Ondine Page 12

  Chapter 7

  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.

  Without fail, each night would end the same. Warwick would silently walk to her chamber, she would stiffly wish him a good evening, and he would remind her to bolt her door. Out of five nights, he rode away on three; the two nights that he did not leave, she heard him pace his chamber until she fell asleep.

  On her fifth day in the manor she decided to implement her determination to change her immediate surroundings. The servants obeyed her orders without question until Mathilda appeared upon the scene, dragging an irritable Warwick behind her. Mathilda wanted nothing moved. But Warwick’s command came in Ondine’s favor.

  “The lady Ondine is mistress here now, Mathilda. She must arrange things as she desires. It makes no difference to me.”

  He left them. Ondine ached for Mathilda, yet she could not live with Genevieve’s things. Gently she reminded the housekeeper that Genevieve was dead. Mathilda started to cry, and Ondine tried to soothe her, and—ridiculously—they wound up hugging, at peace with each other.

  That night, Warwick rode away again.

  Restless and angry, Ondine left her bedchamber for the music room. She sat before the harp, idly strumming tunes, and was heartily shocked to feel an unease rippling at her nape. She turned quickly and discovered that Warwick was there, silent and straight, not three feet from her, and still decked in his hat and black mantle.

  He smiled sardonically when she saw him. He closed the distance between them, catching in his hand her slender fingers, paralyzed upon a string.

  He held her hand between his own, brought her fingers to his cheek, then studied them once again while she remained mute, her heart thudding in sudden alarm. At last he released her, smiling once again.

  She did not like the keen interest in his eyes, nor the subtly mocking tone of his voice.

  “You do play es
pecially well, milady thief.”

  “How—how did you get in? I locked the outer door—”

  “I have keys to slip every bolt in these apartments, Countess.”

  “Then—”

  He chuckled. “Madam, if I wished to enter a chamber in my domain, I would do so, bolts and keys or no. I was saying that I enjoyed your performance upon the harp, and I’ve noted, too, your prowess at the spinet.”

  “You have … heard?” she queried with a startled gasp, her heart seeming then to sink while her body flared to heat at his unnerving nearness. His scent was that of the night, fresh cool air, leather, and horses. Even when he touched her lightly, she felt the strength in his fingers.

  And she remembered his more intimate touch, even while she feared his suspicions. She felt so defenseless, clad in nothing but one of “Madame’s” sheer gowns, and a cloak to match that was of no greater substance.

  His grin curled more wickedly into his lips. He offered her a full and courtly bow. “Aye, milady, I’ve heard you … often. And I’ve come to wonder how you grew so proficient at these instruments while poaching in a London forest.”

  Ondine lowered her lashes quickly over her eyes and set the harp forward carefully. “I’ve told you, milord Chatham,” she murmured.’ ‘My father was a poet. We moved from place to place, and there were always music masters about.”

  “Ah, yes! I forget. The man was a poet. Perhaps, my love, you would be willing to entertain me with a brief recitation of his work?”

  Dear God! Her thoughts went blank. She could not think of two words that rhymed or sounded remotely melodious to the ears. Her fingers knotted in her lap.

  “Don’t mock me!” she finally cried to him, and her emotion then was real. “His death is too near, and he was too beloved a man for me to bear such memory now!”

  Her eyes were a tempest; her hair was a flame that spewed down her back. She thought to escape him, but had he reached out, he would have captured her.

  He did not. He offered her only that enigmatic smile, and the gaze that told her clearly he was far more frighteningly aware of her every movement than she had ever guessed.