The Velvet Promise Read online

Truthfully, she couldn’t. The enormity of having slain a man was weighing on her.

  “Stephen is here,” Gavin announced. “He has tunneled under the wall and the stones have collapsed.” He went to Walter, put his foot on the dead man’s back and withdrew the sword. “You severed his spine,” Gavin noted calmly. “I will know to watch my back. You are skillful.”

  “Gavin!” a familiar voice called from outside the door.

  “Raine!” Judith whispered, tears beginning to form in her eyes. Gavin threw back the bolt.

  “You are well?” Raine asked as he grabbed his brother’s shoulders.

  “Yes, as well as can be expected. Where is Stephen?”

  “Below, with the others. The castle was easily captured once the wall was down. The maid and your mother-in-law wait below with John Bassett, but we cannot find Judith.”

  “She is there,” Gavin said coldly. “See to her while I find Stephen.” He pushed past Raine and left the room.

  Raine stepped inside. At first he didn’t see Judith. She sat on a chest at the foot of the bed wearing a man’s tunic. Her bare legs hung below the hem. She looked up at him with tearful eyes. She was a forlorn-looking creature, and his heart went out to her. Raine clumped across the room to her, his leg still heavily bandaged. “Judith,” he whispered and held out his arms to her.

  Judith didn’t hesitate to seek the comfort of his strength. Sobs tore through her. “I killed him,” she cried.

  “Who?”

  “Walter.”

  Raine held her tighter, her feet nowhere near the floor. “Did he deserve killing?”

  Judith buried her face in his shoulder. “I had no right! God—”

  “Quiet!” Raine commanded. “You did what must be done. Tell me, whose blood is on the wall?”

  “Arthur’s. He was Walter’s vassal.”

  “Come now, don’t cry so much. All will be well. Come below, and your maid will help you dress.” He didn’t want to know why her own clothes lay slashed on the floor.

  “My mother is well?”

  “Yes, more than well. She looks at John Bassett as if he were the Messiah come again.”

  She drew away from him. “You blaspheme!”

  “Not I, but your mother. What will you say when she lights candles at his feet?”

  She started to reprimand Raine, then smiled, the tears drying on her cheeks. She hugged him fiercely. “It is so good to see you again.”

  “Always, you give more to my brother than to me,” came a solemn voice from the doorway.

  She looked up to see Miles, his eyes as much on her bare legs as anything. She had been through too much to blush. Raine let her down and she ran to hug Miles.

  “Has it been bad?” he asked as he held her close.

  “More than bad.”

  “Well, I have news to cheer you,” Raine offered. “The king summons you to court. It seems he has heard so many reports of you from your wedding that he wishes to see our little golden-eyed sister.”

  “To court?” Judith asked.

  “Let her down!” Raine said to Miles with false annoyance. “You hold her too long for brotherly affection.”

  “It’s just this new fashion she wears. I hope it will set a trend,” Miles said as he set her on the floor.

  Judith looked up at them and smiled. Then her tears began again. “It’s good to see you both. I will go and dress,” she said as she turned.

  Raine swept his mantle from his shoulders and enveloped her in it. “Go then. We will wait downstairs for you. We leave today. I don’t want to see this place again.”

  “Nor do I,” Judith whispered, not looking back but carrying a vivid image of the room in her mind.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “YOU KNOW OF THE CHILD?” STEPHEN ASKED GAVIN AS they walked side by side in the Demari castleyard.

  “I have been told,” he said coldly. “Here, let’s sit in the shade. I’m not used to the sunlight yet.”

  “They kept you in a pit?”

  “Yes, for nearly a week.”

  “You don’t look too starved. Did they feed you then?”

  “No, Jud—my wife had her maid send food.”

  Stephen glanced up at what remained of the old tower. “She risked a great deal to come here.”

  “She risked nothing. She wanted Demari as much as he wanted her.”

  “That didn’t seem to be true when I talked to her.”

  “Then you are wrong!” Gavin said with force.

  Stephen shrugged. “She is your concern. Raine says you are summoned to court. We may travel together. I am also to appear before the king.”

  Gavin was tired and wanted nothing more than to sleep. “What does the king want with us?”

  “He wants to see your wife and he wants to present me with one.”

  “You are to marry?”

  “Yes, a rich Scottish heiress who hates all Englishmen.”

  “I know what it is to be hated by your wife,”

  Stephen grinned. “But the difference is that you care. I do not. If she doesn’t behave, I will lock her up and never see her again. I’ll say she is barren and adopt a son who will inherit her lands. Why don’t you do the same with this wife of yours if she displeases you?”

  “Never see her again!” Gavin said, then caught himself when Stephen began to laugh.

  “She stirs your blood? You don’t need to tell me. I’ve seen her. Did you know I threatened her life after I saw her throw the wine in your face? She grabbed my blade and begged me to end it for her.”

  “You were fooled,” Gavin said disgustedly, “as Raine and Miles are. They sit at her feet and gaze at her with cow eyes.”

  “Speaking of cow eyes, what do you plan to do about John Bassett?”

  “I should marry him to her. If Lady Helen is anything like her daughter, his life will be hell. It is little enough punishment for his stupidity.”

  Stephen bellowed with laughter. “You are changing, brother. Judith obsesses you.”

  “Yes, as a boil on my backside. Come, let’s hurry these people and leave this place.”

  Outside the Demari estate was the camp Gavin had left. John Bassett had not known about Gavin’s tunneling under the walls, for Gavin never told any of his men all his plans. When Gavin had been taken captive and John had returned to the Montgomery estate, the men Gavin had chosen kept on with their digging. It had taken days, with no man getting more than a few hours’ sleep at a time. As the men dug, they braced the earth over their heads with timbers. When they were nearly through to the other side, they built a hot fire inside the tunnel. Once the timber burned away, a section of the wall collapsed with a deafening crash.

  In the ensuing confusion of setting up camp, Judith was able to escape for a few moments alone. A river ran through the trees beyond the open ground of the camp. She walked through the woods and found a secluded spot where she was hidden, yet able to enjoy the sound and sight of the water.

  She had not realized how tense she’d been during the last week. The incessant conniving, the lying she’d done while Walter’s captive had taken a toll on her. It was good to feel peaceful and free again. Now, in just a few brief moments, she wouldn’t think of her husband or of any other of her many problems.

  “You too seek solace,” came a quiet voice.

  She had heard no one approach. She looked up to see Raine smiling at her.

  “I will go if you wish. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You aren’t. Come and sit with me. I only wanted to put myself far away from noise and people for a while.”

  He sat beside her, his long legs stretched before him, his back against a rock. “I’d hoped to find things better between you and my brother, but they don’t look as though they are,” he said without preamble. “Why did you kill Demari?”

  “Because there was no other way,” Judith said, her head bowed. She looked up, her eyes full of tears. “It is an awful thing to have taken someone’s life.”

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