The Velvet Promise

May 2007

The Velvet Promise

Jude Deveraux

"Never Will I

Belong To You!"

When the heavy door slammed shut, the room suddenly seemed unnaturally quiet and Judith was achingly aware of the man beside her.

At this moment, Gavin remembered nothing of a quarrel. Nor had he any thoughts of love. He knew only that he was in bed with a desirable woman.

He moved his hand to touch her shoulder and to see if the skin was as smooth as it looked.

Judith drew sharply away from him. "Do not touch me!" she said through clenched teeth.

He looked at her in surprise. There was hatred in her golden eyes, her cheeks flushed red. His hand went around her neck, his thumb digging into the soft flesh. "You are my wife," he said in a low voice. "You are mine!"

She resisted him with all her strength, but easily he pulled her face to his. "Never will I belong to you!" she spat at him before his lips closed on hers.

contents

Prologue
1
2 3 4
5 6
7
8
9 10
11 12 13
14
15
16 17
18 19 20
21

22
23 24 25 26 27
28
29
30

This book is a work of historical fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents relating to non-historical figures are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously . Any resemblance of such non-historical incidents, places or figures to actual ev ents or locales or persons, liv ing or dead, is entirely coincidental.

An
Original
Publication of POCKET BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS, a div ision of Simon
&
Schuster Inc. 1230 Av enue of the Americas, New Y ork, NY

10020

Copy right © 1981 by Jude Gilliam White

All rights reserv ed, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoev er.

ISBN: 0-67 1-7 397 4-3

First Pocket Books printing April 1981

Printed in the U.S.A.

To Jennifer

for melting wax and double Fridays

^
»

Judith Revedoune looked across the ledger at her father. Her mother, Helen, was beside her. Judith felt no fear of the man in spite of all he'd done over the years to make her fear him. His eyes were red with deep circles beneath them. She knew his ravaged face was due to his grief at the loss of his beloved sons; two ignorant, cruel men who were exact replicas of their father.

Judith studied Robert Revedoune with a vague sense of curiosity. He didn't usually bother with his only daughter. He had no use for women since his first wife died and his second, a frightened woman, had merely given him a girl. "What do you want?" Judith asked calmly.

Robert looked at his daughter as if seeing her for the first time.

Actually, the girl had been kept hidden most of her life, buried with her mother in their own apartments amid their books and ledgers. He noticed with satisfaction that she looked like Helen had at that age. Judith had those odd golden eyes that some men raved about, but which he found unsettling. Her hair was a rich auburn. Her forehead broad and strong, as was her chin, her nose straight, her mouth generous. Yes, she would do, he thought. He could use her beauty to his advantage.

"You're the only one I have left," Robert said, his voice heavy with disgust. "You will marry and give me grandsons."

Judith stared at him in shock. All her life she had been trained by Helen for life in a nunnery. Not a pious education of prayers and chanting, but one of high practicality, leading to the only career open to a noblewoman.

She could become a prioress before she turned thirty. A prioress was as different from the average woman as a king from a serf. A prioress ruled lands, estates, villages, knights; she bought and sold according to her own judgment; she was sought by men and women alike for her wisdom. A prioress ruled and was ruled by no one.

Judith could keep books for a large estate, could make fair judgments in disputes, and knew how much wheat to grow to feed how many people.

She could read and write, manage a reception for a king, run a hospital; everything she would need to know had been taught her.

And now she was expected to throw all of this away and become the servant of some man?

"I will not." The voice was quiet, but the few words could not have been louder if they'd been shouted from the slate rooftop.

For a moment, Robert Revedoune was bewildered. No female had ever defied him with such a firm look before. In fact, if he didn't know she was a woman, her expression would have been that of a man. When he recovered from his shock, he hit Judith, knocking her halfway across the little room. Even as she lay there, a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth, she stared up at him with absolutely no fear in her eyes, merely disgust and a touch of hatred. His breath caught for a moment at what he saw. In a way, the girl almost frightened him.

Helen was over her daughter in minutes and, as she crouched there, she drew her eating dagger from her side.

Looking at the primitive scene, Robert's momentary nervousness left him. His wife was a woman he could understand. For all her outward look of an angry animal, he saw weakness deep in her eyes. In seconds he grabbed her arm, the knife flying across the room. He smiled at his daughter as he held his wife's forearm in his powerful hands and snapped the bones as one would break a twig.

Helen never said a word, only crumpled at his feet.

Robert looked back at his daughter where she still lay, not yet able to comprehend his brutality. "Now what is your answer, girl? Do you marry or not?"

Judith nodded briefly before she turned to aid her unconscious mother.

«
^
»

The moon cast long shadows over the old stone tower which rose three stories high and seemed to scowl down, in a tired way, at the broken and crumbling wall that surrounded it. The tower had been built two hundred years before this wet April night in 1501. Now was a time of peace, a time when stone fortresses were no longer needed; but this was not the home of an industrious man. His great-grandfather had lived in the tower when such fortifications were needed, and Nicolas Valence thought, if he sobered long enough to think, that the tower was good enough for him and future generations.

A massive gatehouse looked over the disintegrating walls and the old tower. Here one lone guard slept, his arm curled around a half-empty skin of wine. Inside the tower, the ground floor was littered with sleeping dogs and knights. Their armor was piled against the walls in a jumbled, rusty heap, tangled with the dirty rushes that covered the oak plank floor.

This was the Valence estate; a poor, disreputable, old-fashioned castle that was the butt of jokes throughout England. It was said that if the fortifications were as strong as the wine, Nicolas Valence could hold off all of England. But no one attacked. There was no reason to attack. Many years ago, most of Nicolas's land had been taken from him by young, eager, penniless knights who had just earned their spurs. All that remained was the ancient tower, which everyone agreed should have been torn down, and a few outlying farms that supported the Valence family.

There was a light in the window of the top floor. Inside, the room was cold and damp—a dampness that never left the walls even in the driest summer weather. Moss grew between the cracks of the stone, and little crawling things constantly scurried across the floor. But in this room, all the wealth of the castle sat before a mirror.

Alice Valence leaned toward the mirror and applied a darkener to her short, pale lashes. The cosmetic was imported from France. Alice leaned back and studied herself critically. She was objective about her looks and knew what she had and how to use it to its best advantage.

She saw a small oval face with delicate features, a little rosebud mouth, a slim, straight nose. Her long almond eyes of a brilliant blue were her best feature. Her hair was blonde, which she constantly rinsed in lemon juice and vinegar. Her maid, Ela, pulled a pale yellow strand across her mistress's forehead then set a French hood on Alice's head. The hood was of a heavy brocade, trimmed in a wide cuff of orange velvet.

Alice opened her little mouth to once again look at her teeth. They were her worst feature, crooked and a bit protruding. Over the years she had learned to keep them hidden, to smile with her lips closed, to speak softly, her head slightly lowered. This mannerism was an advantage, for it intrigued men. It gave them the idea that she did not know how beautiful she was. They imagined awakening this shy flower to all the delights of the world.

Alice stood and smoothed her gown over her slim body. There were few curves to it. Her small breasts rested on a straight frame with no hips, no indentation to her waist. She liked her body. It seemed clean and neat compared to other women's.

Her clothes were lush, seeming out of place in the dingy room. Close to her body she wore a linen chemise, so fine it was almost gauze. Over this was a luscious gown of the same heavy brocade as the hood. It had a deep, square neck, the bodice fitting very tightly to her thin frame. The skirt was a gentle, graceful bell. The blue brocade was trimmed with white rabbit fur; a deep border along the hem, and wide cuffs around the hanging sleeves. About her waist was a belt of blue leather set with large garnets, emeralds and rubies.

Alice continued studying herself as Ela slipped a rabbit-lined brocade cloak about her mistress's shoulders.

"My lady, you cannot go to him. Not when you are—"

"To marry another?" Alice asked as she fastened the heavy cloak about her shoulders. She turned to gaze at herself, pleased with the result. The orange and blue was striking. She would not go unnoticed in such an outfit. "And what has my marriage to do with what I do now?"

"You know it's a sin. You cannot meet a man who isn't your husband."

Alice gave a short laugh as she adjusted the folds of the heavy mantle.

"Do you want me to ride out to meet my intended? Dear Edmund?" she asked with great sarcasm. Before Ela could reply she continued. "You needn't go with me. I know the way and, for what Gavin and I do, we need no one else."

Ela had been with Alice for too long to be shocked. Alice did what she wanted when she wanted. "No, I will go. But only to see that you come to no harm."

Alice ignored the elderly woman as she had all her life. She took a candle from the heavy metal holder by her bed and went to the iron-banded oak door. "Quiet, then," she said over her shoulder as she eased the door back on its well-oiled hinges. She gathered the brocade gown in her hand and threw it over her arm. She couldn't help but think that in a few short weeks she would leave this decrepit keep and live in a house—the Chatworth manor house, a building of stone and wood surrounded by high, protective walls.

"Quiet!" she commanded Ela as she threw an arm across the woman's soft stomach and pressed them both against the damp wall of the dark stairwell. One of her father's guards walked clumsily past the foot of the stairs, retied his hose, and made his way back to his straw pallet. Alice hastily snuffed the candle and hoped the man did not hear Ela's gasp as the pure black stillness of the old castle surrounded them.

"Come," Alice whispered, having neither the time nor the inclination to listen to Ela's protestations.

The night was clear and cool, and, as Alice knew they would be, two horses waited for her and her maid. Alice smiled as she threw herself into the saddle on the dark stallion. Later, she would reward the stableboy who took such good and proper care of his lady.

"My lady!" Ela whined in desperation.

But Alice did not turn because she knew that Ela was too fat to mount the horse by herself. Alice would not waste even one of her precious minutes on an aged and useless woman—not when Gavin waited for her.

The river door in the wall had been left open for her. It had rained earlier and the ground was wet, yet there was a touch of spring in the air.