The Velvet Promise

by Jude Deveraux

  Blanche and Gladys hurried off to their duties in far parts of the house.

  Jocelin was unperturbed. “You missed me, my lady?” he smiled, taking her hand and kissing it after making sure no one was about.

  “No, I did not,” Alice said honestly. “Not as you mean. Were you out with those hussies this afternoon while I sat here alone?”

  Jocelin was immediately concerned. “You have been lonely?”

  “Oh, yes, I have been lonely!” Alice said as she sank into a cushioned window seat. She was as gently lovely as when he’d first seen her at the Montgomery wedding; but now she had a finer-drawn look to her, as if she’d lost weight, and her eyes moved nervously from one point to another. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I am lonely. I have no one here who is my friend.”

  “How can that be? Surely your husband must love one as beautiful as you.”

  “Love!” she laughed. “Edmund loves nobody. He keeps me as if I were a bird in a cage. I see no one, talk to no one.” She turned to look at a shadow in the room, her beautiful face twisted with hatred. “Except her!” she snarled.

  Jocelin looked toward the shadow, unaware anyone was near them.

  “Come out, you little slut,” Alice sneered. “Let him see you. Don’t hide away like some eater of carrion. Be proud of what you do.”

  Jocelin strained his eyes until he saw a young woman step forward, her figure slight, her shoulders bowed forward, her head lowered.

  “Look up, you whore!” Alice commanded.

  Jocelin’s breath stopped when he looked into the young woman’s eyes. She was pretty—not of the beauty of Alice or the woman he’d seen as a bride, Judith Revedoune, but lovely nonetheless. It was her eyes that made him stare. They were violet pools filled with all the troubles of the world. He had never seen such agony and despair.

  “He sets her on me like a dog,” Alice said, regaining Jocelin’s attention. “I cannot move without her following me. I tried to kill her once, but Edmund revived her. If I hurt her again, he threatened to lock me away for a month. I—” Just then Alice noticed her husband coming toward her.

  He was a short, fat man with large jowls and a sleepy heavy-eyed look. No one would guess that any mind except the simplest existed behind that face. But Alice had learned too well of his cunning intelligence.

  “Come to me,” she whispered to Jocelin before he nodded briefly to Edmund and left the hall.

  “Your taste has changed,” Edmund observed. “That one doesn’t look at all like Gavin Montgomery.”

  Alice only stared at him. She knew there was no use talking to him. She’d been married only a month, and every time she looked at her husband, she remembered the morning after her wedding. She had spent her wedding night alone.

  In the morning, Edmund had called her to him. He was a changed man from the one Alice had first met.

  “I trust you slept well,” Edmund had said quietly, his little eyes in his too-fleshy face watching her.

  Alice lowered her lashes prettily. “I was…lonely, my lord.”

  “You can stop your acting now!” Edmund ordered as he rose from his chair. “So! You think you can rule me and my estates, do you?”

  “I…I have no idea what you mean,” Alice stammered, her blue eyes meeting his.

  “You—all of you, all of England—think I am a fool. Those muscled knights you thrash about with call me a coward because I refuse to risk my life fighting the king’s battles. What do I care for anyone’s battles except my own?”

  Alice was stunned speechless.

  “Ah, my dear, where is that simpering little look you wear for the men, those who drool over your beauty?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Edmund walked across the room to a tall cabinet and poured himself some wine. It was a large, airy room set on the top floor of the lovely manor house of the Chatworth estate. All the furniture was of oak or walnut, finely carved, with wolf and squirrel pelts flung over the backs of the chairs. The glass he now drank from was made of rock crystal with little gold feet.

  He held the crystal up to the sunlight. There were Latin words at the base of the vessel promising good fortune to the owner. “Do you have any idea why I married you?” He didn’t give Alice a chance to answer. “I’m sure you must be the most vain woman in England. You probably thought I was as blind as that love-sick Gavin Montgomery. I know at least that you never even asked yourself why an earl would want to marry a penniless chit who slept with any man who had the equipment to please her.”

  Alice stood up. “I won’t listen to this!”

  Roughly, Edmund shoved her back into the chair. “Who do you think you are that you can tell me what you will do? I want you to understand one thing. I did not marry you for any love of you or because I was in awe of your so-called beauty.”

  He turned away from her and poured himself another glass of wine. “Your beauty!” he sneered. “I can’t see what that Montgomery would want with a boy like you when he has that Revedoune woman. Now, there’s a woman to stir a man’s blood.”

  Alice tried to attack Edmund with her hands made into claws, but he easily knocked her aside.

  “I’m tired of these games. Your father owns two hundred acres in the middle of my estates. The filthy old man was about to sell it to the Earl of Weston, who has been my enemy and my father’s enemy for years. Do you know what would have happened to my estates if Weston owned land in the middle of them? A stream runs through there. If he dammed it, I’d lose hundreds of acres of crops as well as my serfs dying of thirst. Your father was too stupid to realize I only wanted you to get the land.”

  Alice could only stare. Why hadn’t he spoken to her about the land Weston wanted? “But, Edmund….” she said in her softest voice.

  “Don’t speak to me! For the last months I have had you watched. I know every man you’ve taken to your bed. And that Montgomery! Even at his wedding you threw yourself at him. I know about the time in the garden with him. Suicide! You? Ha! Did you know his wife saw your little play? No, I thought not. I drank myself into a stupor so that I wouldn’t hear the laughter aimed at me.”

  “But, Edmund—”

  “I told you not to speak to me. I went ahead with the marriage because I couldn’t bear the land going to Weston. Your father has promised the deed to me when you produce a grandchild for him.”

  Alice leaned back against the chair. A grandchild! She almost smiled. When she’d been fourteen, she’d found herself pregnant and had gone to a filthy old woman in the village. The hag had removed the fetus. Alice had nearly died from the bleeding, but she’d been glad to get rid of the brat. She’d never destroy her slim figure for some man’s bastard. In the years since, through all the men, she had never gotten pregnant again. She had always been glad that the operation had damaged her so she couldn’t have children. Now, Alice knew her life had become hell.

  It was an hour later, after Jocelin had finished playing for a group of kitchen wenches, that he walked along the wall of the great hall. The tension in the Chatworth castle was nearly unbearable. The servants were disorderly and dishonest. They seemed to be terrified of both the master and the mistress and did not waste time in telling Jocelin of the horrors of life in the castle. The first weeks after their marriage, Edmund and Alice had fought violently. Until, one of the servants laughed, the master discovered the Lady Alice liked a hand taken to her. Then Lord Edmund locked her away from everyone, kept her from all amusements and, most of all, kept her from enjoying any of his wealth.

  Whenever Jocelin asked the reason for Edmund’s punishments, the servants shrugged. It had something to do with the wedding of the Revedoune heiress and Gavin Montgomery. It started then, and they often heard Lord Edmund screaming that he would not be made a fool of. Already Edmund had had three men killed who were supposedly Alice’s lovers.

  Everyone laughed when Jocelin’s face turned parchment-white. Now, as he walked away from the servants, he vowed to leave the Chatworth castle tomor
row. It was too dangerous here.

  The very slightest of sounds, coming from a dark corner of the hall made him jump. He calmed his racing heart, then laughed at his nervousness. His senses told him there was a woman in the shadows and she was crying. As he moved toward her, she drew back, like a cornered wild animal.

  It was Constance, the woman Alice hated so much. “Be still,” he said quietly, his rich voice purring. “I won’t harm you.” Cautiously, he moved his hand to touch her hair. She looked up at him in fear, and he felt his heart go out to her. Who could have treated a woman so to make her so frightened?

  She cradled her arm against her side as if in pain. “Let me see,” he said gently and touched her wrist. It was some moments before she released her arm enough so he could touch it. The skin was not broken nor were any bones, as he at first suspected. In the dim light he could see it was reddened, as if someone had viciously twisted the skin.

  He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but her terror of him was almost tangible. She was shaking with fear. He knew it would be kinder to let her go than to force himself on her any longer. He stepped back and she fled quickly. Jocelin stood looking after her for a long while.

  It was very late at night when he slipped into Alice’s bedchamber. She was waiting for him, her arms open and eager. For all his experience, Jocelin was surprised at the violence of her actions. She grabbed him, her nails clawing into the skin of his back, her mouth seeking his, biting his lips. He drew away with a frown and she growled with keen irritation.

  “You plan to leave me?” she demanded, her eyes narrow. “There were others who tried to leave me.” Alice smiled when she saw his face. “I see you’ve heard about them,” she laughed. “If you please me, you will find no cause to join them.”

  Jocelin did not like her threats. His first impulse was to leave. Then the candle by the bed flickered and he became acutely aware of how lovely she was, like cool marble. He smiled, his dark eyes glowing. “I would be a fool to go,” he said as he ran his teeth along the cord of her neck.

  Alice leaned her head back and smiled, her nails again digging into his skin. She wanted him quickly and with as much force as possible. Jocelin knew he hurt her and he also knew she enjoyed it. He did not receive any pleasure from their lovemaking; it was a selfish demonstration of Alice’s demands. Yet he obeyed her, his mind never far from the idea of leaving her and her household on the morrow.

  Finally she groaned and pushed him from her. “Go now,” she commanded and moved away.

  Jocelin felt sorry for her. What was life without love? Alice would never have love, for she never gave any.

  “You did please me,” she said quietly as he started to open the door. He could see the marks his hand had made on her neck, and he could feel the rawness of his back. “I will see you tomorrow,” she said before he left.

  Not if there is any chance of escape, Jocelin said to himself as he walked down the dark corridor.

  “Here you, boy!” Edmund Chatworth said as he threw open his chamber door, flooding the corridor with candlelight. “What are you doing here, skulking about the hall at night?”

  Jocelin shrugged idly and refastened his hose, as if he’d just answered a call of nature.

  Edmund stared at Jocelin, then at the closed door of his wife’s chamber. He started to speak, then shrugged his shoulders as if to say that it wouldn’t be worth pursuing the matter. “Can you hold your tongue, boy?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Jocelin answered warily.

  “I don’t mean about a small matter—but one larger, more important. There is a sack of gold in it for you if you don’t speak.” He narrowed his eyes. “And death to you if you do.”

  “Over there,” Edmund said as he stepped aside and poured himself a flagon of wine. “Who would have thought a few taps would have killed her?”

  Immediately, Jocelin went to the far side of the bed. Constance lay there, her face battered almost beyond recognition, her clothes torn off her body, hanging by a seam about her waist. Her skin was covered by scratches and small cuts; great lumps formed on her arms and shoulders. “So young,” Jocelin whispered as he sank heavily to his knees. Her eyes were closed, her hair a mass of tangles and dried blood. As he bent and pulled her body gently into his arms, he felt her cold skin. Tenderly, he smoothed the hair away from her lifeless face.

  “The damned bitch defied me,” Edmund said as he stood behind Jocelin and looked at the woman who’d been his mistress. “Said she’d rather die than bed with me again.” He snorted in derision. “In a sense, I only gave her what she wanted.” He drained the last of the wine and turned to get more.

  Jocelin did not dare to look up at him again. His hands were fists beneath the girl’s body.

  “Here!” Edmund said as he tossed a leather bag next to Jocelin. “I want you to get rid of her. Tie some stones to her and throw her in the river. Only don’t let it be known what happened here this night. The news might cause problems. I will say she went back to her family.” He drank more wine. “Damned little slut. She wasn’t worth the money it took to clothe her. Only way I could get any movement from her was to hit her. Otherwise she lay like a log under me.”

  “Why did you keep her then?” Jocelin asked quietly as he removed his mantle to wrap the dead girl in it.

  “Those damned eyes of hers. Prettiest things I ever saw. I could see them in my sleep. I set her on that wife of mine to report what went on, but the girl was a poor spy. Would never tell me a thing.” He chuckled. “I think Alice hit her to make sure she said nothing. Well,” Edmund noted as he turned away from Jocelin and the girl, “you have been paid. Take her away and do what you want with the body.”

  “A priest—”

  “That old bag of wind?” Edmund laughed. “The Angel Gabriel couldn’t waken the man after he has had his usual nightly flask of wine. Say some words over her yourself if you like, but no one else! You understand?” He had to content himself with Jocelin’s nod. “Now get out of here. I’m tired of looking at her ugly face.”

  Jocelin neither spoke nor looked at Edmund as he swung Constance into his arms.

  “Here, boy,” Edmund said, surprised. “You left the gold.” He dropped the bag onto the stomach of the corpse.

  Jocelin used every bit of strength he had to keep his eyes lowered. If the earl saw the hate that burned there, Jocelin would not live to escape in the morning. Silently, he carried the body from the chamber, down the stairs and out into the starry night.

  The stableman’s wife, a fat, toothless old crone whom Jocelin had treated with respect and even affection, had given him a room atop the stables to use as his own. It was a warm place set in the midst of bales of hay. It was quiet and private; few people even knew of its existence. He would take the girl there, wash her and prepare her body for burial. Tomorrow he would take her outside the castle walls and give her a proper burial. Perhaps not in hallowed ground, blessed by the church, but at least in someplace free and clean of the stench of the Chatworth castle.

  The only way to reach his room was by climbing a ladder set against the outside of the stables. Carefully, he settled Constance across his shoulders and carried her aloft. Once inside, he placed her tenderly on a soft bed of hay then lit a candle beside her. The sight of her in Edmund’s room had been a shock, now it was a horror. Jocelin dipped a cloth in a bucket of water and began to wash the caked blood from her face. He did not realize there were tears in his eyes as he touched the battered form. Taking a knife from his hip, he cut away what was left of her dress and continued bathing her bruises.

  “So young,” he whispered. “And so beautiful.” She was pretty—or had been—and even now, in death, her body was so lovely, slim and firm, though a little too much of her ribs showed.

  “Please.”

  The word was whispered, so low that Jocelin almost did not hear her. He turned his head and saw her eyes were open, or one of them since the other was swollen shut.

  “Water,” she gasped through
a parched and burning mouth.

  At first he could only stare in disbelief then he grinned in sheer joy. “Alive,” he whispered. “Alive!” He quickly got some watered wine, then carefully cradled her head in the crook of his arm while he held a cup to her swollen lips.

  “Slowly,” he said, still smiling. “Very slowly.”

  Constance leaned back against him, frowning as she tried to swallow, revealing deep bruises about her throat.

  He ran his hand over her shoulder, and realized it was still cold to touch. What a fool he was to take Edmund’s word of her death! She was freezing. That’s what made her seem so cold. She lay on his one blanket, and since Jocelin knew of no other way to warm a woman, he lay beside her, holding her close to the warmth of him as he drew the blanket across both of them with great concern. Never had he lain with a woman and felt this way.

  It was late when Jocelin woke, the girl cradled close to him. She stirred in his arms, grimacing because of her aching body. He moved from her side and placed a cool cloth on her brow, which had grown too warm with the beginnings of a fever.

  Now, in the light of day, Jocelin began to see the situation realistically. What was he to do with the girl? He couldn’t very well announce that she was alive. Edmund would take Constance as his again as soon as she was well. There was little likelihood that she could survive a second beating. If Edmund did not kill her, Jocelin was sure Alice would. With new eyes, Jocelin looked about the little room. It was private, well sealed against outside noises and difficult to reach. With luck and a great deal of care, he might be able to keep her hidden there until she was well. If he kept her alive and safe, then he would worry about what came next.

  He lifted her and gave her more of the watered wine, but her swollen throat could take little of it.

  “Joss!” a woman called from the foot of the ladder.

  “Damn!” he said under his breath, cursing for the first time in his life his lack of freedom from women.

  “Joss, we know you’re there. If you don’t come down, we’ll come up.”