Velvet Angel

by Jude Deveraux

  “What did you see?” Roger asked.

  Miles realized that Roger was swallowing a great deal of pride to ask such a question. “It’s an old ship, falling apart, and it’s run by a crew that’s mostly drunk or dying. If they know we’re prisoners, they’re not interested.”

  “They sound like the type of men Alice would know,” Elizabeth said in disgust. “Are we headed toward France like you thought?”

  “Yes. I recognize the coastline. When it’s dark we’ll slip out, take one of the rowboats and row ashore. I don’t want to risk a welcoming party when the ship docks.” He looked to Roger and Roger gave a nod of his head.

  “And how do we get back to England?” Elizabeth asked, chewing.

  “I have relatives about four days’ ride from where we’ll land. If we can get to them we should be safe enough.”

  “Of course we have no horses or food to last us the journey,” Roger said, drinking deeply of the awful brew.

  “Perhaps we can manage,” Miles said quietly, taking the jug. There was a slight emphasis on the word “we.”

  “Yes, maybe we can,” Roger answered just as quietly.

  They ate in silence and when they’d finished, Roger and Elizabeth dressed in the sailors’ clothes. The striped cotton shirt stretched taut across Elizabeth’s breasts and she was pleased to see a flicker of interest in Miles’s eyes. She’d already proved that though he might still be angry with her, he still desired her—and hadn’t he said he’d thought of her “every moment”?

  When it grew even darker in the smelly little room, Miles again slipped up the ladder and this time he was gone a frighteningly long time. He returned empty-handed.

  “I stocked the rowboat with all the food I could find.” He looked at Roger. “I must trust you to protect my back. Elizabeth will be between us.”

  Roger, like Miles, was too tall to stand in the hold. Miles could pass as a sailor in his ill-fitting clothes, a day’s growth of black beard on his cheeks, his eyes wild and fierce, but Roger couldn’t. Roger’s heavier form had split the seams of the shirt and his aristocratic blondness could not be mistaken for that of a dirty seaman. And Elizabeth in the form-fitting clothes was hopeless. Her features were too delicate to ever look like a man’s.

  Under the watchful eyes of the bound sailor who was trying to disappear into the woodwork, they made their way up the ladder. Miles stayed several paces ahead, a small knife in his hand. It was the only weapon he’d returned with and he’d offered no explanation as to how he’d obtained it.

  The cool night air made Elizabeth realize how hideous the hold had been and her head began to clear as a breeze rushed over her. Miles caught her arm, giving a slight impatient jerk, and she gave her attention back to the moment.

  There were three men on deck—one at the helm, two sauntering about on opposite sides of the ship.

  Miles ducked, to disappear in a tangle of enormous ropes, and instantly Roger and Elizabeth followed his example. Crouching until her legs ached, they inched along the ship wall, slowly, carefully so as to make no sound.

  When Miles stopped, he waved an arm and Roger seemed to understand. He slipped over the side of the ship, and Elizabeth held her breath, expecting to hear a splash as Roger fell, but none came. The next moment Miles motioned her over, too. Without another thought, she threw a leg over the side of the ship and the rest of her followed. Roger caught her and silently lowered her to a seat in the rowboat.

  Her heart was pounding as she watched Roger, Miles helping from above, begin to lower the little boat down the side of the ship. Muscles in Roger’s arms strained as he took the weight, not letting it drop and hit the water loudly. Elizabeth made a move to help but Roger impatiently motioned her away. As she moved back to her seat, her foot caught on something. It was all she could do to stifle a scream as she saw a hand near her foot—the hand of a dead sailor.

  Suddenly, the rowboat lurched and she heard Roger’s intake of breath as he fought to control their plunge. For some reason Miles had abruptly released the ropes overhead. Roger managed to set the boat into the water with only a whisper. Pulling back, he looked up toward the ship.

  Miles was nowhere to be seen and for a moment Elizabeth felt panic. How deep did Roger’s hatred run? Could she fight Roger if he decided to leave Miles behind?

  But Roger merely stood in the boat, looking up expectantly, his legs wide apart and braced against the rolling boat.

  When Elizabeth was near tears of worry, Miles looked over the side, saw where Roger was and the next minute he tossed a body into Roger’s arms. Roger seemed to be waiting for just this and he didn’t fall when the body hit him. The next moment Miles was traveling down the rope with lightning speed and he was only half-in when Roger pushed off and began to row. Miles kicked the second dead sailor’s body beside the other one, grabbed the second oars and started rowing.

  Elizabeth couldn’t say a word as she watched the two of them working together, the boat gliding away into the night.

  Chapter 16

  “LET’S GET RID OF THEM,” WERE THE FIRST WORDS SPOKEN after an hour of silence.

  Miles nodded in agreement and kept rowing as Roger slipped the two bodies into the water.

  Roger resumed rowing. “We’ll have to have other clothes. Something plain that won’t arouse suspicion.”

  “Suspicion of what?” Elizabeth asked. “Do you think the sailors will try to find us?”

  Roger and Miles exchanged looks that made Elizabeth feel like an outsider.

  “If we let it be known that we’re of the Montgomerys or Chatworths,” Roger began patiently, “we’d be held for ransom within minutes. Since we travel without a guard we must travel incognito.”

  “As musicians perhaps,” Elizabeth added. “We should have Alyx with us.”

  The mention of Miles’s new sister-in-law made Roger reminisce about the time Alyx saved his life. The telling took until dawn, when the men finally reached shore.

  “Keep your cloak about you and stay close to me,” Miles ordered under his breath. “They’ll be setting up a market soon and we’ll see if we can find some clothes.”

  Even though light was just breaking, the town square was alive with people bringing in goods to sell. Roger, in his clothes with burst seams, his arrogant stance, caused many looks, as did Elizabeth, her hair dirty and tangled but her body covered in an expensive cape. But it was Miles who received the most looks—all from females.

  A pretty young woman, surrounded by young men, looked up from her wares and met Miles’s dark eyes.

  Elizabeth stepped forward, hands made into claws. With a chuckle, Miles caught her arm. “How’d you like to have the lady’s dress?”

  “I’d like to have her hide nailed to my door.”

  Miles gave Elizabeth such a hot look that she felt her heart begin to beat faster. “Behave yourself and obey me,” he said, walking toward the woman who was giving him such heated looks.

  “And what can I do for you?” the woman fairly purred, her language a gutter French.

  “Could I persuade you out of your clothes?” Miles half whispered, his fingers caressing a large cabbage as he spoke a perfect, classical French.

  Elizabeth could have been part of the roadway for all the attention the woman paid her.

  “Aye, you could,” she whispered, her hand closing over Miles’s. “And what would you like to offer in return?”

  Miles drew back, his eyes alight, that half-smile of his that Elizabeth knew so well on his lips. “We’ll barter a cloak, fur lined, for three suits of clothes and provisions.”

  The woman looked Elizabeth up and down. “Her cloak?” she spat.

  By now two of the men had walked toward the group and from the look of them, they were the woman’s brothers. Elizabeth, angry at Miles’s flirting, even if it were for a good cause, looked up through her lashes at the men. “We have had a most unfortunate accident,” she said in French, not quite as good as Miles’s, but adequate. “We were hoping
to trade this unworthy cloak for a few garments, although perhaps your sister’s would be a bit small.” At that she casually let the cloak fall to her hips, revealing a skin-tight shirt and pants even tighter. Miles angrily pulled the cloak back to her shoulders but not before the young men gasped in appreciation.

  “Will there be a trade?” Miles said through clenched teeth, not looking at Elizabeth.

  The brothers agreed readily, the sister having been pushed into the background.

  A few minutes later, Elizabeth stepped into a doorway and changed clothes under the cover of her cloak. The dress she wore was plain homespun, loose, comfortable, concealing.

  When Miles and Roger were also dressed plainly but with tight hose displaying their muscular thighs, they filled packs with food and set off toward the south.

  They were well out of town before Miles spoke to Elizabeth. “And did you learn that trick while at your brother’s house? You seem to have recovered quickly from your fear of men.”

  “And what was I supposed to do? Stand by and let that slut maul you? No doubt you would have taken her against the wall if she’d asked that price.”

  “Perhaps,” was all Miles said and lapsed into one of his infuriating silences.

  “Why is it that you accuse me of all manner of bad doings? I have never done anything to deserve your mistrust. I stayed with you in Scotland and—”

  “You ran away and nearly killed the MacGregor. You left with your brother,” Miles said flatly.

  “But I had to!” Elizabeth insisted.

  Roger had been walking on the other side of Elizabeth, silent until now. “I would have killed you, Montgomery, if she hadn’t gone with me. And I wouldn’t have believed whatever she said about wanting to stay with you.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Miles asked Roger after a pause.

  “Because Elizabeth’s ranted at me for a long time about how…wrong I’ve been. Perhaps there’s some truth in her words.”

  They walked in silence for some time, no one speaking his or her thoughts.

  As the sun rose higher, they stopped and ate, drinking water from a roadside stream. Elizabeth caught Miles watching her several times and she wondered what he was thinking.

  They passed many travelers on the road, rich merchants with donkeys laden with gold, many wandering peasants, musicians, blacksmiths and once a nobleman escorted by twenty armed knights. For an hour afterward Roger and Miles made derogatory remarks about the knights, ranging from their colors to their old-fashioned armor.

  As the sun started its descent, the men looked about for a place to spend the night. Although they risked being arrested as poachers, Roger and Miles chose to stay in the king’s forest, away from the campers along the roadside.

  As they ate, Miles and Roger talked about training, mentioned a few people they both knew and generally acted as if they were old friends. Elizabeth walked away into the shadows and neither man even noticed. Several minutes later she was near tears as she leaned against a tree and listened to the night sounds.

  When Miles’s hand touched her shoulder, she jumped away.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Wrong!” she hissed at him, her eyes filling with tears. “How could anything be wrong! You held me prisoner for months, made me fall in love with you, yet when I sacrificed everything to save your worthless life, you hated me. I have borne your child, I have conspired with your relatives and your own man to win you back, yet all I get from you is coolness. I’ve kissed you and you’ve responded but you’ve offered me nothing on your own. What must I do to make you understand that I didn’t betray you? That I didn’t choose my brother over you? You heard Roger say he would have killed you if I hadn’t gone with him.” She couldn’t continue as the tears were choking her.

  Miles leaned against a tree, several feet away from her. The moonlight silvered his hair and eyes. “I thought only my brothers were subject to the old demon of pride. I thought Raine was a fool when he refused to forgive his wife for going to the king to beg for a pardon. I could have forgiven you a king but you chose one man over me, someone else’s home over mine. And when I heard the stories of all the men you’d bedded I knew I could have killed you.”

  When she started to protest, he put up his hand. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve dealt with so many unfaithful wives, women who’ve risen from my bed and put on their wedding clothes. Maybe that distorted my view of all women. And finally, you were my prisoner but you came to me so easily.”

  “I fought you!” she said hotly, insulted.

  Miles merely smiled at her. “Raine said I was jealous, and the irony of it was that I was jealous of the same man as he was. Raine believed his wife Alyx had a great affection for Roger Chatworth.”

  “Roger, I’m sure, knew nothing of this.”

  “So I gathered when he told the story of Alyx saving his life. Alyx did it to save Raine because my brother is a hotheaded, stubborn man who never listens to reason.”

  “Raine!” Elizabeth sputtered. “Did he rage so that he tore his stitches? Did he have to be drugged to make him sleep?”

  Miles gave her a quick smile, teeth flashing. “Raine wears out lances when he’s angry. I have my own way.”

  He was silent for a long moment. “How is our son?” he asked quietly.

  “He has high cheekbones like your brother Gavin. There is no doubt of the family resemblance.”

  “I never doubted it, not truly. Elizabeth…?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you return to me within a week or so? I waited every day; I prayed for your return. Kit cried himself to sleep. So many mothers have left him.”

  Tears were rolling down Elizabeth’s cheeks. “I was afraid of Roger. He wasn’t sane. Brian had vowed to kill Roger and I was afraid that if I weren’t there to stop him, Roger’d declare war on all the Montgomerys. I hoped to make him see the truth; I hoped to learn the truth about the hatred of the two families.”

  “And the men?” Miles said. “Pagnell told everyone of how you were delivered to me and every man who courted you made sure I heard all the details.”

  Elizabeth put her hand up. “You were not only the first man to make love to me, you were the first man to speak to me without a leer on his face, the first man to make me laugh, the first man to show me kindness. Even you have said I know nothing about men.”

  “So you found out,” Miles said bitterly.

  “In a way, I did. I thought about it dispassionately and I knew that it would be better if I loved any man but a Montgomery. If I were married to someone else perhaps Roger would forget that I carried a Montgomery’s child and maybe some of his hatred would leave him. So I decided to meet some men and see if maybe I loved you merely because you were the first.”

  Miles was silent, his eyes burning into her.

  “Some of the men made me laugh, some were kind, some made me feel beautiful, but none of them did all things. As the weeks went by, instead of fading, everything about you became clearer. I remembered your every gesture and I began comparing the men to you.”

  “Even to the size of—”

  “Damn you!” Elizabeth cut him off. “I did not bed any of the men and I have a feeling you know that, yet you want to hear me say it.”

  “Why didn’t you take them to your bed? Some of the men you met are very successful with women.”

  “As you are?” she spat at him. “Here you stand demanding celibacy from me, yet what about you? When I tell you there have been no other men will you allow me to come to your pure bed? This morning I had to drag you from a woman. How do you think I’ve felt while holding your son and knowing that at that moment you could be in bed with one or two—or more—women?”

  “More?” he mocked, then lowered his voice seductively. “There have been no women since you.”

  Elizabeth didn’t believe she’d heard correctly. “No—” she began, eyes wide.

  “My brother Ra
ine and I moved into one of his keeps and in a rage we dismissed every woman, even the laundresses. We trained all day, drank all night and cursed women constantly. Raine came to his senses first when his wife sent their daughter to him. Little Catherine made me miss my own children so I went back to Gavin’s for Christmas and Judith—” He ran his hand through his hair.

  “I used to think Gavin was hard on his sweet little wife but I’d never been on the sharp side of her tongue. The woman never left me alone. She was merciless. She talked constantly about our son, sighed over the fact that her son would never know his cousin and she even hired a man to paint a picture of an angel with long blond hair holding a little boy inside my shield. Inside my shield, mind you! I told Gavin I was going to wring his wife’s neck if he didn’t do something but Gavin laughed so hard I never mentioned it again. When she received your letter about how you were willing to forgive me, Judith launched into me with renewed force.”

  Miles closed his eyes a moment in memory. “She enlisted Alyx’s help and Alyx came up with a dozen songs about two lovers who were held apart by a stupid, vain man who just happened to look exactly like me. One evening at dinner Alyx led twenty-two musicians in a song that made everyone laugh so hard two men fell off their stools and broke ribs. Alyx was at her best.”

  Elizabeth was so astonished at his story she could barely speak. “And what did you do?”

  He winced in memory. “I very calmly bounded over the table and took Alyx’s throat in my hands.”

  “No!” she gasped. “Alyx is so tiny, so—”

  “Both Raine and Gavin drew swords on me and as I stood there, about to kill this pretty little songbird, my brothers’ swords at my neck, I realized I wasn’t myself. The next day Judith arranged the meeting between us.” His eyes twinkled. “The meeting where you wanted Sir Guy to deliver you to me in a carpet.”

  Elizabeth wouldn’t look at him. She thought Sir Guy had been on her side, yet all along he’d been reporting—and laughing—to Miles. How the two of them must have slapped each other’s backs at her wanting to seduce her own husband. What had happened to that prideful woman who’d once stood on a cliff edge and vowed never to submit to any man?