Alice was staring quietly ahead into the night. Her silence made the man grow bolder. He leaned closer to her, put his hand over hers and whispered into her ear. “You have no reason to fear, my lady. There will be no beautiful bride to turn the Lord Gavin’s head from you.”
Only Alice’s sharply drawn breath gave any indication she had heard. Did even the most common of men know about her and Gavin? With the skill of a great actress, she turned and smiled at the man. “You have done well and you shall be…suitably rewarded.” She left no doubt as to the meaning of her words.
He bent and kissed her neck.
Alice moved away, hiding her revulsion. “No, not tonight,” she whispered intimately. “Tomorrow. Arrangements must be made so we can spend more time together.” She ran her hand under the loose tabard, along his upper thigh, and smiled seductively when his breath caught. “I must go,” she said with seeming reluctance.
There was no hint of a smile on her face when her back was to him. She had one more stop to make before she returned to bed. The stableboy would be glad to help her. She would not allow any man to speak freely of Gavin and her…and this one would pay for his words.
“Good morning, Father,” Alice said cheerfully as she bent to brush her lips against the cheek of the gnarled and filthy old man. They were on the second floor of the tower, a floor left open as one enormous room. This was the great hall: a room used for eating, sleeping for the castle retainers, and all the daily activities.
She looked into her father’s empty cup. “Here, you!” she said sharply to a passing servant. “Bring my father more ale.”
Nicolas Valence took his daughter’s hand in both of his and looked up at her in gratitude. “You are the only one who cares, my lovely Alice. All the others—your mother and sisters—try to keep me from my drink. But you understand how it comforts me.”
She pulled away from him, hiding her feelings at his touch. “But of course, dear Father. That is because I alone love you.” She smiled sweetly at him.
After all these years Nicolas still marveled that he and his ugly little wife could have created such a lovely girl. Alice’s pale beauty was a sharp contrast to his own darkness. And when the others raged at him and hid his liquor, Alice sneaked bottles to him. It was true—she did love him. And he loved her, too. What little coin there was, didn’t he give it to her for her clothes? His lovely Alice wore silk while her sisters wore homespun. He’d do anything for her. Hadn’t he told that Gavin Montgomery that she couldn’t marry him, just as Alice had told him to? Of course Nicolas didn’t understand why a young girl wouldn’t want to marry such a strong and rich man like Gavin. But Alice had been right. He picked up his refilled cup and drained it. She’d been right—now she was to marry
an earl. Of course Edmund Chatworth was nothing like one of those handsome Montgomeries, but Alice aways knew what was best.
“Father,” Alice said smiling, “I would like a favor from you.”
He drank yet a third cup of ale. Sometimes Alice’s favors were not easy to grant. He changed the subject. “Did you know that a man fell off the wall last night? A stranger. No one seems to know where he came from.”
Alice’s expression changed. Now the spy would tell no one of Gavin or that she asked about the Revedoune heiress. Quickly, she dismissed the thought. The man’s death meant nothing to her. “I want to go to the wedding of the Revedoune woman to Gavin.”
“You want an invitation to the wedding of an earl’s daughter?” Nicolas was incredulous.
“Yes.”
“But I cannot. How could I?”
This time, Alice waved the servant away and refilled her father’s cup herself. “I have a plan,” she said quickly and smiled her sweetest smile.
Chapter Three
THE FIRE RAGED UP THE SIDE OF THE STONE AND HUNGRILY devoured the wooden second story of the merchant’s shop. The air was thick with smoke and the men and women who formed a line to pass the buckets of water were blackened. Only their eyes and teeth remained white.
Gavin, his body bare from the waist up, used the long-handled ax viciously as he chopped away the building next to the blazing shop. The vigor with which he worked did not betray the fact that he had been working like this for a full two days.
The town where the building burned, where three others stood in ashes, was his. Twelve-foot walls enclosed the town, running down the hill from the great Montgomery castle. This town’s taxes supported the Montgomery brothers; in return, the knights protected and defended the inhabitants.
“Gavin!” Raine bellowed over the roar of the flames. He too was filthy from smoke and sweat. “Come away from there! The fire is too close to you!”
Gavin ignored his brother’s warning. He did not look up at the burning wall that threatened to fall on him. His chopping became more vigorous as he fought to knock the seasoned timbers inside the lower stone walls, where the man on the ground could soak them with water.
Raine knew it was no use to yell at Gavin anymore. He tiredly signaled the exhausted men behind him to continue pulling the timbers off the wall. Raine was past exhaustion, yet he had had four hours of sleep—four more than Gavin. Raine knew from experience that if one square inch of what Gavin considered his was endangered, the man would neither sleep nor rest until it was safe.
Raine stood on the ground, his breath held as Gavin worked beside and under the burning wall. It would collapse at any moment and Raine could only hope that Gavin would soon finish hacking away the timbers and climb down the ladder to the safety of the ground. Raine murmured every oath he knew as Gavin flirted with death. The merchants and serfs gasped as the wall of fire teetered back and forth. Raine thought he would like to forcibly bring Gavin down the ladder, but Raine knew his strength was no greater than his older brother’s.
Suddenly the timbers fell inside the stone walls, and Gavin was immediately on the ladder. He had no more than touched the ground when Raine made a flying leap and knocked his brother out of the path of the sheet of fire.
“Damn you, Raine!” Gavin bellowed in his brother’s ear as Raine’s heavy body lay on top of him. “You’re crushing me. Get off!”
Raine was too used to Gavin to take offense. He stood up slowly, his muscles aching from the work of the last few days. “That’s the thanks I get for saving your life! Why the hell did you stay up there so long? Another few seconds, and you would have been roasted.”
Gavin stood up quickly, his soot-blackened face turned toward the building he had just left. The fire was contained inside the stone walls now and would not be leaping to the next building. When he was satisfied that the buildings were safe, he turned to his brother. “How could I have let the building burn?” he asked as he flexed his shoulder. It was scraped and bleeding where Raine had skidded him across the gravel and debris. “If the fire had not been stopped, I might not have had a town left.”