Two years! Two years ago that had been. If he had not spent most of the time in Scotland, patrolling the borders, he would have demanded her father give Alice to him. Now that he’d returned, he planned to do just that. In fact, if need be, he would go to the king with his plea. Valence was unreasonable. Alice told Gavin of her talks with her father, of her begging and pleading with him, but to no avail. Once she showed him a bruise she received for pressing Gavin’s suit. Gavin had been insane then. He’d grabbed his sword and would have gone after the man if Alice hadn’t clung to him, tears in her eyes, and begged him please not to harm her father. He could refuse her tears nothing, so he sheathed his sword and promised her he would wait. Alice reassured him that her father would eventually see reason.
So they had continued to meet secretly, like wayward children—a situation that disgusted Gavin. Yet Alice begged him not to see her father, to allow her to persuade him.
Gavin shifted his stance now and listened again. Still there was only silence. This morning he’d heard Alice was to marry that piece of water-slime, Edmund Chatworth. Chatworth paid the king an enormous fee so that he would not be called upon to fight in any wars. He was not a man, Gavin thought. Chatworth did not deserve the title of earl. To think of Alice married to such as that was beyond imagination.
Suddenly all Gavin’s senses came alert as he heard the muffled sounds of the horse’s hooves on the damp ground. He was beside Alice instantly and she fell into his arms.
“Gavin,” she whispered, “my sweet Gavin.” She clung to him, almost as if in terror.
He tried to pull her away so he could see her face but she held him with such desperation that he dared not to. He felt the wetness of her tears on his neck and all the rage he’d felt during the day left him. He held her close to him, murmuring endearments in her little ear, stroking her hair. “Tell me, what is it? What has hurt you so?”
She moved away so she could look at him, secure in the knowledge that the night could not betray the lack of redness in her eyes. “It’s too awful,” Alice whispered hoarsely. “It is too much to bear.”
Gavin stiffened somewhat as he remembered what he’d heard about her marriage. “Is it true then?”
She sniffed delicately, touched a finger to the corner of her eye and looked up at him through her lashes. “My father cannot be persuaded. I even refused food to make him change his mind, but he had one of the women…No, I won’t tell you what they did to me. He said he would—Oh, Gavin, I cannot say the things he said to me.” She felt Gavin stiffen.
“I will go to him and—”
“No!” Alice said almost frantically, her hands clasping his muscular arms. “You cannot! I mean…” She lowered her arms and her lashes. “I mean, it’s already done. The betrothal has been signed and witnessed. There is nothing anyone can do now. If my father withdrew me from the bargain, he would still have to pay my dowry to Chatworth.”
“I will pay it,” Gavin said stonily.
Alice gave him a look of surprise; then more tears gathered in her eyes. “It wouldn’t matter. My father will not allow me to marry you. You know that. Oh, Gavin, what am I to do? I will be forced to marry a man I do not love.” She looked up at him with such a look of desperation that Gavin pulled her close to him. “How could I bear to lose you, my love?” she whispered against his neck. “You are meat and drink to me, sun and night. I…I will die if I lose you.”
“Don’t say that! How can you lose me? You know I feel the same about you.”
She pulled away to look at him, suddenly happier. “Then you do love me? Truly love me, so that if our love is tested, I will still be sure of you?”
Gavin frowned. “Tested?”
Alice smiled through her tears. “Even if I marry Edmund, you will still love me?”
“Marry!” He nearly shouted as he pushed her from him. “You plan to marry this man?”
“Have I a choice?” They stood in silence, Gavin glaring at her, Alice with eyes demurely lowered. “I will go then. I will go from your sight. You needn’t look at me again.”
She was almost to her horse before he reacted. He grabbed her roughly, pulling her mouth to his until he bruised her. There were no words then; none were needed. Their bodies understood each other even if they couldn’t agree. Gone was the shy young lady. In her place was the Alice of passion that Gavin had come to know so well. Her hands tore frantically at his clothes until they quickly lay in a heap.
She laughed throatily when he stood nude before her. His body was hard-muscled from many years of training. He was a good head taller than Alice, who often towered over men. His shoulders were broad, his chest powerfully thick. Yet his hips were slim, his stomach flat, the muscles divided into ridges. His thighs and calves bulged muscle, strong from years of wearing heavy armor.
Alice stepped away from him and sucked her breath in through her teeth as she devoured the sight of him. Her hands reached for him as if they were claws.
Gavin pulled her to him, kissed the little mouth that opened widely under his as her tongue plunged into his mouth. He pulled her close, the feel of her gown exciting against his bare skin. His lips moved to her cheek, to her neck. They had all night, and he meant to spend his time making love to her.
“No!” Alice said impatiently as she drew away sharply. She flung her mantle from her shoulders, careless of the expensive fabric. She pushed Gavin’s hands away from the buckle of her belt. “You are too slow,” she stated flatly.
Gavin frowned for a moment, but as layer after layer of Alice’s clothes were flung to the ground, his senses took over. She was eager for him as he was for her. What if she did not want to take too long before their bodies were skin to skin?
Gavin would have liked to savor Alice’s slender body for a while, but she pulled him quickly to the ground, her hand guiding him immediately inside her. He did not think then of leisurely loveplay or kisses. Alice was beneath him, urging him on. Her voice was harsh as she directed his body, her hands firm on his hips as she pushed him, harder and harder. Gavin at one time worried that he would hurt her, but she seemed to glory in the strength of him.
“Now! Now!” she demanded beneath him and gave a low, throaty sound of triumph when he obeyed her.
Immediately afterward she moved from beneath him, away from him. She had told him repeatedly this was because of her warring thoughts as she reconciled her unmarried state with her passion. Yet he would have liked to have held her longer, enjoyed her body more, even perhaps made love to her again. It would be a slow lovemaking this time, now that their first passion was spent. Gavin tried to ignore the hollow feeling he had, as if he had just tasted something but was still not sated.
“I must leave,” she said as she sat up and began the intricate process of dressing.
He liked to watch her slim legs as she slipped on the light linen stockings. At least watching her helped some of the emptiness dissipate. Unexpectedly, he remembered that soon another man would have the right to touch her. Suddenly he wanted to hurt her as she was hurting him. “I too have an offer of marriage.”
Alice stopped instantly, her hand on her stocking and watched him, waiting for more.
“Robert Revedoune’s daughter.”
“He has no daughter—only sons, both of them married,” Alice said instantly. Revedoune was one of the king’s earls, a man whose estates made Edmund’s look like a serf’s farm. It had taken Alice a while, those years while Gavin was in Scotland, but she’d found out the history of all of the earls—of all of the richest men in England—before deciding that Edmund was the most likely catch.
“Didn’t you hear that both sons died two months ago of wasting sickness?”
She stared at him. “But I’ve never heard a daughter mentioned.”
“A young girl named Judith, younger than her brothers. I heard she had been prepared by her mother for the church. The girl is kept cloistered in her father’s house.”
“And you have been offered this Judith to mar
ry? But she would be her father’s heiress, a wealthy woman. Why would he offer to—?” She stopped, remembering to conceal her thoughts from Gavin.
He turned his face from her, and she could see the muscles in his jaw working, the moonlight glinting on his bare chest, still lightly covered in sweat from their lovemaking.
“Why would he offer such a prize to a Montgomery?” Gavin finished for her, his voice cold. Once the Montgomery family had been wealthy enough to stir the envy of King Henry IV. Henry had declared the entire family traitorous and then set about breaking up the powerful family. He had done so well that only now, one hundred years later, was the family beginning to regain some of what it had lost. But the memories of the Montgomery family were long, and none of them cared to be reminded of what they had once been.
“For the right arms of my brothers and myself,” Gavin said after a while. “The Revedoune lands border ours on the north, and he fears the Scots. He realizes that his lands will be protected if he allies himself to my family. One of the court singers heard him say that the Montgomeries, if they produced nothing else, made sons who lived. So it seems I am made an offer of his daughter if only I will give her sons.”
Alice was nearly dressed now. She stared at him. “The title will pass through the daughter, won’t it? Your eldest son would be an earl, and you when her father dies.”
Gavin turned abruptly. He hadn’t thought of that, nor did he care about it. It was strange that Alice, who cared so little for worldly goods, should think of it first.
“Then you will marry her?” Alice asked as she stood over him and watched as he hastily began to put on his clothes.
“I’ve not made a decision. The offer only came two days ago, and then I thought—”
“Have you seen her?” Alice interrupted.
“Seen her? You mean the heiress?”
Alice clamped her teeth together. Men could be so dense at times. She recovered herself. “She is beautiful, I know,” Alice said tearfully. “And once you are wed to her, you will never remember me.”
Gavin stood quickly. He didn’t know whether to be angry or not. The woman talked of their marriages to other people as if they made no difference to their relationship. “I have not seen her,” he said quietly.
Suddenly the night seemed to be closing in on him. He’d wanted to hear Alice deny the talk of her marriage, but instead he found himself talking of the possibility of his own marriage. He wanted to get away—away from the complexities of women and back to the soundness and logic of his brothers. “I don’t know what will happen.”
Alice frowned as he took her arm and led her to her horse. “I love you, Gavin,” she said quickly. “Whatever happens, I will always love you, always want you.”
He quickly lifted her into the saddle. “You must return before someone discovers you’re gone. We wouldn’t like such a story to get to the brave and noble Chatworth, would we?”
“You are cruel, Gavin,” she said, but there was no sound of tears in her voice. “Am I to be punished for what is out of my hands, for what I cannot control?”
He had no answer for her.
Alice bent forward and kissed him, but she knew his mind was elsewhere and this frightened her. She pulled sharply on the reins and galloped away.
Chapter Two
IT WAS VERY LATE WHEN GAVIN RODE INTO SIGHT OF THE Montgomery castle. For all that their property had been stolen from them by a greedy king, these walls remained theirs. A Montgomery had lived here for over four hundred years—since William conquered England and brought with him the already rich and powerful Norman family.
Over the centuries the castle had been added to, reinforced and remodeled until the fourteen-foot-thick walls enclosed over three acres. Inside, the land was divided into two parts; the outer and the inner bailey. The outer bailey housed the servants, the garrison knights and all the hundreds of people and animals it took to run the castle. The outer bailey also sheltered and protected the inner bailey, where the houses of the four Montgomery brothers and their private retainers stood. The entire complex set atop a hill, backed against a river. No trees were allowed to grow within half a mile of the castle: any enemy would have to approach in the open.
For four centuries the Montgomeries had held this fortress against an avaricious king and private wars. It was with pride that Gavin looked at the looming walls that were his home. He walked his horse toward the river then dismounted and led it through the narrow river passage. Apart from the massive front gate, this was the only entrance. The main gate was covered by a portcullis: a spiked fence that could be lowered with ropes. Now, at night, the guards would have had to wake five men to raise it. So, Gavin went to the narrow private entrance, a quarter mile of eight-foot-tall walls that led to the back entrance, the top of the walls guarded by men who walked back and forth on them all night. Gavin nodded to each guard as he was challenged. No man who valued his life ever slept while on duty.
During the reign of King Henry VII, the present king, most castles had fallen into decline. When he had taken the throne, sixteen years ago in 1485, he decided to break the power of the great barons. He banned private armies and he put gunpowder under the control of the government. Since the barons could no longer wage private wars for profit, their fortunes suffered. The castles were expensive to maintain, and one after another the thick walls were abandoned for the comfort of a manor house.
But there were those who through good management and hard work still retained the use of the powerful old structures. The Montgomeries were such a family, and they were respected throughout England. Gavin’s father had built a strong, comfortable manor house for his five children, but he’d built it inside the castle walls.
Once inside the bailey, Gavin saw that there was much activity. “What has happened?” he asked the stableboy who took his horse.
“The masters have just returned from a fire in the village.”
“Bad?”
“No, sire, only some of the merchants’ houses. The masters needn’t have gone.” The boy shrugged, as if to say that there was no understanding nobles.
Gavin left him and entered the manor house, built against the ancient stone tower that was used now for little except storage. The brothers preferred the comfort of the big house. Several of the knights were settling down to sleep, and Gavin greeted a few of them as he hurried up the broad oak stairs to his own quarters on the third floor.
“Here is our wayward brother,” Raine called to him cheerfully. “Miles, do you think he rides about the countryside at night and neglects his responsibilities? Half the village could have burned to the ground if we acted as he does.”
Raine was the third Montgomery brother, the shortest and stockiest of the four. He was a powerful, thick man. He would have been formidable looking, and on a battlefield he was; but most of the time, as now, his blue eyes danced and deep, long dimples pierced his cheeks.
Gavin looked at his younger brothers, but he did not smile.
Miles, his clothes blackened with soot, poured a flagon of wine and offered it to Gavin. “You have had some bad news?” Miles was the youngest brother, a serious man with piercing gray eyes that missed nothing. His smile was rarely seen.
Raine was immediately contrite, “Is something wrong?”
Gavin took the wine and sank heavily onto a carved walnut chair, facing the fire. It was a large room with an oak floor, covered in places by carpets from the Orient. On the walls were heavy wool tapestries of hunting scenes and the Crusades. The ceiling was of heavy, arched timbers, both decorative and functional. White plaster filled the gap between the beams. It was a man’s room and the large, dark furniture in it was carved intricately. At the southern end was a deep bay window with seats covered in red sendal. The glass in the mullioned windows was from France.
All three of the brothers were dressed in simple, dark clothes. Linen shirts, loosely gathered at the neck, fit close to their bodies. Over these were wool doublets, long vestlike garments t
hat reached to the top of their thighs. A heavy, short, long-sleeved jacket went over the doublet. The men’s legs, exposed from the top of the thigh, were encased in dark wool hose, tightly fitting the massive bulges of muscle. Gavin wore heavy boots to his knees. At his hip was slung a sword in a jeweled scabbard.
Gavin drank deeply of the wine, then watched silently as Miles refilled it. He could not share his unhappiness about Alice—even with his brothers.
When Gavin did not speak, Miles and Raine exchanged glances. They knew where Gavin had been and could guess what news had given him an air of doom. Raine had met Alice once, at Gavin’s discreet urging, and found in her a coldness he did not like. But to the besotted Gavin, Alice was perfection in a woman. Whatever he thought of her, Raine had sympathy for Gavin.
Not so Miles. He was untouched by even the hint of love for a woman. To him, one woman was the same as another; one served the same purpose as well as any. “Robert Revedoune sent another messenger today,” Miles interrupted the silence. “I think he is worried that if his daughter isn’t delivered of a son soon, she might die and leave him no one to inherit.”
“Is she sickly?” Raine asked. He was the humanitarian of the brothers, concerned for a hurt mare, a sick serf.
“I’ve not heard so,” Miles answered. “The man is mad with grief that his sons are gone and that he has merely one puny daughter left. I’ve heard he beats his wife regularly to repay her for so few sons.”
Raine frowned into his wine cup. He did not believe in beating women.
“Will you give him his answer?” Miles pressed as Gavin still did not answer.
“One of you take her,” Gavin said. “Bring Stephen from Scotland or you, Raine, you need a wife.”