Prelude to Heaven by Laura Lee Guhrke Page A

a moment ago, was suddenly pale. “Are you forbidding me to work in the garden?”
    “Yes,” he said sharply. Letting go of her wrists, he raised angry hands to the sky. “What are you thinking of? Out here during the warmest part of the day, on your knees and pulling weeds in your condition?” His voice rose with his anger and agitation. “Have a care for the babe you carry, mademoiselle! No more!”
    He was so frustrated and so preoccupied with his lecture that he did not hear her sharp, indrawn breath. But when he seized the hat and moved to slap it down on her head, she ducked and flinched, holding up her arm in a defensive gesture.
    He paused, the hat poised over her, and he was dismayed by the realization of what she thought he’d been about to do.
    “ Mon Dieu .” He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling a little sick in his guts. Moving slowly, gently, he grasped her wrist and pulled her arm down, then placed the hat on her head. “This must stop, mademoiselle,” he said in a quiet voice. “You are working much too hard. I cannot allow you to injure yourself or the babe.”
    He watched her slowly relax. Her gaze lifted to his face and he added, “I don't want to spend another week nursing you when you drop from exhaustion. Is that understood?”
    When she nodded, he rose and pulled her to her feet. “I will weed the garden, mademoiselle. As for you,” he added as he led her several feet away to the base of a huge chestnut tree. “You will sit here in the shade and rest.”
    As she sank to the ground beside the tree, he turned to walk back to the garden, adding over his shoulder, “And from now on, when you go out into the sun, always wear a hat. Your skin is fair, and the Provence sun is fierce. You will burn if you are not more careful.”
    He began weeding the garden, trying to figure out what it was about him that she feared so much. True, some of the villagers were wary of him, but Tess couldn't know about that. He knew he was a large man, much larger than the petite woman now sitting under the chestnut tree, but he didn't think he was a man who truly frightened women. Certainly, he'd never frightened Anne-Marie. They had quarreled nose to nose, shouting at the top of their lungs many times. Never had she flinched or trembled. But then, he and Anne-Marie had known each other since childhood. To this woman, he was a stranger. She couldn't know about his past or the rumors surrounding him, or she would never have come here. But perhaps she could simply look at him and know what he was responsible for.
    He wished that what he had done three years ago could be undone. But it couldn't. He couldn't forget the past, he couldn't erase it. It would always come back to haunt him. And he would never be able to forgive himself.
     
    ***
     
    He had raised his voice, but that was all. He hadn’t hit her; in fact, if the astonishment on his face had been anything to go by, the thought of doing so had never even entered his mind. The tension left her suddenly, washing away on a powerful wave of relief, and she sank back against the tree, tossing aside the hat. He’d been angry, yes, but not angry with her. He’d been angry for her. So long, Tess thought, since anyone had bothered to worry about her. Too long.
    She watched him as he worked at an unhurried but steady pace, his tall body bending to pull handfuls of weeds then straightening to toss them aside with a rhythm and economy of movement that were somehow fascinating to watch.
    At the end of the row, he paused, took a glance at the sun still high overhead, and undid the three buttons of his shirt. He pulled the white linen garment over his head and tossed it aside, then brushed his forearm across his forehead and bent again to his task.
    Tess stared at him, unable to help noticing the strength that rippled along every chiseled contour of his body, from the long legs encased in tight black trousers to the knotted muscles of his bare chest and back and over