Affrais learns she has a freckle

He was still looking at her. Affrais was almost certain he was looking at her. For that instant she had dared look up at him, his eyes seemed to be looking directly into her own.

Synne had said that Lord Hingwar’s nephew would doubtlessly come, and a strange young knight at Lord Hingwar’s side must perforce be his nephew. But so far all she knew of him was a pair of piercing eyes.

She tried to concentrate on Alred’s banter, but she had the sudden, strange impression that she was alone in the room with a man who was looking at her, and the light had gone twice as bright, and the voices and the music were suppressed by the heavy air, which also made it a labor to breathe. And she was very hot.

When she looked up again he was coming towards her. Oh! And Lord Hingwar was going away. He was coming alone. The wall was at her back, and there were girls on either side, and he was coming towards her. She could not flee.

Oh, why had she not paid more attention when Synne had mentioned him to her? Was he Baldwin or Britmar? How old was he? She knew his older brother had gone to Denmark to fetch his wife and daughters – but was the younger man married? Did he mean to stay?

On each of those three times she looked at him, he was looking at her, and not at the other girls. But when she was not looking…?

Alred turned his head and smiled. “Sir Baldwin! Why, I was only just saying that it was such a shame that I have four ladies to myself and no one to help me entertain them!”

“You did not!” Synne laughed. “You were saying how lucky you were!”

“I was?” Alred asked in mock surprise. “Jupiter! I meant to say how ashamed I was. But I am lucky enough to have the honor of introducing them to you, sir.”

“Please,” Sir Baldwin said.

“Let me see,” Alred mused. “I believe I shall proceed in order of height, since I am not foolish enough to attempt to rank ladies by either age or beauty.”

“You had better start with yourself, then,” Angharat giggled.

“My dear, I have always found it so fitting that a lowly worm such as I be obliged to gaze upon the beauty of women from below, that I am not in the least discountenanced by your remark. So you may cease your laughing now. Indeed, it places me in the enviable position of being able to observe that your sister has a most charming freckle beneath her chin, and I am certain that not one man in one hundred has ever noticed it.”

Affrais could fairly feel the blush throbbing in her cheeks. Sir Baldwin was smiling at her, but now he stared at her chin. He was too tall to see what was beneath, but he had the thoughtful look of a man who was telling himself that he would remember to look at the first occasion.

“You aren’t that short,” Synne accused, “so if you are looking beneath Freya’s chin, it is by means of some ruse.”

“Alas!” Alred sighed, “it is only that the fair Freya holds her head so high before this her humble servant that the bottom of her chin is all I have ever been permitted to see of her face.”

“I do not!” Affrais gasped.

“If you do not, it is only due to your boundless generosity with us mortals, my dear,” Alred bowed and smiled at her.

Sir Baldwin coughed.

“Ah, yes!” Alred cried. “How quickly I did forget that I shall have the honor of introducing you to these four ladies of varying heights! Let us therefore begin with Synne Stearn, sister of Sir Brede, and daughter of the King’s own cousin on his mother’s side, as well as niece of my worthy parish priest, whom you have met.”

Sir Baldwin and Synne greeted one another, and meanwhile Affrais looked to her right and her left. Clearly her sister was shorter than she; clearly Lady Eada was taller. He would greet Ana and then… what would she say? She was not ordinarily so shy around strange men, but this one… It was the way he looked at her, she thought: a little like Lord Hingwar’s heavy gaze, and yet it did not seem an attempt to master her at a distance…

Oh, he had already greeted Ana, and now he was looking at her! Alred was saying something – Sir Baldwin was smiling–

And then he bowed deeply to kiss her hand, but he lifted his eyes briefly to look at her face from below. No! Under her chin! Her hand felt very cold and small in his.

“My green eyes have always been my one great vanity,” Sir Baldwin said to her when he stood over her again, “but now I see how dull they truly are.”

“But my sister has the very same eyes as mine,” Affrais protested weakly.

“Ah! So it would seem,” he said to Ana. “It must be that the brilliance of your smile distracted me from looking at them. Your sister has not so favored me.”

“If you ever hope to call your heart your own again,” Alred said, “you had better hope she does not.”

“I did not even know I possessed one until only a moment ago,” Sir Baldwin said, his eyes humbly lowered, and only then did he release her fingers and turn to Lady Eada. He had not looked at her again.