93. Lavender

I smelled it before I saw it, that herbal, earthy richness with its hint of floral and pine.

“Is this— Are we going to—”

He shushed me.

“Quiet, Edith.

Wait until the bend in the road is behind us.

You know, you are very difficult to surprise.”

The thick trees that bordered the dust road gave way to wooden fenceposts behind which was a large lavender farm, fields and fields of that purple and green, rows and rows of it.

Only in the far distance could I see another border of trees and fences where the property might have ended.

The morning’s breezes were gone and we had reached that warm part of the day where the sun began to tell Tintar that summer would come soon.

The heat and the scent combined was like a magic spell over us.

We had not seen another person in the last hour and I could see no sign of life on the farm.

It was as if time had stopped.

For just that moment, we were together and I was alive.

And the fragrance was inebriating.

I could not inhale it enough.

I turned in the saddle to face him as much as I could.

“This is so beautiful.

Thank you.”

He put his mouth to my ear.

“That is not all.

The farmer and his family are in the city.

He will allow us to walk in the fields, if you wish.

Their farm is the first farm to have a bloom.

It is too early for most, but their crop is heartier than any other variety.

And this is the field that strain grows in.

It is the only blossomed lavender in Tintar at present.

I have promised him Maggie does not have a taste for flowers.”

He paused and then asked, “Is that something you would like? To walk through it?”

Overcome with emotion, always his effect, I nodded instead of speaking.

He dismounted and helped me down.

He turned me to face him and ran a hand down the side of my head and neck.

“I like when you wear it down,”

he whispered and tucked the waves on my left behind that ear. “But,”

he continued, moving his right hand to my right side to tuck that hair behind that ear, “I like when you wear your braid crown.

Because I like to look at your neck.”

Alric put his hand under my chin, his forefinger along my jaw.

“You have said I always say the right thing,”

I replied.

“Perhaps it is you who always say it.”

“I have had a good teacher,”

he said against my lips and kissed me.

He opened a gate in the fence in front of a small path that cut through the field and we led Maggie inside, behind us.

He secured her to the fence, placing an apple on the ground at her hooves.

We walked down the path in silence until we were in the center of the field.

Beside us, the stalks were nearly as high as our knees.

I turned around in a full circle and looked at it all, an ocean of scent and blooms.

If this were to be my last afternoon of life, this was a sight to end a life on.

His arms came around me from behind and he pulled me to him.

I realized what this was, his offering in response to Helena’s news.

And then, that weight lessened, the anguish in me offering more room to my joy.

I turned in his arms and kissed him, tender but firmly, my mouth opening.

“Thank you,”

I breathed into him.

I kissed him again, my hands circling his waist.

“Lie down with me.”

“In the dirt?”

His tone was amused, his breaths one with my breaths.

I smiled.

“In the rows between the flowers.

I’m sure the farmer will not mind one small crushed section of grasses.”

“If that is what you wish, I will recompense him any destruction,”

he said and led me into the field between two of the rows where thin lines of grass separated the blooms.

We sat down and from this angle, the lavender was as high as our shoulders and we could not see the fence or the trees.

It was just the two of us and these flowers.

“You said lie, Edith,”

he reminded me and pulled me with him to the grass.

We faced each other, kissing.

Soon, I rolled on top of him, his hands on my hips, mine on his chest, lips pressed together, my hair curtaining our faces.

I lifted my face and said, “You are the finest looking man I have ever seen.”

His brows drew together, doubt in his expression.

“That is kind.”

“It is true.

I have pined after you for much longer than I will specifically admit.”

I was sultry and sated by his kindness and drunk on lavender.

“I must ask, would you judge a woman by the number of men she has had?”

He blinked, shaking his head no.

“Though I be a jealous man, I know your first husband was not good to you.

So I bless any man who brought you some kind of pleasure.”

I closed my eyes at his compassion.

“I would hope you do not judge me,”

I went on.

“I am a woman of thirty-nine who was on her own for some time.

There have been men before you.”

“There were women before you.”

“I want you to know I cannot remember any of them when I look at you.”

I did not care how much of my heart was unveiled.

I loved him and this was my last day.

His eyes were widening, looking up at me.

“Neither can I.”

Then I kissed him thoroughly.

And I pulled up his tunic to run my hands over him.

He reached under my skirts to find my naked hips and thighs, sighing into my mouth.

I lifted up the front of my skirts to find the laces at his breeches.

“In a field?”

he asked, a pretense at modesty, but I saw the heat in his eyes.

My fingers were occupied but I said, “Yes, in a field.

You took me in an alcove.”

“Yes, I did.”

I returned my face to his and against his lips, I said, “In a field, in an alcove, on our bed, on our floor, at the base of a mountain, in the heart of a forest, at the edge of the sea, I will always want you.”

He did not know that ‘always’ had a different meaning for me.

I sat astride him for the first time in that position in I did not know how long, full of him and breathless at the raw pleasure of that feeling while the top of my sex was pressed against his stomach.

I was lost to the sensation, confused at why I had ever denied it of myself.

He set to work on my dress’s and stay’s lacings, pulling down the neckline so he could touch my breasts.

“I have longed for this,”

he whispered, his hips in time with my own.

I placed my palms just below his chest and looked up and saw the sky around us, the trees and fences still out of sight, reminded again of that notion that we were the only two mortals in a landscape of otherworldly, purple beauty.

Though there were no more breezes, stalks of lavender, moving of their own accord on either side of us bent around and over our bodies, planting soft kisses on our arms and his legs and my breasts.

I looked back down at him and my vision was removed for a moment, almost as if I was out of my body, as if I could see myself ride him and I understood that my goddess was showing me what she saw, that she was saying, look at yourself, see how this looks.

And I did.

I returned to myself, my eyes mortal again.

I reached out one hand, slightly behind me, my back arching, taking in as much as I could and I heard him catch his breath at my movement.

I grasped a stalk of lavender and pulled at it, releasing a swell of that scent and I brought my hand to my face and inhaled.

“Thank you,”

I said into my hand, meaning my words for her, not him this time.

Her crone’s whispers were gentle when they came.

I have bestowed much wonder on you, girl.

You are rich with it.

Her voice and the lavender and the actuality of this perfect man beneath me, inside me, gave way to release.

I cried out, my hands thrusting towards his own, my fingers lacing with his.

I heard his whispers of ‘yes’ to himself as I crested the rush of it.

“I love you,”

I sighed, seeing everything all at once around me, the gentle look on his face, the flourishing spring field around us, my hands in his hands, the sky brilliant blue above, the green of the grass against my knees.

“I love you,”

I repeated.

And he smiled.