The Velvet Promise Read online

  She smiled at him. “That would be pleasant.”

  He scooped her from the bank, then tossed her playfully in the air. She grabbed his neck in fright. “I could grow to like this fear of yours,” he laughed, as he pressed her to him. He carried her across the stream to a hill which was indeed covered with wildflowers, and built a fire under an overhanging rock ledge. In minutes he returned with a dressed haunch of the boar and set it to roasting over the fire. He wouldn’t let Judith move or help in any way. When the meat was cooking and there was a plentiful supply of firewood, Gavin left her again and returned in moments with his tabard raised about his hips, as if he carried something.

  “Close your eyes,” he said, and when she obeyed, he showered her with flowers. “You can’t go to them, so they must come to you.”

  She looked at him, her lap and the ground around her covered in a riot of sweet-smelling blossoms. “Thank you, my lord,” she said, smiling brilliantly.

  He sat down beside her, one hand behind his back, leaning close to her. “I have another gift,” he said as he held out three fragile columbines to her.

  They were beautiful, delicate things of light violet and white. She reached to take them but he moved them from her grasp. She looked at him in surprise.

  “They’re not free.” He was teasing her again, but the expression on her face showed him she didn’t know it. He felt a pang of remorse that he had hurt her so badly that she should look at him so. Suddenly Gavin wondered if he were any better than her father. He ran a finger lightly down her cheek. “It’s a small price to pay,” he said gently. “I would like to hear you call me by my name.”

  Her eyes cleared and were warm again. “Gavin,” she said quietly as he handed her the flowers. “Thank you, my…Gavin for the flowers.”

  He sighed lazily and leaned back on the grass, his hands behind his head. “My Gavin!” he repeated. “It has a nice sound to it.” He moved one hand and idly twisted a curl of her hair about his palm. Her back was to him as she gathered the flowers around and put them into a bouquet. Ever orderly, he thought.

  Unexpectedly, it occurred to him that it had been years since he’d had a peaceful day on his own lands. Always the responsibility of the castle had nagged at him, but in a few days his wife had so ordered matters that he could lie about in the grass and think of little but the sound of honeybees and the silky texture of a beautiful woman’s hair.

  “Were you really angry about Simon?” Judith asked.

  Gavin could barely remember who Simon was. “No,” he smiled. “I just didn’t like a woman to accomplish what I couldn’t. And I’m not so sure that this new lure is better.”

  She whirled to face him. “It is! Simon agreed instantly. I’m sure the hawks will catch more game now and—” She stopped when she saw him laughing at her. “You are a vain man.”

  “I?” Gavin asked, bracing himself upon his elbows. “I am the least vain of men.”

  “Haven’t you just said you were angry because a woman did what you couldn’t?”

  “Oh,” Gavin said as he relaxed back on the grass, his eyes shut. “That’s not the same. A man is always surprised when a woman does anything but sew and manage children.”

  “You!” Judith said in disgust then grabbed a handful of grass with a clod of dirt attached to it and threw it in his face.

  He opened his eyes in surprise then pulled the grime from his mouth. His eyes narrowed. “You will pay for that,” he said as he stealthily moved toward her.

  Judith backed away, fearful of the pain she knew he would cause her. She started to rise but he grabbed her bare ankle and held it fast. “No,” she began before he descended on her…and began to tickle her. Judith was surprised as much as anything, then she began to giggle. She drew her knees to her chest to try to keep his hands from her sides, but he was merciless.

  “Do you take it back?”

  “No,” she gasped. “You are vain—a thousand times more vain than a woman.”

  His fingers ran up and down her ribs until she thrashed about under him.

  “Please stop,” she cried, “I can’t stand any more!”

  Gavin’s hands stilled and he leaned close to her face. “Are you beaten?”

  “No,” she said, but added quickly, “though you may not be as vain as I thought.”

  “That is a sorry apology.”

  “It was made under torture.”

  He smiled down at her, the setting sun making her skin golden, her hair spread about her like a fiery sunset. “Who are you, my wife?” he whispered, devouring her with his eyes. “You curse me one moment, enchant me the next. You defy me until I could take the life from you; then you smile at me, and I am dazed at your loveliness. You are like no other woman I have ever known. I have yet to see you put needle to thread, but I have seen you up to your knees in the muck of the fishpond. You ride a horse as well as a man, yet I find you in a tree shivering like a child in a mortal fear. Are you ever the same from one moment to the next? Do two days ever find you the same?”

  “I am Judith. I am no one else, nor do I know how to be anyone else.”

  His hand caressed her temple; then he bent and touched his lips to hers. They were sunwarmed and sweet. He had barely tasted of her when the heavens suddenly opened with an enormous blast of thunder and began to empty a heavy torrent of rain on them.

  Gavin uttered a very foul word Judith had never heard before. “To the overhang!” he said, then remembered her ankle. He picked her up and raced with her to the deep shelter, where the fire sputtered and crackled, the meat fat dripping into it. Gavin’s temper was not helped by the abrupt shower. Angrily, he went to the fire. One side of the meat was burned black, the other raw. Neither of them had thought to turn it.

  “You’re a poor cook,” he said. He was annoyed at having a perfect moment destroyed.

  She gave him a blank look. “I sew better than I cook.”

  He stared at her, then began to laugh. “Well met.” He looked out at the rain. “I must see to my stallion. He won’t like standing in this with his saddle on.”

  Always concerned for the welfare of animals, Judith turned on him. “You’ve left your poor horse unattended all this time?”

  He did not like her tone of command. “And where, pray tell, is your mare? Do you care so lightly for her that you don’t care what has become of her?”

  “I—” she began. She had been so enthralled with Gavin that she had given her horse no thought at all.

  “Then set yourself to rights before you order me about.”

  “I wasn’t ordering you.”

  “And pray, what else then?”

  Judith turned away from him. “Go then. Your horse waits in the rain.”

  Gavin started to speak then changed his mind as he went into the rain.

  Judith sat rubbing her ankle, scolding herself. She seemed to make him angry at every turn. Then she stopped. What did it matter if she made him angry? She hated him, didn’t she? He was a vile, dishonorable man and one day of kindness wouldn’t change her feelings of hatred for him. Or could it?

  “My lord.”

  She heard the voice as if from far away.

  “My Lord Gavin. Lady Judith.” The voices came closer.

  Gavin swore under his breath as he tightened the cinch he had just loosened. He’d forgotten all about his men. What spell had that little witch cast on him that he forgot his horse and even worse, forgot his men who diligently searched for them? Now they rode about in the rain, wet, cold and no doubt hungry. For all he would have liked to go back to Judith, perhaps spend the night with her, his men must come first.

  He walked his horse across the stream and up the hill. They would have seen the fire by now.

  “You are unharmed, my lord?” John Bassett asked when they met, water dripping off his nose.

  “Yes,” Gavin said flatly, not looking at his wife who leaned against the rock ledge. “We were caught in the storm and Judith hurt her ankle,” he began, then st