The Velvet Promise (16 page)

"Raine," Judith began, "you know exactly what I mean. I would like for you to play for me."

Raine smiled down at her, the firelight gleaming on her auburn hair, the wool dress showing off her tantalizing body. But her beauty wasn't what threatened to drive him insane. Beauty was sometimes found even in the serfs. No, it was Judith herself. He had never met a woman with her honesty, her logic, her intelligence. If she were a man… He smiled. If she were a man, he wouldn't be in such danger of falling hopelessly in love with her. He knew he had to get away from Judith soon even though his leg was only half-healed.

Raine glanced over her head and saw Gavin leaning against the door frame, watching his wife's profile illuminated by the flames. "Here, Gavin," he called. "Come and play for your wife. I find this leg pains me too much to enjoy anything. I have been giving Judith lessons, but she is no good at all." His eyes twinkled as he looked down at his sister-in-law, but she merely stared at her hands which were clasped in her lap.

Gavin strode forward. "I'm glad to hear there is something that my wife doesn't do to perfection," he laughed. "Do you know that today she had the fishpond cleaned? I hear the men found a Norman castle at the bottom of it." He stopped when Judith stood.

"You must pardon me," she said quietly. "I find I am more tired than I knew, and I wish to retire." Without another word, she left the hall.

Gavin, the smile gone from his face, sank into a cushioned chair.

Raine looked at his brother with sympathy. "Tomorrow I must return to my own estates."

If Gavin heard, he made no acknowledgment.

Raine signaled to one of the servants to help him to his chamber.

Judith glanced about the bedchamber with new eyes. No longer was it hers alone. Now her husband had come home, and he had the right to share it with her. Share the room, share the bed, share her body. She undressed hastily and climbed beneath the sheets. She'd dismissed her maids earlier, wanting some solitude. Although Judith was tired after the day's activities, she stared at the linen canopy with open eyes. After a long while, she heard footsteps outside the door. She held her breath for a long moment then hesitantly the footsteps retreated. She was glad, of course, Judith told herself, but that didn't warm the cold bed. Why should Gavin want her, she thought as quick tears came to her eyes. No doubt he'd spent the last week with his beloved Alice. No doubt his passion was completely spent and he wanted no more from his wife.

In spite of her thoughts, her fatigue from the long day eventually conspired to make her sleep.

She awoke very early. It was still dark in the room; only the faintest light came through the shutters. The entire castle was still asleep, and Judith found the silence pleasant. She knew she could not sleep longer, nor did she want to. This still-dark time of the morning was her favorite.

She quickly dressed in a simple gown of finely woven dark blue wool called perse. Her soft leather slippers made no sound on the wooden steps or as she walked through the sleeping men in the great hall. Outside, the light was dark gray but her eyes quickly adjusted. Beside the manor house was a little walled garden. It had been one of the first things Judith had seen at her new home and one of the last she felt she could give her attention to. There were rows of roses, a great variety of color, their blooms almost hidden beneath dead stems on the long-neglected bushes.

The fragrance in the cool early morning air was heady. Judith smiled as she bent over one of the bushes. The other work had been necessary, but the pruning of the roses was a labor of love.

"They belonged to my mother."

Judith gasped at the voice so near her. She had heard no one approach.

"Everywhere she went, she collected slips of other people's roses," Gavin continued as he knelt beside Judith, touching one of the blooms.

The time and the place seemed otherworldly. She could almost forget that she hated him. She turned back to her pruning. "Your mother died when you were small?" she asked quietly.

"Yes. Too small. Miles hardly knew her."

"And your father didn't remarry?"

"He spent the rest of his life mourning her, what little time was left to him. He died only three years after her. I was only sixteen."

Judith had never heard him sound so sad before. Truthfully, she had heard little in Gavin's voice except anger. "You were very young to have been left with the running of your father's estates."

"A year younger than you, yet you seem to run this property well. Far better than I did, or have done since." There was admiration in his voice, yet a bit of hurt also.

"But I was trained for this work," she said quickly. "You were trained only as a knight. It would have been harder for you to learn what to do."

"I was told you were trained for the church." He was surprised.

"Yes," Judith said as she moved to another bush. "My mother wished for me to escape a life such as she has known. She spent her girlhood in a nunnery and was very happy there. It was only when she married that—"

Judith stopped, not wanting to finish the sentence.

"I don't understand how life in a nunnery could prepare you for what you've done here. I would have thought you spent your days in prayer."

She smiled down at him as he sat in the gravel path beside her. It was getting lighter now, the sky beginning to turn a rosy pink. She could hear the clatter of the servants in the distance. "Most men feel that the worst thing that could happen to a woman would be to deprive them of a man's company. I assure you that a nun's life is far from empty. Look at St.

Anne's. Who do you think runs those estates?"

"I never thought about it."

"The prioress manages estates that make the king's look poor. Yours and mine together could fit into a corner of St. Anne's. My mother took me to meet the prioress last year. I spent a week at her side. She is a constantly busy woman ordering the work of thousands of men and acres of land. She does not"—Judith's eyes sparkled—"have time for woman's work."

Gavin was startled for a moment then he began to laugh. "A thrust well delivered." What had Raine said about her sense of humor? "I stand corrected."

"I'd think you'd know more about a nunnery since your sister lives there."

A special glow came over Gavin's face when his sister was mentioned.

He smiled. "I cannot imagine Mary running anyone's estates. Even as a child, she was so sweet and shy that she seemed of another world."

"And so you let her enter a convent."

"It was her wish, and when I inherited from my father, she left us. I wanted her to remain here and not marry if she didn't want to, but she wanted to be near the sisters."

Gavin stared at his wife, thinking that she had come very close to spending her life in a convent. The sunlight caught fire in her auburn hair; the way she looked at him, without anger or hatred, made his breath catch.

"Ow!" Judith broke the spell as she looked down at her finger, nicked on a rose thorn.

"Let me see," Gavin said as he took her small hand in his larger one. He brushed away a drop of blood from her fingertip then raised it to his lips, as he looked into her eyes.

"Good morning!"

Both of them looked up at the window above the garden.

"I hate to disturb your lovemaking," Raine called down from the manor house, "but my men seem to have forgotten me. And with this damned leg, I am little more than a prisoner."

Judith pulled her hand from Gavin's and looked away, her cheeks, for some reason, flushing.

"I will go and help him," Gavin said as he stood. "Raine says he is leaving today. Maybe I can hurry him along. Will you ride with me this morning to choose a mare?"

She nodded her head but didn't look at him before he left the garden.

"I see you're making some progress with your wife," Raine said as Gavin roughly helped him down the stairs.

"It would have been more if someone hadn't started bellowing out the window," Gavin remarked bitterly.

Raine snorted with laughter. His leg hurt and he didn't look forward to the long journey to another estate, so he was in a bad mood. "You didn't even spend the night with her."

"Of what concern is that to you? Since when do you notice where I sleep?"

"Since I met Judith."

"Raine, if you—"

"Don't even say it. Why do you think I am going when my leg hasn't even begun to heal?"

Gavin smiled. "She is lovely, isn't she? In a few days I will have her eating out of my hand; then you'll see where I sleep. A woman is like a hawk. You must starve it until it is eager for food; then it will be easily tamed."

Raine stopped on the stairs, his arm about Gavin's shoulder. "You are a fool, brother. You may be the biggest fool ever created. Don't you know that the master is often the servant of his hawk? How many times have you seen men carry their favorite hawk about on their wrists, even in church?"

"You talk nonsense," Gavin said, "and I don't like being called a fool."

Raine set his teeth together as Gavin jerked his leg. "Judith is worth two of you and a hundred of that icy bitch you think you love."

Gavin stopped at the foot of the steps, gave his brother a malevolent look and moved away so quickly Raine had to grab the wall to keep from falling. "Don't you speak of Alice again!" Gavin said in a deadly voice.

"I damned well will speak of her! Someone needs to. She is ruining your life and Judith's happiness. And Alice isn't worth a strand of Judith's hair."

Gavin raised his fist then dropped it. "It's good that you're leaving today. I won't listen to anymore about my women from you." He turned on his heel and stalked away.

"Your women!" Raine called after him. "One owns your soul and the other you treat with contempt. How can you call them
yours
?"

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There were ten horses inside the fenced area. Each one was sleek and strong with long legs that inspired visions of the animals running across flowery fields.

"I am to choose one, my lord?" Judith asked as she leaned across the fence rail. She looked up at Gavin beside her, watching him suspiciously.

All morning he had been exceptionally pleasant; first in the garden, and now as he gave her a gift. He'd helped her on the mount, taken her arm when she, in an unladylike gesture, climbed atop the rails. She could understand his irritation, his scowls, but she was quite leery of this new kindness.

"Any one that you want," Gavin answered, smiling at her. "They have all been gentled and are ready for a bridle and saddle. Do you see one you like?"

She looked back at the horses. "There isn't one I don't like. It's not easy to choose. I think that one, the black one."

Gavin smiled at her choice, a mare with a high-stepping, dainty gait.

"She is yours," he said. Then, before he could help her down, Judith was on the ground and through the gate. Within minutes, Gavin's man had the mare saddled and Judith swung onto her animal's back.

It felt wonderful to ride a good horse again. To Judith's right lay the road to the castle; to her left, the dense forest, a hunting ground for the Montgomerys. Without thought, she took the road to the forest. For too long she had been confined inside walls and jammed between people. The great oaks and beeches looked inviting, their branches connecting overhead to form a private shelter. Judith did not look back to see if she was being followed, but only plunged ahead toward the waiting freedom.

She rode hard, testing the mare and herself. They were compatible, as she knew they would be. The horse enjoyed the run as much as Judith.

"Quiet now, sweet one," Judith whispered when they were well inside the forest. The mare obeyed, daintily picking her way between the trees and bushes. The ground was covered by ferns and hundreds of years of accumulated foliage. It was a soft carpet and a silent one. Judith breathed deeply of the clean, cool air and let her mount decide the way.

The sound of running water caught Judith's attention, as well as her mare's. A stream, deep and cool, ran swiftly between the trees, sunlight playing through the overhanging branches. She dismounted and led her horse to the water. As the mare quietly drank, Judith pulled handfuls of sweet grass and began to rub the sides of the horse. They had galloped hard for several minutes before reaching the forest, and the mare was sweaty.

Judith was engrossed in her pleasant task, glorying in her horse, the day, the roaring water. The mare perked up her ears and listened, then backed away nervously.

"Quiet, girl," Judith said, stroking the soft neck. The horse took another, sharper step backward, threw her head back and neighed. Judith whirled, grabbing at the reins of the frightened animal and missed.

A wild boar approached, sniffing the air. It was wounded, its tiny eyes glassy with pain. Judith tried again to get the reins of her horse but the boar began its charge and the mare, wild with fear, took off. She grabbed her skirts and began to run. But the charging pig was faster than she.