Page 37 of My Hero
He secured the door.
“The babe?” she inquired.
He nodded.
“If you’ve come to tell me it’s the will of God,” she muttered, “you’re wasting your breath.”
He frowned, taken aback. Cynthia snipped a flowered branch from one of the plants with all the wrath of Perseus beheading Medusa. She wasn’t grief-stricken. She was vexed.
“I know. He is at peace now.” She snipped another branch. “His soul is in a better place.” Snip. “God works in mysterious ways.” Snip. Snip. “You don’t need to preach to me. I’ve faced death more times than you can imagine.”
She hooked the shears over a nail in the wall and gathered the white-flowered stems into a bunch. With a swish of her wool skirts, she tried to pass.
He caught her arm. He didn’t know why. It was foolish and instinctive and dangerous. Maybe it was the vulnerability underlying her bitter words or the helpless frustration reflected in her eyes.
She gasped softly as the flowers were crushed between them. A light breeze wafted their fragrance past his nose, a sweet fragrance vaguely familiar to him. What was it? His mother had grown this in her garden. He was sure of it, but…
Jasmine.
He only mouthed the word, but the air stilled as if he’d uttered an enchantment. A queer prickling traveled up his spine as he inhaled the scent.
Jasmine.
He struggled to remember. There was something about jasmine and the woman before him. He perused her face, his eyes only half-focused, and gently took the bouquet from her fingers. Faint images of lazy summer afternoons spent reading in the garden buzzed around his brain like…
Bees.
He remembered now, something… He looked at Cynthia directly, studied her face. Oh aye—he remembered her well. How could he have forgotten the orange-haired sprite who’d stolen his mother’s roses? The little lass leaning back against the jasmine? Her shock when she was stung by bees? He’d rescued the poor frightened girl. And she’d called him “Sir Garth.”
She was a grown woman now, but he vividly recalled how vulnerable and trusting the little girl had been as he wielded his blade to remove the barbs from her tender flesh.
“I remember you.”
Cynthia’s heart missed a beat. Garth’s voice took her breath away. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t the deep, resonant, rough-edged timbre so unlike his carefree childhood voice. His words sent a shiver through her soul. Then, as if his voice weren’t enough to convince her that he was the most alluring man alive, his eyes softened, and one side of his mouth drew up in that familiar quirky smile to remove all doubt.
She couldn’t help but return the smile, but her heart pounded like a fuller’s paddle. The feelings she’d had for him as a girl were nothing to the way she felt now. Her legs weakened beneath her, and she could feel a blush begin upon her cheek. A woman could lose herself in his smile.
But no sooner did she entertain that thought than the grin faded from Garth’s face. He pressed his lips together in a thin line, and his eyes flattened. He released her arm and stared over her head toward the wall as if she were invisible.
Lord, she realized—he’d broken his vow of silence.
Chapter 10
Garth cursed mentally. How could he have let a woman come between him and his vow? He had only one more day of his penance to serve. For four years he’d kept his monastic oaths, answering to the Lord with undying devotion, inflicting severe punishment upon himself for unworthy thoughts. He’d embraced chastity with such sobriety that he was often the butt of jests comparing him to his notoriously lusty brothers. All for what? To be tempted from the simplest vow by a woman? It was unconscionable. How could he have forgotten the harsh lesson he’d learned from Mariana?
He clenched his jaw so tightly he feared his teeth might crack. Slowly, purposefully, he pressed the jasmine back into her hands, rejecting it as thoroughly and unmistakably as he must her.
“What is it?” she asked, her face the portrait of innocence. “Your vow? It’s all right. I swear I won’t tell a soul. It’ll be a secret between us.”
He pulled the corners of his mouth down. Their secret. He wondered if that was what Eve had said to Adam as she handed him the apple. Sighing deeply, he closed his eyes to her, clutched his crucifix in a reassuring fist, then turned away with a measured precision that belied his chaotic state of mind and took a step toward the door.
“You know,” Cynthia said crisply at his back, “the Abbot never told me what it was you did to deserve that ridiculous vow of silence anyway. I wonder…”
Garth’s heart jerked against his ribs, but his feet managed to hesitate only slightly in their bid for freedom. What mischief did the woman perpetrate now? She was like a ferret burrowing at his soul. He owed her no explanation. He wasn’t obliged to reveal his iniquities to her. Confessions were between the sinner and the church.
If only he could make it to the door before…
“Let me guess,” she said with the pensive coyness only a woman could master. “What sin might a man of the church commit?”
