Page 31 of My Hero
“I need the spade to turn the soil,” she explained.
He’d be damned if he’d let a lady hoist a heavy spade while he scrawled on a scrap of parchment. De Ware men didn’t watch women toil. Besides, the shovel felt good in hands, and there was no shortage of work to be done. And maybe, he thought as a breeze wafted her sweet fragrance to him, if he kept his eyes to the loam and his hands to the shovel, they wouldn’t be tempted to stray places they shouldn’t.
He took the implement from her and attacked the soil with a vengeance, wishing he could excise the lust from his soul as readily as a weed from the earth. He dug and turned the soil, smashing clods with the back of the spade, casting rocks from the beds into the pile of weeds. Yard by yard, he let the shovel chew up and spit out the loam.
If only his own life were so simply turned over.
If only he could bury his corrupt past as neatly as last year’s depleted soil.
If only he could be content with his lot as a priest.
By God, he decided, driving the spade hard into the earth, he wouldmakehimself content. He would embody the priesthood even more fully, embrace the joy of serenity, the love of simplicity, the satisfaction with poverty. He would pay even less heed to his corporeal shell, work toward a more divine existence. He would prostrate himself before beggars, give the last shred of his garments to the poor, spend half the day in prayer. He’d do whatever it took, he vowed, turning over a worm-riddled clod of dirt, to make this sinful longing go away.
Cynthia paused in her labors and leaned against her rake. She blew at the lock of hair that had fallen out of her wimple and watched Garth curiously. The man half strangled the spade in his fists, and if there were any bulbs left beneath the soil, they’d surely been split asunder by his aggressive gouging.
Yet something about that unbridled strength aroused her. Garth’s back strained against the wool of the cassock, dampening it, and his forearms bulged with each plunge of the shovel. Moisture peppered his forehead and glistened on his hands. Like a hard-driven plow horse, he chuffed through his nose. She wondered if her arms could even reach around that broad back, wondered how his heavy breathing would feel against her ear.
Gulping, she forced her attention back to the rake. Mending Garth’s spirit was a delicate process, and involving him in Wendeville’s daily regimen was only the first step. She couldn’t afford to let misplaced emotions sabotage her noble intentions.
She swept her arm across the sundial in the middle of the garden, scattering leaves, and returned to clearing the straw from the rosebushes, concentrating on the rhythm of the rake and the task at hand. Before long, immersed in her work, she began to hum an old madrigal to herself.
She’d started on the sixth verse when she noticed that Garth had ceased working. He was staring at her most oddly. She wondered vaguely if she’d been singing out of tune. Then she remembered a rather nasty alternate set of lyrics she’d once heard to the same harmless madrigal, something vulgar about a Scotsman taking his cock and ballocks to sell at market.
Her face tightened, and she felt the blood rise in her cheeks. Her hands fidgeted on the rake.
“Do you know the tune?” she asked with brittle innocence. “It’s all about a maid selling her stock at the fair.” She chewed at her bottom lip. Lord, why had she chosenthatsong? “And a pretty penny she got for them, too.” She could hear herself babbling, but couldn’t stop. “The cock crowed for Matins every morn, and the oxen, they were the biggest pair of bullocks…”
Garth’s eyes widened.
Shite, she’d done it now—offended him and dug herself into a hole big enough for a tree. Madly, she scanned the garden for another topic.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her eyes locking onto the sundial. “Will you look at that? Noon already! You must be famished!” She propped the rake and, to hide her embarrassment, busied herself with the contents of the food basket cached against the shaded wall. Pulling forth the linen tablecloth, she turned toward Garth. “Cook was good enough to…”
Before her, with bowed head, Garth knelt in the dirt. For one ludicrous instant, she imagined he was worshipping at her feet. Then she realized that noon was time for prayer at the monastery. Since friars couldn’t always go running to the chapel to say their devotions, they often knelt in the field.
At first, Cynthia glanced away, feeling like an intruder on his silent conversation with the Lord. But as the prayer dragged on and on, she let her eyes stray to him.
His great, muscular hands were clasped before him, and he rested his forehead on grimy knuckles. He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration, and his lips moved rapidly, though soundlessly, through Latin syllables. Now and then his nostrils would flare passionately and his forehead crease, and Cynthia bit her lip to still her wicked thoughts, thoughts that had him voicing such earnest devotions to her.
Garth only knew so many devotions. And he couldn’t go on saying them all day. No matter how safe it made him feel to hide in prayer, he was going to have to face her. And it wouldn’t be easy, not with the ribald lyrics to that madrigal buzzing about his head between the words of prayer. He reluctantly made the sign of the cross and came slowly to his feet.
“I have a surprise,” Cynthia offered, squatting like a little child beside the basket of provisions.
The bridge of her nose now featured an endearing streak of mud. Wisps of her hair had slowly wormed their way out of the pristine wimple. It looked as if a wild orange cat perched atop her head, eager to escape its linen prison. He itched to tug the cloth off, to see her brilliant tresses pour down like liquid copper in the sun.
She was humming again, an innocuous roundelay this time, as she shook a linen cloth out briskly, letting it float down to the sod in a large square.
“Sit,” she directed, doing so herself.
He hesitated, but the faint rumbling in his stomach made his decision for him. He sank down upon the blanket, tucking the cassock austerely about his legs.
She plunged the basket down before him, grinning. He looked at it, then at her.
“Well, take it out.” She chuckled, wiggling her adorable toes in the sunshine.
He turned his attention to the bundles of food tucked into the basket. The smells were divine. Despite his misgivings, he began to feel like a child with Christmas packages as he unwrapped fish and shrimp, bread and preserved fruit. Soon, the tablecloth was spread with flagons of wine and platters of food piled high enough for a small retinue.
“I’ll wager you haven’t tasted the like in some time,” she said with a wink.
