The Velvet Promise (19 page)

She reached across him for her dress of rich, brown cashmere from Venice. Silver lions were embroidered down the front and along the hem.

Gavin's hands trembled as he fastened the buttons down the back. A silver filigree belt completed the costume, but Judith could not seem to manage the simple buckle by herself.

"Done," she said after a long time of struggling with the uncooperative garments.

Gavin let out his long-held breath.

"You make an excellent maid," she laughed, whirling about in a sea of brown and silver.

"No," Gavin said honestly. "I would die in less than a week. Now come below with me and don't tease me anymore."

"Yes, my lord," Judith said obediently, her eyes twinkling.

Within the inner bailey was a long field with a heavy carpet of sand.

Here the Montgomery men and their chief vassals trained. A straw dummy swung from a gibbet which the men made sword passes at as they rode their war horses. A ring attached between two poles was the object of more passes with both sword and lance. There was also a man who was slashing at a four-inch post buried deeply in the ground by using a two-handed grip on his sword.

Gavin sat down heavily on a bench at the edge of the training ground.

He took off his helmet and ran his hand through his sweat-dampened hair. His eyes were sunken into dark pits, his cheeks drawn, his shoulders aching with weariness. It had been four days since that morning he'd helped Judith dress. During that time he'd slept very little, ate even less, so that now his senses were taut.

He leaned his head back against the stone wall and thought that there was little more that could have happened. Several serfs' cottages had caught fire, and the wind had sent sparks into the dairy. He and his men had fought the fire for two days, sleeping on the ground where they fell.

One night he'd spent in the stables with a mare that delivered a colt by breech birth. Judith stayed with him throughout the night, holding the horse's head, handing Gavin cloths and ointments before he knew he needed them. Never had he felt so close to anyone as he had then. At dawn, with a feeling of triumph, they stood together and watched the little colt take its first shaky steps.

Yet for all their closeness in spirit, their bodies were as far apart as ever.

Gavin felt that at any moment he might go insane with wanting her. He wiped the sweat from his eyes as he stared across the yard and saw Judith walking toward him. Or did he imagine it? She seemed to be everywhere before his eyes, even when she was not.

"I brought you something cool to drink," she said, holding out a mug to him.

He stared at her intently.

She put the mug beside him on the bench. "Gavin, are you well?" she asked as she put a cool hand on his brow.

He grabbed her violently and pulled her down. His lips sought hers hungrily, forcing them open. He didn't think that she might deny him; he was past caring.

Her arms went about his neck and her response to his kiss was as eager as his. Neither cared that half the castlefolk watched. There was no one but the two of them. Gavin moved his lips to her neck. He wasn't gentle.

He acted as if he would devour her if at all possible.

"My lord!" someone said impatiently.

Judith opened her eyes to see a boy standing nearby, a rolled paper in his hand. She suddenly remembered who and where she was. "Gavin, there is a message for you."

He didn't move his lips from her neck, and Judith had to concentrate very hard to keep her mind on the waiting boy.

"My lord," the boy said. "It's an urgent message." He was very young—

before his first beard—and he looked on Gavin's kissing of a woman as a waste of time.

"Here!" Gavin said as he snatched the parchment from the boy. "Now go and don't bother me anymore."

He threw the paper on the ground before turning once again to his wife's lips.

But Judith was now very aware of their public place. "Gavin," she said sternly, struggling to get off his lap. "You must read it."

He looked up at her as she stood over him, his breath coming hard and fast. "You read it," he said as he grabbed the mug of liquid Judith had brought. Maybe it would cool his hot blood.

Judith unrolled the paper with a worried frown, her face draining of color as she read.

Instantly Gavin was concerned. "Is it bad news?" When she looked up, his breath stopped, for there again he saw the coldness in her eyes. Her beautiful, warm, passionate eyes flashed daggers of hate at him.

"I am three times a fool!" she said through clenched teeth as she threw the parchment in his face. She turned on her heel and stalked toward the manor house.

Gavin took the parchment from his lap.

My dearest, I send this in private so I may tell you of my love
freely. Tomorrow I wed Edmund Chatworth. Pray for me, think of
me, as I will think of you. Remember always that my life is yours.

Without your love I am nothing. I count the moments until I am
yours again.

All my love,

Alice

"Trouble, my lord?" John Bassett asked.

Gavin put the missive down. "More than I have ever known. Tell me, John, you are an older man. Perhaps you know something about women."

John chuckled. "No man does, my lord."

"Is it possible to give your love to one woman, yet desire another until you are nearly mad?"

John shook his head as he watched his master staring after his wife's retreating form. "Does this man also desire the woman he loves?"

"Surely!" Gavin answered. "But perhaps not… not in the same manner."

"Ah, I see. A holy love, as for the Virgin. I am a simple man. If it were me, I'd take the earthly one. I think love would come if the woman were a joy in bed."

Gavin propped his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. "Women were created to tempt men. They are the devil's own."

John smiled. "I think that if I were to meet old Scratch, I might thank him for that bit of evil work."

For Gavin, the next three days were hell. Judith would neither look at him nor speak to him. If at all possible, she would not be anywhere near him. And the more haughtily she treated him the more furious he became.

"Stay!" he ordered her on one night as she started to leave the room when he entered.

"Of course, my lord," she said as she curtsied. Judith kept her head bowed, her eyes never meeting his.

Once Gavin thought her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying. But that was nonsense, of course. What reason did she have to cry?
He
was the one being punished, not her. He'd shown he wanted to be kind, yet she chose to despise him. Well, she'd gotten over it once, and she would get over it again. Yet the days passed, and still Judith was cold to him. He heard her laughter, but when he appeared, the smile died on her face. He felt he should slap her, force her to respond to him; even anger was better than the way she looked through him. But Gavin couldn't hurt her. He wanted to hold her and even apologize. For what? He spent his days riding hard, training hard, yet at night he didn't sleep. He found himself making excuses to be near her, just to see if he could touch her.

Judith had cried until she was nearly ill. How could she have forgotten so soon that he was such a vile man? Yet for all the anguish the letter caused, she had to steel herself from running to his arms. Judith hated Gavin yet her body burned for him every moment of every hour of every day.

"My lady," Joan said quietly. Many of the servants had learned to tiptoe about their master and mistress lately. "Lord Gavin asks you to come to him in the great hall."

"I will not!" Judith replied without hesitation.

"He said it was urgent, to do with your parents."

"My mother?" she asked, immediately concerned.

"I don't know. He said only that he must speak with you at once."

As soon as Judith saw her husband, she knew something was very wrong. His eyes were like black coals, his lips so tightly drawn that they appeared to be only a slash across his face.

He turned his wrath on her. "Why didn't you tell me you were pledged to someone else before me?"

Judith was bewildered. "I told you I was pledged to the church."

"You know I don't mean the church. What about that man you laughed and flirted with at the tournament? I should have known then."

Judith could feel the blood beginning to pound through her veins. "You should have known what? That any man would be a more suitable husband than you?"

Gavin took a step forward, his manner threatening, but Judith did not retreat. "Walter Demari has lain claim to you and your lands. To prove his claim, he has killed your father and taken your mother captive."

Immediately, all the anger left Judith. She felt deflated and weak. She grabbed a chair back to steady herself. "Killed? Captive?" she managed to whisper.

Gavin calmed somewhat and put a hand on her arm. "I didn't mean to tell you like that. It's just that the man lays claim to what is
mine
!"

"Yours?" Judith stared at him. "My father killed, my mother captured, my lands seized—and you dare talk to me of what you have lost?"

He drew away from her. "Let's talk reasonably. Were you pledged to Walter Demari?"

"I was not."

"Are you sure?"

She only glared at him in answer.

"He says that he will return your mother to safety if you will go to him."

She turned instantly. "Then I will go."

"No!" Gavin said and pulled her back to the seat. "You cannot! You are mine!"

She stared up at him, her mind concentrating on business. "If I am yours and my lands are yours, how does this man plan to get them? Even if he fights you, he cannot fight all your kin."

"Demari doesn't plan to do so." Gavin's eyes bored into hers. "He has been told we don't sleep together. He asks for an annulment, that you declare before the king your distaste for me and your desire for him."

"And if I do this, he will release my mother, unharmed?"

"That is what he says."

"And what if I don't make this declaration before the king? What will happen to my mother?"

Gavin paused before answering. "I don't know. I cannot say what will become of her."

Judith was silent for a moment. "Then I am to choose between my husband and my mother? I am to choose whether I give in to the greedy demands of a man I hardly know?"

Gavin's voice was different from anything she'd ever heard before. It was cold as hardened steel. "No, you do not choose."

Her head came up sharply.

"We may quarrel often within our own estates, even within our own chambers, and I may concede to you often. You may change the falconer's lures and I may be angry at you, but now you will not interfere. I don't care if you were pledged to him before we married, or even if you spent your childhood in bed with him. This is a matter of war now, and I will not argue with you."

"But my mother—"

"I will try to get her out safely, but I don't know whether I can."

"Then let me go to him. Let
me
try to persuade him."

Gavin was unyielding. "I cannot allow that. Now I must go and gather my men. We will leave early tomorrow morning." He turned and left the room.

Judith stood at the window of her bedchamber for a very long time. Her maid came and undressed her, putting her mistress' arms into a green velvet mink-lined robe. Judith was hardly aware of anyone else's presence.

Her mother, who had sheltered her and protected her all her life, was threatened because of a man Judith hardly knew. She remembered Walter Demari only vaguely as a pleasant young man who talked to her of the tournament rules. She remembered clearly the way Gavin had said she had enticed the man.

Gavin. Gavin. Gavin. Always back to him. All roads led to her husband.

He demanded, he commanded what she was to do. She was given no choice. Her mother was to be sacrificed to Gavin's fierce possessiveness.

But what would she do if she had a choice?

Suddenly her eyes glinted gold. What right did that odious little man have to interfere in her life? He played God when he made others choose between what was not his to own. Fight! her mind cried out. Her mother had taught her pride. Would Helen want her only child to stand meek and quiet before the king and give in to some strutting popinjay merely because the man said she must?

No, she would not! And Helen would not want it so. Judith turned toward the door, not sure of her destination, but an idea, sparked by her new anger gave her courage. "So! Demari's spies say we don't sleep together, that our marriage could be annulled," she murmured as she walked down the deserted hall.

Her convictions were firm until she came to the open doorway of the room Gavin used. He stood before the window, lost in thought, one leg propped on the window seat. It was one thing to make noble boasts of pride, but another to confront a man who every night found reasons for avoiding his wife's bed. Alice Valence's icily beautiful face floated before her. Judith bit her tongue, the pain keeping the tears from her eyes. She had made her decision and now she must live with it; tomorrow her husband would go to war. Her bare feet were soundless on the rush-covered floor as she went to stand just a few feet behind him.