The Velvet Promise (8 page)

A man's chuckle made her look up. "Little sister," Raine said, "you should give the rest of us a glance once in a while."

Judith smiled at him just before a strong arm whirled her about, feet off the floor. When she returned to Raine's side, she said, "How can I ignore such handsome men as my brothers-in-law?"

"Well said, but if your eyes don't lie, my brother is the only one to put the light of the stars in those bits of gold."

Again someone whirled Judith away, and as she was lifted in the man's arm, she saw Gavin as he grinned down at a pretty little woman in a purple and green taffeta gown. Judith watched as the woman touched the velvet across Gavin's chest.

"Where's your smile?" Raine asked when she came back to him. He turned and look at his brother.

"Do you think she's pretty?" Judith asked.

Raine controlled himself from laughing aloud. "Ugly! She is a little brown mouse of a woman, and Gavin would not have her." Since everyone else already has, he thought to himself. "Ah," he sighed. "Let's leave here and get some cider." He grabbed her arm and led her to the opposite side of the room from Gavin.

Judith stood quietly in Raine's shadow and watched as Gavin led the brown-haired woman onto the dance floor. Each time he touched the woman, a swift feeling of pain shot through Judith's breast. Raine was absorbed in some talk with another man. She put her cup down and walked slowly through the shadows at the edges of the hall and made her way outside.

Behind the manor house lay a small walled garden. All her life, when she needed to be alone, Judith had gone to this garden. The image of Gavin holding the woman in his arms was branded in fire before her eyes. Yet why should she care? She had known him not even a full day. Why should it matter if he touched someone else?

She sat down on a stone bench, hidden from the rest of the garden.

Could she be jealous? She had never experienced the emotion in her life but all she knew was that she did not want her husband either looking at or touching other women.

"I thought I would find you here."

Judith glanced up at her mother, then down again.

Helen quickly sat beside her daughter. "Is something wrong? Has he been unkind to you?"

"Gavin?" Judith asked slowly, liking the sound of the name. "No. He is more than kind."

Helen did not like what she saw on Judith's face. Her own had once been like that. She grabbed her daughter's shoulders although the movement hurt her half-healed arm. "You must listen to me! I have put off talking to you for too long. Each day I hoped something would happen to prevent this marriage, but nothing did. I will tell you something that you must hear. Never,
never
must you trust a man."

Judith wanted to defend her husband. "But Gavin is an honorable man," she said stubbornly.

Helen dropped her hands to her lap. "Ah yes, they are honorable to each other—to their men, to their horses, even; but to a man a woman means less than his horse. A woman is more easily replaced, less valuable. A man who would not lie to the lowliest serf would think nothing of creating the biggest tales to his wife. What does he lose? What is a woman?"

"No," Judith said. "I cannot believe all men are like that."

"Then you will have a long and unhappy life as I have had. If I had learned this at your age, my life would have been different. I believed myself to be in love with your father. I even told him so. He laughed at me.

Do you know what it does to a woman to give her heart to a man and have him laugh at it?"

"But men do love women—" Judith began. She could not believe what her mother said.

"They love women, but only the one whose bed they occupy—and when they tire of her, they love another. There is only one time when a wife has any control over her husband, and that is when she is new to him and the bed magic is upon him. Then he will 'love' you and you can control him."

Judith stood, her back to her mother. "All men cannot be as you say.

Gavin is…" She could not finish.

Helen, alarmed, went to her daughter and stood before her. "Don't tell me you think you are in love with him. Oh Judith, my sweet Judith, have you lived in this house for seventeen years and learned nothing, seen nothing? Your father was the same way once. Although you may not believe it, I was once beautiful and he was pleased with me. This is why I say these things to you. Do you think I want to tell my only child this? I prepared you for the church, to spare you. Please listen to my words. You must establish yourself with him from the first; then he will listen to you.

Never show him your fear. When a woman reveals that, it makes the man feel strong. If you make demands from the first, he may listen to you—but soon it will be too late. There will be other women and—"

"No!" Judith shouted.

Helen gave her a look of great sadness. She could not save her daughter from the hurt that awaited her. "I must return to the guests. You will come?"

"No," Judith said softly. "I will follow in a moment. I must think for a while."

Helen shrugged and left by the side gate. There was no more she could do.

Judith sat quietly on the stone bench, her knees tucked under her chin.

She defended her husband against what her mother said. Over and over she thought of hundreds of ways to show that Gavin was so very unlike her father, most of them created from her imagination.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the gate opening. A thin woman entered the garden. Judith recognized her immediately. She dressed to have people notice her. The left side of her bodice was green taffeta; the right was red. The colors were reversed on her skirt. She moved with an air of purpose. From her hidden bench behind the honeysuckle, Judith watched. Her first impression in the receiving line had been that Alice Valence was beautiful, but now she did not seem so.

Her chin appeared weak, her little mouth stingy, as if it would give as little as possible. Her eyes glittered like ice. Judith heard a heavy, male footstep outside the wall, and she moved toward the smaller gate her mother had used. She wanted to give the woman and her lover privacy, but the first words stopped her. It was a voice she had come to recognize.

"Why did you ask me to meet you here?" Gavin asked stiffly.

"Oh, Gavin," Alice said, her hands going to his arms. "You are so cold to me. Can you have forgotten me? Is your love for this new wife so strong?"

Gavin frowned at her, not touching her, but not moving away either.

"You can talk to me of love? I begged you to marry me. I offered to take you without a dowry. I offered to repay your father what he gave to Chatworth, yet still you would not marry me."

"You hold this against me?" she demanded. "Didn't I show you the bruises from my father? Didn't I tell you of the times he locked me away without food or water? What was I to do? I met you when I could. I gave you all I had to give a man, yet this is how I am repaid. Already you love another, Tell me, Gavin, did you ever love me?"

"Why do you talk of my loving another? I haven't said I love her." His annoyance remained unabated. "I married because the offer was good.

The woman brings riches, lands and a title also, as you yourself pointed out to me."

"But when you saw her—" Alice said quickly.

"I am a man and she is beautiful. Of course I was pleased."

Judith meant to leave the garden. Even when she saw her husband with the blonde woman, Judith meant to leave, but it was as if her body turned to stone and she could not move. Each word she heard Gavin speak thrust a knife through her heart. He had begged this woman to marry him and taken Judith, because of her wealth, as a second choice. She was a fool!

She had been seeing their touches, their caresses as a spark of love, but it was not so.

"Then you don't love her?" Alice persisted.

"How could I? I have spent less than a day with her."

"But you
could
love her," Alice said flatly and turned her head to one side. When she looked back at him, there were tears in her eyes—great, lovely, shining tears. "Can you say you will never love her?"

Gavin was silent.

Alice sighed heavily, then smiled through her tears. "I had hoped we could meet here. I had some wine sent."

"I must return."

"It won't take long," she said sweetly as she led him to a bench against the stone wall.

Judith watched Alice, fascinated. She was watching a great actress.

She'd seen the way Alice turned her head and deftly stuck her fingernail in the corner of her eye to produce the needed tears. Alice's words were melodramatic. Judith watched as Alice seated herself carefully on the bench, avoiding crushing the stiff taffeta of her dress, then poured two goblets of wine. In a slow, elaborate production, she slipped a large ring from her finger, opened the hinged lid and slowly poured a white powder into her drink.

As she began to sip the wine, Gavin knocked the goblet from her hand, sending it flying across the garden. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

Alice leaned languidly against the wall. "I would end it all, my love. I can withstand anything, if it is for us. I can bear my marriage to another, yours to another, but I must have your love. Without it I am nothing." Her lids dropped slowly and she had a look of such peace, as if she were already one of God's angels.

"Alice," Gavin said as he gathered her in his arms, "you cannot mean to take your own life."

"My sweet Gavin, you don't understand what love is to a woman.

Without it I am already dead. Why prolong my agony?"

"How can you say you have no love?"

"You do love me, Gavin? Me and me alone?"

"Of course." He bent and kissed her mouth, the wine still on her lips.

The setting sun deepened the applied color on her cheeks. Her dark eyelashes cast a mysterious shadow across her cheeks.

"Swear it!" she said firmly. "You must swear to me that you will love only me—no one else."

It seemed a small price to pay to keep her from killing herself. "I swear it."

Alice rose quickly. "I must return now, before I am missed." She seemed completely recovered. "You won't forget me? Even tonight?" she whispered against his lips, her hands searching inside his clothes. She didn't wait for his answer, but slipped from his grasp and through the gate.

The sound of clapping made Gavin turn. Judith stood there, her dress and eyes ablaze in a reflection of the setting sun.

"That was an excellent performance," she said as she lowered her hands.

"I haven't been so entertained in years. That woman should try the stage in London. I hear there is need for good mummers."

Gavin advanced toward her, his face mirroring his rage. "You lying little sneak! You have no right to spy on me!"

"Spy!" she snarled. "I left the hall for some air after my
husband"
—she sneered the word—"left me to do for myself. And here in the garden I am a witness to that same husband groveling at the feet of a pasty-faced woman who twists him about her fingers like a bit of yarn."

Gavin drew back his arm and slapped her. An hour before he would have sworn that nothing could have made him harm a woman.

Judith slammed against the ground, landing in a mass of swirling hair and gold silk. The sun seemed to set a torch to her.

Gavin was instantly contrite. He was sick at himself and what he had done. He knelt to help her stand.

She retreated from him and her eyes glinted hatred. Her voice was so quiet, so flat, that he could hardly hear her. "You say you did not want to marry me, that you did so only for the wealth I bring you. Neither did I want to marry you. I refused until my father held my mother before me and snapped her arm like a splinter of wood. I have no love for that man—

but for you I have even less. He is an honest man. He does not one hour stand before a priest and hundreds of witnesses and swear undying love—

then in another hour pledge that same love to someone else. You are no man, Gavin Montgomery. You are lower than the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and always I will curse the day I was joined to you. You made that woman a vow and now I make you one. As God is my witness, you will rue this day. You may get the wealth you hunger for, but I will never give myself to you freely."

Gavin moved away from Judith as if she'd turned to poison. His experience with women was limited to whores and friendships with a few of the court ladies. They were demure, like Alice. What right did Judith have to make demands of him, to curse him, to make vows before God? A husband was a woman's god, and the sooner this one learned that the better.

Gavin grabbed a handful of Judith's hair and jerked her to him. "I will take whatever I want whenever I want, and if I take it from you, you will be grateful." He released her and pushed her back to the ground. "Now get up and prepare yourself to become my wife."

"I hate you," she said under her breath.

"What does that matter to me? I bear you no love either."

Their eyes locked—steel gray against gold. Neither moved until the women came to prepare Judith for her wedding night.

«
^
»