Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero (17 page)

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.

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?”

His fingers fumbled with, then gripped the iron handle of the door, and relief surged through him as he pulled it open. The contrasting wave of cool air struck his cheek like a sobering slap. He was safe now. He’d return to his quarters and spend the rest of the day praying for forgiveness for…

“It must have been a grave sin indeed to require such a grave penance.”

Satan’s teeth! Was she following him? A quick glance told him the meddlesome wench had secured the door behind her. Worse, she looked for all the world as if she intended to dog him the rest of the day, nettling him with rude questions.

Very well, he decided. If she could dismiss propriety and common courtesy, he’d do the same. He’d ignore her completely, march off as if her chatter were no more than a breeze blowing past his ear.

It worked for three long paces.

Then the chain of his crucifix broke, and the wooden cross slid from around his neck, clattering on the stones at his feet, throwing off his stride.

He whirled. To his horror, Cynthia snatched it up like a prize, closing it in her fist before he could reach it. He glanced at his stolen goods, then clenched his teeth, as tense as a cat about to spring, sorely tempted to pry it from her greedy hands.

Apparently unaffected by the threat sizzling in his eyes, she ran an idle finger along the worn wooden edge of the cross. “I’d venture so far as to say you must have violated one of the seven deadly sins,” she guessed.

The blood left his knuckles as he tightened his fists in the folds of his cassock.

“The seven deadly sins…hmm…” she mused.

He ceased breathing.

“Well, I don’t think it was covetousness. There’s little to covet in a monastery.”

She tapped his cross against her lip, and his jaw dropped. How dare she place her lips where his had pressed a thousand times…

“Nor do I imagine it was envy.”

He stood very still, staring at the crucifix. He wanted it back, very badly. But he could see in her eyes, she wasn’t going to give it to him. Not yet.

“I’m certain it wasn’t sloth, for I can see by your work in the garden you’re not an idle man.”

She’d done it now—come perilously close to the truth and exceeded his tolerance for torment.

He whipped away from her. Never mind his crucifix. It was probably defiled now anyway. He’d get another one.

In the meantime, he’d put up with no more of her taunting. He stalked off with a satisfying snap of his cassock and the longest strides he could manage.

They were apparently not long enough.

“By your fitness,” she said, running to stay at his heels, “it’s definitely not gluttony.”

He felt as tightly wound as a catapult about to fire and as panicked as a novice about to fire it.

“Anger?” she guessed, breathless from the chase. “Maybe. Even now…your fists betray you…clenching and unclenching like that… Hmm. What about lust?”

He halted so abruptly that she collided with his back with an “oof.” Involuntarily, he wrenched his head toward her.

Something in his eyes must have given him away and shocked her terribly, for she suddenly grew clumsy, fumbling with the crucifix, and he knew one instant of grim satisfaction.

“Oh!” She worried the chain while her gaze darted about like a singed moth, uncertain where to alight. “I… I….didn’t,” she mumbled, scarlet chagrin rising in her cheeks. “I’m so…sorry. I thought surely that…that pride was your sin.”

Garth compressed his lips, thoroughly humiliated. Was that admission supposed to comfort him? Pride was the one thing he
didn’t
have. Curse the wench! It was bad enough he’d made confession to Prior Thomas. But this, this was unbearable—a woman he hardly knew divining his guilt.

He could hear the gossip already, imagine her glee at spreading it. Father Garth—a monk of four years, a de Ware, sworn to chastity—lusted after women.

He bit the inside of his cheek to quell the shout of fury and shame threatening to explode from him. By God, he wouldn’t let her see his disgrace. He’d hide it if it killed him.

He stretched himself to his full height, concealing his emotions like a knight primed for battle, confronting her with the countenance of a calm but deadly warrior. Now he could face her. With this mask, he could face the devil himself.

He refused to beg for the crucifix. If she wanted it, she could have it. She probably needed it more than he did anyway. He nodded coolly, then turned on his heel and fled to seek holier ground.

Cynthia couldn’t move. She felt as though the breath had been sucked out of her, taking with it the mist over her eyes.

Lust. Lust was his offense. Not pride.

She’d been so sure his sin was pride. Pride was always the vague failing for which monks were punished. Ballocks—if she’d known, she would never have played that cruel game with him. But she’d been frustrated by the babe’s death and vexed by the aloofness in Garth’s eyes, and at the time she’d wanted nothing more than to poke those cool, unfeeling orbs.

She could still see the subtle flinch at the outer edges of his eyes when she’d uncovered the truth. He’d tried to hide his emotions, sheathed them faster than a knight shoving a sword into its scabbard. But she’d glimpsed the pain, the humiliation. How he must hate her.

As he paced off, the fabric of his cassock slapped the air like the sail of a ship bound for frozen climes. It wasn’t till he’d disappeared inside Wendeville’s chapel that Cynthia leaned back against the castle wall, still clinging to Garth’s crucifix, and considered what had just transpired.

A million thoughts bounced about in her head. Garth de Ware had committed the sin of lust. Lucifer’s ballocks! What had he done? What constituted lust to the church? Had he slept unclothed at the monastery? Had he sought his body’s release at his own hands? Had he been found with a lover?

Suddenly the heat of the day seemed overwhelming. Cynthia fanned herself with one hand, swinging the cross idly from its chain with the other.

Garth de Ware was very much alive, she realized. There
was
passion there. The flame wasn’t extinguished, though the battle to suppress it still raged within him, even after four years, driving him to take vows of silence to curb his desires.

But she’d been right. There was hope. There was a chance.

Delight shivered through her as she recalled the spicy scent of his hair and the way it curled upon his nape, the evergreen depths of his eyes, the aura of undeniable strength and masculinity that surrounded him. Just knowing he was capable of suffering the pangs of desire made her heart race. It was full night before she could banish the enticing image of Garth de Ware, his cassock cast aside with his inhibitions, from her mind.

Mary pulled her cloak together against the midnight chill and glanced down at her hands. Her knuckles were rubbed nearly raw from all the scrubbing she’d given them. She had no desire to be caught with traces of monkshood on her person, especially since she was gong to see the holy man again tonight.

Her body thrummed eagerly. The news she brought him was a juicy bit of meat. It would please him greatly, and when he was pleased, he granted her special favors. With these favors, she knew she could make her way into heaven. After all, he was a powerful man of the church. He could save her immortal soul.

A thief like her, he’d told her, had little hope of passing through heaven’s gates, even if her crime was stealing bread for her starving baby brother. She shivered. Nothing frightened Mary more than eternal damnation. But she knew if anyone could keep her from the fires of hell, it was him. So she groveled at his feet, did his bidding, catered to his every wish—this time, to spy for him. He, in turn, received her worship and absolved her guilt.

The moon was bright, making ghostly shadows at the edges of the wood, as she furtively left the great hall of Wendeville Castle. The chill air reminded her of the priest’s cool fingers upon her shoulders as she received him, and she closed her eyes in a silent prayer that it would be his will tonight.

The place wasn’t far. But it was secret. The holy man insisted that none but she know of his visits there, and Mary was flattered by his trust.

The crofter’s cottage was dark except for a faint golden glow visible through cracks in the old timbers. She took a deep, thrilling breath. It was easy to imagine that the glow was a divine presence, that inside those walls the holy man spoke to God Himself.

Casting a quick glance about her, she pulled the door open on its oiled hinge and entered the cottage.

The priest’s candle flickered eerily as he glided toward her. He looked gaunt and pale in the shifting shadows, more spirit than human, like the illuminations he’d allowed her to peek at once in his jewel-encrusted Bible. She sank to her knees in awe.

“You have news?” he demanded in the stern voice that made her shudder expectantly.

“Yes, Father.”

She told him everything in a rush, certain that his time was as valuable as gold. She told him about Meggie’s travail, the stillborn babe, the monkshood. When she was finished, the priest indulged her with a smile.

“You’ve done well, Mary, child,” he praised, laying one slim hand atop her covered head. “Now let’s speak of another task I wish you to perform.”

Mary listened as attentively as a disciple, moved by the Abbot’s helpless shrugs and frowns of concern. When he was done, after she lapped up the milk of his appeals as eagerly as a kitten, he looked into her adoring eyes with the familiar entreaty she’d waited all evening to hear.

“Do you wish to receive the Lord tonight? Do you wish to receive Him through me?” he asked gently.

Mary weakly, thankfully sighed her consent.

The Abbot tugged the hood from her head and pulled his lips back in an approving smile.

She clasped her hands before her as if in prayer and looked up at him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his translucent face radiant with religious ecstasy. Then he opened his robe to her, revealing the ungainly swelling beneath his cassock. She took glad communion there, aroused by his cries of wonder, swallowing every precious drop of the bitter offering he delivered unto her.

Much later, lying in her own bed and savoring the traces of him that lingered upon her lips, Mary fingered the amulet of angelica the holy man had placed around her neck. It would serve as protection, he’d assured her, against the evil witch that was her mistress.

Garth blew out a defeated breath, crumpling another sheet of parchment and tossing it dispiritedly to the stone floor of the chapel. Beside him, the flame atop the chunky yellow candle quavered as if fearful of its master. Garth raked a hand through his hair and stared up at the full moon dyed blue by the colored window. A small cloud passed over its face, creating a dark shadow that floated its way through the scenes of stained glass like a devil dancing among the saints.