Page 19 of The Bodyguard Who Came in from the Cold
For a moment he almost smiled, but caught himself in time.
She went back to her task.
He tried not to show his distaste as he braced himself with one hand and plucked a weed.
“That’s parsley,” Margery said, laughter in her voice.
“Oh.” He buried the roots, telling himself that the warmth in his face was from the sun.
“This is harder than it looks. You don’t weed much, do you?”
“I buy or am served the food I need. It is not my task to grow it.”
“Ah, then farming is beneath you.”
“Nothing is beneath me.” He gritted his teeth. “Why do you do such menial tasks? Surely your maidservants are competent.”
“I can already tell that, by the beautiful care they’ve taken with the gardens. But I am trying to meet all of the castle folk. I thought that if I joined them in their work, even if only for a few hours, they might grow to accept me sooner.”
He looked at her bent head. He wondered if there was a selfish reason behind all this.
For a time they worked in silence, Gareth following her lead as to which were weeds. The sun beat warmly down on their backs, and the gentle buzz of bees mixed with the murmuring of the twins’ voices. His mind drifted lazily, thinking of nothing in particular, and he almost forgot his purposes here.
Then a sour twist of nausea struck him without warning, and he barely resisted the urge to gasp. When he closed his eyes, he didn’t see blackness, but a swirling maelstrom of colors trying to form a picture.Not now; not with Margery so close.He put a hand to his head, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and tried as always to force the coming vision away.
His head began to ache, and suddenly the colors in his mind coalesced into Margery riding a horse, a man astride behind her. The vision vanished as fast as it came, leaving him with no clue to the man’s face, no knowledge of her emotions. He couldn’t even tell if she was in danger. Why was he sent such useless visions, he wondered, with a wave of self-loathing.
“Gareth?”
He heard Margery’s voice as if from far away. He forced himself to look at her, squinting as the sun pulsed through his eyes like his headache.
“Gareth, are you ill? You’ve become so pale.”
He focused on her worried face. “I am fine. I thought I’d beheaded another parsley plant.”
5
Margery knew a falsehood when she heard it. His face had drained of color, the skin about his eyes was creased in the corners with sudden strain. And his gaze seemed remote, as if he no longer saw the ground—or her.
“Gareth, I have never met a man who would admit to gardening, let alone do so in full view of the entire castle.” For a long moment, she didn’t think he’d answer.
When he finally spoke, he sounded distant, preoccupied. “I’ve always preferred to be outdoors.”
She gave up. If he couldn’t be bothered to make conversation, then neither would she. She felt so alone in the world, so weighted down by her problems and her guilt that her head was spinning in circles. The sun was hot, her eyes ached, and his presence was suddenly too unsettling.
She stood up, and he rose to his feet beside her. She handed the basket of weeds to one of the kitchen maids. The girl bobbled the basket, she was so busy ogling Gareth. When he actually noticed the maid, she almost lost her hold on the basket completely.
Suppressing a groan of frustration, Margery marched out of the garden, not even bothering to ask if Anne and Cicely wanted to accompany her inside. She felt irrationally angry, miserable, defeated. She would leave the twins in Gareth’s capable hands.
But when she glanced over her shoulder, he was there behind her, taking one stride to her two, looking determined—and so handsome he outshone the day. She felt like she’d never know a moment of peace again. She picked up her pace, climbing the steps two at a time into the great hall.
She could tell by the interested expressions of the people they passed that he was still behind her. She entered a corridor, and after the first turn, the sounds of the great hall vanished. She was alone with Gareth, who followed her from one circle of torchlight to the next. He was so close she could hear his breathing.
Suddenly, Margery could take no more. Gareth was a stunning reminder of her problem every time she looked at him.
She whirled around and planted a hand on his chest. “You cannot follow me everywhere. My people will begin to talk—and not in a flattering manner.”
He pushed her hand away as if her touch repulsed him.
