Ondine (11 page)

He merely chuckled and slowly allowed her feet to touch the floor, forcing her to slide against him all the while. He did not release her, but kept her pinned to him as he told her, “My love, I but remind you that the rights I claim are simple: your attention when I wish to speak. There are other rights, my lady, that a husband could demand he claim.” Smiling grimly, the heat of warning in his dulcet tones, he allowed his fingers to play down the length of her spine, tarry upon its base, then move leisurely over her buttocks.

“Damn you, villain, knave, jackass—” Ondine began.

“You’ve left out husband and lord,” he reminded her, his hand moving again as he held her, the knuckles stroking upward over her hip and waist, and then the length of his fingers closing around her breast in an intimate caress that sent flames racing through her anew. Her eyes were locked with his. Her teeth were clenched, and still they chattered when she lashed out again.

“Tyrant, vandal, blackguard—beast!”

“Ah, and your heart beats like the hare’s when that beast is on the hunt, lady! Perhaps that is best; it is well that you learn some recall as to the master of this game.”

Abruptly he released her, striding across the room, plucking a towel, and tossing it to her. Ondine caught the towel and hurriedly wrapped it about her, expecting to find his mouth curled in a sardonic grin. It was not; his eyes were very intense, his features masking all emotion.

“Madam,” he said harshly, “I’ll not disturb you again.” He bowed elegantly, sweeping his plumed hat before him, then exited with long, even strides. The door clicked sharply.

Ondine stared after him, alternately shivering with cold fury, and then trembling … with what strange searing heat she did not know. At length she swirled about and returned to her own chamber, slamming the door and dressing hurriedly. She thought of her husband and swore silently that she would pay him back one day, in more ways than one.

Then she discovered that she was staring about her room. Gene-vieve’s room? Surely it had to be so.

Poor Genevieve. Ondine realized that she wanted to know more about the girl. And at the same time, she trembled slightly. She didn’t want Genevieve’s “ghost” in her own life.

Suddenly she felt Genevieve, sweet, gentle Genevieve, in everything around her—in the soft blues and whites of the chamber, in the draperies, in the bedclothes … even in the water pitcher.

She turned about, tilted her chin, and left the chamber. Breakfast awaited her in the outer room, and she was quite determined that she would spend the day viewing her new domain.

Warwick had disappeared when she forced herself to walk through the connecting door to his chamber, nor was he about in the music room, as Lottie called it. Breakfast awaited her, and she ate pleasurably alone, then determined to summon Mathilda. The housekeeper came to her, and Ondine gave her a charming smile. “I’d like a tour this morning, and I’m quite sure you know the place completely.”

Mathilda’s eyes widened, apparently with relief, yet Ondine wondered if the woman wasn’t thinking it a very regretful thing that the master had returned with a new wife.

Ondine rose and preceded the housekeeper to the hall doorway, pausing there. “Mathilda, I meant what I said. Lottie is to bear no punishment for the unfortunate episode this morning.”

An anguished look appeared upon the woman’s features; she began to wring her hands, and her deep eyes carried a hint of tears restrained. “Milady! I beg your pardon! I did not wish you to be upset. ‘Tis difficult at best to leave one’s home and claim another; I could not bear to see you frightened here!”

“I do not believe in ghosts.” She spoke gently, certain that Mathilda had dearly loved the countess Ondine had replaced—in name at least. “I am very sorry about the lady Genevieve,” she added softly.

Mathilda nodded her head distractedly, then suddenly seemed to brighten. “Would you like to see her?”

Ondine’s heart seemed to leap—was Mathilda mad herself?

“Her portrait, in the gallery, my lady.”

“Oh,” Ondine breathed, relieved. “I should love to see it.”

Mathilda swept by her. They followed the long gallery past numerous portraits of Chathams. Then toward the western wing of the manse Mathilda stopped before a recent portrait of a woman.

Ondine could not help but stare, fascinated and compelled. The woman sat upon a crimson-covered chair, a spaniel in her lap. The artist had captured more than her golden blond beauty and sky-blue eyes. He had found the essence of the woman, a wistful, ethereal look to the eyes, a gentleness about the mouth, caught in a smile both rueful and hesitant—and lovely. She was like soft sunlight, most fragile, and yet so stunning as to capture the heart with a gaze.

“She was—charming, beautiful,” Ondine murmured.

“Aye! The earl did love her dearly! Never did I see a man brood so fiercely, so darkly, as when she … departed this life.”

“I’m sure.”

“And she carried his wee babe!” Mathilda added tragically.

Ondine stiffened, but was careful to keep her smile. Perhaps Warwick’s behavior did make some sense. He had been horribly in love with his wife, stricken at the loss of his heir—and pressured to marry again, when he had no heart to call another wife. Why not, then, take a gallows’ bride, be free to wander callously where he would, and quell all hopes that he might be a delectable catch once more?

“She is lovely,” Ondine repeated of Genevieve again to Mathilda. “But now I would see the manor, in its entirety.”

“Aye, milady, aye.”

A small spiral stairway led off from the gallery to the floor above—the servants’ quarters. Mathilda rattled off who slept where, perhaps a little annoyed that Ondine bothered herself with such arrangements. Ondine thanked her quietly, smiling pleasantly.

From the servants’ quarters, she discovered that the house was not a U, but a square. The rooms in the top floor connected in a circle, as did the first; the family quarters did not. “There’s a passage from Justin’s apartments, but not from the master’s,” Mathilda explained to her. “There used to be many secret passages, hidden stairwells and chambers, you see. Cromwell’s men discovered many of them, though, and destroyed them, for the old lord was a Royalist, through and through. ‘Tis lucky the manor stands at all—yet Cromwell might have feared a bloody northern revolt if Chatham were destroyed. Even the Scots, with whom the Chathams always feud, would have banded to create havoc. With one Chatham dead upon the field, the lady dead upon the stairway as it was, Cromwell’s forces but ordered the passages sealed. The earl’s father liked the wing the way it was; privacy, he thought. And it seems my lord Chatham now prefers it, too.”

“You’ve been with the Chathams long?” Ondine queried.

“Aye. I was born here,” Mathilda responded. She then led Ondine back to the portrait gallery, and from there they passed through Justin’s apartments to the rear wing, where the second floor housed guest chambers. The ground level of that northern wing was an armory, and like the portrait gallery, it was a place where family history was preserved. It was stocked with swords and arms and plates in use by the present generation; it also housed ancient armor, subtly different with each generation and century.

The eastern wing began with the laundry and kitchens, then proceeded to the great hall, an immense place. Once, Mathilda told Ondine proudly, it had been nothing but cold stone wall and a dirt floor. Now it was whitewashed, the ceiling was elaborately molded, tapestries were hung, and rich embroidered carpeting covered a gleaming tiled floor. Mathilda sighed with pleasure as she described the various balls and masques that had taken place in the hall.

Warwick’s main office was off the grand hall. The walls here were completely filled with bookcases, and the books, Ondine noted, covered all subjects. Bound volumes of Shakespeare, the French and Italian poets, notes by Pepys, Christopher Wren, Thomas More. There were books on building, on farming, on breeding, on horses, on warfare. An oak desk angled so that sunlight poured in upon it, and there was a settee invitingly placed in a corner—almost a perfect scene. Ondine could well imagine that the master of the manor could sit at work while his beloved lounged nearby, a book in her hand.

And she imagined Warwick at the desk, the fragile, gentle blond in the picture curled in the settee, her wistful smile upon her features; Warwick, looking up, offering his flashing white devilish grin in turn, golden eyes softly amber with tenderness.

“Let’s go on, shall we?” she asked Mathilda.

They passed through the grand foyer and through a set of double doors. “The chapel,” Mathilda announced.

Ondine had expected something quite small; it was not. It seemed to stretch forever, a hall with Norman arches, a stone floor with a length of red carpet leading to the main altar and to numerous smaller chapels along the sides, each with wondrous sculptures atop their altars.

“It’s most … unusual,” Ondine breathed.

“Memorials,” Mathilda informed her. She pointed to the chapel nearest them, where an angel of mercy with gilded wings held a sword against her heart. The sculpture was stunning. “The earl’s father.”

“He lies in the altar?”

“Nay, he lies in the tombs beneath.”

Mathilda walked forward, crossing herself and genuflecting as she paused before the main altar. A beautiful gold cross hung down from the ceiling. Ondine followed suit, then swept around to the left with Mathilda, where they came to an antechamber. It was a square room with an exit to the courtyard at the right, and an exit leaving the manor at the left. At its rear was a long wooden staircase that seemed to lead nowhere. The antechamber was small, the staircase flanked against the wall. At the upper landing there was simply nothing but paneled archways—nowhere to enter the second story, nowhere to go at all except for the narrow landing.

“The cause of our ghost,” Mathilda explained with impatience, pointing at the stairway. She seemed eager to exit to the courtyard beyond. “The earl’s grandfather was killed upon the battlefield, not far from here. Upon hearing the news, the lady fell against the wood. It caved in, and she joined her lord in death.”

“The staircase goes nowhere?”

“The earl plans to destroy it. Once there were cubbyholes above for Chathams in hiding and runaway priests. When our sovereign Charles was on the run, he learned to love many Catholics for their support of him.”

Mathilda obviously did not like the antechamber; they quickly left it to enter the courtyard. Ondine discovered where Warwick had ridden from the night before, from the archway far beneath her window.

“That is it, my lady, unless you wish to view the crypt.”

“I think not,” Ondine said.

“May I serve you further?”

“Nay, not now, thank you, Mathilda. But I think tomorrow that I should like to see about changing some furnishings.”

“Change?” Mathilda inquired, appearing surprised and somewhat stricken. “You would change Genevieve’s bed—” Shebroke off, lowering her head.

“Genevieve is dead, Mathilda. I cannot take her place, but neither can I bring her back. And I am not her.”

Mathilda nodded. “If you’ll permit me to return to my duties, then, Countess … ?”

“Certainly, Mathilda, and I thank you again. You were very thorough and helped me greatly.”

Ondine remained in the courtyard, staring up at the windows about her.

Mathilda lowered her head and started hurrying to one of the eastern archways, an entrance to the kitchen.

But she was muttering, and Ondine was sure she heard the housekeeper’s words correctly. “Change! Oh, nay! I think not when the lord Chatham hears of such plans!”

Ah, Mathilda, I am sorry! Ondine thought. The lord Chatham may think himself master of this game, but there are two who must play it, and at times it is my move.

Then she felt a strange tingling at her nape; she was quite sure she was being watched. She looked up, scouring the windows, and saw high above that a drape fell back into place.

The tingle became a warm and swelling sensation that ebbed and flowed throughout her as she identified the window. It was in Warwick’s chamber; it was her husband who had stared down upon her.

Dinner was a surprisingly pleasant affair, certainly not because of any effort on Warwick’s part, but because Justin was so good-humored. He told her tales about the first Norman lord to lay claim to the Chatham land. The Norman killed the old Saxon lord and consequently married the Saxon’s daughter—a wise political move, one that Henry VII would utilize centuries later upon marrying Elizabeth of York to put a final end to the War of the Roses.

“They say our Chatham ancestor was quite a wild man,” Justin told her, lavishly spreading thick roe upon a chunk of bread. “Red-haired and red-tempered, his thirty-pound battle-axe—a relic from his Viking ancestors, no doubt—eternally at his side. From such a man, it seems but natural that our arms carry the legend of the beast.”

Ondine took a sip of wine, ignoring her husband’s silence to enjoy her brother-in-law. ” ‘Tis quite an interesting history you Chathams have acquired.” The wine tonight was potent, and she felt brash. Heedless of a possible rising of Warwick’s wrath, Ondine determined to quiz his brother.

“The legend that intrigues me most, Justin, is that regarding your grandmother, the poor lady who lost her life upon the sealed stairway, the—uh—ghost the servants claim to haunt the manor.”.

Warwick emitted an impatient oath beneath his breath, and Ondine felt his eyes upon her, hot with brooding annoyance.

Justin didn’t seem to notice. “Ah—that is tragic and recent history!” His eyes twinkled as he leaned toward Ondine. “I never knew my grandfather or grandmother—it all occurred before my birth. Warwick was scarce born. It was in the days right before the old king’s execution, when the war was coming to an end. The battle came to our very doorsteps, the Round-heads and the Cavaliers! Our grandsire and father cut dashing figures, so we were told! Battling the enemy … upon their own land! Alas, grandfather fell, and the news was rushed to the house. Father was of age then—and married, naturally, since my elder brother is quite legal!—but Grandmama was nowhere near aged; she was a beauty rare, so they claim, and so her picture shows! She would rush to her lord’s side, disbelieving that he could have been slain. The staircase fell in, tragically. But, according to rumor-—”

“Justin!” Warwick interrupted impatiently. “Must we further rumor amongst ourselves?”

Justin looked at his brother innocently. “Warwick, I air family linen only before the family! Your bride must be aware of the full story of our haunts, lest she should hear of them elsewhere!”

Warwick did not dispute him, but rose, his teeth set in a grate, and carried his wine to the mantel, as if he did not care to hear a recital of his family’s past.

“They say,” Justin told Ondine quietly, “that the lord’s mistress did murder his wife, casting her from the staircase!”

“His mistress! What was she doing in the house?”

“Well, she lived here, of course. She was the housekeeper.”

Ondine gasped. Justin chuckled.

“But you see, the mistress received her just reward, for she, too, stumbled from the stairway and died, her neck broken.”

Warwick groaned from the mantel. “Rotting wood—and we are endowed with two crying haunts!” He stalked back to the table, setting his goblet down upon it hard. “Ondine—”

“My brother is quite right,” Justin interrupted hastily, worried that he might have truly upset her. “You mustn’t let servants’ tales upset you, you know. Our parents lived out lovely lives; they’ve been gone but a few years now, succumbing to lung fever, rather than any curse or ghost upon us.”

“I’m not upset, Justin. Merely curious. And you’re quite right; I should have learned these things from my husband—or my dear new brother!—rather than the servants!”

Justin appeared a bit surprised by the low hostility in her voice, either that or the fact that Warwick had obviously told her nothing of his land or his family.

Warwick had his hands upon the back of her chair, and he pulled it out abruptly. “Milady, I believe you’ve heard quite enough for one evening. Bid Justin good night, my love, so that we might retire.”

“Retire? Tis so early!”

“We’re retiring,” Warwick informed her, an edge of steel to his voice.

Justin laughed delightedly. “Ah, newly weds! What can I say, Ondine? The family abounds with hungry beasts!”

Ondine flushed. Justin rose, offering her a deep bow and her husband an encouraging grin. “Remember that second sons tend to be more courteous, should you find my brother’s temper too fierce to endure!”

He was gallantly teasing her, of course, yet Ondine felt Warwick’s body grow stiff behind her. He did not seem so angry at the words as he was speculative. He set an arm about her, pulling her to him with a groan for Justin. ” ‘Tis a pity you may not yet return to court!”

Justin chuckled. “Alas, ‘tis true. I am doomed to languish here, an unhappy voyeur to the lovers’ tension that steams betwixt the two of you. Good night! Leave me to wallow in my wine!”

“Do not wallow too far, Brother. I’d see you in my apartment in, say, an hour. I wish to discuss the building project.”

Justin sank back to his seat and raised his goblet to his brother. “An hour, then.”

Into the gallery and out of Justin’s sight, Ondine pursed her lips, shaking Warwick’s touch from her shoulder and stamping somewhat inelegantly ahead of him. She remained silent as he opened the outer door and shut it, then turned on him angrily.

“Why is it, Lord Chatham, that you refuse to alert me to that which it seems imperative to know? Then, when others would do so, you growl like a beast, thus adding fuel to your own legends! You wish me to play your wife, yet you order me about and lock me up at night like a possession, like one of your horses or hounds—”

He watched her silently, slipping from his jacket to toss it upon the spinet bench, then interrupting,“Madam, you are a possession, purchased upon the gallows. Well kept, I might add.”

Ondine fixed her hands upon her waist, too feverish with temper and wine to take heed of her words.

“You are the one, my lord, who took care to inform me that the gallows were not to be mentioned again.”

He moved over to the large desk, sat upon the chair behind it, and stretched his legs atop it, crossing his booted feet and wearily pressing his fingers to his temple.

“Perhaps, my love,” he said lightly, “I should return you to the gallows, since like the horse or hound, you seem prone to bite upon the hand that feeds you.”

“You cannot return me to the gallows, my lord. You chose to take me from there, to marry me. I no longer stand condemned.”

Dear God, Warwick mused, he was acquiring a racking headache. Between this vixen and his brother, he was sorely vexed, irate, and burning with emotion both perplexing and annoying. Damn her! Would she not let him be? Watching her at his table, smiling, laughing—no, flirting, rot her!—with his brother. Acting the grande dame with all finesse and graciousness, far too stunning and feminine in her elegant dress, her hair a soft flow of curling silk and chestnut. It was a blaze of fire and glory about her, and her eyes, so deep a blue as to bewitch the beholder with their gaze …

“Perhaps I cannot return you to the gallows,” he snapped, then found control and continued negligently. “Perhaps I can return you to the mysterious past that brought you there—to those whom you fight in your dreams!”

“What?” The gasp came from her in a startled rush, and he frowned, his body tensing. He had really meant nothing by the words; they had just come to him. But at their utterance she turned pale, her eyes vast pools of indigo, and her slender hands, still set upon her hips, tensed with alarm.

And suddenly she appeared both very beautiful and proud and very vulnerable. Despite himself he wanted to assure her that he would do nothing to harm her; that he would never cast her to the pit of demons she so feared.

And yet… hadn’ t he brought her here, hoping that her presence would bring his own demons to the fore?

He longed to go to her, touch her, hold her with all that was chivalrous in him—and all that was not. He was reminded of her naked form that morning, so slim and yet so wondrously curved, the weight of her full young breast in his hand, the sensual beauty in the curve of her hip, the sweet taste of her lips, parting to his with surprise.

Desire shuddered through him, hot and potent. He swung his feet from the desk and turned from her, closing his eyes, clenching his teeth, and lacing his fingers together with all his strength. No! He would not think of her so; he had made her his wife, but— by God!—He would spurn her for the lying, ungrateful horse thief she had proved herself to be.

Slowly, achingly, he began to ease and reminded himself that his behavior was that of the brooding tyrant. And she was many things he admired, courageous and able to carry out his charade with far greater talent than he had ever imagined. Nor did he wish her ill; he craved to give her freedom in the end, a life that might truly have been saved. He had been irked beyond reason to find himself jealous of his own brother. And he had to be as wary and suspicious of Justin as he was of anyone else; Justin stood to gain the most if Warwick gave Chatham no heir.

He turned back to the still ashen beauty who was his wife. “My lady, my apologies,” he said wearily. “1 did not mean to touch upon a wound; I’d not leave you to any harm, be that harm hunger or one of human threat. It is true—my grandmother died upon a stairway, and you are my second wife. If I do not care for talk of either, it is because I grow vastly impatient with talk of ghosts.”

She lowered her head; slowly color returned to her cheeks, and with a rustle of silk and scent of flowers, she impetuously came toward him, kneeling to place elegant fingers tentatively upon his leg, her eyes now deep with a searching compassion.

“My lord, I understand that you loved her dearly. I am so very sorry, sir, that words do come to dig further into your heart. But, milord, if Genevieve was … mad, then—”.

“Mad!” He shouted the word, riddled with fury again. Mad, nay—tormented, on some mysterious behest.

His hand shot out to the desk, sweeping charts and pens and ink from atop it to the floor; then he rose so hastily that she was cast back upon her heels. He stared down at her, but barely saw her.

“Genevieve was not mad!” he informed her curtly.

Ondine rose with such a dignified elegance and glare of fury that he realized the brutality of his movement. He reached out to touch her, but she gasped and edged back, her eyes upon him as if he were half dragon, half wolf. Emitting a furious oath, he strode across the room and leaned an arm against the window frame to stare into the night.’ ‘Ondine,” he breathed at last. Then, curiously, he repeated her name again. “Ondine …”

Then he lifted his hands, a bit impatiently, a bit helplessly. He didn’t look at her. “Go to bed,” he told her softly. “Again, you’ve my apologies.”

She was still for a moment. Then he heard the rustle of the skirts once more and found himself turning in time to see her disappear, her chin held high, her movement a study in grace, as if she had, indeed, been born to her role, and not dragged into it upon fate’s cast of the die.

The door closed. A shaft of staggering longing, desire like the blade of molten steel, swept through him again. Swearing with a vengeance, he strode to his desk, halfway dislodging the bottom drawer as he ripped it open, intent upon the bottle of whiskey within it.

He didn’t bother seeking out a glass, but drank deeply, gasping at its solid trail of fire. He shuddered, then sank into his chair. Damn her to a thousand riots of thieves’ hells!

He had to learn to keep his distance from her.

He set the bottle upon his desk, then stared ruefully at the havoc he had created around it. He stood slowly and began to retrieve his papers and quills. Justin would be along soon. And Warwick would be damned if he’d have his brother wondering at his domestic tranquility.

Alone and furious upon her bed, Ondine suddenly started, hearing the sounds of horse’s hooves beneath her window again. She bolted to it and carefully edged open the drape.

It was Warwick, astride the great bay again. Both elegant and masculine in his plumed hat and black mantle, he rode the horse as though one with it.

He rode west once again, and she wondered painfully—jealously!—if he rode to another woman. Nay, she did not trust him, and he infuriated her.

He could drown, for all she cared! She swore silently. But the vow echoed with plaintive discord, and she grew irate with him— and with herself that such a maelstrom of emotions could exist within her.

At length she moved from the window, shed her finery, and donned the nightdress Lottie had left upon the bed. She doused the lamp and curled beneath the covers.

But she didn’t sleep. She thought of him, thought of his touch, felt a sweet, aching yearning to know that touch again.

Fool! She reprimanded herself in fury. He was indeed the master, the master of the art of seduction. How often had he played the rake with little thought and little care? She would not fall prey, she would not. And surely she had too much pride, too much fury to do so …

And still, the night passed as the one before it. She did not sleep until she heard the quiet closing of the apartment doors that assured her he had returned.

The days that followed brought an uneasy peace. Lottie and she fell into a morning schedule for bathing and dining, and Ondine moved about the estate, learning its domestic management.

Warwick seemed to avoid her.

Ondine met the entire staff of servants; Mathilda arranged that all of them be gathered at the landing to pay their respects to her, and Ondine greeted them cheerfully, drawing, she hoped, their respect.

Old Tim and Young Tim were the gardeners, and she spent many hours choosing flowers for her apartments, for the family dining hall, and for the chapel, which seemed far less a place of gloom when roses were set upon the altar.

There were scores of books to read, and the spinet and the harp to play. She saw Warwick only at dinner, where he was unerringly courteous, perpetually distant. Yet Justin was always charming, and so their trio surely appeared to be a happy and normal one.