[Father Elias POV]
I see Novice Clara lingering after morning Mass, her wide blue eyes fixed on me like I am some holy relic she wants to touch. She is young, barely twenty, cheeks always flushed, and lately she finds every excuse to brush past me in the corridor, asking innocent questions about scripture while her gaze drops to my mouth. I answer politely, distantly, but the attention grates because the only woman I want watching me that way is Maria.
Maria notices too. I catch her staring from across the chapel, jaw tight, fingers clenched around her breviary until the leather creaks. Later, in the herb garden, she corners me behind the lavender rows. “That little novice is panting after you,” she hisses, voice low and venomous. “She bats her lashes and you smile like a saint.”
Jealou
