The late evening chill finally took its toll on the worn out crowd. One by one, and sometimes in pairs, the crowd dispersed. Peter led her to sit beneath a tree, the moonlight filtering around her. She leaned back, waiting to catch her breath and he returned with a bursting skin of some sort of liquid.
“Wonderful. I am parched.” She accepted the offered skin. It was lighter than the mead and very refreshing.
“You dance well.” He rested his elbow on his bent knee where he sat beside her, his face obscured in the darkness.
“We loved to dance, my brothers and me. My mother and father, as well.”
“Brothers? How many do you have?”
Brighit handed back the skin and wiped at the juices that dripped down her chin. “I have six brothers. Well, I had six brothers.”
A cloud passed in front of the moon and she felt the weight settling back onto her shoulders. “Three of my brothers have died in battle over the years and two moved farther south to protect their wives’ clans, leaving just me and my brother. Now Tadhg is the only one who remains.”
“And he will be clan leader now?”
“At my father’s passing. He is the strongest of all the six boys. Our clan will be well guarded under his leadership.”
Not that she would ever know for sure how well they fared. The night’s happiness seemed to be slipping away. She would have liked to hold on to it a little longer.
Peter wiped his face and brushed the hair back from his forehead. The evening’s festivities had taken their toll on him or perhaps it was the Monk’s pepper. God knows his reaction watching Brighit’s shapely figure, now displayed for all to see in her well-fitted gown, dancing about in total abandonment certainly hadn’t indicated it was working. The growing urge to pull her against him and allow his hands free reign over those curves hadn’t lessened in the least. Were the Monk’s actually successful in using it to alleviate lustful thoughts? He certainly had his doubts.
“Did you find your Monk’s pepper?”
He started slightly before he realized she hadn’t read his mind but was remembering what he had been searching for earlier in the day. “Yes.”
She nodded then turned away.
“And I see you’ve been very careful with the flower you received.”
She brought the flower to her nose for the hundredth time and smiled. “Yes. I wonder how long it will last.”
“Most flowers don’t last very long once they’ve been cut off the plant.”
“That’s very true.”
“They need to be fed from the plant to stay alive. Once they’re separated, it’s just a matter of time before they wilt and die.”
She kept her eyes on the flower and nodded but the look on her face spoke volumes about her attachment to this flower.
“You can put it in water. Perhaps that will keep it alive longer.”
She nodded again.
It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps they were no longer speaking of the flower, but of her. That realization quickened the blood in his veins.
“Are you going to the Priory against your will?”
Brighit snapped her head up and looked at him with wide eyes. “Of course not. You’re not making me go.”
“Is it not where you wish us to bring you?”
She swallowed loudly, as if fighting other words that wanted to come forth, before answering. “It is where I must go.”
“I will take you wherever you want me to, Brighit. You need only ask.”
Her bright eyes remained on him, searching his features, and his temperature rose. The moment dragged on. And the monks were lying about their guarded pepper.
“No. I will honor my father’s agreement with the Priory and do as he bid me.”
