The Golden Desires (9 page)

~~~~~

"Miss Isabella, where have you been this
morning?" Cook Joan was asking her, having witnessed her running off that
morning after breakfast rather than asking for requests from the chef. "I
am in need of carrots. Could you go and get some for me? Take that basket over
there and fill it to the brim if you can. I am going to cook a carrot and
barley stew, and it will be
magnificent
!"

Isabella laughed at the cook, and obligingly took
the basket.

"Of course I shall do that for you, Cook
Joan. I shall be back shortly."

As she left the kitchen area she saw Elder Rhys in
the distance. The ancient rarely left the temple but seeing him now, Isabella
veered off her path and moved toward him.

"Young Isabella. I wish to talk to you. Can
we walk together?"

"Yes, Elder Rhys. I do need to gather carrots
from the garden for Cook Joan. Can you walk with me, or would you like me to
come to the temple?"

"Oh no! I gladly shall walk to the garden
with you. It has been so long since I was there, and I am sure there is a
heavenly scent there at this time."

They began walking together, at a slower pace than
she usually would walk at, out of her respect for him. It was some time before
he spoke.

"Where is our new friend today? The
traveller?"

"He is near the waterfall, Elder Rhys. It
appears to be one part of the village that is much unchanged, and this morning
he was enjoying our warm water to bathe in," she said and the ancient saw
a smile pass over her face at the memory of it.

"Isabella, you are now 21, are you not?"
he asked and she nodded, not saying anything. "Have your parents talked to
you about you going through the pairing?"

Isabella looked down, finding herself blushing and
flustered at the thought of having such a conversation with him.

"I … yes, it has come up in conversation, but
I have not felt ready."

"And do you still not feel ready? Or has
something perhaps changed in recent days for you?"

"I do not know what you mean, Elder Rhys."

She saw him look closely at her.

"I think you do, Isabella. We have all
believed you would pair with Adrian, but I believe now that someone else -
another
- is meant to be your mate. Do you not feel it too?"

He watched her and saw conflict on her face.

"I know that I
should
pair with Adrian.
He and I are comfortable together and know each other so well."

"But?"

"But this traveller who has come. Elder Rhys,
when…"

She could not continue her conversation, knowing
she had done what she should not have in kissing him without having been paired
with him first.

"When you and he join lips," the ancient
said, stunning Isabella and making her look at him.

Suddenly he laughed, surprising her further.

"I have seen the visions the two of you are
having in the nights, Isabella. Do not worry so. What I have seen these past
nights is nothing I have not seen in many night visions before. I have lived
for 600 years, do not forget."

"I…" she stammered. "I know I
should not have…"

"You had been seeing him in visions of the
night even before he came here, and he had been seeing you in
his
visions of the night also."

"Yes, but how can that be? And what does that
mean?"

They neared the garden now and he stopped walking
and turned to her.

"I think you know, Isabella. I think
he
is who you are meant to pair with. It is what was always intended for
you."

"But that cannot be so, Elder Rhys. He is not
from our time - how could we have always been meant to pair?"

"Nature has its ways. What is meant to be,
will always be, one way or another." He paused as he looked closely at
her. "You must decide what you wish for, and then he must do the same. If
you both wish for it, it can be done."

Before she had a chance to question him any more,
he was walking away from her, back along the path they had just walked along
together.

"Miss Isabella, what can we help you with
today?" she heard one of the gardeners call out to her and she resolved to
think nothing more about the ancient's talk of pairing.

"Master Martin, I have been instructed by
Cook Joan to come and fill this basket to the brim with carrots."

"To the brim, you say? Very good, lass. Come
with me and I shall find you the best that are ready, for you to take back to
the kitchen. We can't have Cook Joan without her required ingredients when she
has a masterpiece to prepare," he said with very apparent amusement on his
face, reminding Isabella that it was quite alright for her to relax in her day
and enjoy the simplicity of humour and laughing.

~~~~~

Adrian was mindless to his job for the whole day,
his thoughts continuing to veer back to Isabella and the stranger who had
somehow arrived and yet at the same time not arrived. He was sure it must be
some kind of magic, or some kind of curse.

It had not escaped him when he had seen the two of
them look at each other, that they shared a mutual look that he had only hoped
he
would ever receive from her. It made him despondent. He believed she loved him
as a friend. But he equally believed that she would never be willing to pair
with him. For that she sought …
needed
… another.

"Adrian, can you help me please?" he
heard a voice call out to him, and turned to see Kat standing close to him.
"I need to move these few bags of grain just over there but I am still
finding it difficult to lift such weights."

Adrian looked at the young woman before him. She
was two years younger than him and he had never known her at all until she too
had begun working in the mill during the day.

Feeling such a tender heart today … a bruised
heart … he now looked at her in a new light. As someone attractive. As someone
to fill a void. As a
replacement
for who he really wanted to be with.

"Of course I can do that for you, Kat,"
he said whilst smiling at her, and performed the duty she had asked him to.

When he had moved the few bags, he came back to
her and saw her smiling shyly at him.

"Thank you, Adrian."

He looked closer at her still, and knew he must
start thinking about his future without expecting Isabella to be his paired
mate. And if he could not pair with her, did it really matter
who
he
paired with?

Kat watched his face, enjoying the view even
though she could see the extent of his thinking in that moment.

"Can I walk you to the dining area at dinner
time, Kat?"

She smiled demurely at him, a flutter occurring in
her chest.

"Yes."

~~~~~

"Oh there you are!" Isabella heard Cook
Joan call out to her as she returned to the kitchen, her basket heavily laden.
"Thank you Miss Isabella. Just in time, too, as any later and I would not
have been able to cook them as slowly as I like to. Oh it shall be grand dinner
this evening! Yes it will indeed!"

Isabella watched as the basket was pulled from her
hands and the cook instantly began washing and scraping them, turning her back
to Isabella and making the latter fully certain that she was dismissed and no
longer needed.

She walked out into the sunlight, wondering what
else she could help with for the few hours until dinner time.

~~~~~

When Isabella entered the dining area for dinner,
she automatically looked around for Adrian but on not seeing him, gathered her
food and sat at the table they always sat at, and waited.

She was greatly surprised when she saw him enter
with a young woman - Kat, Isabella knew her name as. It was the very first time
Isabella had seen him with a woman and she realized in that instance how much
she had come to rely on his devotion to her. Suddenly presented with the
consideration that he might not always be there for her - that one day he would
pair with someone other than her - she felt a new emotion she had never felt
before and it confused her immensely.

"Isabella, do you know Kat?" he was
asking her, breaking her out of her reverie as he and his new friend sat at the
table.

Isabella smiled as warmly as she felt she could.

"Yes, of course. Hello Kat. You work in the
mill with Adrian, do you not?"

The young woman looked surprised but at the same
time pleased with having been recognized by Isabella, and nodded her head
before she gazed at Adrian with much admiration.

"How has your day been, Isabella?" Adrian
asked her, finding this sudden situation of being in the midst of the two women
quite different from how he had imagined he would feel if he escorted Kat to
the dining area for their meal.

Reluctant to talk about her happenings with Trent
earlier in the day, or about her talk with the ancient, Isabella restrained her
conversation to that of the garden instead, and the few things the gardener had
told her about this and that. That seemed to satisfy his curiosity at least for
the moment, and he did not ask for information about the traveller, even though
she suspected the topic would be on his mind.

When Isabella had finished her meal, she stood up,
uncertain if Adrian would wish to leave with her on this evening or not. To
understand accurately what he would wish to do, she took her time gathering a
little bread and a small amount of the carrot and barley stew, which she
discretely put into a small cup and removed from the dining area, along with a
spoon.

Adrian saw her start to move but restrained
himself from standing and leaving with her. Partly because Kat was beside him
and she was still eating and talking. But partly because he felt he was
approaching a time when he would have to extract himself from Isabella, one way
or another, and he supposed the ache in his heart would ease if he could do
that slowly rather than all in one go.

So he stayed where he was as he saw her prepare to
leave. When she smiled at him, he smiled back, and then she was gone. He felt
the thud inside his chest, but forced himself to turn and look at the young
woman beside him, who seemingly had no idea that the man she was talking to was
in that moment heart-heavy for the woman who had just walked out.

~~~~~

Isabella looked around her and made sure no-one
was around when she started walking down to the area by the pool. She was
pleased to see no-one else around at the time, and when she got there, Trent
was in the pool once more, just sitting peacefully with his eyes closed.

He felt her presence and opened his eyes to find
her standing at the pool side, watching him. He inhaled sharply as he was once
again confronted with not only her beauty, but the reality that this woman with
the red hair, who had invaded his dreams, was standing right here in front of
him. Smiling at him.

Finally he came back to reality and smiled back at
her.

"Have you been in there all day?" she
asked him, laughing slightly.

He slowly made his way from the far side of the
pool that he was on, to the side closest to her, grinning broadly.

"Most of it. It feels too wonderful to waste,"
he said as he started to climb out.

Immediately Isabella turned away from him but he
laughed at her.

"It is alright, Isabella, I am covered on my
lower half so you do not need to turn away."

She turned around then and was confronted with him
being directly in front of her, indeed covered below as he had said, but his
upper half was completely bare and she drank in what his chest, arms and belly
looked like. While acknowledging he had a long way to go to build up muscle
tone again, she liked what she saw, and he could see it on her face.

"I like you looking at me," he said and
she came forward to him and kissed him, suddenly remembering the dream.

"I touched you … there," she said,
pointing to the centre of his chest.

"Yes! And something happened … something
passed between us."

She nodded, remembering.

"I do not think I should touch you like that
until we know what it means."

He nodded with her.

"Yes, you are right. Tell me how you have
filled in the hours from when I saw you earlier, till now."

She sat down and he sat in front of her, their
knees almost touching as he sat cross legged and she prepared herself to feed
him.

"I had to gather many carrots for the cook so
she could make this carrot and barley stew. So I have brought some with me for
you to try, and some bread also."

She looked around her to be certain no-one else
was approaching, and then nodded to him to indicate it was safe for him to
place his hands on the ground and let himself transport into her time.

Trent felt the energy surge through him and
welcomed her leaning forward toward him and using a spoon to transfer a small
amount of what was in the cup, into his mouth. His mouth burst with flavour and
he wondered to himself why anyone in the western world could have let such
wholesome goodness in food be replaced so easily with the food of today that
sometimes almost tasted like plastic or cardboard. This was nothing like he had
ever tried before.

"Elder Rhys spoke to me again today,"
she said as she let him take another spoonful of the stew into his mouth.
"He said some things that I need to think about, but I think you need to
consider too."

When he had swallowed, Trent questioned her and
she continued to speak while letting another spoonful transfer to him.

"He…" she started and then he saw her
face go into a deep blush once more, before she seemed to find the courage to
continue. "He
suggested
that perhaps you and I had been meant to
find one another. That we are meant to be …
paired
."

Trent sat silent, not knowing if she needed him to
speak or not. She continued to feed him from the cup, and when that was
finished, she put the cup and the spoon down and ripped off some bread and
placed it at his mouth and watched him pull it in and start to chew. They sat
in silence like that until the food was gone.