Page 75 of My Hero
Garth again intervened, blocking Philip with his arm. “Wait.”
But even Garth’s faith was tested as her lips fell upon the boy’s mouth in a most improperly intimate fashion. She blew out a long breath of air, and the lad’s cheeks puffed out like a frog’s. The surrounding knights began to mumble among themselves as if wondering what to make of this strange perversion. Again she exhaled into the boy’s mouth.
“What wickedness is this?” Philip demanded, incensed. “Come away from him now, Cynthia.” He reached forward to grab her arm.
She shook it off, and he gaped in astonishment.
“Leave her be,” Garth said.
“I will not stand by and let—”
Suddenly a rasping breath pierced the air, and Garth saw the boy’s chest rise. Relief and wonder filled him. She’d done it. She’d saved the lad. Literally blown the breath of life back into him. He caught her gaze, and such profound joy shone in her eyes that he longed to embrace her in sheer triumph.
But it wasn’t his place now. He was a priest. And Philip, Cynthia’s betrothed, was still scowling beside him.
A great cheer went up, echoing into the stands, and the boy struggled up on his elbows, dazed, embarrassed, but thankfully alive.
Abruptly the back of Garth’s arm was caught in a sharp pinch.
“How dare you endorse this…this work of the devil,” Philip hissed. “Have you no care for Lady Cynthia’s soul?”
Not waiting for a reply, Philip let him go and wrenched Cynthia up violently by the arm. “And you,” he muttered under this breath. “That boy should be dead. How could you interfere with the will of God?”
Before he knew what he was doing, Garth, made livid by the man’s rough treatment of Cynthia, seized him by the shoulders and spun him around. “Lay a heavy hand on her again,” he bit out, “and I’ll chop it off.”
Those who heard him gasped. They were not the words of a humble chaplain.
Philip blinked several times, astonished as much by Garth’s threat as by his own rash behavior. Then he continued more gently and with great concern. “My lady, I pray you excuse my…severity. I’m certain God will forgive you for your ignorance, but if you are to be my wife, you must promise me you’ll not work that…that witchery again.”
Garth still reeled from the heady rush of violence pumping in his blood. He bit the inside of his cheek, stifling the words that came to his lips when he beheld the pain and bewilderment on Cynthia’s face. But she made no objection. Though it must break her heart to do so, she merely swallowed back her disappointment and nodded in acquiescence.
The rest of the day was spoiled for him then. Cynthia had performed a miracle, and the man she was to marry had scorned her for it. Garth wondered how Philip could live with himself, knowing he rejected the very essence of all that Cynthia embraced. It was a tragedy, and there was nothing he could do to resolve it.
The rest of the afternoon he kept his emotions carefully concealed, doing his best to be a good chaplain to the celebrants at Wendeville. He blessed their meal, found napping places for those who’d drunk too liberally, and even chuckled good-naturedly at the heathen antics of some of the castle folk, gently guiding them back toward a spiritual bent. He tried to keep up a happy countenance.
But it was evident later, after the revelry had died down, when the keep echoed with the soft snores of the well-fed, while he restlessly wandered the corridors and the hall and the courtyard, where the musky spring air was ripe with sultry promise, that none of it changed the way he felt.
He still loved Cynthia.
The profile of the rising moon, low in the purple sky, glowed golden, dusting the leaves of the trees that rose above the garden wall. A subtle breeze made the branches shiver in the dark with shimmering radiance. Crickets played lusty music for their mates, and in the distance, an owl hooted softly.
Garth clenched his fists once, hesitating before the privy garden, silently cursing the cunning wanderlust that had brought him to this place…for the gate was ajar, and that could mean only one thing at this late hour.
Cynthia was there.
Through the crack in the door, he saw the light filtering down over the shifting branches onto a narrow slice of the path, but little else. A gust of warm wind came up behind him, brushing over his cassock and past him, shoving the gate open another inch, goading him forward.
He shouldn’t go in.
He should turn around, return to his quarters, and try once again to seize elusive sleep.
He shouldn’t even think of going in, not when he’d kept his emotions so well reined in, not after he’d managed to restore a semblance of cordiality with Cynthia without letting her glimpse the molten fire coiling beneath his surface.
He couldn’t destroy that accomplishment. He was committed to Wendeville now. It was a long road the two of them might travel together. If he couldn’t ever fully express the depth of feeling he had for her, then he must learn to live with that. He must settle for being a platonic companion to her.
And so, tonight, he should leave her be.
She probably wished to be alone anyway. God knewheneeded to be alone. Too many things could happen if they were alone together on a sultry evening like this one.
