“You should have stayed at home and waited with your embroidery frame,” he said in disgust. “Then we would have had time. Now you must buy us time. Agree to nothing Demari says. Talk to him of women’s things, but don’t talk to him of annulment or your estates.”
“He thinks I’m a simpleton.”
“Deliver all men from such simple women! Now you must go.”
She stood. “I will bring more food tomorrow.”
“No! Send Joan. No one will notice that cat slipping from one bed to the next.”
“But I will come in disguise.”
“Judith, who else has hair the color of yours? If one strand were to escape, you would be recognized. And if you were found out, there would be no reason to keep the rest of us alive. Demari must think you will comply with his plans. Now go and obey me for once.”
She stood and nodded as she turned toward the ladder.
“Judith,” he whispered. “Would you kiss me again?”
She smiled happily and before he could stop her, her arms were about his waist, holding him close to her. She could feel the change in his body, the weight he’d lost. “I have been frightened, Gavin,” she confessed.
He lifted her chin in his hand. “You are braver than ten men.” He kissed her longingly. “Now go and don’t come again.”
She nearly ran up the ladder and out of the dark cellar.
Chapter Eighteen
THE CASTLE WAS QUIET WHEN ARTHUR FINALLY ALLOWED his anger to explode. He knew he should have kept his temper under control, but he’d seen too much in one day.
“You are a fool!” Arthur said with a sneer. “Don’t you see how the woman plays you like a master harper plays a psaltery?”
“You overstep yourself,” Walter warned.
“Someone must! You’re so besotted by her that she could slip a knife between your ribs and you would murmur, ‘Thank you.’ ”
Walter suddenly looked into his cup of ale. “She is a sweet and lovely woman,” he murmured.
“Sweet! Bah! She is as sweet as verjuice. She has been here three days, and look at how far you have gotten with negotiations for an annulment. What does she say when you ask her?” He didn’t give Walter time to reply. “That woman has a convenient hearing loss. At times she just looks at you and smiles when you ask her a question. You would think she is both deaf and dumb. You never press her, but only return her smile with a mindless one of your own.”
“She is a beautiful woman,” Walter said in defense.
“Yes, she is enticing,” Arthur acknowledged and smiled to himself. Judith Montgomery was beginning to stir his blood also, though not in the holy way she affected Walter. “But what has her beauty accomplished? You are no nearer your goal than when she arrived.”
Walter slammed down his goblet. “She is a woman, damn you, not a man you can reason with! She must be wooed and won. Women must be loved. And there is her father and that vile husband of hers. They have frightened her.”
“Frightened!” Arthur snorted. “I have never seen a woman less frightened in my life. A frightened woman would have stayed home in her bed behind her castle walls. This one comes riding to our gate and—”
“And asks for nothing!” Walter said triumphantly. “She has asked for nothing but better quarters for her mother, a simple request. She spends her days with me and is pleasant company. Judith has not so much as asked about the fate of her husband. Surely that shows she doesn’t care about him.”
“I’m not so sure,” Arthur said thoughtfully. “It seems unnatural for her to care so little about him.”
“She hates him, I tell you! I don’t see why you don’t kill him and be done with it. I would wed her atop the dead man’s corpse if the priest would allow it.”
“Then you would have the king upon your head! She is a rich woman. Her father had the right to give her to a man, but now he is dead. No one else has the right except the king. The moment her husband is dead, she becomes the king’s ward, the revenues from her estates his. Do you think King Henry would give a rich widow to the man who tortured and killed her husband? And if you took her without his permission, he would be even more angry. I’ve told you time and again: the only way is if she stands before the king and asks publicly for a release from her marriage and declares for you. King Henry loves the queen and is greatly moved by such sentimentality.”
“Then I am proceeding properly,” Walter said. “I’m making the woman love me. I can see it in her eyes when she looks at me.”
“I say again, you are a fool. You see what you wish. I am not so certain that she doesn’t scheme something. A plan of escape, perhaps.”
“Escape from me? I don’t hold her captive. She is free to go when she wants.”