Page 32 of My Hero
It was true. Monastery fare was simple and monotonous. He hadn’t eaten bread this fine since he lived at Castle de Ware. The claret trickled, deliciously cool, down his throat. But his appetite was not as robust as it had once been. After a small piece of grayling, half an apple tart, and a few figs, he sat back, content to watch her finish.
It was a grave mistake.
She took a dainty bite of a tart with teeth as perfect as a row of pearls, and golden juices trickled down her chin. Her tongue darted out to lap them up, but a smudge remained that begged to be licked off.
Garth averted his eyes, pretending to study a crack in the garden wall. When his gaze was drawn inexorably back, the smudge was thankfully gone.
“I must commend Cook on these tarts,” she said. “I think the pinch of ginger makes all the difference.”
She sipped her wine, her lips a delicate blush against the cold silver as she parted them for the jewel-red liquid. She sampled the candied orange peels with a sigh of rapture, her eyes rolling in undisguised ecstasy as she licked her sticky fingers one by one.
Garth’s thighs tensed. His loins tingled with familiar heat. Did she know what she was doing to him? She’d been a man’s wife. Couldn’t she recognize the signs of desire? His cassock could only hide so much. Hell, he had to leave. Now.
Yet he found he was no more capable of escaping than a galley caught in a whirlpool.
She drained the last of her claret. A drop fell from the cup onto the top of her bosom like a single crimson tear, then trickled down, disappearing beneath the fabric of her kirtle onto her breast. Garth shivered. He could vividly imagine caressing her there. She’d be soft, warm. And the taste of the claret upon her flesh…
He prayed she couldn’t see the erratic rise and fall of his chest as he fought to breathe steadily, couldn’t feel the charge in the air as powerful as a summer storm, nor detect the trembling in his arms as he handed her his empty platter.
He’d never felt so torn. Part of him longed to rest his head in the lap of this woodland nymph, to listen to her sing madrigals, to lie back, sipping claret and gazing up at the budding branches of spring like some spoiled pagan god. But part of him wanted to run headlong back to the chapel, nay, all the way back to the monastery, to shut himself in his cell and never emerge again.
In the end, he did neither. Fate took pity on him. Lady Cynthia, declaring that planting past noon was inauspicious, gathered up the remains of the feast and released him from her service.
Chapter 9
Yesterday, it had been more difficult than she’d imagined for Cynthia to let Garth go, but she’d seen the cloaked desperation in his eyes. He’d been overwhelmed, perhaps by the richness of the food or the decadence of the sunlight. Like a novice gardener, she’d nearly killed him with nurturing, thinking to force his blossoming. She’d so desired to see him surrender to his earthy longings, at least kick off his boots or loosen his cassock belt and enjoy the glory of the spring day.
But Garth had lived four years behind gray monastery walls with grim monastery dictates. Change wouldn’t come overnight. And as impatient as she was for his rebirth, she knew the merit of letting things bloom in their own time.
This morn, however, was a new day, and when she arrived at sunrise, to her astonishment, Garth was already in the privy garden, stooped over a row of seedlings with a ewer of water. She swept silently across the dewy grass, slowing her pace at the archway to watch him. His back was to her, and amber glints shone in his hair as the sun softly kissed each curl in turn. The contours of his muscles, displayed in relief beneath his cassock, made her stomach flutter in a most inappropriate way.
Still he didn’t notice her. Her heart dancing a nervous jig, she crept up behind him as quietly as she could. Then, little more than a yard away, she grinned mischievously and sang out, “Good morning, Father Garth!”
He whipped around so quickly, his eyes wide with shock, that he nearly lost his balance. She burst out laughing. The humor of the situation must have struck him as well, for before he could suppress it, he rewarded her with a sheepish smile.
Throwingherinstantly off balance.
Until now, she’d never appreciated the full measure of Garth’s charm. Nor how dangerous he was. She’d glimpsed his appeal before in small details—the way his thick, tawny hair curled deliciously down onto his neck, his shoulders, broad enough to carry the weight of the world, the idle strength in his hands, so splendid to behold. But the warmth of his smile…ah, that made him devastatingly handsome. His eyes crinkled delightedly at her little jest, and the curve of his mouth was curiously inviting. All at once, she was the one unable to speak.
But in the prolonged interval of silence, Garth gradually sobered. He turned his gaze from her and gestured awkwardly toward the half dozen buckets of water around him.
“Aye, good,” she said, her voice breaking like a twelve-year-old lad’s. “The new plants should be kept damp.”
She thought perhaps she could do with a dousing of cold water herself. The sun had only just risen, and already her blood ran hot.
Garth resumed working without another word, laboring tirelessly through the morning.
She should have been pleased. It was her intent, after all, to involve Garth in demanding labor to give his frustrated muscles an outlet for their restlessness. And he was doing remarkably well. Not even her servants worked so industriously. But did he have to be so damnably focused on duty? Why it irritated her, she didn’t know, but Garth didn’t give her a second glance all morn.
And now the air felt as fierce as dragon’s breath. The sun’s flames, directly overhead, steamed the earth and scorched the back of Cynthia’s neck. The humid heat, along with her inexplicable pique, combined to drive her to the brink of madness. She mentally cursed the heavy wool kirtle she’d chosen. All that wool belonged on a sheep, not a person. She might very well roast in it on a day like this. Inside her boots, her toes were ready to mutiny.
Wiping her dripping forehead for the twelfth time, she decided she’d had enough. She speared the ground with her small spade and tore the wimple and veil from her head. They hit the sod with a thump like a downed pigeon. She shook loose her fiery curls and lifted them off her neck to cool it.
“Ah!” she sighed, that small change effecting a world of difference. “I’d vow I was baking in a woolen tart.” She laboriously pulled the boots from her grateful feet and wriggled her toes in the moist soil. “That’s better.” She wiped her dirty face on her discarded wimple.
Then she glanced at Garth. Droplets of sweat had welled along his forehead and beneath his nose. Wet patches discolored the neck edges of his robe. If her surcoat was stifling, his cassock must be near suffocating.
“I wouldn’t think you remiss,” she confided, “were you to loosen your trappings. You must be roasting beneath them.”
