Growling in frustration, Damien curled forward, burying his head in his hands and trying to force the thoughts from his mind. Sweet mercy, this wasn’t helping. He was supposed to be strengthening his self-control, damn it, not giving in to all kinds of fantasies about the woman who tempted him beyond all imagining.
“Is the act of praying still so painful for you, then?”
The kind voice drifted to Damien from across the sanctuary, and he looked up to see Ben—good, steadfast Ben—approaching him.
“That is not the dilemma I struggle with this day, friend,” Damien admitted as Ben came close enough to ease down beside him in the pew with a groaning sigh, “though, aye, the peace of it still eludes me.”
Nodding with a half smile at the grimace Ben made while stretching back against the rigid wood of the pew, Damien added, “And what is this? Working so late illuminating a text for Father Michael again that you fell asleep on the table and earned a stiff neck?”
“Nay, Damien, this discomfort is your fault.”
“How so?”
“It is the result of that infernal training you have had me assist you in giving the men.” Ben rubbed at his neck, softening his criticism with a smile as he added, “I am not the youth I once was, I’ll grant you. But I am also no warrior, and the repetition of those blade sequences is going to do me in long before an enemy’s weapon, I think. As a man of the cloth, I’m far more suited to tasks involving vellum and ink than sword and shield.”
“I don’t know about that,” Damien said in a sly tone that pulled Ben’s gaze to him, just in time for him to crown his comment with its intended jest. “You do quite well, I’d say, for an old man.”
That earned him a response that was half shove and half punch, and he laughingly fended Ben off before sitting forward with a sigh to rest his forearms on his knees. His smile lessened, and he gazed up at the altar, not really focusing on anything, as he said, “In truth, friend, you should count your blessings that the men are all you need concern yourself with in the area of training.”
A beat of silence passed.
“You refer to the rather unusual instruction you have been providing to Lady Alissende, I take it?” Ben asked, in a tone that should have warned Damien then and there to let this drop. But he was too wrapped in his own misery to heed his instincts.
“Aye,” he replied, still staring into the sanctuary. “Curse my eyes for having conceived the practice to begin with.”
Another pause ensued, though it was charged with a kind of tension that was impossible to ignore—a feeling strong enough to make Damien swing his head to the side to look at Ben. He caught his friend studying him, as if trying to discern something of importance.
“What?”Damien asked.
Ben shrugged, trying to look innocent. “I was only going to say that I happened to be passing by the courtyard yestermorn when you were engaged in Lady Alissende’s instruction, and what I saw seemed very…interesting.”
“Is that so?”
“Aye.”
Damien’s lips tightened, and he knew that he should simply change the topic. Or come right out and tell Ben he wasn’t going to talk about it. Or leave.
But he suddenly realized that perhaps he’d come to the chapel for a reason. Perhaps heneededto talk about what was happening, to someone who might listen without judging him too harshly. The way Alex used to do.
A wash of grief swept over him unawares, and his breath caught. Though he and his brother had not always seen eye to eye on many issues, they had always shared an understanding and a sense of solidarity that Damien hadn’t realized he’d been missing so strongly until just now.
Keeping his gaze steady on Ben, Damien decided to give it a try. “Would you care to expound upon what you deemed so interesting?”
“I thought you would never ask.” His friend leaned back, clearly making himself comfortable. “But now that you have—”
Damien shot him a look that warned him to get on with it before he changed his mind.
“—I must say that the first impression I took from what I saw was that I was watching two people very adept at putting on a performance. Either that, or I was witnessing the amorous sport between a man and woman truly in love with each other.”
The silence was so thick in the moments following that unbelievable comment that Damien felt choked by it…though the thought crossed his mind that his inability to draw in breath likely had more to do with the statement Ben had made than suffocating quiet.
“Well…” Ben amended gruffly, waving his hand in response to Damien’s horrified expression. “Perhaps ‘in love’ is too strong a term. I should have said you appeared to be two people who arefallingin love. That would be more apt, I think.”
“It’s hardly better,” Damien managed to say.
“It is what I discerned,” Ben said frankly, shrugging again. “You asked, and I told you. You cannot fault me for that.”
“I do not fault you,” Damien retorted, recovered from his shock enough to scowl. “But that does not mean I don’t think you’ve gone a bit daft on me.”
