Velvet Angel

by Jude Deveraux

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know. I was just thinking that Raine will have my hide for doing this.”

  Miles’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, he will.”

  “You’re hurt!” Elizabeth suddenly announced, her hand running over a dirty bandage about his ribs. There wasn’t much of his shirt left but what there was, Elizabeth had been exploring under.

  She leaned away from him. Only moonlight came into the little room but even in that light, as she parted his shirt, she could see all the scars. Running her fingertips along one, she spoke, “You had no scars when I first met you and you’ve received all of them through me.”

  He kissed her palm. “I’ll put a few scars on you—scars you get from bearing twenty of my children. Now I want both of you to rest because I imagine morning will bring…new events.”

  Elizabeth’s main concern in life had been seeing Miles safe again and now that she leaned against him, knew he was strong and well, she was content. She closed her tired eyes and slept instantly.

  Not so Alyx. She had not been traveling as long as Elizabeth and wasn’t as tired. She closed her eyes and was still but her mind raced.

  After an hour, when the cell was barely growing light, Miles gently moved the women off him and went to stand before the window. With half-shuttered eyes, Alyx watched him, saw his awkward movements.

  “Come join me, Alyx,” he whispered, surprising her that he knew she was awake.

  Alyx stepped over a sleeping Elizabeth and as she drew near Miles, he pulled her to him, his front to her back. “You’ve risked much to save me, Alyx, and I thank you.”

  She smiled, put her cheek against his wrist. “I’m the one who got us caught. The duke had seen me play in England somewhere, remembered me and also remembered that he’d heard I’d become a Montgomery. What do you think Bronwyn said when she saw Roger on the roof instead of you?” She turned in his arms. “You do think they got away, don’t you? No guards were waiting for them at the bottom of the ropes, were they? Raine will come?”

  With a smile he turned her back toward the window. “I know they got through. Look there, far to the west.”

  “I see nothing.”

  “In the haze, see the little sparkles?”

  “Yes,” she said excitedly. “What are they?”

  “I could be wrong but I believe they’re men in armor. And there, more to the north.”

  “More sparkles! Oh Miles.” She turned, hugged his ribs tightly then suddenly let him go. “You’re hurt worse than you told Elizabeth,” she said accusingly.

  He tried to smile but there was pain in his eyes. “Will you tell her and give her more to worry about? She was brave dancing for all those strange men, wasn’t she?” he said proudly.

  “Yes,” Alyx said, turning back around. Together they stood there as the day began to dawn, watching the little pinpoints of light as they grew nearer and nearer.

  “Who are they?” Alyx asked. “I know there are Montgomerys in France but there must be hundreds of knights approaching. Who are the others?”

  “I doubt if there are any others,” he answered. “There are Montgomerys all over France, and in Spain and Italy. When I was a boy and first earned my spurs it bothered me that I could go nowhere that I didn’t have an uncle or a few cousins breathing down my neck, but now I believe every one of my relatives to be beautiful.”

  “I have to agree with that.”

  “There!” he said, pointing straight ahead. “Did you see it?”

  “No, I saw nothing.”

  He grinned happily. “It’s what I’ve been waiting to see. There it is again!”

  Briefly, for less than a second, Alyx saw a different flash.

  “It’s my Uncle Etienne’s banner. We’ve always joked about the Montgomery banner he carries. It’s nearly as big as a house, but Etienne says just the sight of those three gold leopards will send most people running—and he wants to give them time to leave.”

  “I saw it!” Alyx gasped. On the horizon had appeared three flashes of gold, one above the other. “The leopards,” she breathed. “Who do you think—?” she began.

  “Raine will be leading Uncle Etienne. Stephen is coming with the men from the north and Gavin will arrive from the south.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I know my brothers.” He smiled. “Gavin will wait a few miles away for his brothers and all three armies will attack at once.”

  “Attack?” she said through her teeth.

  “Don’t worry.” He ran his hand along her temple. “I don’t believe even the Duke of Lorillard will try to stand against the combined forces of the Montgomerys. He’ll be given a chance to surrender to us peacefully. And besides, his fight is about Christiana, not with the Montgomerys.”

  “Christiana. The girl Roger Chatworth rescued? What has happened to her?”

  “I don’t know but I’ll find out,” Miles said with such feeling that Alyx was silenced. She knew better than to try to argue with one of the Montgomery men about something he planned to do. Together they watched the approaching armies of knights and when Elizabeth awoke, Miles held her also.

  Trying to cheer them, he made a bawdy jest about Elizabeth’s garish clothes.

  “If Judith and Bronwyn liberated Roger Chatworth and the three of them went for help, which brother do you think they reached first?” Alyx asked.

  Neither Miles nor Elizabeth had an answer for her.

  “I pray it wasn’t Raine,” Alyx whispered. “I think Raine would strike first and listen second.”

  In silence, they watched their rescuers approach.

  Chapter 21

  RIDING NEXT TO RAINE AND ETIENNE MONTGOMERY WAS Roger Chatworth, his mouth set in a grim line, his right arm—his sword arm—bound tightly but still bleeding, and next to him was Bronwyn sporting what promised to be an extraordinary example of a black eye. Roger’s arm was the result of Raine’s first sighting of his enemy and Bronwyn’s eye came about when she placed herself between Raine and Roger. Judith would have joined the fracas but John Bassett leaped from his horse, knocked her to the ground and pinned her there.

  It took four men to hold Raine and keep him from tearing Chatworth apart but he did finally calm somewhat and allowed Judith and Bronwyn, who was nursing her swollen eye, to tell him what had happened. All the Montgomerys were remounted halfway through the story. When Judith told of Alyx being thrown in the cell with Miles, Raine once again leaped for Roger. Roger held him off with a sword held in his left hand while Raine’s relatives calmed them both.

  They were all quiet now as they approached the old Lorillard castle.

  Gavin Montgomery sat in steely silence atop his horse, three hundred armed men behind him, and watched the approaching Montgomerys. Beside him sat Sir Guy, the giant’s scarred face immobile. Guy didn’t like to remember Gavin’s explosion when he found out Judith had come to France with the men.

  “She has no sense in these matters!” Gavin’d roared. “She thinks waging war is like cleaning a fish pond. Oh Lord,” he prayed fervently, “if she is still alive when I find her, I will kill her. Let’s ride!”

  Stephen ordered his men to the eastern side of the castle while he and Tam rode toward where Gavin waited on the south.

  “Women?” he bellowed long before he reached Gavin.

  “None!” Gavin answered so loudly his horse lifted both forefeet off the ground.

  In a cloud of dirt, Stephen and Tam turned west and headed for Raine. When Stephen saw Bronwyn, he nearly cried with relief, then frowned at her swollen eye. “What happened?” he shouted over the sound of the horses, not touching her but eating her with his eyes.

  “Raine—” was all Bronwyn got out before Stephen let go with a bellow of laughter. He looked fondly at Raine’s big form held rigidly in the saddle.

  Bronwyn didn’t bother to look at her husband again but moved to the far side of Tam.

  “Stephen,” Judith called. “Is Gavin with them?” She point
ed south.

  Stephen nodded once and Judith, John behind her, was off like a shot of lightning toward the southern group of Montgomerys.

  There was no fighting.

  The new Duke of Lorillard, obviously just roused from his bed, his eyes red, his skin gray green from a night of excess, had not lived to his great age of fifty-eight by trying to fight the nearly one thousand angry men who now surrounded his house. Showing his faith in the honor of the name Montgomery, he walked into the armed knights and told Gavin that if he were given his freedom, the Montgomerys could have whatever, or whomever, they wanted from his castle without the loss of a single life.

  Raine didn’t want to accept the man’s terms because the duke was surrendering not only his land but two of his sons as well. Raine believed that a man who’d do that should die.

  Both Bronwyn and Judith pleaded for the easiest way to rescue the people from the tower.

  In the end, it was Gavin, as the oldest, who made the decision. The duke and five of his guard were allowed to ride away after all the gates had been ordered opened.

  Amid protests, the women were ordered to stay behind while the three brothers, Roger and a dozen cousins rode into the duke’s crumbling fortress.

  Either the occupants didn’t know—or didn’t care—that they were under attack, or perhaps, as Stephen suggested, it was a common occurrence. They did not rouse themselves from their drunken stupors. Men and women sprawled about the floors and across benches.

  Cautiously, swords drawn, the men stepped between the bodies and searched for the stairs Bronwyn and Judith had told them of.

  At the top of the stairs the three brothers put their shoulders to a locked door that opened to the room containing the cells.

  “Here!” Roger said, grabbing a key from the wall and unlocking the heavy wooden door.

  They were greeted by Miles, looking calm and pleased with himself, an arm around each woman.

  Alyx ran, leaped into Raine’s arms where he held her very close, his eyes moist as he buried his face in her neck. “Every time you get near your sisters-in-law,” he began, “you do something like this. From now on—”

  With a laugh, Alyx kissed him to silence.

  Elizabeth left Miles’s arms and went to Roger, caressed his cheek, touched his bloody arm. “Thank you,” she whispered. She turned to Gavin, their eyes meeting, and she nodded curtly to him. She couldn’t forget the insults he’d paid her.

  Gavin, with a grin that softened his sharp features, opened his arms to her. “Could you and I start again, Elizabeth?” he asked quietly.

  Elizabeth went to him, hugged him and when Bronwyn and Judith arrived, more hugs and kisses were exchanged.

  Miles’s words broke the spell of happy reunion. With eyes locked with Roger’s, he said, “Shall we go?”

  At Roger’s curt nod, Miles took a sword from the hand of a young cousin.

  “Now’s not the time for a fight,” Stephen began but quieted at Miles’s look.

  “Chatworth has helped me. Now I go with him.”

  “With him?” Raine exploded. “Have you forgotten that he killed Mary?”

  Miles didn’t answer but left the room behind Roger.

  “Raine,” Alyx said in her softest voice. “Miles is wounded and so is Roger and I’m sure they’re going after this woman Roger wants.”

  “Christiana!” Elizabeth said, coming out of her stunned state. She’d had no idea where her brother and husband were going. “Judith, Bronwyn.” She turned.

  Without hesitation, all four women started for the door.

  Without a word, in unison, the men caught their wives about their waists, Raine catching both Alyx and Elizabeth, and carried them to the cell where they promptly locked them inside. For just a moment the men blinked at both the variety and the virility of the curses coming from the women. Judith intoned from the Bible, Bronwyn in Gaelic, Elizabeth used a soldier’s language. And Alyx! Alyx used her magnificent voice to shake the stones.

  The men grinned triumphantly at each other, motioned to their young cousins to follow and left the room.

  “I never thought I’d see the day I’d help a Chatworth,” Raine muttered, but stopped when he heard the clash of steel.

  Six guards, awake, alert, were guarding the room that held Christiana, and they attacked Roger and Miles on sight.

  Miles’s side wound opened instantly as he ran a sword through one guard, stepped over the fallen body and went for two more men. Roger’s sword was knocked from his left hand, he tripped over the body of the man Miles’d killed, fell, grabbed the sword in his right hand, came up and killed the man looming over him. His arm wound tore open.

  As another man came at Roger, he raised his wounded arm helplessly. But as the guard’s sword neared Roger’s belly, the guard fell forward, dead. Roger rolled away in time to see Raine pull his sword out of the dead man’s back.

  The three brothers welded together to protect Roger and Miles and quickly dispatched the remaining guards. They wiped their swords on the nearby bed-hangings.

  It was Raine who offered his hand to Roger and for a moment Chatworth only looked at it as he would an offer of friendliness from a deadly serpent. With eyes wide in speculation, Roger accepted the offer and allowed Raine to help him stand amidst the fallen bodies. Their eyes locked for just seconds before Roger went to the bed and pulled back the hangings.

  In the center was Christiana, curled into a ball, wearing only a thin bit of wool, her body black and blue. Her eyes were swollen shut, her lips cracked.

  Slowly, Roger knelt by the bed and touched her temple.

  “Roger?” she whispered and tried to smile, which caused her lower lip to start bleeding.

  With a look of fury on his face, Roger bent and lifted her.

  Raine’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. “We’ll take her south to our family.”

  Roger only nodded and carried Chris out of the room.

  Gavin assisted Miles in standing.

  “Where are the women?” Miles asked.

  His brothers were oddly silent and seemed to grow a little fearful.

  “We, ah…” Stephen began.

  Gavin’s head came up. “I think I’ll ride ahead. Here.” He tossed a key to Miles. “Maybe you better look after the women.”

  “Yes,” Stephen and Raine added hastily, all three stumbling over each other to get out of the room.

  Miles looked at the key in his hand, realizing it was the key to the cell where he’d been locked. “You didn’t!” he said but his brothers were gone.

  For a moment he stood there and, at last, he began to laugh, laugh as he’d never laughed before. A few years ago he and his brothers had been living alone in their safe little world of mere battles and wars. Then, one by one, they’d married four beautiful, charming women—and really learned what war was.

  Just now he and his brothers had taken a castle and killed several men and they’d taken no notice of the danger, but when faced with four furious women locked in a cell, they turned cowards and ran.

  Miles started for the door. Thank God he’d not been involved in locking the women up! He pitied his brothers when at last they saw their wives again.

  Like hell he did! He thought of every time they’d treated him as their “little brother.” Now they were going to pay for every trick they’d ever played on him.

  He tossed the key up, caught it and, grinning, started toward the cell full of beautiful women. He just might lock himself inside for a few days.

  What Happened to Everybody

  CHRISTIANA RECOVERED COMPLETELY, MARRIED ROGER Chatworth and ten years later, after they’d almost given up hope, they had a daughter, who, to Roger’s chagrin, married one of the Montgomerys from the south of England. The Chatworth name died out except, now and then, a child would be named Chatworth Montgomery.

  Miles and Elizabeth either created or adopted a total of twenty-three children and one of their sons, Philip, was a great favorite of Henry VIII. La
ter, two of Miles’s grandsons went to the new country of America and remained there.

  Raine was hired by Henry VIII to train his young knights and Alyx became lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine. The court was a happy place and the king listened to and put into action some of the reforms Raine wanted. Raine and Alyx had three daughters, the middle one inheriting Alyx’s musical talent. There’s a legend that some of our great singers of today are descended from Alyxandria Montgomery.

  Bronwyn and Stephen had six children, five boys and a girl. Bronwyn’s name became a legend in her clan and even today Clan MacArran children sing her praises. Bronwyn’s daughter married Kirsty MacGregor’s son. He took the name of MacArran and eventually became laird.

  Lachlan MacGregor married one of Tam’s daughters, became so enraptured with her that he turned clan business over to his men. Davy MacArran fought for power, won and became a MacGregor. But Lachlan’s daughter, Davy’s wife, wasn’t the docile little thing everyone believed and in the end it was she who was actually the MacGregor.

  Judith and Gavin held onto the Montgomery estates. They prospered and left the estate in such good shape financially that today it’s one of the largest, richest private homes in the world. One of Judith’s descendants runs the whole place. She’s a small, pretty young woman with odd-colored eyes, unmarried because she’s never met a man who’s accomplished in his life half what she’s done in hers. Next week she has an appointment to meet a thirty-year-old American, self-made millionaire, who says he’s a descendant of a knight named Miles Montgomery.

  I have great hopes for them.

  Jude Deveraux

  Santa Fe, New Mexico

  June, 1982