Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero

by Glynnis Campbell

  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 knew he needed to be alone. Too many things could happen if they were alone together on a sultry evening like this one.

  He shouldn’t.

  And yet his feet carried him forward, toward the inviting gap in the garden wall.

  Slowly the gate swung inward under his hand. It creaked low, widening the wedge of light. A few pale apple blossoms fluttered to the ground, glowing softly in the refined light.

  And then he saw her.

  She sat on the sod bench between the deep shadows of the willow, bathed in moonlight. Her sorrowful face was turned toward him, as if she’d been weeping and waiting for him forever.

  He held his breath, wanting only to look at her. God—she was beautiful, more stunning than the stars. How he longed to hold this moment for all eternity. He stood absolutely quiet, certain that breathing, speaking, moving, might destroy the fragile bond that mere gazing forged.

  Yet, however he yearned for her, he was also her friend and her priest. So against his better instincts, his feet propelled him forward. He pressed the gate closed behind him, slumping back against it, knowing as he did that he sealed his fate as well.

  There was no turning back.

  A whiff of cursed jasmine beckoned him. Taking a deep surrendering breath, he walked toward her. Shadows of branches snaked over his cassock like Eden’s serpent, as if in warning. And yet, he could no more resist the temptation to go to her than Adam could resist Eve.

  She waited for him, her hands clasped patiently in her lap, till he stood but an arm’s length away. Her eyes shone translucent and trusting and deeply melancholy as they searched his face, the filtered moonlight glazing them to a pewter sheen. Shadows of leaves played across her parted lips. Once, he thought with a twinge of yearning, he had tasted those lips. They were sweet and warm and yielding.

  He wouldn’t think about it.

  “My lady, you should be in bed.”

  “Should I have let the boy die?” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Is that what troubles you?”

  How fragile she looked, like a newborn fawn, unsure where to step. He wanted to curse Philip for planting such doubt into her head.

  “Maybe it was God’s will,” she said brokenly.

  He seized her by the shoulders, forcing her gaze to his. “God gave you that gift. It’s a wondrous thing. He meant for you to use it. Never doubt that.”

  “But Philip—“

  “To hell with Philip!” She flinched at his words, and he could have bitten his tongue. “Forgive me. It’s not my place to…judge. But Philip doesn’t understand your gift. However well-meaning he is, he’ll never accept it.”

  She lowered her head. “I don’t love him, you know,” she confessed in a whisper. “I never did. I only wanted to please Roger and Elspeth and John and the people of Wendeville. But I don’t love him.”

  Garth blew out a long and shaky breath.

  She continued. “And I fear I’ll dishonor him if I wed him while…”

  A tendril of hair blew softly across her face. Without thinking, he reached down and brushed the silky strand back from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “While?”

  She caught his wrist gently, like a child trapping a sparrow. She closed her eyes and pressed his hand against the warm column of her neck.

  Despite her serene countenance, he could feel her pulse beating wildly against his palm. A rush of pleasure shot through him at the heat of her touch, so long imagined, so long denied.

  “While my heart belongs to another,” she murmured.

  His heart careened recklessly against his ribs. He should pull back, he knew. She was a lady, and he… But he’d known that when he stepped across the threshold. It was too late now. Desire tugged at him like the tenacious undercurrent of the sea.

  “It’s you I love,” she whispered. “It’s always been you.” She turned her head slightly, and he felt her moist breath upon his hand. She placed a tender kiss in his palm, then another, and another. He watched in wonder, breathless, as she worshipped his fingers one by one, her own breath fluttery and uncertain, her eyes squeezed as if in delicious torment.

  “We mustn’t,” he choked out.

  She caressed the tip of his finger with her tongue, and a charge like lightning seared his loins. His legs weakened, and he sucked a sigh hard between his teeth. A roaring grew inside his head, like a feral lion demanding release.

  “Nay,” he growled.

  He’d fought that lusting animal before and won, just barely. But it had grown s
ince then into a snarling, raging beast, blotting out the quiet voice of reason.

  He was powerless to resist.

  With a groan, he sank to his knees before her. Furrowing both hands into her hair, he surged forward to claim her mouth.

  Her gasp of pleasure fed his passion. He answered her with hungry grunts, nipping at her parted lips. His hands moved over her with a will of their own, finding every part of her soft and warm and supple.

  He kissed his way toward the shelter of her neck, a starving man who’d dreamt often of this feast, and she eagerly bared her throat to him. He whispered wordlessly against her ear, and she shivered in his arms, clutching feverishly at the front of his cassock. With deft fingers, he threw back her cloak and loosened her surcoat.

  His groin tightened with need as he reached tenderly inside her underdress and found the precious curve of her breast. It was like velvet, its tip puckered into a tiny rosebud. He freed her from the dress’s confines and let his mouth take suckle at the sweet flesh.

  She moaned in encouragement, letting her hands move down over the woolen folds of his cassock. He gasped as she discovered what she sought through the wool, fully erect, throbbing with a burden of seed. And at last, the pressure of her fingers against him shocked him to reason.

  “Nay!” he cried, pushing away from her, stumbling back against the punishing stones of the garden wall, one hand holding his cassock closed, the other across his sinning mouth.

  Cynthia staggered, trying to catch her breath. Her gown hung off one shoulder, her breast bare to the breeze. But, reeling from the heady drink of passion, she was past care.

  Aye, she belonged to another. Aye, she was breaking her sacred oath to God. But she longed to have Garth for her own, whatever the consequences. She’d pay, even if it meant the damnation of her soul, if he would only hold her in his arms again, kiss her, and admit his love.

  But he slouched against the wall, clutching his cassock to him as if it were a talisman. His face was a study of suffering. His eyes blazed with anguish, with desire, and with something more.

  Victory.

  He thought he’d won the war over his emotions. He thought he could simply withdraw from the battlefield and win.

  But she’d come this far. She’d risked telling him the truth, bared her heart to him as well as her body. And she had no intention of giving up the fight.

  “What is it you fear?” she whispered, taking a step toward him.

  He pulled back, stiffening against the wall.

  “Why do you resist what we both desire?” She took another step.

  His jaw tensed. He looked as wary as a cat cornered by a mastiff.

  “You want me,” she murmured, moving close enough to catch the compelling scent of vanilla and wood smoke on his skin. “And God knows I want you.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block the truth by blinding himself to it.

  “You’re not a monk anymore. What wrong can there be…?” she said, clasping his forearms lightly.

  Cat-quick, he turned his hands to trap her wrists away from him, searing her with a fiery glare.

  “Leave me!” he hissed.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why?” She was so close to hurt now, she could taste it. But she had to know. She searched his eyes for the answer. “Is it…Mariana?”

  “What?” he exploded. “How do you know about—“

  “You cried out her name before.” She felt the painful prick of a blade at her heart, but she had to discover the truth. “Is it Mariana? Is she the one you love?”

  “Nay.” He scowled at her as if she were crazed. “Nay.”

  “Then why do you turn me away?”

  “Leave me,” he snarled. “Go to Philip…or another. It’s no matter. But I have nothing to give you. I have nothing to give any woman.”

  His voice was harsh, and his hands were uncompromising on her wrists, but as she gazed into his eyes, she saw something entirely different.

  A plea…a desperate plea. He wanted her to prove him wrong.

  “Nay,” she breathed. “That isn’t true. You have enough for me. You’ve always—“

  “Nay!” he said, shaking her once. “You don’t know. You can’t know.”

  “Can’t know what?” she persisted. “That you suffer pangs of desire? You tell me I must not refuse the gift that God has given me, and yet you refuse the manhood He has given you. Would you deny that you feel the cravings of any mortal man?”

  “But I’m not a man!” he blurted, turning with her then and pinning her against the stone wall, his face contorting in anguish. “I’m only half a man!”

  She didn’t know what he meant. But she could see pain in his eyes as profound as the sea. And she wanted nothing more than to ease that pain.

  “Then let me make you whole,” she whispered.

  The tiniest flicker of hope entered his eyes before he lowered his gaze to her lips, focusing there with the savage hunger of a wolf. His tongue flitted quickly over his lower lip, and his nostrils flared.

  “Let me make you—“ she repeated, but already his mouth had found hers.

  He kissed her ravenously, fiercely, as if he feared it might be his last chance. Groaning, he swept his tongue fully across her lips, parting them. She moaned as he released her wrists and tangled his fingers in her hair, tilting her head to gain entrance to her mouth, plunging his tongue inside to mate with hers.

  Lord, he was strong, stronger than John had ever been, stronger than Philip would ever be, so strong that a thrill of something akin to fear coursed up her spine.

  Suddenly, her limbs felt worthless, and she grew as limp as a cloth doll. Somehow, she clung to his cassock as he laid siege to her lips, but how she stayed on her feet, she couldn’t tell. The place between her legs swelled with yearning, as if she might burst. Once, his thigh brushed against her there, and she gasped with the painful pleasure of it. Vaguely, she grew aware of the pressure against her belly as Garth hardened.

  She let her fingers slip down then to scrabble at his belt, but she was too distracted to untangle the knot. She murmured a curse against his mouth.

  He untied it himself, his lips never leaving hers, and when he opened his cassock, she let her fingers drift through the crisp curls he revealed. There she discovered, with a hushed gasp of wonder, his hard, warm staff, almost menacing in its size. With a shiver, she enclosed him gently in her palm. He drew in a rough breath, and his fingers tightened on her shoulders. She closed her eyes and nearly swooned, imagining that silken length inside her.

  Then, with a soft cry, she hiked up her skirts, laying her head back upon the stones. He heaved one awe-filled sigh and lifted her up, bracing her against the wall. His well-muscled thighs felt like fire as they spread hers. His breath rasped against her ear, murmuring endearments, begging entrance.

  She sighed in answer.

  And then he was there, impossibly huge, impossibly hot, poised to penetrate her.

  She couldn’t wait. Inch by slow inch, she sheathed him herself, reveling in his low groan as her skin pulled taut and her muscles strained to contain him. Dear God—she feared she might explode. And yet, there was something about the tightness, something about the way he slid against her…

  “Oh!”

  He pressed deeply up into her, and she shuddered with pleasure, her fingers digging into the thick muscle of his shoulders.

  “Oh, God,” he growled. “Cynthia.”

  To her astonishment, tears gathered in her eyes. She wanted to stay here forever, joined with this man, filled by him. She wanted to bask in their completeness.

  But such was not the way of things with men, in her experience. This sweet lethargy wouldn’t last long. She had to work quickly.

  She drew away, biting her lip at the exquisite friction of his flesh gliding against hers. Then, ignoring her selfish desires and that instinctive, languorous rhythm that called to her, she initiated the brisk pattern of motion she knew well.

  Garth clenched
his teeth against the incredible sensation. It had been four years since he’d been enveloped by warm womanflesh. And yet mating with Mariana had been nothing like this. Cynthia was far softer, sweeter, comforting. Faith, if she didn’t slow down…

  “Wait,” he managed to gasp.

  Everything was happening too fast, with too much intensity. He’d be spent in another instant, leaving her behind, if she continued moving so quickly.

  “Wait!”

  Using sheer willpower and against all his instincts, he stopped her frenzied thrashing, hoisting her in one easy movement from the wall onto the grassy bench carved into the sod. He swooped down upon her, trapping every silky, lissome, soul-wrenching bit of her beneath him. Then he plunged with languid grace into her wet, welcoming haven.

  This was where she belonged. Here he was master. Here he could pleasure her at his own pace, as long as he could control his own seething ardor.

  “Aye,” he sighed, trembling with the restraint of four long years. “Aye.”

  Cynthia arched up in a tempest of confusion and ecstasy. This was wrong. She was supposed to sit astride him. It had always been thus before. But Garth had her pinned like a moth under a cat’s paw. He blinded her, blotting out the moon with his great bulk, so that she could see only him. He smothered her so she could scarcely move. Surely she’d be crushed beneath him.

  And yet, it felt so right. She could breathe after all, enough to relish the intoxicating masculine scent of him. And she felt no desire to look upon anything other than his face. His flesh melded to hers like molten steel, and that part of him nesting deep within her…

  Ah, God—he moved…slowly, elegantly, like a dance. He forced her to feel every inch of him as he withdrew and then pressed inward again with languorous grace. His hands caught her face with utmost tenderness, his thumb brushing across her lower lip before he bent to steal a kiss.

  Crickets chirped lazily in the distance, and the wind soughed through the trees overhead, but all other sounds grew muffled as Garth groaned and murmured against her ear.

  Her whole body began to tingle, the way it did when she performed a healing, but the heat centered at the point where their bodies joined and spread inexorably outward like consuming fire. Every stroke was a breath fueling the flame.