The Velvet Promise (Montgomery/Taggert 2)

“I have grown to love her,” he said simply.

Alice’s eyes blazed at him a moment before she recovered her temper. “You said you would not. On your wedding day you promised me that you wouldn’t love her.”

Gavin almost smiled in memory. Two vows had been made that day. Judith had vowed to give him only what he took. How deliciously she had broken that vow! And he, too, had broken his. “Don’t you remember that you threatened to take your own life? I would have done or said most anything to keep you from doing that.”

“But now you no longer care what I do with my life?”

“No! It’s not that. You know you will always have a place in my heart. You were my first love, and I will never forget you.”

Alice looked up at him, wide-eyed. “You talk as if I were already dead. Tell me, has she taken all your heart that I can have none?”

“I told you that you had a part, Alice, don’t do this to us. You must accept what has happened.”

Alice smiled, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “Should I accept it with the fortitude of a man? But Gavin, I’m a woman—a frail and fragile woman. Your heart may be cold to me, but mine is only warmer at seeing you again. Do you know what it was like being married to Edmund? He treated me like a servant, locked me in my room continually.”

“Alice—”

“And can you g

uess why? Because at your wedding he had me watched. Yes, he knew when we went alone to the garden. He knew the times when I was alone with you in your tent. Remember the time you kissed me with such feeling, the morning after your wedding?”

Gavin nodded, not wanting to hear her confession.

“During our marriage, he never lost a moment to remind me of the time I had spent with you. Yet I bore it all, willingly—gladly almost—for I knew you loved me. Each and every lonely night I lay awake and thought of you, of your love for me.”

“Alice, you must stop.”

“Tell me,” she said quietly, “didn’t you once think of me?”

“Yes,” he answered honestly. “I did at first. But Judith is a good woman, kind and loving. I never thought I would love her. It was a marriage for estates, as you know.”

Alice sighed. “What am I to do now? My heart is yours—has always been, will always be.”

“Alice, this won’t help. It’s over between us. I’m married and I love my wife. You and I must part ways.”

“You are so cold to me.” Alice touched his arm, then moved her hand up to his shoulder. “Once you were not so cold.”

Gavin clearly remembered making love to Alice. Then he had been blinded by his love for her, and he believed anything she did was the way it should be done. But now, after months of passion with Judith, the idea of bedding Alice almost repulsed him. The way she could not stand to be touched before or after lovemaking. No, with Alice it was sex—a pure animal drive, nothing else.

Alice saw the expression on his face but didn’t understand it. She continued with her hand until she touched his neck. He stood immediately. Alice stood also, but she took his reluctance at her touch as a sign of his growing desire for her. She stood boldly against him, her arms going around his neck. “I see you do remember,” she whispered, raising her face to be kissed.

He gently pulled her arms from his neck. “No, Alice.”

She glared at him, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “You are so unmanned by her that you are afraid of her?”

“No,” Gavin said, surprised, both at Alice’s reasoning and her outburst. Anger was unnatural to Alice, who was always so sweet-tempered.

Alice quickly realized she’d made an error in revealing her true emotions. She blinked her eyes until great jewellike tears formed. “This is good-bye,” she whispered. “May I not have even one last kiss? You would deny me that, after all we’ve meant to each other?”

She was so delicate and he’d loved her so much once. He wiped a tear from her cheek with his fingertip. “No,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t deny myself one last kiss.” He took her gently in his arms and kissed her sweetly.

But Alice wanted no sweetness. He had forgotten her violence by half. She thrust her tongue in his mouth, grinding her teeth against his lips. He felt no building ardor as he once would have, but only a faint sense of distaste. He wanted to get away from her. “I must go,” he said, concealing his revulsion.

But Alice could feel that something was very wrong. She thought to bring him under control through that kiss but she knew she hadn’t. If anything, he was more remote than before. She bit her tongue over her sharp words and managed to look properly sad as he made his way through the trees to his waiting horse. “Damn that bitch!” Alice said through clenched teeth. That red-haired she-devil had taken her man!

Or at least she thought she had. Alice began to smile. Maybe that Revedoune woman thought she had Gavin, that she could crook her little finger and he would come to her. But she was mistaken! Alice would not allow someone to take what was hers. No, she would fight for her property and Gavin was hers…or he would be again.

She had done so much to get where she was now, at the king’s court near Gavin; she had even allowed her husband’s murderer to escape. She would watch the woman and find her weakness. Then Alice would regain what was hers. Even if she decided to cast Gavin aside, it was to be her decision and not his!