Ondine (26 page)

“Only the captain knew! Aye, we’ve heard that one. But we’ve ways and means, my fine fellow! Wait till you feel the caress of the Earl of Exeter’s daughter!”

The man paled, for the “Earl of Exeter’s daughter” meant the rack, and no man remained unscathed from such torment.

“I tell you—”

Buckingham turned calmly to Warwick. “It seems we’ve saved not only your bride, Warwick, but a score of beauties kept in the hold! This captain and his crew claimed to trade with Spain; kidnapping young lasses was their real business, bound for the harems of Morocco.”

Warwick arched a brow. He could feel little guilt or pity for so much blood strewn now that he knew the purpose of these men.

But neither could he feel relief, for he believed the mewling wretch before him—this man did not know who had paid the sum to have Ondine delivered to him.

Hardgrave! he thought in fury. Hardgrave and Anne! Yet Anne had almost fallen prey to these pirate slavers herself, and Hardgrave had fought beside him with a determination to equal his own.

“Leave him to the courts of law, Buckingham,” Warwick said, shaking his head. “We’ll get nothing from him.” He turned, disgusted, and strode his way back to the open deck. The stench of the place was enough to rot a man.

He held tight to the rail at the starboard side, gritting his teeth as a convulsion of anguish swept through him. How he’d quivered to see her alive and well! How he’d loved her when he’d seen her, dazed and dizzy—striking him, but meaning to be there for him, ready to fight at his side. Ah, her face, her beautiful face! The expression upon it had been sweetly comical when she’d realized her mistake.

By God, she was his heart, his soul, his every breath of desire.

He wanted with every fiber of his being to reach her, hold her to his chest and cherish her face, her lips, her hair, her form, her very life—her laughter and her warmth, her temper and her spirit. He winced, for he knew he could not. Today had proved him a wretched protector. And he had underlined the fact to a shattering degree that she seemed to be safe nowhere, not while she was his wife.

He sighed deeply. In time the king’s guards would arrive to round up the living remainder of this motley crew. He could ride back to the cottage at Newmarket, where they had found such absolute peace and bliss in each other’s arms.

And there, tonight, he must refute her, coldly and cruelly, for he knew her courage and spirit. She would fight him; she believed fiercely that she owed him the debt of her life, and even if she was frightened, she would not willingly leave him until she felt she had paid her debt to him.

She had to leave him! She had to live! Even if he had to play the beast in truth to force her to do so.

Ondine awaited Warwick with the greatest anxiety. She didn’t understand him, but she knew him well, and in that she knew he had changed once again. He had ridden like the wind to her rescue, yet it seemed that then he directed his anger against her!

Jake was, as ever, good to her, but remained detached. As Warwick had commanded, he all but sat upon her.

She had felt so touched by filth that she had instantly bathed; but then she had felt so lonely that she’d asked Jake to fetch Justin, and though Jake hesitated, he finally did as bidden.

Ondine was irritated to a flaming wrath with both Warwick and Jake. How could anyone suspect Justin of foul deeds?

But when Justin came, Ondine learned that he knew very well his brother held him in suspicion, and though he did not cry out against Warwick, it was apparent that he was very hurt.

He sipped the port that they morosely shared, staring into her eyes, cleared at last of the drug.

“He believes that Genevieve was murdered, I see that now. But that he could think that I—”

He stopped, choking on bile.

Ondine, convinced of his innocence, tried to soothe him. “I think, Justin, that he loved her so very much that he is still crazed by it. He—he did adore her?”

Justin rose and shrugged. “He was always gentle and tender and very good to her. Yet who knows what my brother thinks in truth, for he is capable of great reserve and silence. And today … I can’t believe he means you any cruelty, Ondine. He is merely furious because he was so frightened for you, and because he cannot discover who was behind it all.” He hesitated a minute, not wishing to distress her further. “You do know that someone-— some man—had paid those knaves a vast sum for your delivery?”

Ondine rose suddenly. “Anne!”

“Anne?” Justin frowned. “Ondine, I saw her myself, wretched and shaken by the snake that almost took her!”

She shook her head furiously. “Justin, I heard her! I heard her telling Hardgrave something about a vial from the king’s laboratory. They stole the drug used upon me! She feigned the attack so that none would notice my disappearance; Hardgrave was then the man who would have had me downriver!”

Justin stared at her strangely, then shook his head and touched her cheek with tender affection. “I don’t doubt that Lyle Hardgrave would pay a pretty sum just to touch you with one finger, my sweet beauty! But Hardgrave rode with us and fought bravely.”

“A sham!”

“Perhaps,” Justin murmured, “but think on this. His lust for you has naught to do with murder. Ondine, Hardgrave wants you alive and healthy and—well—you know, lovable!”

Ondine sank back into her chair, for Justin was right. A kidnapping on behalf of sexual appetites did not lend itself to an association with a ghost that haunted from the tomb!

Just then the door slammed. She stared, feeling as if a cold wind had swept in to haunt her.

It was Warwick. Cloaked and plumed, he seemed immense in the doorway, implacable, unapproachable.

There was silence in the room as he pulled off his gloves, staring coldly at the two of them. At last he said harshly, “Justin, leave us. I want a word with my wife.”

Justin looked as if he might argue, but not even he had ever seen Warwick so rigidly cold, tense, and without the least sense of emotion or mercy.

Justin turned and took her hand, kissed it, and offered her a troubled smile. “I’m near if you need me.”

“Brother, I have yet to beat a wife,” Warwick said narrowly.

“Yes …” Justin murmured. He stared at Warwick. “Perhaps you will ‘yet’ do many things. I swear, I understand you not—■”

“Justin!”

“Stop!” Ondine cried, on her feet. “Justin”—she lifted her chin defiantly, staring at Warwick— “it eases me not to have the two of you at odds. I have no fear of this particular beast, although I do think him near mad to change his moods like the wind. Please, go, and bear no rancor for one another.”

Justin glared at his brother; Warwick ignored him, waiting for him to leave.

He left the room, and Ondine continued to stare at Warwick, her head high, but her heart riddled with confusion and despair. What had she done? She was the injured party!

He walked into the room, tossing his gloves upon a chair, warming his hands before the fire.

“We leave here tomorrow.”

“That makes wonderful sense; we have just come.”

He turned, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed her.

“You, madam, are trouble. I—”

“I am trouble?” She repeated the words, astounded that he could use them. “You brought me into this insanity—and I am trouble?”

“Aye, madam, you are trouble—and useless. I attempt to delve into an intrigue that I must, for all honor and duty to those beyond the grave, solve. Yet with your face and form, you attract all manner of being! We are returning to North Lambria—”

She broke in with laughter that neared hysteria. “From where we have just departed!”

“You will not be staying. I have booked passage for you on the
Lady Crystabel
out of Liverpool. You will go to Virginia as Mrs. Diana Brown. I’ve arranged for a house in Williamsburg, the hiring of servants, and a solicitor to see to your financial needs. You will remain there—a widow in mourning—for the period of a year, in which time I will arrange for a divorce. At that point you will be free to live where and how you choose, with an income for life.”

Charles had warned her; she could not believe this—not this icy cruelty, this total lack of concern other than for financial insurance. How had she ever fallen in love with such a man? The stone of Westminster provided greater warmth!

For several seconds she could not speak, so stunned and chilled had she become. What manner of man was he, fire and ice, to love her so passionately, disdain her so heedlessly? She dared not speak, or move; she would shatter, she would break. What had come of all the love they had shared?

At last she turned her back to him and managed to speak.

“You are mad, Warwick Chatham! Completely. You hire a bride to catch a murderer; the murderer comes close and you cast her away. I know what happened this day, and it was no fault of mine. And as to passage to the Colonies, I thank you very much. I’m sure that Williamsburg is most intriguing, but I’ll not go. Nor do I need your income. We part ways here, milord.”

He exploded with a furious, impatient sound. “You will do as I say! And what is this of which you speak? What happened today?”

She spun back around, chin lifted regally, her eyes as frigid as his. “Your mistress, Lord of Chatham. I heard her speak of a vial stolen from the king’s laboratory. That loathsome vapor that so stole my consciousness! ‘Tis obvious, sir. She and Lord Hardgrave plotted and planned this mischief.”

He shrugged at her words, as if they had little meaning, and she could not begin to fathom his lack of interest. “The lady Anne was assaulted. She is still most distressed. Hardgrave rode with us at the front of the fray.”

“I tell you—”

“And I tell you, madam, what you might have heard means nothing. Nothing at all, for there is no way to prove it. The only man who had connection with the scoundrel who paid for your flesh was killed in the fighting. I cannot go before the king with accusations and no substance. And if what you say is true, I counter again with the fact that you are trouble, and the sooner you are out of my life, the greater pleasure I shall have with it!”

“Well, then, sir, you may consider me out of your life this night!” she gasped. She had to leave him; she had to go! She would double over with awful, wrenching pain. Even now tears shimmered in her eyes, and she thought that she would wail and scream.

She had known… she had always known he intended this! But time and the recent magic of their night here had come to delude her into a fantasy in which life and heart and soul and mind were bliss.

Life! Her own life! What was she thinking? Dreams of love were illusory; she must be as hard as he, as sharp, as cunning, as negligently determined. She could not leave England—she had to escape him now, for the situation had become desperate. How could she ever hope to clear her father’s name and reclaim her estates from those who had caused his murder if she was far across the ocean?

Her mind would not clear; all she knew was pain, the death of magic and belief and glorious illusion.

“You are not going anywhere this night,” he snapped harshly. “And you will do as I say.”

“Why should I?” she demanded heatedly.

“Why?” He arched a dark brow with absolute arrogance. “Because you are my wife.”

“A state you intend to rectify.”

“I never intended to be chained to a common thief for life!”

She felt as if his words were physical blows, lashes that dug into her, knives that twisted and turned. Dear Lord! She would have sworn that though he might not love her, he had cared with a certain tenderness! Ah, if he would just leave her! She could fight the tears and the injury and find strength to plan her future!

“Trust me, milord,” she said lightly, sweetly. “I am eager to be rid of a beast! Yet I will not leave England, sir. Nor do I walk from a bargain duly made, my honor bound payment for my life. I do not fear your ghosts, nor your mistress, nor even Hardgrave.”

“Fool, woman!” he exploded, leaving the fire to stride to her, doing what she had prayed he would not do—touch her. His hands gripped her shoulders with a bite. He shook her with impatience until her head seemed to snap from her shoulders.

“Fear them you should! Do you know what near happened today?”.

“But it did not.”

Warwick felt the tension in his fingers, in his body; he knew the cruelty of his grip, and astounded, he stared at her in ripe anger. Her words … she despised him, so it seemed, yet she clung so stubbornly to this foolery he’d invented himself! Duty, honor, debt! Courage shimmered from her eyes; she would defy him, she’d defy the whole of England if she chose! How could she not despise him, feel that his cause was a madness? She did not comprehend the danger!

“Listen to me, Ondine, and listen well. We go to Chatham to settle your belongings. We spend one night, and you will not leave my side in that time! Then I will place you upon a ship bound across the ocean, and, by God, you will call yourself as I have warned you!”

“Nay, I will not—”

“You will listen! You are my wife; my property, if you will. My possession. Mine to dispose of as I see fit!”

Growing frantic, she tried to wrench from his grasp. He laughed with no humor at her efforts, and his laughter spurred her to a greater tempest. She broke free and brought her hand across his face, raking it so as to draw a thin line of blood against his cheek. Startled, he held his face, and she broke from him at last, backing away. “Go somewhere! Leave me! You are rid of me now, well and good! Go to your injured Anne; go to the devil! Just leave me—”

Two steps brought him to her, and he might well have been the devil incarnate at that time. His lip curled in a brutal sneer unlike any expression she had ever seen on him, and she had known many. Never before had she seen him so cruel.

And never before, even when they had first met, had she feared him so. Aye, he might well have been the devil, with the burning fires of hell alive within his eyes.

His touch when he caught her again crushed her to his chest despite her hysterical cries and desperate struggles.

“I’m going nowhere, madam.”