Ondine (44 page)

“Oh!” Ondine lay her head against his chest. “I’m glad. It does seem fitting indeed.”

“It was that or the Tower,” Warwick told her.

Sarah rose, smiling, for the happiness and mutual adoration seemed so wonderfully contagious.

“Well, I’ll leave you now,” she murmured.

Warwick took himself from his wife’s gaze long enough to grin at Sarah. “Clinton is waiting downstairs. And I think he has some rather good news for you.”

“What is that?” Sarah frowned curiously.

“He must tell you himself,” Warwick told her, and Sarah, smiling nervously, hurried out.

“Warwick—”

He returned his attention to Ondine, and though he knew that he saw her through the misted eyes of a lover, he knew, too, that she was in truth one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the earth, with eyes like a sparkling sapphire sea, hair that caught sunlight or moon light, a fire’s glow, and made magic of it.

He pushed her backward slowly, smiling still as he stared down at her. “Have I told you today that I love you?”

“Oh, aye! And I love you, too. But Warwick—”

“Have I told you that your beauty is greater than any sunburst, than any field, than any work of God or man?”

“Oh, Warwick! That’s beautiful! But—”

She broke off, startled, for he had backed her to the bed, and she fell upon it, to be quickly followed by him, and held against him as he stroked her cheek, still staring whimsically into her eyes.

“Warwick—”

“Are you well?” he interrupted her anxiously, drawing his hand tenderly over her abdomen. “Do you feel strong? No ill effects of such a day?”

“I am well!” she gasped, for though his fingers moved to seek his child, to her they were beguiling and… erotic.

“Warwick!” She caught his hand and held it to her, determined that she must talk. “What is it that Clinton must tell Sarah? Oh, Warwick! She is so terribly in love with him! Glad in it, yet so very sad, for her father is an awful tyrant and—”

“I know,” Warwick interrupted her, drawing her fingers to his lips, tenderly kissing them one by one with the greatest interest.

“Warwick—”

“They say, my love, that curiosity killed the cat!” he teased, taking then a studious interest in her earlobe, kissing it, nipping it, whispering against it with moist and heated breath. Then he was staring down at her, eyes glowing like the deepest golden fire, intense, passionate.

“But then you’re not a cat at all, darling. You’re a mermaid. I thought you so once, that very first time I saw you. I never told you, did I? I saw you—the day of the joust—running from Raoul. Of course I didn’t realize then that I was destined to take you in marriage and give you mortal life. I thought you a dream, a fantasy. And still you are so. But in truth, my beloved, it was I who was granted mortal life—and love immortal—through you.”

“Oh, Warwick! I love you! You saw me!”

“I did. I saw the vision. A dream. And the dream is now mine.”

She wrapped her arms about his neck, meeting his fevered, passionate kiss with an ardor that seemed to encompass all the flaming heat of the sun. She was breathless when he pulled away, breathless when she stared into his eyes and knew that she would love him this way forever, for all their mortal lives … and beyond.

He laughed, rising from her to shed one boot, and then another. He tossed his hose carelessly aside. “Vixen, you forgot your question, but I’ll answer it anyway. Certain lands and titles had been left vacant. Anne’s last husband left no heirs, and Charles decided that those lands should go to Justin. So my brother is now a duke. Then there were Hardgrave’s lands, too, you see. Vacant. And the king’s prerogative is to bestow titles and land, and so Clinton is a viscount. I believe that should satisfy Sarah’s father.”

“Oh! How wonderful!” She came to her knees, encircling his neck with her arms, hugging him exuberantly.

Warwick chuckled. ” ‘Twas not my doing! I hadn’t that power. Tis Charles you should thank so—nay! I did not say that! You thank the king in this manner, and I shall take stern measure!”

Ondine chuckled delightedly. “Bah! My most beloved beast, you are like most creatures of a forest—all bark and growl, and very little bite at all!”

“No bite at all!” Warwick protested, rising so that she slipped from him, and gazing down at her with Jier hands on his hips. She couldn’t help but giggle, which drew from him a disgruntled, “Hmmph!”

Then he feverishly tugged his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor.

“No bite at all!” he repeated, and tugged next upon his breeches, pulling them from corded muscular legs. Then, once again, he stared down upon her, his beautifully naked flesh shining in the firelight, all sinew and power and completely the man she loved.

She smiled, unalarmed, and then she lay back and stretched out her arms to him.

“A beast, as anyone knows, but bites and growls when treated poorly! And, ah, but I, milord, have learned that lesson well and learned, too, that the most powerful creature, when loved and adored, is ever the most tender!”

He came down beside her, his laughter gone, his handsome face tense with passion, eyes an amber, hungry glow. He cupped her cheek within his hand and whispered with sweet urgency, “Aye, tenderness, aye, love! Well have you tamed your beast, my witch, my mermaid, my love. Come, pour your Nereid’s waters over me, for wife, greatly do I thirst!”

Ondine stared deeply into the searing passion of his eyes, and she sighed with delicious surrender and triumph.

It was a cool spring, refreshing and pleasant, but upon the court, Warwick felt a trickle of sweat upon his brow.

“Warwick!” the king warned him briefly, for the ball was coming to his corner of the court, and his mind was obviously not on the game.

He made that ball, though, swinging reflexively, groaning inwardly, for the king was so avid upon this game they played against the Duke of York and Buckingham—a strange duo at that!—that Warwick dared not let his mind wander too far. The ball moved too quickly for such leisure.

His shot gave them a lead, though, and as the Duke of York set about to serve, Warwick did glance over to the chaises and managed to feel a modicum of assurance. Ondine still sat there, along with several of the queen’s ladies and the queen herself. She saw his glance, smiled radiantly, and gave him a sign for victory.

“Chatham!”

That time, the ball went sailing past him, and Charles was unable to recover for him.

The king came to his side, whispering into his ear as service was set up once again.

“Blessed heaven, Warwick Chatham!” he grumbled. ” Tis my brother I play! My younger brother! Will you have me lose to him?”

“My apologies, sire, I—”

“You are worried. Well, cease worrying! If the child is destined to come today, it will come today. ‘Tis one matter over which I have no royal prerogative! Now, play!”

The play continued, moving so swiftly that for a time Warwick found he could give himself over to it. He mused, though, watching the ball, that it was probably strange that they should be here; most heirs came into this life upon the property that they were to inherit. However, this child was destined to inherit both the properties and titles of North Lambria and Rochester, and neither he nor Ondine could decide which should be the more likely place. Admittedly, both bore specters of the past, remnants of happy days, yet shadows, too. Following that fateful day at Deauveau Place, they had both been quite content to follow the king about in his service. Warwick had been sent to France for several weeks, and after that, he’d served briefly for His Majesty in Holland, at the court of William and Mary. In March, however, he’d begged excuse from further travel. Ondine had been the most perfect expectant mother in the early months, but as her date had grown closer, she had been plagued with anxiety, fearing the drugs used upon her in those early months, and all of her previous activity. Charles, being the parent of no legal heir, but the father of at least a dozen fine bastards, felt a sympathy for the pair, and so had kept Warwick close to home and suggested that since they were both English, though from different parts of the country, the child should be born beneath his royal wing—duke and earl, he would surely grow to serve his king!

And so, quite peacefully, they were able to be at court, with no fears for the running of their vast estates. Jake had married his Molly, and if that industrious pair had difficulty at all with the management of Chatham Manor, they had only to turn to Clinton and Sarah, blissfully wed, and making delightful homestead of Hardgrave’s once carelessly run but beautiful old castle.

Jem was in charge of Deauveau Place. While he saw to the house, John Robbins, in love with that countryside, looked to the tenants and the rents, giving the fanners a deep understanding that had doubled their personal incomes and increased the wealth of the landowners. Warwick grinned even as he managed to slice a ball cleanly past Buckingham. He and Ondine were constantly lending the king monies from their vast supply, though it was they who were in his service.

He frowned then suddenly, thinking of his brother, Justin, for Justin troubled him frequently these days, though he saw him little. Following the events of Deauveau Place, Justin had made a change, growing admirably responsible, yet more grim, and talking constantly of new frontiers. He accepted with quiet dignity the land and title the king had granted him, but just after the Epiphany, he had set sail across the Atlantic, determined to see the Virginia Colony. He’d returned just days ago to be present for the birth of his nephew or niece—Warwick was secretly convinced the child was a boy, for Chathams were known to sire male children—but planned, with great excitement, to return abroad by the end of summer. He had asked Charles for a land grant in the wild interior of the new country, and Charles, bemused at such interest in what he considered a totally uncivilized place, fully intended to make that grant.

Ah, but Warwick worried still, for Justin seemed of such a reckless nature. Warwick thought that he had sewn enough wild oats, and perhaps needed the giving love of a wife. Yet, somewhere in his heart, he thought he understood his brother’s hesitancy— and why, too, Justin chose to keep his distance. He loved Ondine, distantly, respectfully—but wistfully—and would surely never settle for a woman with anything less than his sister-in-law’s vivacious beauty and unquenchable spirit.

Warwick slammed the ball across the court. The game! It was going on forever—a tight, endless match.

Search far and wide, Justin, he thought, his devotion to his brother as deep as ever. See that you are satisfied; see that you settle for nothing less than this ever-exultant emotion of true and tender love, for it is the sole thing that makes all else in life worthwhile!

He was startled from his thoughts as the king let out something like a conqueror’s cry, throwing his racket jubilantly into the air. Somewhat confused, Warwick frowned at him.

“Damn, but ‘tis true! You’re not with me at all today, Chatham! We won, man! We took the game!”

Buckingham leapt over the net to offer his handshake in congratulations, but the Duke of York followed more sedately. There was a rash of laughter and good camaraderie, drink flowed freely to cool them, then Warwick, nodding absently at the words that issued around him, turned back to the chaises.

Ondine was gone, as were Sarah and the queen.

He felt himself shake and tremble. A guard told him she’d returned to the palace two hours previously. He had been right; oh, he had known this morning by her strange behavior! His child was to be born today.

“I’ve got to get back!” he muttered.

Charles was there, mopping his face with a tennis sheet. “Chatham, don’t panic so! Heirs take time to enter this world!”

The king was wrong. By the time they returned to the palace, Ondine was blissfully lying upon a newly made bed, virginally beautiful in a lace gown with her hair like a sunburst of glory about her, her sweet smile equally as radiant.

Warwick paused at the threshold of the door. The queen and the women who had attended her chuckled softly and bid him enter. Catherine clapped her hands and the maids disappeared; she and the king remained in the door, content despite their own lack of heirs, and stared on as Warwick at last entered the room. On curiously hesitant feet he came to her bedside and stared down at the swaddled bundle by her side.

“Milady … ?” he queried.

Still smiling with such contentment and bliss, she unwrapped that perfect bundle. The babe kicked and squalled, quite nonchalantly displaying his sex.

” ‘Tis a son!” Warwick cried.

” And wonderfully sound and whole and healthy!” Ondine whispered happily. “Oh, Warwick, count the fingers and toes! He’s plump and rosy and—”

“Perfectly wondrous, my dear love, and I thank you for him with all my heart!” Warwick finished for her, leaning past his squalling newborn heir to kiss her lips, the quiver of his own betraying his emotion.

“And such a marvelously easy time he had entering this world!” the queen remarked from the doorway.

” ‘Twas my doing!” the king claimed. “I always said that a brisk morning walk was good for all things, and I did keep that fair lady walking each day!”

“I don’t think they hear us!” the queen murmured, and the king grinned, for he was certain they did not.

With great affection he slipped an arm about his wife’s shoulders and led her from the room, silently closing the door behind him.

Warwick did not know that they had been or gone; he sat there inspecting his son, commenting in wonder.

“My love, see all that hair! A sunburst, like yours!”

“Ah, but it may yet turn dark!”

“His eyes—are blue!”

“I believe all babes are born with blue eyes.” She laughed. “His nose is most definitely yours. It tilts quite arrogantly!”

“Nay! It tilts with great dignity!”

The babe, totally disinterested in their parental doting, waved his tiny fists, screwed up his face, and let out a demanding cry.

“Ah, you see! A hungry, howling beast—just like his father!” Ondine declared, but smiling still, she seeped with joy as she adjusted her gown, tenderly urged the child to her breast, and thrilled with liquid delight at his urgent tug upon her.

“Beast, eh?” Warwick grinned, running a knuckle over the wee face, soft as down.

“Certainly—he’ll be another Warwick Chatham, Earl of North Lambria!”

“And Duke of Rochester,” Warwick reminded her.

She caught his hand and kissed it, and they both stared, dazed still with awe and rapture as all new parents must, at the life they had created.

Ondine’s brilliant sapphire eyes met Warwick’s golden gaze, and she smiled, feigning a sigh. “I rather thought a sweet and gentle girl would be nice!”

“Sweet and gentle!”

“But I’m ever so content that I’ve a son—be he a Chatham beast! After all, seems I’ve tamed one, so I should be quite capable with another!”

Warwick laughed delightedly, the sound husky, from the depths of his throat. He bent over his suckling babe and with the greatest tenderness found his wife’s lips once again.

“If you wish a daughter,” he whispered against her mouth, “this ‘tamed’ beast of yours shall certainly do all in his power to get you with one next! But sweet and gentle?”

She slipped her free arm about his neck, ever so glad with his touch.

“Seems we are both well tamed, my love!” she promised him, and once again they kissed long and tenderly, before the newest Chatham decided it was time they be prodded apart, his tiny fist pounding most ferociously against his father’s chest.

They laughed together—and gave him their full attention.