The Velvet Promise by Jude Deveraux Read Free Book Online

and tenderness, just as a woman was?
    She would know in a short while. She straightened her shoulders again.
    She would give him a chance, Judith vowed silently. She would be a mirror of him. If he were kind, she would be kind. But if he were like her father, then she would give as good as she got. No man had ever ruled her and none ever would. Judith made that a vow also.
    "My lady!" Joan called excitedly as she burst into the room. "Sir Raine and his brother Sir Miles are outside. They've come to see you." Joan gave her mistress a look of exasperation when Judith stared at her maid blankly. "They are your husband's brothers. Sir Raine wants to meet you before the wedding."
    Judith nodded and stood to greet the visitors. The man she was to marry showed no interest in her; even the betrothal was done by proxy, and now it was not him but his brothers who came to greet her. She took a deep breath and forced herself to stop trembling. She was more scared than she realized.

    Raine and Miles walked down the broad spiral stairs of the Revedoune house side by side. They had arrived only last night; Gavin had postponed facing his forthcoming marriage for as long as possible. Raine tried to get his older brother to meet his bride, but he refused. He said he would see her for years to come—why start the curse early?
    When Miles had returned from his duty of proxy at the engagement, Raine had been the one to question him about the heiress. As usual, Miles said little, but Raine knew he was hiding something. Now that Raine had seen Judith, he knew what it was.
    "Why didn't you tell Gavin?" Raine asked. "You know he's dreaded what he calls his ugly heiress."
    Miles did not smile, but his eyes glowed in memory of the vision of his sister-in-law. "I thought perhaps it would do him some good to be wrong for once."
    Raine smothered his laughter. Gavin sometimes treated his youngest brother as if he were a boy instead of a twenty-year-old man. Miles's silence in not telling Gavin of his fiancée's beauty was one small punishment for all the times Gavin had ordered his little brother about.
    Raine gave a short laugh. "To think Gavin offered her to me and I didn't even try! If I had seen her, I would have fought him for her. Do you think it's too late?"
    If Miles answered, Raine didn't hear him. His thoughts were elsewhere as he remembered his first sight of his little sister-in-law, whose head hardly reached his shoulder. He saw that only before he was close enough to see her face. After one look at her eyes, as pure and rich a gold as any from the Holy Land, he saw nothing else. Judith Revedoune had looked up at him with intelligence, evenly, as if she were assessing him. Raine had merely stared, unable to speak as he felt himself being pulled under by the current of those eyes. She did not simper or giggle like most young maidens, she met him as an equal. He found the sensation heady. Miles had to nudge Raine to make him speak to her. Raine never heard a word anyone said, but merely stood and stared. He had a vision of carrying her away from this house and these people, of making her his. He knew he must leave before he had other such indecent thoughts of his brother's wife.
    "Miles," he said now, his dimples cutting deeply into his cheeks, as they always did when he tried not to laugh aloud, "perhaps we can both repay our elder brother for demanding too many hours on the training field."
    "What do you plan?" Miles's eyes burned with interest.
    "If I remember correctly, I just saw a hideous dwarf of a woman with rotted teeth and an incredibly fat backside."
    Miles began to smile. Truthfully, they had seen just such a hag on the staircase. "I see what you mean. We must not lie, but neither need we tell all the truth."
    "My idea exactly."

    It was still early morning when Judith followed her maids down the wooden stairs to the great hall on the second floor. There were fresh rushes on the floor, the tapestries had been taken from storage and