Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero

by Glynnis Campbell

  Oh aye, he’d swear that oath, on the Holy Scriptures, if need be. He’d be only too glad to expedite Lady Cynthia’s quest for a new husband. The sooner she was wed, the better—anything to remove temptation.

  He nodded his assent and, for the first time since he’d arrived at Wendeville, he felt like smiling. Perhaps, he dared to hope, God hadn’t deserted him after all.

  CHAPTER 5

  Cynthia twisted her fingers in the linen napkin, inexplicably nervous. The sounds in the great hall reverberated in her ears as if she were hearing them for the first time. Daggers scraped across pewter platters. Wine gurgled into cups and down gullets. The hounds whuffed softly from their corner, eager for the tidbits children would bring them later. Kitchen lads brought forth steaming bowls of pottage and loaves of fragrant bread, adroitly dodging the maidservants hefting flagons of wine. And everyone spoke at once.

  Thanks to Elspeth, the castle gossip had turned around again. The incident at the lists had been declared an unfortunate accident, a mishap caused when the chaplain drew too close to Cynthia’s exertions. And if young Will and his friends knew a different story, they held their tongues. Their world was rife with fighting and maidens and honor, after all, and they didn’t much care for rumors.

  Still, all was utter pandemonium in the hall, as usual. Indeed, Cynthia suspected strangers could dine for weeks at Wendeville and never be spotted. Except that she knew everyone in her own household and the nearby village. She’d mended them all at one time or another.

  Only one stranger dined before her tonight, the humblest of priests, yet she agonized over every detail as if she entertained the king. Would he like the rue wine? Did he find his bench comfortable enough? Was there a draft in the hall?

  Already, he’d made a bad choice of tables. He’d managed to sequester himself between the two quarreling Campbell cousins, and there he was stuck, picking morosely at his capon while the raucous lads jostled him mercilessly. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable, no doubt unnerved by both the boys’ familiarity and the cacophony of the hall—knights bragging, maids giggling, hounds barking. She bit her lip. Wendeville Castle was a far cry from a monastery.

  “My lady?” Elspeth appeared at her side, bearing a flask of wine. She settled in beside Cynthia and filled their cups. “Will has joined us, do you see?” She nodded toward the youth. “Weak as a lamb, but hungry as a wolf.”

  “Mm.”

  “The way the maids are fawning over him, fighting for the honor of hand-feeding the boy, all the lads will be breaking their arms over the next week.”

  Cynthia gave her a brief smile, but wasn’t truly listening. Her eyes and her thoughts were elsewhere. Heaven help her, she hadn’t drawn a decent breath from the instant Garth had come crashing into the chapel, bringing with him a flood of long-lost memories. And the way he’d made her feel when he’d sent her away with the unspoken warning in his fiery eyes…

  She had so many questions. How did he fare—he and his family? Did his mother’s enchanted garden thrive? Were his brothers as bloodthirsty as ever? And, more than anything, she longed to know—what had steered a man of such honor and chivalry and heroism toward the church?

  She watched Garth break a loaf of bread between strong, nimble fingers, then ran her fingertip pensively around the cool lip of her chalice, making a game of mentally bidding him look at her. He did, surreptitiously, over the rim of his cup, searing her with his gaze before shifting his eyes anxiously away.

  Cynthia’s heart fluttered. Lord, what ailed her? She hadn’t even touched her wine yet, and already she felt lightheaded. She lowered her eyes, swirling the burgundy liquid around in her chalice.

  “So what do you think?” she murmured to Elspeth, not daring to lift her eyes.

  “Of the wine?”

  “Of our new chaplain.” She took a long drink.

  Elspeth paused to give Garth a stern appraisal. “A mite too quiet, a mite too thin…”

  Cynthia stole another glance at him just as his tongue flicked out to lick the corner of his lip. She shouldn’t have. The sight made her stomach quiver.

  “And,” Elspeth added, “a mite too handsome for his own good.”

  Cynthia choked on her wine.

  “Too much rue in the wine?” Elspeth asked, her face pinched in concern.

  Cynthia shook her head, burying a cough in her linen napkin.

  “Of course,” Elspeth allowed, “he’s quiet because he’s under a vow of silence. And he’s thin because we’ve yet to fatten him up on Cook’s fine suppers. As for being handsome…”

  Cynthia slid her gaze toward Garth again. Lord, he was that. Even the way he tucked a morsel of capon into his mouth, chewing with sensual patience… She gave Elspeth a weak smile. Her voice came out in a strained whisper. “I hardly think a man can be faulted for his looks.”

  Elspeth snapped her gaze back to Cynthia, who set aside her wine, too edgy to drink.

  She only toyed with her food as well, and by the serving of the third course, she wondered if she’d ever regain her appetite. It was only nerves, she told herself. She hadn’t seen the de Wares since she was a child, and she wanted to impress Garth, that was all.

  It couldn’t be anything else. After all, Garth was a priest now. He commanded a certain deference. And while the Bible did not expressly forbid friendships between men of the cloth and noblewomen, the church certainly did not encourage them. Moreover, Garth had come from a monastery, where the doctrine was much more stringent. After four years, he was probably completely unused to the company of women. Perhaps that was why he seemed so…restless.

  But it hadn’t always been so. Once he’d been quite another person.

  “El,” she said, running a thumbnail over the grapes carved into her pewter chalice, “did I ever tell you about my noble champion in the enchanted garden?”

  Without risking another glance at Garth, she recounted the whole tale—the jasmine, the swarm of bees, and her gallant hero with the smoky green eyes that were mocking and kind all at once. Elspeth hung on her every word.

  Afterward, the maid leaned forward expectantly. “Is it true, my lady? And did you…did you love him?”

  “I don’t know. I was only a child. But at the time, I surely wished to marry him.”

  Elspeth seemed like to burst with excitement. “Well, tell me, lass. Whatever became of the lad?”

  Cynthia almost wished she hadn’t shared the tale, for it certainly didn’t have a happy ending. She picked a crumb from her lap.

  “He’s here, El,” she whispered.

  “Here?” Elspeth scanned the great hall, her eyes aglow. “In the castle?”

  “Aye.” She flashed Elspeth a bittersweet smile. “I’d forgotten all about him. It was the day my mother died, you see. But then the bee sting today reminded me—“

  “Bee sting?”

  “Aye,” she said, frowning thoughtfully at her trencher. “I was stung by a bee in the chapel. And when I turned round, there he was.”

  “The bee?”

  “Nay,” she replied, chuckling. “The boy from the garden.”

  “In the chapel?”

  “Aye.” She peered at Garth over her chalice’s edge. She would never forget how he’d looked storming in through the chapel door, all dark and wild and gallant.

  “But how did he come to be here, my lady?” Elspeth asked.

  “Hmm?” Garth’s hand looked massive as he wrapped it around his cup of wine. Massive but gentle. She wondered if it was rough or smooth. “Oh. The Abbot brought him.” She took a small sip of her wine, which might have been goat piss, for all the attention she paid it.

  Elspeth took a long drink, then screwed up her forehead in puzzlement. “But, my lady, the Abbot brought only…” Her eyes widened. It was her turn to gag on the wine.

  Cynthia gave her maidservant a few hearty whacks on the back, which seemed only to aggravate her condition, before Elspeth waved her away.

  The old woman spoke again after a moment
, strangling the words under her breath. “Not our new chaplain?”

  “El?” Cynthia frowned. What the devil was wrong with Elspeth? “Are you all right, El?”

  “Nay!” Elspeth hissed, setting the wine cup down so hard on the table it splattered onto the white linen. She whispered frantically into Cynthia’s ear. “Don’t even think of it, lass! Are you daft?”

  “Think of what, El?”

  “He’s not the same lad at all, my lady. For St. Agnes’s sake,” she murmured, crossing herself, “the man’s a priest, not some child’s knight-errant. Choose another, lass. Don’t be setting your eye on a man of the cloth.”

  “Elspeth!” Cynthia gasped, truly shocked. “What gave you the idea… I told you before…” She glanced uneasily about and lowered her voice. “I’m not looking to wed…anyone.” She lifted her cup to her lips, staring down at its quivering contents. The wine reflected the candlelight like a polished carnelian, and for just an instant, she wondered if she was telling the truth. “Besides, only a fool would try to tempt a man from the church. One might as well court the devil.”

  “Aye, that’s right,” Elspeth chimed in all too emphatically. Then she muttered under her breath, “Seducing a man of God, well, it’s like flirting with Lucifer himself.”

  Though Lucifer couldn’t be half as handsome, Cynthia thought, immediately washing down that blasphemy with another swallow of wine.

  But aye, Elspeth was right. Garth de Ware belonged to the church. And besides, he was a grown man now. There was no telling what he’d grown into. He’d sprung up tall, that was certain, and his features had ripened well into masculine maturity. The faint stubble of a shaved beard shadowed his chin. His dark tawny hair, though shorter, still curled carelessly about his face, but now it served to soften the hard edges of his jaw and cheekbones, lending him a reckless air. His mouth was still wide and expressive. And his eyes, when they weren’t lowered beneath heavy brows, shone like polished jade, just as they had in that garden long ago.

  But Garth was no longer the lad from the garden. As a youth, his eyes had sparkled in conspiracy, and his jaunty one-sided grin had promised reckless adventure. Little of that daring remained in him now. His spirit seemed harnessed, humbled. And yet, there was something unnatural about that submissiveness. In fact, he looked about as docile as an exotic lion from the East, stolen from its wild land to be tamed.

  Surely Garth de Ware was not a man to be subdued. His monk’s robes were an ill fit. And he certainly didn’t belong shut up behind monastery walls. He was like a field of wild heather someone had witlessly trimmed into a box hedge. Or maybe, she reconsidered, he was more like twining ivy that—

  Elspeth shrieked suddenly, interrupting Cynthia’s analogies. “Look out!” She sprang up from the table. “Shandy fool!”

  Cynthia followed her gaze. Alton, the cockiest of the kitchen lads, swaggered across the flagstones on his way to the high table, wrestling with an over-large platter of roast meat and vegetables perched precariously atop one skinny shoulder. As they all watched in horror, the roast slid to and fro from one end of the plate to the other, dripping juice down the lad’s arm each time the platter tipped. Grinning obliviously, the boy tottered about on his bandy legs to compensate for the shift in weight. But disaster was inevitable. He finally slipped on the rushes, and the platter flipped with amazing acrobatics, loosing its burden everywhere.

  Turnips splashed in a wide swath, half among the rushes, half across the high table. Drippings sprayed through the air like foul rain. Onions splattered to the floor. The roast bowled forward across the white linen tablecloth, leaving a trail of juice and knocking aside a row of chalices on its determined journey toward Cynthia’s lap.

  In the blink of an eye, Garth leaped up and over his table, dagger in hand. Before Cynthia could even draw breath to gasp, he lunged forward across the high table like a charging boar. His dagger rose high, then plunged down with a powerful thud, stabbing the rogue roast, pinning the meat clear through to the wood planking.

  A hush of awe dropped instantly over the hall. Not a hound stirred. Even the Campbell lads halted their bickering. All eyes flew to the chaplain clutching the knife with bloodless knuckles like some Viking berserker.

  The furrow between his brows deepened as he stared at his own hand, evidently as dumbfounded as the rest by his spontaneous, absurd feat of heroics.

  Cynthia didn’t know whether to laugh or applaud. She’d never been saved from a roast before. What a boyish, charming, ridiculously chivalrous gesture. But she could do neither. The rest of the castle folk would follow her lead, and she couldn’t let them make fun of him.

  Instead, she murmured a gentle, “Thank you, Garth.”

  Garth slowly lifted his eyes across the table to hers, drawing her into his gaze. She hadn’t noticed before how deep a green his eyes were—as deep as a Highland forest, as deep as the North Sea. Faith, she could lose her way in those eyes.

  “Oh, my lady!” Alton, the kitchen lad, barged into her reverie, stumbling forward. “Forgive me!” His swagger gone, he doffed his cap and twisted it in his hands, looking as pitiful as a pup who’d mistakenly bitten his master’s hand. “I didn’t mean to—“

  Cynthia waved away his apology. “No harm done.”

  The boy bobbed twice, then shoved his cap back down over his shaggy head and squatted to attend to the mess.

  Garth’s grip loosened upon the dagger, but before he could withdraw, Cynthia impulsively reached for him. His hand was wonderfully warm and large. And smooth. It was smooth.

  “Thank you,” she repeated. She could feel his pulse beneath her thumb. For one insane moment, she longed to press his fingers against her lips, to see how his skin would feel against her mouth. An emotion flickered in Garth’s eyes, visible for only an instant, an emotion akin to hunger, and an irrational thrill coursed through her veins. But then his hand stiffened. Reluctantly, she let go.

  He clenched his hands once and relaxed, reminding her of a knight about to do mortal battle. Then he turned from her and crouched to help Alton.

  Cynthia folded her napkin beside her trencher. Her heart fluttered like a moth around a flame, the way it did when she was about to do something of which the Abbot wouldn’t approve. And indeed she was.

  She couldn’t very well let Garth grovel in the rushes at her feet, could she? Not the new chaplain of Wendeville. Especially after she’d welcomed him with a fist the last time they met. At least that was the reason she gave herself as she rose from the bench and humbled herself to join him on the floor.

  The castle folk were accustomed enough to Cynthia’s odd habits that seeing their lady scoop refuse from the floor did not amaze them in the least. Soon enough, the hall grew noisy again.

  Garth knelt less than a foot away. As he stretched forward for a wayward onion, the sleeve of his coarse garment rasped against the hem of her velvet kirtle. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and he kept his lips closed in a sober line as he labored. But she could feel waves of strong emotion coming off of him like heat from an autumn hearth.

  Garth clenched his teeth against the breeze of elusive perfume that assaulted his senses as he reached past Lady Cynthia for a stray turnip. Surely God was testing him; it was all he could imagine. Or else why torture him so, forcing him to such painful intimacy with this paragon of womankind? And before so many witnesses?

  He shuddered at his own idiocy. Why in God’s name he’d leaped across the table to save Lady Cynthia from a slab of meat he didn’t know. It was possibly the most foolish feat he’d ever undertaken. But he’d done it without thought, on pure instinct. And now he’d unwittingly put himself in the worst possible place—directly in temptation’s path.

  Silently cursing himself for a bigger fool than Lot’s wife, he nonetheless hazarded a glance at the woman working beside him. And wished he’d been turned to salt. By candlelight, she was more beautiful than the portrait of the Madonna in the de Ware family chapel. A gold glow seemed to enshrine her radian
t face. Her downcast eyes were as silvery as moonlight on an October pool. Even the wisps of her hair, escaping from her wimple like naughty children out to play, curled perfectly upon her cheek. Sweet Mary—she wreaked utter havoc with his senses.

  He sincerely prayed his cassock was sufficiently loose to hide the evidence of his lust. For that was all it was, he was sure. Lust. It had been weeks since he’d seen a woman, months since he’d been this close to one. Close enough to detect the soft, clean scent of her skin. Close enough to feel the disturbing brush of her garments as she turned.

  She touched his forearm. “Don’t worry,” she murmured, glancing at the castle folk surrounding them. “You’ll grow accustomed to Wendeville’s…chaos.”

  He’d never grow accustomed to it, not if she were a part of it. Was his apprehension so obvious, then? What else could she divine in his face? Fear? Confusion? Desire? He stared at the fingers still resting on his bare arm. They didn’t belong there. He was a man of God. She had no license to touch him.

  And yet nothing had ever felt so right. Her hands were as warm as a dove’s breast. They were hands of comfort. Hands made for toiling lovingly in the garden and patting away a child’s fears. Hands unafraid of soil or spilled turnips or…or the sanctity of a priest’s flesh.

  His long scrutiny finally convinced her to release him. He let out a relieved breath, unaware he’d been holding it. Then he deposited the last of the vegetables onto the platter and strode back to his bench before she could touch him again, before she could beguile him.

  Aye, Lady Cynthia was more beautiful than Eve. But he was no Adam to be tempted by a woman’s wiles. He’d be damned if he’d let this one undo the four years he’d spent forgetting his sordid past.

  The candle flickered in the draft sneaking through the half-open shutters of Garth’s new quarters, making light dance across the parchment. Despite the darkness outside and the dimness within, he scribed the letters flawlessly, with a steadiness of hand that belied the turmoil brewing in his mind.