Gwynn is left with nothing to say

Gwynn’s neck was gracious, holding her head high in spite of the disappointment heaped upon it. Her back was gracious and straight as a mast, and her gracious shoulders square as a yard. Even her eyes were gracious, unblinking and tearless, but her mouth…

No matter how she twisted it, her ungracious mouth could not be made into a gracious smile, and her bottom lip trembled free and all forlorn.

Her pretty mouth that she had inherited from her mother – and she from the little Princess of Gwynedd herself – her precious mouth would have to kiss the fat, fishy lips of the boy who had all but called her grandparents’ tragic love a rape.

Her only hope – humiliating as it would be, and likely as it seemed – was that the boy would be so ungallant as to refuse to kiss her.

“You must!” her little brother shrieked at him. “The closest boy kisses the closest girl! I had to kiss Raegan ten thousand times already!” he groaned wearily. “Now it’s your turn! That’s the rule!”

“Perhaps our guest does not know this custom…” Hetty ventured softly, but before Cynewulf could protest, the curtain nearest the door billowed out and Margaret came galloping down the stairs.

“That’s not just any old rule!” she crowed. “That’s sacred law! And I claim my right!”

“You weren’t the closest girl!” Cynewulf wailed.

“I was so! I was hiding behind this curtain the entire time! Cearball saw me!”

Gwynn glanced back in time to see Cearball bow – and oh! the twinkle in his violet eyes! Gwynn’s heart began to flutter with hope.

After nodding and winking wildly at Cearball, Margaret turned back to Cynan and went shockingly serious.

“Dare you risk the curse that befalls men who refuse a kiss beneath the sacred mistletoe?” she asked ominously.

Cynan snorted and threw back his blocky head. He began a cruel sneer: “You mean the fairy t – ”

But Margaret swept him up, spun him around, bent him back – solid block though he had seemed – and claimed her right.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Cynewulf cried. “I never kissed Raegan like that!”

“Please don’t!” Godefroy bellowed.

With that the laughter of the company broke through their collective shock, though as the seconds passed and the kiss endured – in spite of the fishlike flapping of Cynan’s arms – it grew shrill.

“It is Mouse and Wyn all over again,” Hetty said. “Vice versa!”

Then a helpless, high-​​pitched giggling burst out of her, such as she had not giggled since Lili had gone away and could no longer make her laugh.

Cat pretended to fan herself with her hand. “I don’t know where she gets it!” she cried. “Her father never kissed me like that! I demand a second chance!”

“She gets it from Mother!” Cynewulf said.

With that the laughter of the company died, and Margaret shoved Cynan away.

“That’s enough for you!” she declared.

“I was not – I did not – ” he spluttered.

“Who’s next?” Margaret asked. “I shall take all comers!”

“No, you shall not!” Cynewulf protested. “One girl, one kiss. That’s the rule!”

“Old Man…” their father muttered.

“Cearball’s next!”

“Old Man,” her father said softly, “I believe you have overlooked the spirit of the custom. We do not invite gentlemen to stand in doorways for the purpose of finding ladies to kiss as a consequence.”

“I’m not needing an invitation,” Cearball said as he walked between Gwynn and her father on the way to the door.

“Who’s closer?” Cynewulf asked eagerly. “Gwynn or Hetty?”

Cat planted her paw between Gwynn’s shoulder blades and shoved her roughly towards the door. “Gwynn is!”

Gwynn put out her hands to catch herself, but the only vertical surface in her path was Cearball’s chest.

She had touched him! Her palms would never forget the coarse wool of his tunic, nor the softness of several layers of fabric sliding over hard muscle beneath.

And he had touched her! She would never forget the slight pressure of his fingers and thumbs as he held her hips steady, nor the warm breath that blew over her face as he lowered his head, nor the perfect violet of his eyes as they neared hers.

She remembered hazily that they had never even been introduced, and from her deep well of foreign phrases she fished up a Gaelic greeting.

She made no more than a peeping, “Tá…” before he whispered “Whisht!” and pulled her back into the alcove with him, step by measured step like some new and intimate dance.

He pulled her back behind the heat of the fire, and even slightly out of range of the mistletoe, and for a dreamy instant she thought he might simply dance through the door with her and steal her away.

Instead he stopped before they had even gone far enough to hide them from the eyes of the company. He turned her gracefully around him and released her hips, and the dance was done.

With one last, fluttering glance of her right eye she saw her father’s face, but Cearball kissed the outer corner of the other, and like a key turning in a lock, they both fell closed.

All down her cheek he trailed tiny kisses until his lips reached hers, and then they lingered. He slowly kissed halfway across the upper, then he nudged them slightly apart with his and kissed the rest of the way along the lower, harder and more hungrily the more it trembled.

When he reached the opposite corner of her mouth, however, the kisses turned tiny again and trailed off along the edge of her chin, like a caravan moving on after stopping to take refreshment at a well. When he lifted his face away from hers she could feel the cool tracks drying in the air.

He traced the curve of her jaw with his finger in conclusion. “So,” he whispered, “our first word together was a kiss.”

The comments and coughs and tittering of the people behind him were muffled and tinny, as when she had drunk too much wine. Only his voice came clearly into her mind. She would never forget his words.

“Do you have something you were wanting to say?” he asked her.

Gwynn only shook her head slowly. She could not speak: she wanted to let her lips lie wet and slightly parted forever, as he had left them.

He grasped her hips again and danced around her to stand between her and the door.

“Neither do I,” he said.