Her empty stomach immediately growled, and she brought the plum to her mouth, took a tentative bite — and goodgods, it was delectable. Pure, bursting rich sweetness, exploding across her tongue, and she couldn’t help her moan as she chewed, or her sheepish smile toward Joarr’s amused eyes.
And now, finally, she was properly looking at him, for the first time since yesterday. All lean height and hard muscular edges, his cropped trousers hanging low on the cut of his hips, his messy hair glinting blue-black in the morning sun. His brow slightly lifting as he looked back at her, and for a jolting, dangling instant, there was the memory of herself on her knees on that Bautul altar, his hand caught in her hair, while that hungry strength pounded into her again and again —
Gwyn ducked her head, took another too-large bite of plum — but she could still feel that awareness snapped between them, taut and shimmering. And surely Joarr felt it too, and when she risked a glance up he was striding toward her with deceptively easy steps, his eyes glittering on her too-hot face.
“Come,” he said, reaching both hands toward her — and when she carefully edged closer, those hands grasped warm and familiar to her waist, and plucked her down. Standing her gently onto her feet before him, his bare chest brushing hers, his fingers spreading wider against her hips…
Gwyn’s eyes caught on his again, on the glinting, too-hot meaning within them. And for a bizarre, irrational breath, there was the completely ridiculous urge to put her hands to that chest, to follow the ripples of muscle in his torso. Even, perhaps, to slide lower, to acknowledge that rapidly swelling ridge at his groin, nudging into her belly. To stroke it, or maybe even to kneel down and taste, to flood her tongue with even more rich sweetness…
The knowing glint had sharpened in Joarr’s eyes, and Gwyn could feel his hand trailing away from her hip, toward his own trousers. Surely about to tug them down, so he could nudge her down too, and —
Gwyn belatedly jerked backwards, reeling into the hammock behind her. No.No. This orc could not be trusted. He’d lied to her, he’d manipulated her again and again, and she’d given him one more chance. Onelastchance. And he was supposed to be using it to show her fun, and to prove that he could help her save her garden, and outsmart Roy.Notto gain himself some gratuitous morning servicing, when he’d barely even offered her a hello.
And even more infuriating was the fact that Joarr had almost seemed tofollowall that. His eyes gone rueful, his shoulder giving one of those careless, rolling shrugs. And then he glanced sideways toward another tree-branch, his knees crouching — and in a graceful movement, he’d leapt up, grasped the branch with one hand, and swiped for a high dangling peach with the other. And then tossed it toward Gwyn, his brows still raised, a hint of a challenge now lurking at his mouth.
“You wish first for fun, then?” he asked coolly. “Or first my garden?”
His garden. The words already snapping Gwyn’s attention back toward it again, her greedy eyes drinking up the bursting greenery all around them. “The garden,” she said firmly. “I want to seeeverything.”
Joarr shrugged again, but accordingly waved her ahead of him, toward one of the twisting stone paths. And soon she was darting from one plant to the next, touching and smelling and marvelling, and casting delighted glances at Joarr’s watching form behind her.
“You have lungwort!” she exclaimed, as she gently stroked a pure-white flower. “And betony! And four different varieties of rue! Though this one might be happier if you moved it away from the mustard — they don’t like growing together, you know — and wait, are these strawberries under the sage? Those would be worth moving too, and your sage is overdue to be harvested and dried. Do you have a place where you do such things? Or do you mostly use them fresh?”
Joarr’s face was now wearing a reluctantly amused half-smile, and he jerked his head toward the nearest corner, beneath a tall pine tree. And when Gwyn rushed over to look, she discovered a cozy hidden hut tucked into the tree’s bottom branches, built out of carefully placed stones and sticks, and covered over in multiple layers of ivy. And inside — she gasped as she stepped through its little door — there was a broad wooden worktable, scattered with an assortment of tools and jars and chipped pots, and surrounded by clusters of hanging, fragrant herbs.
And like the rest of the garden, it was a completely chaotic mess — but it still seemed perfectly functional, as well. And it was a considerable size, too, and appeared watertight, and even had what looked like a littleburneron the worktable — and Gwyn couldn’t seem to stop grinning around at it all, or drifting over to smell the nearest bunch of hanging herbs.
“Rosemary,” she said, “and that’s angelica, right? And comfrey — I didn’t see that out there — and wait, are these driedmushrooms? Are you growing those out here as well?”
Joarr’s eyes were still unmistakably amused, and he gave yet another casual shrug. “Ach, some,” he said. “Shall I show you where I shall keep your plants?”
Herplants. Because yes, right, that was the major objective of this entire endeavour, and Gwyn eagerly nodded, and followed him out of the hut. Back onto the twisty stone paths, now going toward the very middle of the garden.
And here — Gwyn’s body stilled, her gaze casting upwards — was another tree. A variety she didn’t immediately recognize, and it appeared very old, twisting gnarled and knotty toward the sky, and scarcely boasting a single leaf. And beneath it, spread wide around its trunk, there was a sea of tall unkempt grasses, suggesting that this had once been a little meadow to frolic in, here in the heart of the garden.
There were even a few large low stones scattered about the meadow, as if meant for sitting or playing upon, and directly before the tree stood a particularly large stone, broad and flat, and covered over with a generous helping of moss. Looking, perhaps, not unlike…
“See?” Joarr’s voice interrupted, his hand giving a fluid wave around them. “Fresh earth, mayhap never before planted. Good for new garden.”
He wasn’t wrong, and something was oddly tugging at Gwyn’s chest — he was offering her prime space, in the middle of his truly dazzling garden? — even as her eyes flicked back to the old tree, its wizened grey branches, the moss-covered stone beneath.
“Do you think,” she said, low, “it’s appropriate, though? How” — she shot him an uncertain look — “how old is this garden, Joarr?”
Joarr’s shrug was certainly too careless this time, a hint of that mask shifting over his eyes. “I no ken. Long before my days. But if you no want this place, pick aught else you wish.”
Gwyn cast another furtive glance around at the clearing, and felt herself swallow. “Of course I want it,” she said quietly. “If you really mean to move my garden here — or even part of it — and keep it as insurance for me, I would be deeply grateful.”
For an instant, there was silence, broken only by the morning call of a sparrow — and Gwyn couldn’t at all read the look on Joarr’s face, the distance in his eyes. “Ach,” he said, his mouth curving up in not quite a smile. “And how long until you are raidingmygarden, and stealing away all you wish?”
His eyes had angled purposely toward the edge of the little meadow, to where — she froze in place — there were more chasteberry plants, grown into full-sizedshrubs. Many of them, in fact, all clustered together in an unruly mess, with a protective frame around them — and Gwyn gasped, and clutched her hands to her heart. “Joarr!” she crowed. “You have somanyof them! And” — she gasped again, her eyes darting to the distinctive, spiny seed capsules — “thornapple! How did you get it to grow in the shade like that?”
Joarr returned this with a surprisingly comprehensive reply, and soon they were embroiled in a detailed debate about nightshade propagation, while Gwyn kept dashing around the garden, and drinking up its wonders. Discovering dittany, hops, and mandrakes, an excellent compost-pile, and even, in the garden’s northwestern corner, a little waterfall pooling into a stream, providing a convenient irrigation source.
And once Gwyn had happily washed her hands and face in the fresh water, Joarr drew her up again, and led her toward the mass of oak, plum, and apple trees lining the garden’s north side. “Come,” he said, as he grasped what looked like a hanging rope, and stepped onto a low branch. “Teach you to climb, ach?”
Gwyn surely had no need to learn how to climb trees, but she couldn’t find the will to argue, either. And she even found herself intently watching as Joarr took his time stepping from branch to branch, moving higher and higher into the canopy of leaves above, all while using the rope for balance. Not as if he needed the assistance, clearly, but Gwyn could certainly see how it would be helpful. And after a bracing breath, she carefully began following him up, toward where he was now watching from a wooden platform above, his hand outstretched down toward her.
It was far more difficult than he’d made it look, and the ground below soon seemed very far away. But despite Gwyn’s sweaty hands and hammering heartbeat, she kept working her way upwards, and finally reached Joarr’s proffered hand, clasping it tight. And once he’d yanked her up, standing her on the wooden platform beside him, she couldn’t hide her triumphant grin, or her awestruck gasp at the new sights before her.
