Judith pulled on her husband’s sleeve. “Don’t let him ruin the day. He knows nothing except his fists.” Her mind was whirling. The few men she had known would have thought it a father’s right to strike his daughter. Maybe Gavin thought only of her as property, but something in the way he had spoken made Judith feel protected, loved almost.
“Here, let me look at you,” Gavin said, his voice showing that he was working hard at controlling his temper.
He ran his fingertips over her lips as he felt for any bruised places or broken skin. She studied the darkness of his jaw where his whiskers lay just below the cleanly shaven skin. His touch made her knees weak. She lifted her hand and placed one fingertip on the cleft in his chin. He stopped his exploration and looked into her eyes. They stared at each other silently for a long moment.
“We must return,” he said very sadly. He took her arm and led her back to the castle.
They had been gone longer than they realized. The food had been cleared away, the trestle tables dismantled and stacked against the wall. The musicians were tuning their instruments as they got ready to play for the dancing.
&nb
sp; “Gavin,” someone called, “you’ll have her all your life. You shouldn’t hoard her now.”
Judith clung to Gavin’s arm, but she was quickly pulled away into a circle of energetic dancers. As she was pushed and pulled through the quick, vigorous steps, she tried to keep her eyes on her husband. She did not want to let him out of her sight.
A man’s chuckle made her look up. “Little sister,” Raine said, “you should give the rest of us a glance once in a while.”
Judith smiled at him just before a strong arm whirled her about, feet off the floor. When she returned to Raine’s side, she said, “How can I ignore such handsome men as my brothers-in-law?”
“Well said, but if your eyes don’t lie, my brother is the only one to put the light of the stars in those bits of gold.”
Again someone whirled Judith away, and as she was lifted in the man’s arm, she saw Gavin as he grinned down at a pretty little woman in a purple and green taffeta gown. Judith watched as the woman touched the velvet across Gavin’s chest.
“Where’s your smile?” Raine asked when she came back to him. He turned and look at his brother.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” Judith asked.
Raine controlled himself from laughing aloud. “Ugly! She is a little brown mouse of a woman, and Gavin would not have her.” Since everyone else already has, he thought to himself. “Ah,” he sighed. “Let’s leave here and get some cider.” He grabbed her arm and led her to the opposite side of the room from Gavin.
Judith stood quietly in Raine’s shadow and watched as Gavin led the brown-haired woman onto the dance floor. Each time he touched the woman, a swift feeling of pain shot through Judith’s breast. Raine was absorbed in some talk with another man. She put her cup down and walked slowly through the shadows at the edges of the hall and made her way outside.
Behind the manor house lay a small walled garden. All her life, when she needed to be alone, Judith had gone to this garden. The image of Gavin holding the woman in his arms was branded in fire before her eyes. Yet why should she care? She had known him not even a full day. Why should it matter if he touched someone else?
She sat down on a stone bench, hidden from the rest of the garden. Could she be jealous? She had never experienced the emotion in her life but all she knew was that she did not want her husband either looking at or touching other women.
“I thought I would find you here.”
Judith glanced up at her mother, then down again.
Helen quickly sat beside her daughter. “Is something wrong? Has he been unkind to you?”
“Gavin?” Judith asked slowly, liking the sound of the name. “No. He is more than kind.”
Helen did not like what she saw on Judith’s face. Her own had once been like that. She grabbed her daughter’s shoulders although the movement hurt her half-healed arm. “You must listen to me! I have put off talking to you for too long. Each day I hoped something would happen to prevent this marriage, but nothing did. I will tell you something that you must hear. Never, never must you trust a man.”
Judith wanted to defend her husband. “But Gavin is an honorable man,” she said stubbornly.
Helen dropped her hands to her lap. “Ah yes, they are honorable to each other—to their men, to their horses, even; but to a man a woman means less than his horse. A woman is more easily replaced, less valuable. A man who would not lie to the lowliest serf would think nothing of creating the biggest tales to his wife. What does he lose? What is a woman?”
“No,” Judith said. “I cannot believe all men are like that.”
“Then you will have a long and unhappy life as I have had. If I had learned this at your age, my life would have been different. I believed myself to be in love with your father. I even told him so. He laughed at me. Do you know what it does to a woman to give her heart to a man and have him laugh at it?”
“But men do love women—” Judith began. She could not believe what her mother said.
“They love women, but only the one whose bed they occupy—and when they tire of her, they love another. There is only one time when a wife has any control over her husband, and that is when she is new to him and the bed magic is upon him. Then he will ‘love’ you and you can control him.”
Judith stood, her back to her mother. “All men cannot be as you say. Gavin is…” She could not finish.