Ondine (42 page)

But then… then he knew that he was doomed. Warwick became the aggressor, driving swing after swing against him. Hardgrave was forced back … back against the wall. He saw Warwick’s face—saw the cold hard resolve in it—and knew that he did indeed battle a demon. Warwick swung again, catching Hardgrave’s sword in a mighty blow, sending it flying. Hardgrave slunk to the floor; Warwick’s sword tip came to his throat.

“Yield!”

“Kill me! I do not yield.”

“Yield!”

“Nay! Never!”

Warwick’s lip tightened to a white line. His fiery eyes never left Hardgrave as he walked over to his fallen sword and kicked it back to him.

“Then fight.”

Hardgrave smiled, thinking Chatham a fool. He clutched his sword, bounded to his feet, and made a hasty sprint toward Warwick, thinking him ill prepared to parry the straight blow of his weapon.

But Warwick was not unprepared; he stepped aside neatly and leveled his own weapon.

Hardgrave impaled himself upon it.

He stared into Warwick’s eyes, even as the realization of death touched his own.

Even then he smiled crookedly, as if having lost some chess match, and lost in good spirit. He clutched the weapon in his back, staggered back, emitted some sound, lifting his hand …

And then he died, closing his own eyes almost peacefully.

Warwick stared down at him a moment, bleakly trying to recall the long-forgotten event that had driven them both to become such bitter enemies.

Then he remembered that his wife remained in dire peril, and he drew his sword from Hardgrave’s body without a thought and rushed from the cottage.

They were almost upon the house when William Deauveau suddenly paused, muttering that Hardgrave was a fool—more idiotic than even his son. Staring at Ondine he frowned as he eyed the bruise caused by Raoul’s attack.

He released her, thinking her little better than a mindless simpleton at that moment anyway, and dipped down to the ground to pack a ball of snow to set against her face.

At first Ondine didn’t move. She stared dumbly at his graying head and listened idly as he continued to rant against Hardgrave. Then it suddenly sank into her that William intended to hand her over to Raoul, and then to Hardgrave. This man who had betrayed not only her father, but had brought destruction to her husband, would only further prosper by her degradation and sale. She was not at all sure yet that she really cared to live, for what hope could she give her child?

She knew only then that William Deauveau should prosper for his evil greed no more. A soaring life suddenly came to her; she kicked him hard, with all her strength, and watched as he tumbled facedown into the snow.

She turned and ran, back through the snow, past the stables, smithy, barns, and cottages, through the snow-covered clearing, and toward the trees.

Her heart thundered like a cacophony of drums; she was no longer cold, but burning with heat. Seeing that the thick forest of trees was before her at last, she dared to double over and gasp for breath and stare back toward the main house.

There was a sudden shout. She stood straight again, seeing that Raoul had found his father stumbling to his feet. William pointed toward the trees, and for a brief moment she thought she might have felt the rage of Raoul’s stare, meeting hers, crossing all that distance. That he did see her, she knew well, for he started off in a run, directly toward her.

Panting, gasping, near sobbing, she crawled over the root of an ancient oak, naked and barren with winter, and plunged into the trees. She was wild, not knowing where to go, clinging only to the hope that the forest had succored her once before and might well do so again.

Through dull trails cast in somber winter grays, she forged on, her breath escaping her in little cries that seemed like the mournful toll of winter. Dead spidery branches came as obstacles in her way.

Something crashed behind her. She caught her breath, and her heart quickened to a still greater pace.

“Ondine!”

Raoul, Raoul calling out to her …

Once, long ago, he had called out thus to her before. She had been running then, too. Running and running. He had caught her, but she had eluded him, found her freedom by pitching into a stream, deep beneath the summer waters.

She had eluded him … because Raoul could not swim, and because some glorious knight, cast in chivalrous armor of old, had come to stand between them.

There was a stream, a stream that ran beyond the length of the property, a stream that ran all the way eastward, until it met the icy Thames. If she could but reach the stream …

It was winter now; she would surely freeze within those waters.

She had to try for them; they were her only hope.

Coming from the cottage, his sword still dripping Hardgrave’s blood, Warwick must have appeared like some avenging angel as he bore down upon William Deauveau, a man still engaged in dusting snow from his body, still engaged in abusive mutterings about Ondine, his son, and Lyle Hardgrave.

Hearing the soft pounding of footsteps against the snow, William expected to see Hardgrave, and he worried only how he would explain this latest turn of events, that the girl had escaped him to seek shelter in the forest, and that his son—as insanely lustful and vengeful as Hardgrave himself—was in pursuit.

But it was not Hardgrave who approached him so fleetly; it was a ghost, a beast. Tall and dark in black wool, wild with a blood-matted tangle of hair loose about his face, and swinging a sword as a heathen invader might have wielded a battle ax, Warwick Chatham swept the distance between them.

William was too stunned to think; instinct warned him to back away, but not in time, and he dimly thought that he was about to die.

He did not die; the breath was knocked from him by a ferocious strength, and he found himself in the snow then, the enraged man upon him, and a bloody sword at his throat.

“Where is she?”

The blade pricked against his flesh; he gasped and gagged, sickeningly aware then that he was a coward, that he wanted no part of pain, that he would say or do anything to get this man and his sword away from him.

But he could not speak; the sword was against his windpipe, and he could barely swallow. He tried to swallow, his own eyes widening to the devil’s fire of those that stared into him, threatening to burn him for eternity.

He waved toward the forest and the sword moved away from his throat.

“The forest!” he gasped. “She raced into the forest. Raoul—”

But the last was not needed, nor did it seem to have meaning. The great dark beast was off and racing like some majestic steed down the same path the others had taken.

William brought his hand to his throat and rubbed the pricked flesh. He staggered to his feet and started at a much slower pace in Chatham’s wake.

Why, he wondered, did he follow? He should run away now, before he was forced to face the beast again. But he kept going, for Raoul was in that forest, and he knew not why, but William felt compelled to be there, too. Yet he could not hurry; he could only plod slowly, woodenly, through the snow.

Some voice hailed him; he did not hear it. He just stared straight ahead, thinking that it had all been for naught. He had come so far… He had taken the land. He had brought off the most devious and tricky plan! He had done it; he had done it all. And now it was falling down around his ears, all because of a slender golden-haired girl. He had bested noblemen and a king, and he was about to lose it all to a girl who just barely reached his shoulder.

“Hold up there, man!”

He finally did so, shaken not by the voice, but by the arm that fell upon his shoulder.

He turned and almost smiled, for this indeed seemed to be a winter of ghosts. The smith had been the first, arising from the dead.

And now this … this strange and miscolored facsimile of the same man. He was slimmer, not quite so tall, but seeming a giant still, staring at him with eyes that blazed a wild emerald instead of a great cat’s gold.

William shook his head—there was another ghost behind him, massively shouldered.

“What goes on here?” the green-eyed monster demanded, shaking Deauveau with a fury. William looked past the newcomers and saw another carriage in the courtyard. Ah, a busy day for Deauveau Place! Rarely did more than one carriage come at once! Beside the carriage two men and a woman, all elegantly dressed, lingered and watched.

William raised a hand slowly and waved.

But then the green-eyed stranger was shaking him again. “What’s happening? Where is Lord Hardgrave? Where is Ondine? Where is Warwick Chatham?”

William smiled and pointed. “Why, the smith and the duchess are in the forest. Let’s all go, shall we?”

“Hardgrave-—”

“I believe he must be dead,” William said apologetically. He shook his head again. “I knew it. I knew I should have killed her the moment she arrived. Ah, but youth! Raoul just would have her, have her or die!” He started to laugh. “And I think now that he will, indeed, die!”

Justin and Clinton exchanged worried glances, but then as Warwick had, they chose to ignore Deauveau and raced into the wintry tangle of forest.

It was there before her, filled with tiny crystals of ice, gurgling and bubbling and beautiful where the sun filtered through the dead limbs of winter, casting its glow.

She paused just briefly on the snow-covered embankment, thinking that she only needed to cross it to reach the other side. It would probably not be deep enough now to cover a man’s height, but Raoul might not know that, and he was terrified of water.

“I’ve got you! And now, madam, you will pay!”

She screamed, for there was a tight grip upon her shoulder; she had not heard him come those last few steps, for the fresh powdery snow here had covered the tread of his footsteps. Raoul spun her about, her head fell back, and her eyes beheld him.

“Damn you!”

He shook her in a fury until her head rolled, until she felt like laughing. When she laughed, he struck her, and she sank into the snow, her head lowered, her laughter ceasing.

“Damn you, bitch! I can still save you! My God, do you value your life so cheaply that for its price you will not turn to me?”

She glared up at him, heedless of her words. “You are insane, Raoul! Never, never, at the cost of my life or any other, could I turn to you! You killed my father—” Sobs caught in her throat. “You killed my father with his own sword, and you slew Warwick—shooting him from behind his back! Never, never in a thousand years could I bear you! The thought of death is sweet in comparison with your treacherous bloodstained hands!”

His face turned crimson with rage; he shook, and a vein seemed about to burst from his forehead. He raised his hand, and she knew he meant to strike her again and again, until he had beaten her unto death.

But instinct caused her to lie prone and roll in an attempt to escape that first blow. And in motion so, she suddenly discovered that she was rolling down the slope of the embankment. She came to rest just at the water’s edge. Gasping and looking up, she saw Raoul in grim-faced pursuit, carefully climbing down the slope.

‘
‘No!” she screeched, and with that sound came energy and desperate courage. She pitched herself into the water.

The cold was lethal; her coat too heavy. Its weight tugged upon her, and it seemed that her limbs had become like icicles, incapable of movement. The cold called to her and lured her; rest, it seemed to whisper; give up everything for peace …

She came to the surface and breathed deeply. Yet it seemed the current meant to carry her under again. She had no choice but to go with it and pray that in its whims it might choose to cast her upon the opposite bank.

•
‘Wait.’”

She heard the cry vaguely. It was like the enraged roaring of some wounded creature, yet it carried with it something poignantly familiar. Ah, death! It seemed that surely the shadows were descending, for it was Warwick’s voice calling to her. The sound of it was sweet, so sweet and gratifying, for even as icy fingers swept her along, it seemed that he was destined to meet her— upon that opposite bank as it were!

The current tossed her cruelly, for she had no strength. It would not pull her down and have done with her; she found herself above the surface again, hearing that same sweet haunting voice!

“Ondine!” A shrill cry of anguish. “Pray try, wait! I will help you!”

She smiled, for where could be the triumph in death, when he was there to meet her?

But then something swept around her; something strong, something unerringly sure. Something that held her against the current and cold; something that tightened about her like a burning forge of steel, carrying her against the current.

She looked up and saw him. She smiled, for his cheeks were unshaven still; his flesh still stained with smudge from the forge, and his forehead, even, still carried the bloody mark where the ball had taken him.

“My love,” she whispered.

And then she closed her eyes.

But they opened again suddenly, for she realized that she was not dead, just shivering furiously, wet against the chill of the breeze, and no longer held, but tossed upon the bank. There was a great thrashing around her, as if all the ground were being torn asunder. Struggling, she raised herself on her elbows and stared about.

“Fight, damn you!”

It was Warwick’s voice raging out the demand, Warwick’s soaked and powerful back she saw, standing higher on the bank. His hands were upon his hips and he was staring down at some creature he had dragged back from the woods, a creature that now cringed before him.

“Deauveau! I cannot slay a man from the back!” Warwick thundered. “Take your weapon and fight!”

” Spare me!” Raoul whimpered.” You have her; I never touched her! Take her—she’s yours!”

“Damn you! Get up like a man!”

The vision suddenly blurred before her, for the quiet, barren forest suddenly seemed to have come alive. There were footfalls everywhere.

Ondine closed her eyes, hoping to clear them. A sweeping warmth suddenly enveloped her, and with her teeth chattering furiously, she opened her eyes wide once again.