Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero (34 page)

Yet here she was again, beneath him, writhing, gasping, twisting her head back and forth across the furs as if she were tortured by some demon of yearning.

He knew how she felt. The blood pounded in his loins and sang through his body like a siren’s call, driving him mad—mad enough to cover her hot flesh with his own, mad enough to rest his lust-heavy weight atop her, to part the swollen petals of her womanhood and plunge into the welcome harbor of her womb.

It was heaven. God forgive him, it was heaven.

Whorls of sensation circled Cynthia, leaving her dizzy and breathless. She was drunk, aye, but this euphoria had nothing to do with ale. Garth was everywhere—above her, around her, inside her—and it was where he belonged. She felt possessed by him, as if their two souls were somehow forged together.

Then he moved, and it was much finer than she remembered, that slow, relentless tide he forced her to. Her loins prickled with need, and he soothed that need with each stroke. She wrapped her legs about him, wanting him closer, and she could feel the muscles of his buttocks flex and release. Her hands wandered over his massive shoulders, down his tensed back, and that delicious thrill of fear coursed through her once more.

She was losing control. She could feel it coming as surely as the sun came up over the hills. Moans came to her lips unbidden. Her hips undulated to their own rhythms, striving upward against him. She held on for dear life. But this time, as she teetered on the narrow ledge of fulfillment, she felt no panic.

Perhaps it was the ale. Perhaps it was Elspeth’s words.

This time, she let the flood carry her away, past care, past reason. She gasped, arching impossibly beneath him as he, too, drove with bold abandon deep within her. For one glorious moment, they were one, soaring high above the earth like a solitary flaming angel. Then they plunged downward, clasped together, rocking with tremors as old as time, to extinguish their passion in a tranquil sea.

Cynthia drifted on that sea like a ship without a wheel. She couldn’t cease smiling. Her whole body glowed the way it did when she stood too close to the fire. But she didn’t want to move away from this fire. Nay, she wanted to lie here beneath Garth forever.

The last thing Garth wanted to do was move. He was drained, physically and mentally. Cynthia would want more. For a woman, Mariana had told him, once was never enough. But lying quiet, he could float aimlessly, oblivious to the guilt threatening to press down upon him, oblivious to the demands surely to come from Cynthia, demands he wasn’t sure he could answer.

And yet, affection did what neither guilt nor demands could. He
longed
to fulfill her again. He longed to satisfy her completely. At least he had to try.

And if his staff was not wont to rise again, what it couldn’t achieve, a skilled hand could accomplish.

Separating from her no more than an inch, he snaked his fingers down over her flat belly toward the damp curls mingling with his. Carefully, gently, he parted her soft folds and ran one slick finger over the tiny bud hidden there.

“Nay,” she groaned, wincing, halting his hand.

He hesitated. Was he hurting her? Or did she protest, as women often did, as a game? Again, he slipped his finger over the sensitive nubbin.

“Nay, Garth. Please.” She jerked beneath him, then squeezed her thighs together.

A deluge of fears fell around him: He hadn’t pleased her. She regretted her actions. He was but half a man. She couldn’t endure his touch.

But the truth was
she
had come to
him.
She had sought him out. Why? Why, if there were more capable men available, if she’d been unsatisfied by him before, would she have sought him out again?

“Don’t you require…more?” he asked, all his fears perched on his shoulder, waiting for her answer.

“More?” She laughed. But it wasn’t the jeer of ridicule Mariana had perfected. Cynthia’s laugh was capricious, full of delight and relief. “Oh, Garth, more?” She squirmed away from his hand, giggling. “More and I shall die, truly. They’ll have to pry my cold bones from around yours.”

A fierce love swept through him then that had nothing to do with the remnant of fire in his loins.

“You’re satisfied?” he breathed, scarcely able to believe it. “It was…enough?”

She answered him with a giddy sigh, locking her fingers around his neck and smiling up into his waiting eyes. “Enough? How can you ask me that when I’m dying of pleasure?”

He searched her face. She spoke the truth. And her words acted upon him like a keystone dislodged from a dam, releasing a flood of long-checked emotions all at once. Gratitude choked him, and he dared not try to speak. Instead, he gathered her in his arms and hugged her so tightly for so long she squealed in protest.

He didn’t remember loosening his hold or slipping from her or rolling to her side to keep from crushing her. He thought he was too agitated for slumber. He was wrong. Within a moment, he was sleeping more deeply than he had in days.

So it was a surprise when, sometime near the hour of Matins, he snorted awake to discover the candle sputtering and Cynthia slung like a heavy cloak over his body.

“Cynthia,” he whispered, jostling her shoulder.

She mumbled incoherently.

“Cynthia, you must get up.” He rattled her again, harder this time. “Come. It’s late.”

She murmured again and snuggled closer.

He cursed under his breath. How could he have been so stupid as to fall asleep? He’d compromised both of them. He had to get Cynthia back to her chamber.

Briskly he disentangled himself from her and shrugged into his cassock, raking his hair back into some semblance of order. Then he stared down at the angel lying on his bed, and he had to smile. She looked like the victim of a shipwreck, cast ashore by a haphazard wave. Her hair spread across the pillow like seaweed, and her skin glowed with pearly luminescence. He stood there long enough to commit her features to memory, for in days to come, when they passed in the great hall or at chapel or by the garden, he wanted to remember her like this.

Then he bent to scoop her from the bed. He was never sure she came fully awake at all, even when he slipped the gown over her head. He carried her through the course of dozing bodies that populated the great hall, knowing the Abbot would be sequestered in the lord’s chambers and praying the servants were still asleep as well. He crept up the steps to her chamber, and then tucked her hastily into her bed.

He silently congratulated himself as he picked his way back to his quarters. It wouldn’t happen again, this clandestine midnight meeting between lovers. It was far too dangerous for both of them. They still lived in two different worlds. She had her betrothed, and he had his church. But Cynthia had given him back his manhood. He’d have a sweet memory to sustain him. And, with any luck, she wouldn’t remember a thing.

Unfortunately, he counted too much on three things—on the amnesiac properties of ale, that, once he’d bedded Cynthia, it would be easy to resist her, and that they hadn’t been seen.

Elspeth recoiled into the shadows at the bottom of the stairwell. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the squeak that was wont to come out. She even clenched her eyes tightly for a moment, hoping that when she reopened them, what she’d seen would prove to be a trick of the moonlight.

But as sure as she knew the back of her own wrinkled hand, that was Father Garth carrying Lady Cynthia up to her bedchamber. She sank against the cold stone wall, suddenly feeling all of her sixty-three years.

Maybe, she reasoned desperately, willing her heart to quit its crazed jig, things weren’t as they appeared. Maybe Cynthia had gone to him to confess her sins and then…fallen asleep, or…or the Father had found her dozing in the buttery, where they’d both gone to fetch a midnight bite. Maybe she’d fallen down the stairs and…

But nay. Garth wasn’t in any hurry with her. If anything, his step was stealthy. And his face, where the wall sconce lit it up for an instant, was filled with such warmth and affection for his burden that there could be no mistake.

Garth was Cynthia’s lover, not Philip.

It pinched at Elspeth’s old heart to think of it. Aye, Garth was comely and kind and generous. He came from a fine family. He was young and hale. He’d never given her cause to question his loyalty. And the two of them together, well, they made a handsome pair with their strong features and formidable height. What children they’d—

She gave her head a hard shake.

The man was a priest.

Peering up where the two had just disappeared into Cynthia’s chamber, Elspeth crept out and made her furtive way toward the steward’s quarters. If anyone knew what to do in such a coil, it was Roger.

He awoke most rudely, nearly lopping her head off with a flailed hand when she waggled his shoulder.

“Watch your fist!” she hissed. “You old fool. It’s me. Me. Elspeth!”

“What the devil?”

“Keep your voice down. I’ve got to speak with you.”

“Then light a candle,” he groused, “so I can at least be assured it’s you and not some other harpy come to torment me.”

She snatched up a candle stub and lit the wick from the banked fire at the foot of his bed. By the time she returned, Roger was sitting up, the covers pulled up to his neck, his hair askew, and his expression cross.

“What’s this about?”

“Ah, Roger, I hardly know where to begin.” But apparently she did, for the story spilled out of her with little difficulty. She told him about Cynthia’s melancholy, blushing as she skated over the subject of their conversation in the bath, and recounted what she’d seen in the great hall. “It’s a tragedy, Roger. What shall we do?”

Roger sat silent for a long while, his gray eyes thoughtful, his mouth stern.

“Nothing,” he finally said, flouncing over to go back to sleep.

“What!” Elspeth exploded, wrenching him back over. “How dare you…have you no…what do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

“I mean nothing. You’ve done enough already. You’ve taught her all she needs to know. She’s a grown woman, not a child.”

“But she can’t lie with the chaplain!” Elspeth screamed under her breath.

“And why not?”

“Because…because…he lived in a monastery. His vows expressly forbid—“

“He’s not a monk anymore, Elspeth. He’s a chaplain. It’s not entirely uncommon for a chaplain to take a wife.”

“A wife, aye, but a concubine? Our Cynthia?”

Roger glowered at her. “I’m sure he’ll do the right thing.” He yanked the coverlet back around his shoulders dismissively. “Besides, Garth de Ware is a far better man than those weasels you’ve been digging up from God-knows-where.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Lord Philip is a decent, God-fearing—“

“Didn’t you hear? Lord Philip’s apparently so God-fearing he’s let the Abbot convince him to go on pilgrimage instead of marrying.”

“What?”

“He’s leaving tomorrow.” Roger snorted. “As for the rest of the motley prospects, you know none of them have been good enough for our Cynthia,” he accused. “I’m surprised at you, Elspeth.”

She clapped her mouth shut again and planted her fists on her hips. “Well, I don’t see
you
bringing any gentlemen by.”

Roger snorted again. “I’d be well pleased to call a man as forthright as Garth de Ware lord and master of Wendeville. And I’m just as glad that Cynthia has the good judgment to think so, too.”

Whatever answer Elspeth sought in waking Roger, it was certainly not this.

“Then you’ll do nothing?” she asked. “Not even protect her from the gossips? From the Abbot?”

Roger eyed her from beneath his bushy brows, suddenly serious. “Do you think the Abbot knows?”

“I pray to God he doesn’t. But if we don’t watch out for her, for them…”

Roger nodded. “The Abbot will be on his way come sunrise. Until then, we’d best keep an eye on her.”

Elspeth pursed her lips. It wasn’t exactly the response she’d hoped for, but it would serve. If the lass couldn’t govern her heart, at least she had two friends who would guard her reputation.

After Lord Philip’s hasty departure with the Abbot, Garth’s attempts at chastity succeeded about as well as a fish’s attempts at flight.

The very next night Cynthia cornered him in the herb cellar and had her way with him. He blamed himself, claiming a momentary lapse of judgment on his part.

The night after that she lured him to the stables, and in a moment of weakness, he conceded to her lusty wishes.

The following afternoon, she surprised him at his bath, and since he was already disrobed…

By the fourth night, he abandoned all excuse and accepted the fact that if it was Cynthia’s will that he revel in her, then there wasn’t a blessed thing he could do to prevent it.

It was the beginning of the most magical summer Garth could remember. For nearly a dozen glorious weeks, Cynthia filled his life with more color and joy than all her beds of flowers, delighting him, surprising him, fulfilling him. No corner of the keep was safe from their passion—the solar, the dovecote, the wine cellar. And if he preached chastity on Sunday and trysted with Cynthia the rest of the week, it was his own private sin for which he’d pay…later.

For now he wanted to wring every last drop of bliss from what bit of summer remained.

But they had to be cautious. There were those, including the Abbot and the king, who might judge them harshly, those who believed solely in marriages of diplomatic convenience for such women as Lady Cynthia, and those who held to the practice of chastity without compromise for men of the cloth.

So they followed unspoken rules. They never met where they might be discovered. They displayed no public affection, not even a hand given in comfort. And they shared no confidences…with anyone. Above all else, Garth and Cynthia cared for their vassals. If they thought for one moment their actions might do harm to the people of Wendeville…

It was a hell’s ransom to pay for heaven. But he had no choice. If they revealed their love, the uncompromising Abbot would have Garth exiled from the church, and if that came to pass, what kind of future could he offer Cynthia? He wouldn’t fool himself. He’d spent the good part of his life in preparation for the priesthood. To be cast from his faith would leave him nowhere to turn.