Page 6 of My Hero
“Abbot?”
“Perhaps you act in haste, child.” He fixed a bland, sympathetic expression on his face and looked down his nose at her. “It’s a harsh trial, losing a husband, and you so young. Wait a day or two. Allow me to offer you spiritual comfort.”
To his consternation, she actually winced at his words. “I find comfort in the peaceful manner of his passing, Abbot,” she said, unpinning the dried rose spray from her surcoat and placing it upon Lord John’s silent breast. “I wish that all men could die as content as my John.”
His nostrils flared. John Wendeville had certainly been that. Happy beyond reason. Happier than any mortal man deserved. The wench had coddled him like an infant. He frowned at the array of various scented oils and potions by Lord John’s bedside, medicines she’d concocted for his ills. It turned his stomach to imagine Cynthia’s hands applying their devil’s ointments to the old man’s wrinkled skin. After all, the church believed in the sufferings of the body. His own scarred back attested to the fact that pain was the avenue for salvation. Why should the old man be spared the agony of his own dying?
He sulked as he watched Lady Cynthia blow out a candle at the head of the bed. Damn the heathen wench! And damn John for wedding her. They’d ruined his plans. All the years he’d spent romancing the old goat as if he were a suitor, all the forced smiles and exchanged pleasantries, all the patience as the childless lord’s life dragged on and on and on… All were wasted now, all because of the harlot before him. Cynthia le Wyte had come to seduce the lord’s wealth away, using the one weapon the Abbot couldn’t employ.
She’dsleptwith the wrinkled prune.
He closed his eyes to slits, unable to blot out the repugnant vision that came to mind of young Cynthia mounting the wasted old man in eager ecstasy. He turned away in disgust, letting the dim light obscure the enraged veins sticking out from his neck.
He’d have to control that rage if he wanted a scrap of his reward. It might be too late to save the inheritance, but there was still a chance to wheedle a healthy stipend from the bereaved widow.
Bereaved? The idea almost made him laugh. Unlike her sniveling maid, the cold Cynthia hadn’t shed a single tear for her husband. And she clearly borehimno love. Squeezing blood from an apple would be easier than wresting a penny from Lady Cynthia.
If only the wench had died with John… He clenched his fingers together, imagining the feel of her soft, supple neck between his hands as he choked the life from her.
“I think he’d want a simple, private ceremony. Abbot?” Cynthia said. “Abbot?”
The Abbot jerked his head up, startled. Cynthia could see his thoughts were elsewhere. He was probably thinking up ways to salvage her wayward soul. She sighed and looked one last time at John’s restful face.
That all men could die as content…
Her husbandhadbeen content. For two years, Cynthia had stayed by his side—a faithful wife, adored companion, enthusiastic lover. That he survived an entire year after the physician tucked him into his deathbed was likely due more to her doses of affection than the foxglove and wormwood she painstakingly administered to him for his failing heart. She’d devoted herself to pleasing him—preparing his favorite foods, regaling him with snatches of song, letting him occasionally win at chess.
Gently, she leaned forward and blew out the last beeswax candle beside the bed. A wisp of smoke rose upward, flirting with the gold brocade bed curtains.
Theirs had been a marriage of convenience. Neither of them had deluded themselves about that. Cynthia’s father was land-poor, widowed, and sonless, with an eldest daughter whose countenance could only be described as “healthy” at best. When the wealthy but feeble Lord John Wendeville offered for Cynthia’s hand, le Wyte hastily arranged for her sacrifice to the heirless lord in order to increase the family fortune.
Cynthia was never bitter. She knew and accepted that marriage was often a practical arrangement. She’d hardened herself to circumstance long years ago, upon her mother’s death. At eighteen, she’d realized she was no great beauty. Nor did she possess the kind of holdings to tempt a suitor. Therefore, she entered into the union with Lord John with pragmatic grace, if not enthusiasm.
And John was quite pleasant, as it turned out. He was patient and kind, sweet and generous. He dressed her in velvet, showered her with emeralds, put up with impertinent old Elspeth, even allowed her to fulfill her dream of owning a pleasure garden, from which she picked him daily bouquets.
John knew he was dying. He simply wanted companionship in his final years.
Cynthia gave him far more than that. She was a wife in every sense of the word, surprising him with a devotion he swore rejuvenated him. It delighted her to see him weep in gratitude as she pleasured him with unwavering patience in their bed. And it wasn’t for lack of trying that she never conceived an heir for him.
In their months together, as Cynthia’s garden flourished beneath her loving hands, so did her husband. The fact that he would die soon didn’t stop her from caring for him. He was like the annuals she set out each spring. She nurtured them, coaxed the beds to blossom in joyous profusion, then accepted their withering and dying. It was an accustomed cycle. And it was a matter of pride with Cynthia that not once in the old man’s short life with her did she falter in her tending of him.
That care, to the Abbot’s quite vocal consternation, included the use of a great many potions and poultices concocted from the massive herb garden she’d planted in the castle courtyard.
The Abbot was scowling even now at the mazer of ground herbs with which she’d liberally dosed John’s wine for the past two days to relieve him of pain. No doubt the Abbot thought she’d poisoned her own husband with what he referred to as “devil’s medicine.”
It didn’t matter. That “devil’s medicine” had cured many a vassal and servant in John’s household. Her knowledge of herbs and the gift of healing she’d acquired at the time of her first blood had convinced even the folk of the surrounding villages to trust in her miracles. Besides, she didn’t care what the Abbot thought. He’d be gone by week’s end.
“Lord John recognized your…loyalty and service, Abbot,” she said, trying to keep the edge from her voice. “He’s been quite generous.”
“Oh?” His casual tone belied the interest in his piercing black gaze.
“He bequeathed to you the holding at Charing and the fields surrounding.”
The Abbot blinked. “Charing?”
“Aye.”
“How kind.” His voice broke. His chin trembled.
