Hopefully, as Elspeth was fond of saying, once a man’s belly was filled, he was like clay in a woman’s hands.
Overhead, a raven swooped out of the willow onto the garden wall, squawking in competition with Cynthia’s soft roundelay. Undaunted, Cynthia lifted her voice in a rollicking round of “fa-la-la’s.” She sang out the long, loud, final note of the tune, stuck her tongue out at the bird, and then turned to fetch another seedling from the wheelbarrow.
A dark shadow fell suddenly across her, driving her heart into her throat. For an instant, she imagined the raven had transformed itself into human form. Gasping sharply, she dropped the seedling and stumbled backward, unfortunately over the rake. She tripped and toppled onto her bottom, her legs sprawling every which way.
“Shite!” she cried, clasping a hand to her bosom. Looming over her, as brooding and silent as death, stood Garth. “I didn’t hear you.”
Garth bit back a grin. The idea of Cynthia hearing anything over her own loud singing, as well as the sight of her subsequently tumbling into the dirt on her backside, was most comical. But when he beheld the silky lines of her exposed limbs and the sensual disarray of her curls, all humor deserted him. He froze.
“You could at least help me up,” she chided, reaching out a hand.
Against his better judgment, he offered her his arm. Her fingers upon his sleeve were like a hot iron singeing the damp wool as she pulled herself to her feet. And when she stood before him, he realized that a few inches forward and he could have brushed her forehead with his lips. God help him, he wanted to. She smelled delightful, like cinnamon and earth and spring.
He must have been staring. She hastily lowered her eyes and disengaged herself from him.
“I’m redesigning the privy garden,” she explained a little breathlessly. Then she pushed the gate closed behind him. “I thought you could help. If you’d write down the names of the plants in their proper places…”
Garth clenched his jaw.
The garden was deserted. There were just the two of them, alone. The oak door rattled behind Garth as the latch swung home, imprisoning him.
He lowered himself stiffly to the sod bench. With clumsy fingers, he stretched the parchment over the block of wood that would serve as a desk. The sooner he accomplished the task at hand, he thought, the sooner he could flee. He hastily uncorked the bottle of ink and dipped his quill.
“If you’ll make a diagram of sorts and label the trees…”
With a fleeting glance around the garden, he set his quill to the page.
“Those two are peaches,” she said, shading her eyes and pointing to the farthest trees to the left. “Sweeter peaches you’ve never tasted,” she confided. “Cook makes a wonderful peach tart that doesn’t even need honey.” She pointed at another. “And that is a hazelnut. Last Christmas it gave so abundantly, we had packets of roasted hazelnuts for all the villagers’ children.” She pointed again. “And over there—“
Garth put the quill down, finished. She looked at him quizzically. He showed her the parchment. It was admittedly the worst scribbling he’d ever done in his life. But the words were there. And the trees were labeled properly. And now he could leave.
“Ah.” She blinked. “Well done.” But somehow she didn’t look exactly pleased. “You know your trees. Are you familiar with the shrubs as well?”
He squinted past her at the bushes lining the rock wall and began writing again, glad he’d first learned Latin by identifying the plants in his mother’s garden. There was Ilex. And Jasminium.
From the corner of his eye, he saw her reach down to pluck a weed. Then another.
Hedera.
One weed came up clutching a great ball of earth in its roots. She knocked it against her thigh to dislodge the dirt, soiling her skirt.
He scrawled “Rosa” onto the parchment.
She pushed her sleeves back from her wrists to her elbows to get at a patch of clover choking the daffodils. The skin of her forearms looked as smooth as polished parchment.
Laurus.
Then she must have forgotten he was there. With no preamble whatsoever, she hoisted the back hem of her surcoat up through her legs and tucked it into her belt at the front like a peasant, exposing a considerable length of her silky limbs.
Maybe if he closed his eyes tightly enough, the sight of Lady Cynthia lifting her skirts and baring those long slim legs would disappear.
It didn’t. When he opened them again, to make matters worse, she’d kicked off her slippers, exposing creamy white toes that looked like ten of the Orient’s most precious pearls dropped in the mud.
His quill dripped onto the page, spattering ink across the holly he’d just labeled.
Bent over at the waist, she struggled with a particularly stubborn weed, scrabbling at the dirt with her fingers, grunting with the effort. Finally, she dropped down to her knees and wrapped both hands around the tough stalk, pulling for all she was worth, to no avail.
He wheezed a troubled sigh. The Lady of Wendeville shouldn’t be digging in the dirt like a half-naked serf. It was improper and unnatural. And it was driving him to madness. He wouldn’t allow it.
He may be unable to protest with words. But there was something he could do about it.
He corked the ink bottle and set his quill aside. Shaking his head in disgust at his own folly, he snatched up a spade resting against the garden wall and motioned her back. He drove the spade deep into the soil and rocked it. The weed popped out easily.
“Thank you,” she said, wiping black mud across her cheek. She made a grab for the shovel.
He compressed his lips, unwilling to surrender it.
“I need the spade to turn the soil,” she explained.
He’d be damned if he’d let a lady hoist a heavy spade while he scrawled on a scrap of parchment. De Ware men didn’t watch women toil. Besides, the shovel felt good in hands, and there was no shortage of work to be done. And maybe, he thought as a breeze wafted her sweet fragrance to him, if he kept his eyes to the loam and his hands to the shovel, they wouldn’t be tempted to stray places they shouldn’t.
He took the implement from her and attacked the soil with a vengeance, wishing he could excise the lust from his soul as readily as a weed from the earth. He dug and turned the soil, smashing clods with the back of the spade, casting rocks from the beds into the pile of weeds. Yard by yard, he let the shovel chew up and spit out the loam.
If only his own life were so simply turned over.
If only he could bury his corrupt past as neatly as last year’s depleted soil.
If only he could be content with his lot as a priest.
By God, he decided, driving the spade hard into the earth, he would make himself content. He would embody the priesthood even more fully, embrace the joy of serenity, the love of simplicity, the satisfaction with poverty. He would pay even less heed to his corporeal shell, work toward a more divine existence. He would prostrate himself before beggars, give the last shred of his garments to the poor, spend half the day in prayer. He’d do whatever it took, he vowed, turning over a worm-riddled clod of dirt, to make this sinful longing go away.
Cynthia paused in her labors and leaned against her rake. She blew at the lock of hair that had fallen out of her wimple and watched Garth curiously. The man half strangled the spade in his fists, and if there were any bulbs left beneath the soil, they’d surely been split asunder by his aggressive gouging.
Yet something about that unbridled strength aroused her. Garth’s back strained against the wool of the cassock, dampening it, and his forearms bulged with each plunge of the shovel. Moisture peppered his forehead and glistened on his hands. Like a hard-driven plow horse, he chuffed through his nose. She wondered if her arms could even reach around that broad back, wondered how his heavy breathing would feel against her ear.
Gulping, she forced her attention back to the rake. Mending Garth’s spirit was a delicate process, and involving him in Wendeville’s daily regimen was
only the first step. She couldn’t afford to let misplaced emotions sabotage her noble intentions.
She swept her arm across the sundial in the middle of the garden, scattering leaves, and returned to clearing the straw from the rosebushes, concentrating on the rhythm of the rake and the task at hand. Before long, immersed in her work, she began to hum an old madrigal to herself.
She’d started on the sixth verse when she noticed that Garth had ceased working. He was staring at her most oddly. She wondered vaguely if she’d been singing out of tune. Then she remembered a rather nasty alternate set of lyrics she’d once heard to the same harmless madrigal, something vulgar about a Scotsman taking his cock and ballocks to sell at market.
Her face tightened, and she felt the blood rise in her cheeks. Her hands fidgeted on the rake.
“Do you know the tune?” she asked with brittle innocence. “It’s all about a maid selling her stock at the fair.” She chewed at her bottom lip. Lord, why had she chosen that song? “And a pretty penny she got for them, too.” She could hear herself babbling, but couldn’t stop. “The cock crowed for Matins every morn, and the oxen, they were the biggest pair of bullocks…”
Garth’s eyes widened.
Shite, she’d done it now—offended him and dug herself into a hole big enough for a tree. Madly, she scanned the garden for another topic.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her eyes locking onto the sundial. “Will you look at that? Noon already! You must be famished!” She propped the rake and, to hide her embarrassment, busied herself with the contents of the food basket cached against the shaded wall. Pulling forth the linen tablecloth, she turned toward Garth. “Cook was good enough to…”
Before her, with bowed head, Garth knelt in the dirt. For one ludicrous instant, she imagined he was worshipping at her feet. Then she realized that noon was time for prayer at the monastery. Since friars couldn’t always go running to the chapel to say their devotions, they often knelt in the field.
At first, Cynthia glanced away, feeling like an intruder on his silent conversation with the Lord. But as the prayer dragged on and on, she let her eyes stray to him.
His great, muscular hands were clasped before him, and he rested his forehead on grimy knuckles. He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration, and his lips moved rapidly, though soundlessly, through Latin syllables. Now and then his nostrils would flare passionately and his forehead crease, and Cynthia bit her lip to still her wicked thoughts, thoughts that had him voicing such earnest devotions to her.
Garth only knew so many devotions. And he couldn’t go on saying them all day. No matter how safe it made him feel to hide in prayer, he was going to have to face her. And it wouldn’t be easy, not with the ribald lyrics to that madrigal buzzing about his head between the words of prayer. He reluctantly made the sign of the cross and came slowly to his feet.
“I have a surprise,” Cynthia offered, squatting like a little child beside the basket of provisions.
The bridge of her nose now featured an endearing streak of mud. Wisps of her hair had slowly wormed their way out of the pristine wimple. It looked as if a wild orange cat perched atop her head, eager to escape its linen prison. He itched to tug the cloth off, to see her brilliant tresses pour down like liquid copper in the sun.
She was humming again, an innocuous roundelay this time, as she shook a linen cloth out briskly, letting it float down to the sod in a large square.
“Sit,” she directed, doing so herself.
He hesitated, but the faint rumbling in his stomach made his decision for him. He sank down upon the blanket, tucking the cassock austerely about his legs.
She plunged the basket down before him, grinning. He looked at it, then at her.
“Well, take it out.” She chuckled, wiggling her adorable toes in the sunshine.
He turned his attention to the bundles of food tucked into the basket. The smells were divine. Despite his misgivings, he began to feel like a child with Christmas packages as he unwrapped fish and shrimp, bread and preserved fruit. Soon, the tablecloth was spread with flagons of wine and platters of food piled high enough for a small retinue.
“I’ll wager you haven’t tasted the like in some time,” she said with a wink.
It was true. Monastery fare was simple and monotonous. He hadn’t eaten bread this fine since he lived at Castle de Ware. The claret trickled, deliciously cool, down his throat. But his appetite was not as robust as it had once been. After a small piece of grayling, half an apple tart, and a few figs, he sat back, content to watch her finish.
It was a grave mistake.
She took a dainty bite of a tart with teeth as perfect as a row of pearls, and golden juices trickled down her chin. Her tongue darted out to lap them up, but a smudge remained that begged to be licked off.
Garth averted his eyes, pretending to study a crack in the garden wall. When his gaze was drawn inexorably back, the smudge was thankfully gone.
“I must commend Cook on these tarts,” she said. “I think the pinch of ginger makes all the difference.”
She sipped her wine, her lips a delicate blush against the cold silver as she parted them for the jewel-red liquid. She sampled the candied orange peels with a sigh of rapture, her eyes rolling in undisguised ecstasy as she licked her sticky fingers one by one.
Garth’s thighs tensed. His loins tingled with familiar heat. Did she know what she was doing to him? She’d been a man’s wife. Couldn’t she recognize the signs of desire? His cassock could only hide so much. Hell, he had to leave. Now.
Yet he found he was no more capable of escaping than a galley caught in a whirlpool.
She drained the last of her claret. A drop fell from the cup onto the top of her bosom like a single crimson tear, then trickled down, disappearing beneath the fabric of her kirtle onto her breast. Garth shivered. He could vividly imagine caressing her there. She’d be soft, warm. And the taste of the claret upon her flesh…
He prayed she couldn’t see the erratic rise and fall of his chest as he fought to breathe steadily, couldn’t feel the charge in the air as powerful as a summer storm, nor detect the trembling in his arms as he handed her his empty platter.
He’d never felt so torn. Part of him longed to rest his head in the lap of this woodland nymph, to listen to her sing madrigals, to lie back, sipping claret and gazing up at the budding branches of spring like some spoiled pagan god. But part of him wanted to run headlong back to the chapel, nay, all the way back to the monastery, to shut himself in his cell and never emerge again.
In the end, he did neither. Fate took pity on him. Lady Cynthia, declaring that planting past noon was inauspicious, gathered up the remains of the feast and released him from her service.
CHAPTER 9
Yesterday, it had been more difficult than she’d imagined for Cynthia to let Garth go, but she’d seen the cloaked desperation in his eyes. He’d been overwhelmed, perhaps by the richness of the food or the decadence of the sunlight. Like a novice gardener, she’d nearly killed him with nurturing, thinking to force his blossoming. She’d so desired to see him surrender to his earthy longings, at least kick off his boots or loosen his cassock belt and enjoy the glory of the spring day.
But Garth had lived four years behind gray monastery walls with grim monastery dictates. Change wouldn’t come overnight. And as impatient as she was for his rebirth, she knew the merit of letting things bloom in their own time.
This morn, however, was a new day, and when she arrived at sunrise, to her astonishment, Garth was already in the privy garden, stooped over a row of seedlings with a ewer of water. She swept silently across the dewy grass, slowing her pace at the archway to watch him. His back was to her, and amber glints shone in his hair as the sun softly kissed each curl in turn. The contours of his muscles, displayed in relief beneath his cassock, made her stomach flutter in a most inappropriate way.
Still he didn’t notice her. Her heart dancing a nervous jig, she crept up behind him as quietly as she could. Then, li
ttle more than a yard away, she grinned mischievously and sang out, “Good morning, Father Garth!”
He whipped around so quickly, his eyes wide with shock, that he nearly lost his balance. She burst out laughing. The humor of the situation must have struck him as well, for before he could suppress it, he rewarded her with a sheepish smile.
Throwing her instantly off balance.
Until now, she’d never appreciated the full measure of Garth’s charm. Nor how dangerous he was. She’d glimpsed his appeal before in small details—the way his thick, tawny hair curled deliciously down onto his neck, his shoulders, broad enough to carry the weight of the world, the idle strength in his hands, so splendid to behold. But the warmth of his smile…ah, that made him devastatingly handsome. His eyes crinkled delightedly at her little jest, and the curve of his mouth was curiously inviting. All at once, she was the one unable to speak.
But in the prolonged interval of silence, Garth gradually sobered. He turned his gaze from her and gestured awkwardly toward the half dozen buckets of water around him.
“Aye, good,” she said, her voice breaking like a twelve-year-old lad’s. “The new plants should be kept damp.”
She thought perhaps she could do with a dousing of cold water herself. The sun had only just risen, and already her blood ran hot.
Garth resumed working without another word, laboring tirelessly through the morning.
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