Ondine (29 page)

Every touch was a reverence, each stroke an adoration; each kiss a cherishing anew.

Ah, sea nymph, witch, most magical creature! She touched him, again and again. She loved him sweet, loved him with most exquisite abandon. She moved, her body liquid over his. She gave to him as never before.

And he gave to her, all of him. He filled her, again and again, held her, shivering, trembling, quaking, shuddering … again and again, until she sighed against him and buried her head into the dampness of his chest, exhausted and spent.

“Ondine …” They were there; words he didn’t know how to say; eloquence had deserted him. They were simple words: I love you. They hovered on his lips, and they must be spoken.

But once more she touched her finger to his lips, shaking her head strenuously. “No words!” she pleaded, almost sobbing. “No words tonight, I beg you!”

He cradled her against his chest. They were both aglow with satiation. His arm was strong around her, and exhaustion claimed him at last.

There was always tomorrow. Tonight … tonight excelled dreams and fantasies.

Tomorrow there would be time for words. And perhaps none would be more eloquent than their love this night.

He nodded and dared close his eyes, secure at long last that he could sleep without fear—for her.

She knew that he slept quickly; he had been so very drawn, so dearly in need of repose.

His breath became even; strain eased from his features, and for this rare moment he appeared very young, handsome and wonderfully tousled.

She remained beside him for at least an hour, watching him, taking all of him into her mind and heart and memory. The texture of his face, its strong and rugged lines, the full and sensual curve of his lip, the arch of his brow, the length of his nose. She dared even to run her fingers over his chest, to feel the muscle there, the dark tufts of hair.

She stayed and watched and felt her tears rise.

Then, at last, she rose, silent, broken.

She paused at his dresser, smiling slowly, bitterly. It was laden with gold coins, coins she knew he meant her to take to the Colonies.

And, after all, she forced herself to accept the bitter truth.

He was a master lover; a man of lusty appetite, and he’d never denied attraction to her. But attraction was easily discovered, easily had and lost—easily a delusion of love.

All bargains were fulfilled—and now she should be grateful for the proof that he intended still to ship her away; she needed the coin.

She treaded softly into her own chamber, most grateful for his absolute exhaustion, since she’d learned early how lightly he normally slept.

She dressed in her simplest gown, a plain velvet in soft dove gray, in warm hose, and her best boots.

All had been bought by his coin, yet the Duchess of Rochester could pay him back easily and well. She found her warmest cloak, dull brown wool with a heavy cowl that gave the appearance of a pilgrim’s garb. She dared not take more clothing, for she needed to travel light; speed would be of the essence.

At some time he would wake. Possibly he would give chase, for the simple reason of his arrogance—the lord of Chatham did not tolerate disobedience to his high command.

The lord of Chatham …

Time spun too quickly for her then, but after she had carefully dropped the coins into her pockets, she still could not leave, but watched him again, completely in love.

In love! Oh, it was weak, it was shattering! Honor and a daughter’s duty called. Her pride and the morals bred into her since birth forced her hand. But love, this treacherous, fickle thing, kept her here, craving the sight of him, her beast, her beautiful, beautiful, manly beast.

The sweet sound of a bird’s cry at long last startled her from tender hypnotism. Now it was all still beautiful, before morning’s light, and the truth of his feelings could tarnish memory or send her captive far away.

One last touch …

She kissed his forehead, willing back her tears. Then she fled, hand to her mouth to hold back a moan of anguish.

There was no Jake in the hallway—no loyal friend to guard the night—there was no more danger. She found her way along the hall and down the stairs, and out of the manor.

She did not dare look back, but raced to the stables. Quietly she whispered to the bay mare. With as little fuss and noise as possible she set bridle and saddle to the mare, praying that no young stable boy would awaken in confusion to accost her.

She mounted the mare and took her from the stable. And then, only then, did she turn back.

The rain had ceased; the wind had died. Chatham stood upon its mound in all pride and strength, for always it would brave the wind and the storms of the rugged north. Chatham, harsh and hard, it bred men as graceful as its lines, as strong as its stone, tender, brutal, fit as the manor to face the wind and storms.

Warwick! her heart cried.

She was no longer Countess of North Lambria, Lady Chatham, no longer Warwick’s gallows’ bride. From this moment she would again be the Duchess of Rochester, a power in her own right.

“Away now to home!” she told the horse. “My home,” she added softly. “My rights, my heritage.” She swirled the mare around and sent her galloping into the night.

It was strange then that she heard the wolves howl. There were plaintive cries, sharp cries. They were mates calling out to one another—males, she thought, with bittersweet amusement, creatures bound to claim and hunt their females, taken for life.

It did not occur to her then that a Chatham might be like the beast, the wolf, that prowled his forest, that he, too, would relentlessly pursue his mate, no matter how far she might wander. She was far too wretched to think much at all.

“Rochester!” she cried to the breeze.

Taunting her, it seemed to echo the name.

Ondine managed to travel as far south as London with a group of holy sisters on pilgrimage. There she spent Warwick’s coin in good measure on a proper wardrobe in which to return home in splendor.

It was the twenty-first of October when Ondine at last came in her hired carriage down the cobblestoned drive that led to her home, Deauveau Place, as it was called, for the family name. It stood like a crystal palace, blanketed in new snow, the first snow of the season.

She pulled apart the drapery of her hired carriage’s window, clutching the new silver fox cloak she had purchased in London to her throat. Home …

Ah, it was so beautiful! she thought with a gripping pain of love and nostalgia. It was so gracious, so fine. Unlike Chatham, it was not an ancient structure, having been built at the beginning of the century during the reign of James the First. Her great-great grandfather had been a Frenchman, assigned to service in the household of young Mary, Queen of Scots, when she had spent her brief time as the French queen, until her husband’s death. On Mary’s return to Scotland, Deauveau had come to Edinburgh Castle to serve; in time, he had become invaluable to the young James.

Mary’s son, and again, in time, had come with him to London on his first ascension to the throne after the death of Elizabeth the First.

It was then that he had been granted his lands, and was proclaimed Duke of Rochester. That founder of the English line had built not for defense, but for beauty.

Deauveau Place stood tall with turrets, but they had been fashioned for view onto the gardens and entry. Her windows were arched and mullioned, her lines entirely graceful, and her stones were whitewashed. The great entry always stood open, as it did now, so that guests would first come into a courtyard, where they could be met at the main door by the master.

Master! That Raoul could ever think to claim such a title!

She stiffened then, biting her lips for redness, pinching her cheeks for color. She passed then through that elegant entry in the courtyard, and within the house, she knew, servants would be running to inform either her uncle or Raoul that a carriage was arriving. They would, perhaps, await her entry. Or perhaps curiosity would bring them to the entry steps, frowning to see who might have come and for what reason.

The carriage came to a halt. She didn’t wait for her driver, but pushed open the door and alit, pulling the silver fox more tightly about herself as she stared up at her home. It was so beautiful, shivering and shimmering beneath the frost, so very much like an ice palace.

The great arched and carved entry doors opened, and Jem, her father’s aging valet, stood there, gaunt and wrinkled, showing his years as he had never before. He stared at Ondine for long moments, seemed to waver and go pale, and then he came down the steps, shaking and still white.

“Ondine?” He whispered her name incredulously, with the greatest reverence.

She smiled, ready to cry at this tender welcome. The old man came to her, and she put her arms around him, hugging him vigorously, then easily, for it seemed that his bones had gone very brittle and that scant flesh remained to cover them.

“Jem!”

He pulled away from her, and she smiled radiantly with tears stinging her eyes. She’d come with no real plan—except to face those who had wronged her. In these few seconds she felt that whatever she suffered, whatever road she might have taken, this was the right thing to do, for in that brief reunion with Jem she knew that neither she nor her father had been forgotten.

“Lady, lady, lady!” he gasped, still grasping her hands, still staring as if she were an apparition. “We’ve searched half the country for you! Prayed and begged before God! At times all sense decreed we give you up for dead, but I never could do so in my heart! When I heard of your father, I was ill, for never was there a better master. To this day I puzzle over it! I cannot believe him a traitor! He would not vote to kill the old king, why the new? And you, lady, part of it all! Never!” Panic lit his crinkled old face suddenly. “We should hide you—”

“Jem!”

The irate order came from the doorway.

Ondine stiffened at the sound of her uncle’s voice. She realized that the hood of her fur covered her hair and that he could see none of her yet.

“If we’ve guests,” her uncle continued, “bring them in, man! Don’t stand there like a dolt!”

Ondine turned slowly, casting back her hood to face her uncle.

William was no Deauveau, except by some distant relation. Ondine’s grandfather had married William’s mother after his first wife’s death, and William had taken on the name Deauveau. He had been raised with Ondine’s father, treated as a full brother. He had, in turn, served his stepbrother. As a child, Ondine had never realized that William raised his own son in the presumption that the two children would be wed, and that Deauveau Place would fall to him in that manner. She ground her teeth together even as she smiled at him, for she wondered sickly whether her father might still be alive if she had only agreed to marry Raoul. Anything might be worth the price to bring him back to life.

But she hadn’t known, she hadn’t even imagined that such a sinister and devious plot had brewed behind William’s smiling swarthy features.

He was a man of near fifty years; yet with rich dark hair still, and slim features that held his age well. His nose was very long and slim; his lip, too, was narrow and could curl with cruelty, for his humor was quite dry. He was very tall and slender and, in his way, a man to be reckoned with.

“Hello, Uncle,” she said simply.

“Ondine …” He said her name as if he, too, gazed upon a vision. And perhaps she was, having dressed most carefully for this day. Beneath the frothy silver of her fur cloak she had chosen to wear all white—a full white velvet skirt over a bodice of white linen and lace. The only color about her was from her eyes, her cheeks, and the sunburst spray of her hair against the fur when she cast the hood back.

After all that time in which he had surely become convinced she had been eaten by some wilderness beast, she was back, decked in splendor, all elegance and all beauty.

William’s eyes narrowed sharply; his hand came to his heart, and though Ondine continued to smile sweetly, she hoped inside that he was about to suffer apoplexy. For long moments silence surrounded them, silence, and the gentle fall of snowflakes, crystalline and beautiful.

“You live,” he said at last.

She laughed softly. “Aye, Uncle.”

“And you dare to come here, traitor!”

Again she laughed, but this time with an edge. “Come, Uncle, ‘tis me to whom you speak! Not some misguided fool!”

He looked quickly from her to Jem, then thundered out with obvious annoyance, “Get in the house! What we have to discuss will be done in private. Jem—see to your lady’s things. Ondine— come.”

She smiled, lowered her head, collected her skirts, and started up the steps. At the top he grabbed her arm in a thoughtless gesture, his long fingers biting into her so that she almost cried out her loathing. She reminded herself that she must play her game most carefully, buying time.

“Into my study!” William rasped harshly into her ear.

“Yes, Uncle,” she said demurely.

They came down the entry hall, bypassing the great room to their right. Ondine gazed inside and briefly saw that nothing had changed since that long-ago day when she had left. A fire burned from the wall-length grate. The long Tudor table still occupied the middle of the room. The sideboard was still neatly decked in her mother’s finest Irish lace, and the silver services still gleamed from atop it.

“Come!” William said sharply, urging her along so quickly that her feet could barely tread the floor. With her head still lowered, she smiled grimly, glad that he was anxious to remove her to privacy before more of the household met her.

He threw open the door to his study—his! ‘Twas her father’s study, in fact, she thought painfully. A long window looked out upon a row of secluded hedges; the rest of the room was lined with cases and books, French mostly, for William always believed that things French gave him an air of sophistication.

Ondine heard the door snap shut behind her. She continued on to the windows and stared out at the beautiful falling snow, aware that he watched her.

“Where the hell have you been?” he snapped out.

She turned, negligently slipping from her fur and allowing it to fall upon the window seat.

“Many places, Uncle, among them hell itself, I do believe,” she replied casually.

Eyeing her warily, he strode across the room to where a score of bottles, various wines and various ports, were kept within a recess of the wall. He stared at her while he poured himself a shot, drank it, then poured another.

He seemed to find a grip on himself. He shoved back the chair to his desk and sat in it, waving an arm for her to sit.

“Don’t be uppity with me, Niece,” he warned her narrowly. “I have it in my power to snap my fingers, call my men, and have you hauled off to the Tower. I have, at my disposal, proof positive that you conspired with your father to assassinate the king.”

Ondine started to laugh. “Oh, come, Uncle! We’re alone! Who is this act for? We both know that neither my father nor I conspired to kill the king! You, Uncle, rather, conspired to steal my father’s place and property.”

He rose, smiling then with the cruel curve to his narrow lips. He poured her a small glass of his port and brought it to her, not batting an eye as he stared into hers.

“Ondine, I have felt the majority of my life that a good switching would have done you incalculable good. You are a fool. If you lived, you should have preserved your life. You were a fool to come back here. You may talk yourself blue, you little bitch, but you’ll not change what appearances are. Your father died in his pathetic attempt to kill the king. We, your family, live out of favor because of it. The king is aware that I have documentation that proves your complicity. He knows, too, that doting uncle as I am, I am loathe to bring this forward. Charles has a softness for women, Ondine. Especially young, beautiful ones—led to wayward actions by their misguided elders.”

He paused for a moment, calm now, pouring more port and lifting his glass to clink against hers.

“You had your chance, Ondine. Marriage to Raoul. This house united. But you spumed my son. It will cost you your life. You know that I cannot let you live.”

Her heart was thudding madly. She smiled and drained her port, hoping the fiery liquid would give her courage.

“Will you slay me, here, then, in your study? I think that the servants would definitely talk!”

She smiled vaguely and walked past him, idly thumbing the accounts that lay on the desk. Then she swirled around to him again. “I remind you, Uncle, that while I do live, I am the Duchess of Rochester.”

“But I am your legal guardian, until your twenty-first birthday. Two more years, Ondine. Are you so anxious, then, for the Tower and the headsman’s ax?”

She came around, seating herself at the desk, changing their position, and smiling most sweetly.

“Nay, Uncle, I am not eager for death. And that is why I have returned.”

He went still for a moment, then came to the desk, planting his hands upon it while he leaned close to her, watching her for some trickery.

“You mean to marry Raoul?” he demanded thickly.

“That was the arrangement you proposed all along, was it not? If I marry Raoul, this ‘proof you propose to present to the king will disappear. That is correct, is it not?”

There was a sharp rap at the door before he could answer her. “Who is it!” William thundered out impatiently.

“Raoul.”

William emitted some sound and came to the door, ushering his son inside, then quickly closing the door behind him. Raoul did not even glance at his father, but strode to the desk, staring at Ondine.

He was very much like his father: tall and slim, dark haired and complected, mahogany eyed. He might have been a very handsome man, were it not for the sly cast to his features, a look of cruelty not unlike William’s, and understandably so, for it was the father who had bred avarice into the son. He had been using the family fortune well, Ondine observed, for his pants were of the softest fawn, his shirt was thickly laced at collar and sleeves, and his surcoat was of the richest brocade.

He stared at her as the others had done; disbelieving her presence, amazed to see her so. He reached out to touch her hair, a free cascade that fell down the velvet softness of her gown in a crescendo of sun and fire, and the expression in his eyes changed completely, frighteningly so, for she saw in it a lust that made her blood run cold. She almost cried out at his lightest touch, one that merely assured him she was real and no mirage.

“You are back!” he said.

She was glad that the desk separated them. Once he had been her friend, a surly one at times, but a companion of youth. She had not known until that terrible day at court that he had meant to possess her and all that was hers at any cost.

“Aye, she’s back,” William said crossly from behind him. “And showing no signs of wear!” William had lost his sense of amazement at her appearance and felt no qualms about accosting her. He strode around the desk, catching her chin in his hand, twisting her face to his none too gently, and staring deeply into her eyes.

“You come in even richer apparel, my dear, than that in which you left us. I repeat, where have you been?”

“Uncle,” she said softly, with all the regal dignity she could muster when she chose, “do not touch me. I have come to deal, and that you should keep your bloodstained hands from me is my first demand.”

He laughed, shortly, with little humor, but he released her, seeming oddly disconcerted despite his bluster. “Girl, to live you will marry Raoul, and I assure you, as his wife, you’ll give yourself no airs!”.

She lowered her eyes, wishing she might tell him she would be instantly and violently ill if it ever came to the point that she should share a bed with Raoul. Always, always, she would see her father’s blood upon both their hands!