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said.
    A ripple of the same recognition had whispered through Rica upon seeing him the first time, and in an effort to hold to sanity, she tried now to recall where they might have met. Perhaps it was only as simple as passing in the roads of the city.
    She shook her head infinitesimally.
    Flushing, Solomon stood and handed her the pestle. “Forgive me,” he said with a short, formal bow. “But it would be best if I find some other task for my hands.”
    Rica did not raise her eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. “That would be best.”
    It was only when he had turned away, flinging his jupon over his shoulder, that she allowed herself another glimpse of him.
    It only takes one man to make a woman a fool.
    Rica knew how foolish this particular attraction was. Poets and poems aside, to indulge even a fleeting fantasy would be a lunatic’s move.
    In sudden panic, she gathered the herbs and donned her surcoat, and found Helga still chatting with the peddler. Rather than interrupt them, she gave a little wave as she passed a few feet away, knowing she would have to explain the next time she came. In the morning. He came only afternoons.
    But as she whistled for Leo, she felt Solomon’s gaze once more. She turned to find him standing in the shadow of a grove of pines, watching her. She lowered her head and kept walking.
    For the first time, she realized all the poems she so loved were grounded in tragedy. Of tragedy, she’d already had her fill.
    From his shadowy post, Solomon watched her stride away toward the castle that loomed atop the hill, all whitewashed stone and bleakness.
    There had always been talk of the great beauty of Charles der Esslingen’s twin daughters, the sort of lusty talk men indulged while in their cups.
    Once more, he was stunned. This afternoon, leaning against the tree, staring so dreamily toward the hills, she had been the most singularly beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Her tunic, damp with the heat of the day, clung to her breasts and waist and long thighs, revealing her form in a manner that seized him fiercely. He had watched, stricken, as she tugged the fabric from her flesh; watched as it settled back like a fond hand over her graceful curves.
    He swore under his breath. Too much. In two meet-ings, he absorbed more deeply the details that made her than of dozens of women he saw every day. Tearing his gaze from the sway of her hips, he focused upon the cool blue mountains. Discipline. His few moments of admiring this beauty were ended.
    His father would have been proud. Solomon had always been the mote in his father’s eye, the son he chased down from rooftops and yanked away from fights and punished for sneaking away to the river. It had been Solomon that Jacob had found kissing a cousin when they were seven, just as an experiment; Solomon that Jacob whipped for less innocent explorations when he was ten and thirteen.
    His father no longer had to intervene and Solomon took pride in his discipline. Not even a beauty so great as Rica’s could tempt him.
    But into the glow of pride slipped a vision of her ripe breast, poised inches from his mouth a few moments before—as if in invitation. For one blazing instant, he had allowed himself to imagine tipping forward to kiss that rise of soft white flesh.
    Instead, he’d swallowed his desire, only to look up and find himself ensnared in the lure of her wide and innocent eyes. Remembering now, he sensed a ripple passing over his skin. In her eyes had been the most alluring and curious combination of innocence and seduction; her mind did not know what her body promised.
    Henceforth he would arrange to come in the morning to Helga. It was only a few months until the pestilence spent itself, surely. Then he could return to Montpellier.
    Relieved, he wandered back to Helga’s yard to grind the rosemary that Rica had begun. Discipline and avoidance. Together they would protect him from this dangerous attraction to a forbidden woman.

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