Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero by Glynnis Campbell Page B

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