The Velvet Promise

by Jude Deveraux

  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 prolon
g 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.

  Chapter Six

  A SPECIAL ROOM HAD BEEN READIED FOR THE BRIDE AND groom. A large corner of the solar had been partitioned off around one of the fireplaces. An enormous bed had been set up in the room and sheets of the softest linen were spread across it. A coverlet of gray squirrel, lined with crimson silk fell across the sheets. Rose petals littered the bed.

  Judith’s maids and several of the women guests helped undress the bride. When she was nude, they pulled the covers back, and Judith entered the bed. Her mind was not on what was taking place around her. She kept calling herself a fool. In just a few hours, she had forgotten seventeen years of what she had learned was true about men. For a few hours she had believed a man could be kind and good, capable even of love. But Gavin was the same—perhaps even worse than the others.

  The women laughed riotously at Judith’s silence. But Helen knew there was more than just nervousness involved with her daughter’s behavior. She whispered a silent prayer, asking God to help her daughter.

  “You are a fortunate woman,” an older woman murmured in Judith’s ear. “My first marriage found me wedded with a man five years older than my father. I wonder now that no one helped him perform his duties.”

  Maud giggled, “Lord Gavin will need no help—I’ll wager that.”

  “Perhaps the Lady Judith will need help, and I would offer my…ah…services,” laughed someone else.

  Judith barely heard them. All she remembered hearing was her husband pledging his love to another woman, the way he held Alice and kissed her. The women drew the sheet just over Judith’s breasts. Someone combed her hair so that it cascaded softly over her bare shoulders to rest in thick auburn curls around her hips.

  Through the oak door the women heard the noise of the men arriving with Gavin carried aloft on their shoulders. He entered feet first, already half-undressed, the men yelling their offers of assistance, their wagers as to the competence of his performance of the task ahead. They were silent as they stood him on his feet and stared at the bride who waited in the bed. The sheet accented her creamy shoulders and the full swelling of her breasts. The candlelight deepened the shadow above the sheet. Her bare throat pulsed with life. Her face was set in a firm, serious expression that caused her eyes to darken, as if they smoked. Her lips were hard, as if carved of some warm vermilion marble.

  “Get it done with!” someone shouted. “Do you torture him or me?”

  The silence was broken. Gavin was quickly undressed and pushed to the bed. The men watched avidly as Maud drew the covers aside, giving them a glance of bare hips and thigh.

  “Now out!” a tall woman ordered. “Leave them be.”

  Helen gave her daughter one last look, but Judith gazed down at her hands in her lap and saw no one.

  When the heavy door slammed shut, the room suddenly seemed unnaturally quiet and Judith was achingly aware of the man beside her. Gavin sat looking at her. The only light in the room was from the flames in the fireplace across from the foot of the bed. The light danced on her hair, played with the shadows of her delicate collarbones. At this moment, he 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 to see if the skin was as smooth as it looked.

  Judith drew sharply away from him. “Don’t touch me!” she said through clenched teeth.

  He looked at her in surprise. There was hatred in her golden eyes, her cheeks flushed red. If possible, her anger made her even more beautiful. Never had he felt such a raging desire. His hand went about 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 it was nothing compared to his. Easily, he pulled Judith’s face to his. “Never will I belong to you!” she spat at him before his lips closed on hers.

  Gavin meant to be gentle with her, but she enraged him. This woman made him want to curse her, to strike her again. But most of all he wanted to possess her. His mouth came down brutally hard on hers.

  Judith tried to move away from him; he hurt her. This was no sweet kiss of the afternoon, but more of a punishment to discipline her. She tried to kick at him, but the sheet that separated them entangled her feet and she could hardly move.

  “I will help you,” Gavin said and tore the sheet away, pulling it from under the mattress. His hand still held Judith’s neck, and when the sheet was g
one and she lay nude before him, he relaxed his grip as he gazed upon her. He stared at her in wonder; her full breasts, small waist, round hips. Then he looked back at her face, her eyes blazing. Her lips were reddened from his kiss, and suddenly there was no power on earth that could have stopped him from taking her. He acted as a starving man—one desperate for food—who would kill or maim to get what he must have.

  He pushed her to the mattress and Judith saw the look in his eyes. She did not understand it, but she was afraid of it. He planned more than a cuff of his fist now. Of that she was sure.

  “No!” she whispered and struggled against him.

  Gavin was a seasoned knight. Judith had no more strength to him than a gnat to a piece of granite. And he paid her as much attention. He did not make love to her, but used her body. He was beyond thinking of her as anything but what he desired and so desperately needed. He moved on top of her, one thigh forcing hers apart. He kissed her again, hard.

  When Gavin felt the tiny membrane that stopped him, for a moment he was bewildered. But he plunged on, oblivious to the pain he caused Judith. When she cried out, he stopped her lips with his and continued.

  After he finished, he rolled from her, one heavy arm across her breasts. It had been a release for him, but for Judith there had been nothing resembling pleasure.

  In minutes, she heard his slow breathing and she knew he was asleep. Silently, she slipped from under his arm and left the bed. The coverlet of squirrel pelts had been knocked to the floor. She picked it up and encircled her body with it. She stared at the fire, telling herself she would not cry. Why should she cry? Married against her will to a man who vowed, on her wedding day, that he would never love her, could never love her. A man who told her she was nothing to him. What reason had she to cry when the life before her appeared to be so pleasant? Could she look forward to years of doing little else but bearing his children, sitting at home while he roamed the countryside with his beautiful Alice?