Savior caught up with her, shortening his stride to walk beside her. “Don’t worry about the dog.” Amusement gilded his voice. “Judging by that missing ear, he wasn’t raised in a convent. He had quite a life before he came to you.”
She watched him out of the corner of her eye. The more she saw him, the harder it was to picture him with wings. “So did you.”
He didn’t frown, exactly, but his face changed as if he had dropped a cloak over it. “Any soldier has.”
He was much more than a simple fighting man, but talk of his special relationship with God seemed to annoy him. “Have you see much of the world?”
“Enough.” He used words as sparingly as a monk.
“Tell me of God’s world.”
“You’ve never left the convent?”
“Only to go to the castle.” Trips she wanted to forget. At least the encounters with Sir Richard. “Is it true there are dragons at the edge of the sea?”
“I have only been as far as France. And the Widow Cropton has described the countryside in more detail than I ever could.” Amusement softened the lines etched in his face. Unlike the stern saints in the portraits, he seemed to tolerate human frailties. Except hers. “But let us enjoy today. War is no subject for a summer’s day stroll with a lovely lady.”
She studied his eyes to see if he made fun of her, but they were warm and no longer angry. She was no lady, but the word made her stand a little straighter and she lifted the hair that hung down in front of her and flipped it over her shoulder, wondering if that was the sin of vanity.
“What is a subject for a stroll with a lady?” she asked. “Talking is not allowed in the Priory.” And when she did talk, the Prioress always scolded her. When she wrote, she could ponder every word.
“The beauty of the day.” His voice turned husky. “The beauty of her eyes.”
Startled, she turned. His eyes, gazing into hers, were deep green, the dark lashes were straight and thick. And she felt as if he had reached inside of her and touched something around her heart. Or her stomach.
Some instinct kept her feet moving as she looked down at the footworn path. “The Prioress calls them Devil’s eyes.”
He muttered something she could not hear. “No chivalrous knight would do so. He would compare them to the brilliant blue of a predawn sky.”
“Yours are more like green leaves with the brown tree bark showing through.”
His laughter stung like a slap. She had said something wrong again.
“That is not the expected response,” he said, smiling.
Well, at least she had not made him angry again. “Why not? You said something about my eyes. Shouldn’t I say something about yours?”
“No. You should sigh and blush.”
She did both. “I’ve never talked to a man for very long.” “I don’t know all the rules. It seems very confusing.”
He squinted toward the sun. “The world is a confusing place.”
“Which is why I belong at the Priory. Perhaps talk of the Lord would please you,” she said, hopeful.
“Nothing would please me less.”
At least the Priory’s rule of silence prevented awkward situations such as this one. Perhaps he would want to talk about his home and family. “Where did you grow up?”
His look was sharp. “It doesn’t matter.”
Heat flushed her cheeks again, but instead of the sun or a blush, she felt the sin of anger. “Did I say something wrong again? You wanted to talk. Sighing and blushing do not lead to lengthy discourse.”
His glance, hot and brief, burned her cheeks. “Discourse is not why we talk.”
His meaning was as unfamiliar as Latin used to be. She did not belong here. She longed for the familiar routine, where she knew what to do every minute of the day. There was never any doubt about what words to chant to God. “My presence displeases you. I shall withdraw. Again, I thank you for your kindness to Sister Marian.”
She turned her back on him and walked the late afternoon hours beside the Widow Cropton, who did not expect her to talk. By supper, she had heard the widow recount her journey from Calais to Paris on her way to Compostela.
And Dominica had picked out a few words she would write about The Savior.
He had made a mess of it, Garren thought, trudging alone toward the west-moving sun. She would never talk to him again.
Habit kept his eyes flickering from one side of the road to the other; kept his ears open for the clop of unfamiliar hooves. Even here, on Readington lands, thieves might prey on pilgrims. But today, he saw only yellow buttercups bobbing atop tall, thin green stems; heard only sparrows cheeping cheerily.
No one approached him. Behind him, the pilgrims clustered around the Widow, listening to her prattle. Was it Dominica who chuckled? He should have been the one to coax her laughter.
Instead, he had growled like an irascible wild boar and she fled. The charm that had captivated the women of France deserted him.
Well, it wasn’t entirely his fault. How was he to seduce a woman who knew nothing of the game? How could he bed one who kept her eyes on God instead of on the wonders of life before her?
He filled his lungs with sweet English air, savoring the moment of peace. Today was all he had. The past was too painful. And the future? He knew the futility of trying to earn your place in heaven. God snatched away the good as quickly as the wicked.
And she was definitely one of the good. Or perhaps she had never faced temptation. He would tempt her. When he looked at those fathomless deep blue eyes, he knew someone would. It might as well be him.
He let his mind drift. Neeca in his arms, her hair flowing over him like honey, her breasts, round and full and responding to his lips… He was grateful that he walked ahead of the crowd, where no one could see his member respond to the thought.
It was nice that he was attracted to her. Nice, but not necessary. He was doing this for money, just as if he plied his trade with the strumpets on Rose Street.
The thought made him feel unclean.
No, not for money. Everyone wanted to make him either saint or sinner. An instrument of God or a money-grubbing mercenary. He was neither. Despite what they thought, it was not money he wanted.
I belong at the Priory, she said. Where did he belong? Not at the monastery. Where did you grow up? Garren of nowhere. Garren who had no home.
Home. He could hardly remember the look of it. Gray stone under gray skies. Brooding green trees, never changing with the seasons. One tower, or was it two? Always on the lookout. Waiting for an attack from either side of an ever shifting border. The English soldiers screaming as loudly as the Scots. He had left at age six, as each child must, never returning until those awful weeks eleven years later when Death
