son from his first wife, and Conrad was both bolder and older—nearly thirteen. She knew that Cedric would be mortified if it was suggested that he kiss so much as her hand, but she feared—and hoped a little—that Conrad would like it.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—he did not look at her. Her sister, who was only a little girl of ten after all, had quite monopolized his attention, while Cynewulf distracted Cedric. Gwynn leaned all but forgotten against the pillar, content to look, and hoping—and fearing a little—that no one would look over at her.

But a deep voice came rumbling down on her from where she least expected it: from behind and far above. “Lili will be sorry she stayed at Maire’s.”

Gwynn gasped in surprise and looked up. It was Egelric. His nose looked all the more enormous from below.

“Did she stay?” Gwynn squeaked.

“Don’t tell your stepmother,” Egelric chuckled, “but they were in the middle of making candy. As far as I know, that’s all they plan to eat, so I came here in the hope someone would throw me a proper bone at dinner. Looks like I shall have one, too, in honor of your father’s guests.”

“You’re my father’s guests, too,” Gwynn pointed out.

“Then perhaps it will also have some meat on it.”

“I hope Flann and Cat will come later, too,” Gwynn said.

Egelric smiled sadly down at her. “I don’t think Cat will feel much like a party tonight, my lady. But Flann might come, for I see two eligible bachelors before me. They’re a little small,” he mused. “But if she stacks the one atop the other they might make a decent-​sized man.”

Gwynn giggled.

“Say! What are you doing standing over here and letting your little sister and littler brother flirt with those two?” Egelric tapped her on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “I don’t know whether Conrad will want to trade, but I’m almost positive young Cedric will think you make a prettier girl than the Old Man. I shall vouch for you, if he doesn’t believe it.”

Gwynn was utterly incapacitated by giggles, though she would have liked nothing better than an excuse to flee. And then Egelric did the one thing that she, who had been staring up at his distant head and nose all this time, most feared. He too looked up.

“Oh, is that why?” he grinned. “But you’re not the only one standing beneath the mistletoe at the moment, my lady. You might dispense me from my duty of kissing you, but I believe that you owe me a kiss all the same.”

Gwynn could not stop giggling, though she feared that Egelric would take her laughter for a sign that she was enjoying herself immensely. She could only giggle and try to duck away and pray that someone—Conrad, perhaps, or even Cedric—would come to her rescue.

Rescue promptly came, though in the somewhat anticlimactic guise of her father.

“I have a kiss for you right here, old man!”

“Whereabouts?”

“Just bring your head down to around fist-​height here…”

“I protest!” Egelric laughed. “You hung the mistletoe. You know the rules.”

“Ah! But you must not be aware of the recent bylaw, passed by ducal decree.”

“Which is?”

“Namely this: ‘I hereby ordain, in praise of God, and in honor to myself, and for the behoof of all my people, et cetera, that whosoever beareth a beard, he shall not kiss my daughter.’”

Egelric laughed. “Damn my beard! It’s been coming between me and your daughter’s lips for the past twelve years!”