Ondine (17 page)

“I’ve certainly never heard of her!”

Ondine tensed suddenly, aware that she was not alone outside. Beyond a trellis strung with roses two women sat upon a bench, fanning themselves furiously from the dance—and gossiping.

She clenched her jaw together to brace herself; one of the two was Lady Anne. The voice that had already come her way— imperiously—carried the touch of a French accent, and narrowing her eyes to focus between the slits of the trellis, Ondine realized that the second woman was the king’s mistress Louise. And it didn’t take long for Ondine to realize that she was the object of their gossip.

“Hmmph!” Lady Anne snorted, in a manner less than delicate, yet she had no audience excepting Louise—and unbeknownst to her, Ondine.

“I tell you she is no ‘lady’! And he swore he’d never wed again—not after that fiasco with Genevieve. Ah, what a fool he is! He loves me, adores me! Yet fears to do me ill by marriage. Fool man! Yet still, I shall be content with just his love—until this wretched little bitch of his has played out her role!”

“Wretched little bitch?” Louise inquired sweetly, yet Ondine sensed a hidden malice in the tone. “She’s quite beautiful.”

“Quite common! That’s it! I dare say she’s a commoner—”

Louise chuckled, low and throaty, and the tone was definitely malicious. “Not so common! The king is infatuated, as you’ve seen.”

“Oh, men, they all flock to anything new! You wait and see,
ma petite,
they’ll all tire soon enough!”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps the lord of Chatham is madly, passionately in love with her.”

“His passion, I assure you, Louise, is for me.”

“And the king’s is for me,
rnais oui?
Yet… he shares it with others, as well you know. But as Barbara Castlemaine once said of the king, he is exceptionally well endowed for the art of lovemaking.” Louise’s words were very smug.

“And, as you reminded me, I have known them both! Chatham excels even the king in the absolute wonder of masculine endowments!”

Then they both started to titter with laughter, friends, enemies— competitors.

Ondine felt her face flame with fury and humiliation. All her fascination with the evening came to a crashing halt. Warwick! Damn him to a thousand burning hells! Rake, scoundrel, bastard! He’d dragged her here to be subjected to his mistress, her crass remarks … her self-satisfied Possessiveness. Oh! She wanted to race back into the ballroom and rip great handfuls of his rich hair out of his autocratic head.

“Ah, you’ll miss him, won’t you Anne, eh?” Louise inquired then sweetly, still laughing softly. “After all… he does have his bride in attendance.”

“Trust me, Louise, she’ll not stand in my way.” Anne’s voice lowered to near a whisper. “A bride may, after all, disappear. She is no Genevieve, but one never knows. I may well cause her to run screaming from this place! And,” she added maliciously, “it seems the bride has also caught the king’s attention beyond all limits. Perhaps she’ll be occupied much of the time that she is about.”

Ondine could suddenly bear no more. She spun about and stormed back into the ballroom, more aflame with color than she had been from the dance.

She swirled straight into Lord Hardgrave. Hardgrave—her dear husband’s enemy! She gave him a beautiful smile, quickly apologizing for her clumsiness.

His broad hands touched her shoulders; his strange pale blue eyes were upon hers, alit with sudden pleasure.

“Ah, Lady Chatham! How long has that name sounded dung to my ears—yet now it tinkles like the melody of a stream. My dear, please do see fit to stumble against me at any time, for it is with the greatest pleasure that I aright you!”

“Thank you, milord, your words are most charmingly stated.”

“Ah, lady, you’re too fine for the Beast of Chatham! Would that I had but seen you first, alas!” His hands lingered too long upon her shoulders; his eyes too long upon the rise of her breasts. She wanted to shrink from him; she did not. “Still,the day might come that I may yet slay that beast, and then …”

He lowered his head; his face was very close to hers. She longed to escape him, yet knew not how.

“Ah, there you are, my dear!”

The king! Blessed good King Charles! How had she ever feared him? Here he was, chivalrously saving her from this man.

“May I?” Charles asked Hardgrave with a bland smile. “The lady promised me this dance.”

“In all things, Charles, I would serve you,” Hardgrave said.

“I dare say,” Charles murmured, but then he swept Ondine into his arms, and soon they were on the floor, moving to the strains of music that cascaded down upon them from the minstrels in the gallery.

“You laugh, my lady? Is my dancing so very bad, then?”

“Nay!” Ondine said joyously. “I laugh with wonder, and appreciation, Your Grace!”

“Ah! I did save you from unwanted attentions!”

“Aye, that you did!”

“Mind like a whip—uncanny intuition, how clever, how charming am I!” Charles chuckled.

And Ondine, so excellently swirled about his lead, cast back her head and laughed delightedly at his very wry self-evaluation.

And it was then that she saw her husband again. He stood by the wall, watching her with eyes of flame and fury. Stiff and tall and rigid, like a stallion locked in a pen, he watched her. Angry? Oh, more than that… yet how dare he! Endowments—his endowments were the subject of general discussion, and he stared at her!

But even as she returned his gaze with her head high and cool contempt in her eyes, he was forced to turn, as a female hand touched upon his chest.

Anne’s hand.

And as he turned he smiled, and then chuckled, deep and low, and even that sound, across a crowded room, made Ondine quiver inside. Idiot! she charged herself. She could not care, could not be such a fool as to love such a man. Anne’s words, humiliating, shameful, infuriating—painful!—were true. She played a role for him; he would discard her …

She felt ill suddenly. Warwick and Anne were now locked close in a tete-a-tete; Anne’s hands seemed to be all over her lover. And Warwick was sweeping another chalice of the rum-laced punch from the silver tray, offering Anne a sip, offering her the crooked sensual curl of a grin. Buckingham was with them; they all laughed and drank and it was the most riotous, intimate grouping.

“Sire,” she said to Charles, “may I retire for the evening?”

“Leave him to the claws of Lady Anne?” Charles whispered.

“I shall hope that they scratch one another’s eyes out,” Ondine replied honestly. “Sire, my head suddenly aches.”

Most courteously he escorted her to her chambers. Ondine noted that Jake followed them—ready to stand guard over her at the door! Charles kissed her hand elegantly before leaving her.

He walked away. “Good night!” she called to Jake, slamming the door after the king had departed.

Ondine went on into the suite. She stared about the outer room; at the settee where Warwick had slept. She walked over to it and kicked it in a fury, then swept into the bedchamber, slamming the door behind her. She began to mutter as she went through her chest, absently finding a white silk nightdress, with the finest Bruges lace about the neck and sleeves. She nearly tore her dress to shreds in her haste to remove it, then tossed it to a pile in the corner of the room. Oh, damn him!

Decked out in the white silk, she thought to go to bed, to forget the night. The world looked well for her! She had escaped the gallows, and now had the king’s own blessing to seek a way to right her wrongs. How could she let this tempest brew within her?

Yet it was true … while one lived one felt the furies and glories of life, knew its pains and its elations. Hope, laughter, the coolness of silk against the flesh, the searing blade of jealousy, humiliation… and the hurt that she could not shield away.

“Warwick Chatham, damn you!” she cried aloud, but softly. And then she began to pace the floor; she could not help herself. She muttered and raved, thinking that she would tire, that the feelings would at last fade with an onslaught of exhaustion so she could find the solace of sleep.

Ah, the wretched gutter-bitch!

Warwick stared into Anne’s eyes; he smiled bemusedly at her words, yet heard them not. Buckingham pressed another drink into his hand, and he accepted it blindly.

He talked, joked, laughed.

Inside he raged with emotion, haunted, jealous—ragged with the pain he could not quell. She had left on the king’s arm, and he could not bear it. All he could think of was her.

He had to have her. Nay, he could not…

Another drink, aye! To her sea-witch eyes, her siren’s breasts, her walk, her sway, her legs …

Stay away, stay away, stay away …

He could not. It was late. He had lingered, he had laughed, he had flirted, he had danced and drunk, and none of it did any good.

Quite suddenly he broke from the company. Striding, he left the ballroom grimly, and with his jaw hard, his fists knotted, he headed for his chamber. God rot it, but he could not endure another night like a spaniel on a cushion!

Ondine was still engaged in pacing her chamber, cursing with every epitaph she had learned from the thieves in the forest, when the wooden door banged open so heavily and with such a ferocious slam that she froze, her blood seeming to chill and cease its flow, her muscles constricted like ice.

Warwick stood there, a great sleak silhouette.

And then he moved. Quietly, elegantly, with all the grace that belonged to the tenor of Charles’s court, he stepped into the room. He removed his great plumed hat, and with it in his hand he swept her a bow so deep that its mockery was doubled in its masterful execution.

The act complete, he tossed the hat upon the love seat. And then he reached for the door, closing it slowly so that it moved upon its old hinges, screeching, in a way that sent spasms of terror along her spine, even as her mind registered the dangerous taunt in his manner.

When the door was closed, he leaned against it, arms behind his back as he surveyed her. The candlelight flickered. Corners in the room were dark and mysterious; the glow of the flames played tricks. Warwick still had not spoken; he just stared at her, and though his lip curled into the devil’s own taunting smile, no sign of warmth touched his eyes. And in that dancing candlelight they were not at all the hazel she knew them to be; they were gold like a flashing coin, or perhaps yellow like a streak of sun. They blazed like fire; perhaps like those of a wolf—a wolf that hunted at night, stalking and cornering its prey. A handsome wolf, stark and powerful with the night—deadly.

Fear plunged into her heart, and then rising anger. How dare he look at her so! How dare he—after his performance in the ballroom, dancing, smiling, laughing with that woman! Dear Lady Anne, who touched him so possessively with everyone looking, knowing that their relationship was indeed intimate. The gall of the man, lord or no! To come here and invade her privacy after his obvious interest in that slut!

Oh, how could he … and still she couldn’t help the feelings that invaded her, body and soul … and heart. Dear God, but he was a striking man! No plume, no lace, no elegance of the cavalier costume, could detract from all that was so very masculine about him. She hated him then, that he could laugh so easily with Anne, that Anne could talk so covetously of him. Yet even hating him, she could still feel a thunder shake her, a storm rage within her. Cold blood sizzled, streaked through her to a mystical core. What was it, she wondered desperately, that touched such a distant and primal level of her being? When she saw him, her heart quaked and her limbs trembled and a secret excitement grazed hot and molten within her … even now, when he stared at her so, now when she needed most to despise him, now when the very air warned of tension.

“So—you are in here,” he said at last.

He knew that liquor burned in his system; that he was alive with jealousy. He’d never felt like this, never been the victim of such a passion, or such a …

Love.

Behind his back his fingers tensed. The wine he had imbibed, silver chalice after silver chalice, had not eased the tempest in him, the brooding, aching, yearning tempest. It was true; he had fallen in love with her. He, of all men, had fallen in love. With the scraggly wretch he had saved from the gallows. Though she was not a wretch at all, as time had proved, but a vibrant woman, clever, mysterious—beautiful. So very beautiful in the candlelight.

Decked in nothing but white silk that lay against her: silk that fell to her feet in graceful lines; silk that could not hide the peaks of her breasts; silk that made him long to reach out. And her hair, floating over her shoulders, down her back. Gold and red, sunlight and sunset, a sea of fire. And her eyes, as blue as the sea, seafire, haunting a man, so deeply that he could not live without her.

Love … aye, he was in love with her. Bewitched, as if she were a mermaid, a goddess from the sea. Nay, he could not love her! His soul cried in torment. Yet neither could he shake that fever of fury and lust and … love … that had brought him here. By God’s blood, he would see those cool blue eyes sparkle for him as they had for Charles, he would hear her whispered words, he would be the one to lead the dance …

“And where would I be, my lord?” she queried, determined to speak as coolly, yet unable to keep the bitter heat from her voice, or her eyes from glittering, exposing the ire that simmered inside her like bubbling peat.

He arched a dark brow to her. His satanic smile remained in place, and he strode across the room to the fire, turning the logs with the iron poker. “I’d thought, from your behavior, dear wife, that you might be elsewhere. Plying further charms upon the king.” He set the poker down and turned to stare at her once more, still smiling in that pleasant, dangerous manner. He leaned an elbow upon the stone mantel and continued. “Like the other very beautiful but rather mercenary whores about court, I thought you might be waiting in line for your turn with the royal bed.”

She gasped at the viciousness of his softly spoken accusation, then her temper snapped, and blindly she reached for the nearest thing to throw. Unfortunately, it was nothing more lethal than a neatly embroidered pillow.

But that missile hit him squarely between the eyes, and to her amazement he staggered in his attempt to catch it. She snapped at him furiously, “You’re drunk! You’ve spent the evening whoring with your mistress, Lady Anne, and swilling wines with your grandly titled friends, and then you’ve the nerve to burst into my chamber with vile recriminations—
out!
Get out of here! Go back to your precious and delightful Anne and leave me in peace!”

He threw the pillow to the floor and hooked his thumbs into his waistband as he took a step toward her. His face appeared hard and dark, his jaw twisted, yet still that crooked grin remained in place while the blaze burned deeper in the golden hearts of his eyes. “Drunk, my lady—my pious, dignified,
virginal
wife? Ah, perhaps, ‘tis true! The sight of one’s legally wed lady—ever so chaste and pure in her husband’s presence—pouring herself over the body of the king like scented oil—”

“Pouring! How—” Ondine cut in, only to be interrupted in return, his voice rising.

“Aye! Pouring, leaning against His Grace, laughing, smiling, with those delectable cherry-red lips, and nearly placing the fruit of those voluptuous white breasts into His Majesty’s hands.”

“Oh! You are a liar! A drunken sod of a liar! You know nothing better than the sordid tactics of your tavern-slut of a mistress and so you expect the same from others! Well, go back to her, my great lord of Chatham! Go back—”

“And leave you to the pursuit of a royal affair?”

“You’re insane!”

“Mayhaps,” he said softly. “Ah, yes, mayhaps! Mad with curiosity about the little thieving guttersnipe I married. The ingrate who chooses to make a fool of me—with a man not only my king, but whom I have called the best of friends. Ondine …”

He left the fire and came to her. His fingers bit into her shoulders, naked beneath the slim barrier of silk. She did not flinch; she stared up into his eyes. Hers were alive with the heat of candle glow, alive and tempest-tossed with rage. “Get your hands off me!” she enunciated crisply.

“Why, milady, should I do so? Should the husband be denied that which is so freely given elsewhere? What is it that you seek? Nell looks to the king for money and a title; Louise gains in jewels and lands. Or are their depths to the workings of your fair mind that not even I have begun to see? Barbara Villiers claimed the king magnificently endowed for the art of love—is it nothing more than the passion that you quest?” His words slurred huskily; his hand moved from her shoulder, and his thumb grazed her cheek.

“Bastard!” she hissed. Her elegant fingers twined into a knot, and she slammed them against his chest with all her strength. His words were so soft, so lulling, so touched with a huskiness that seeped into the soul, that she was fool enough to feel the hypnotism again—the damnable longing, the wonder …

“Oh! I do despise you!” She did not strike his chest again— he hadn’t seemed to notice. She slapped him squarely against the jaw, twisted from his hold, and raced to the door, opening it. “Out, my dear lord husband! You are drunk and insulting! Leave me be!”

His strides were long and sure when he approached her. His fingers wound around her wrist, and she cried out a startled little sound as she found herself whirling back into the room. But Warwick didn’t leave it; he closed the door once more. The hinges did not squeal or groan; the wood shuddered with the force of the slam.

“What do you think you’re doing!” Ondine choked out.

“I wish a discussion with my wife,” he said quite softly, but the timbre of the statement was such that she trembled suddenly. Drunk he might be, but not so much that his mind did not remain sharp as a whip, and his demanding nature had not altered in the least.

“I’ve nothing to say to a wine-sodden whoremonger!” she snapped back defensively. Then the line of his lip became so grim she was forced to remember that its power upon her nerves was nothing compared to his steel strength against her far more meager frame.

“I believe, my love, that you’re the whore we’re discussing.”

“Get out!” she raged, and when she whirled blindly this time, she found the beautiful blue Dutch water ewer. She didn’t notice how heavy it was; the fire of her anger gave her strength. She sent it hurtling straight for his obnoxious—and too handsome—head.

His reflexes, it seemed, had not deserted him, for he ducked and avoided the brunt of the blow. The ewer crashed against the door, spraying him with cool fresh water. He paused, startled, then emitted something of a growl as he leapt toward her with the pounce of a wolf, honing in at last upon its prey.

“No!” she shrieked, leaping to avoid him. And avoid him she did, but not completely. She was almost wrenched back to him, but there was a harsh rending sound. Warwick realized it was not his wife he held, but a panel of her gown. Ondine realized she had eluded her husband, but lost half her gown in the process. Dazed and desperate, she rolled over the bed, placing that barrier between them as she sought to drag the skirt of her gown to her breast while parrying his next move.

He sat upon the bed, leaning toward her, and his eyes seemed like narrow slits of fire as he spoke.

“I’ll know now what your whispers were to the king!”

“You’ll not! You have no right—”

“I’ve every right!”

“I’ve nothing whatsoever to say to you! Not when—” She cut herself off, terrified that she would give herself away. She’d never confide in him—never! Never tell him that his gallows’ bride stood an accused traitor. And she’d never—please God!—fall more deeply in love with a man who slept wherever he liked and flaunted his affairs! He’d told her what she was to him: a commoner, a thief, a poacher, he had saved from the gallows. Nothing more.-

She started to laugh. “Charles,” she told him imperiously, “is the king. What I say to him, milord Chatham, is not your business!”

“Ah! So you allow his pawing. You encourage it?”

She wasn’t wary enough. He rolled suddenly and with startling agility was on his feet before her, and his tone once more was soft. “Do you smile, my love, just to charm him as a friend? Or do you smile because you welcome his hand upon you as a woman?” He smiled, as if they chatted casually, yet she backed away, arms locked around herself as she sought to maintain what was left of her clothing. Don’t taunt him; desist, and he will leave you! Yet she could not obey that logic. Something within her was in a rare impetuous rage that demanded she fight.

“The king is charming and courteous in all things!” she cried.

“And I am not?”

“You are an arrogant, demanding boor!”

“A
what?”

She was backed against the wall; there was nowhere to go when his arms reached for her, when his fingers locked once more around her shoulders.

For a moment she panicked; then she raised her head, her eyes flashing a blaze of fury. “Dear sir, pray do not touch me. I fear the filth of your hands, for I know that they have wandered far and wide, and upon many an odious creature!”

“What?” Quite abruptly he began to laugh, and she was dis- armed. Yet her ease was false, for she was suddenly gasping, swept cleanly off her feet and tossed upon the bed that had so recently been her barrier against him. Stunned, she fought to regain a hold on the remaining material of her gown, tangled beneath her. Yet she could not move, for before she could catch her breath, he was upon her, a haphazard knee cast over her legs and pinning them. His fingers were like steel as they wound around her upper arm.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked pleasantly enough. “You think that my hands have roamed too far?”

Her mind was reeling, and there was no release. Each breath she took was of him, his scent, clean and unique, something that spoke of his very masculinity. And she felt the iron-hard tension of his body against hers.

Suddenly he lifted his hand from her shoulder and placed it before their eyes, stretching the long brown tapered fingers. And then his eyes were on her, searing into her. “Is a state of guilt or innocence all that you might hold against my hand, Countess?”

And then, once more, he was watching that hand, that object of discussion. Watching it, because it lay upon her breast, bared by the loss of her gown. Her own gaze fell upon it, upon the fingers, so dark against her flesh, so light in their still caress. His fingers were splayed, her nipple lay between them, and though the touch could have been no lighter, the barest movement, the slightest rotation, was a sensation that ripped into her like a shooting streak of fire, heating the entire length of her. And for moments she lay spellbound, incapable of breathing, hearing only the rampant pounding of her heart, like a rush of the ocean.

Something in her cried out. Something warned her that she would not find him a beast at all. And something warned her that the consummation of her wedding vows would make her secret love for him languish in greater despair.

“Aye!” she cried out, so suddenly that he was taken unaware. “Aye—and I’ve watched where that hand has lingered all evening! So take it back to where it has been!” Her own words renewed her anger, and she flailed against the hand that dared to touch her. She kicked in a sudden fury against the leg that held her, and attempted to arise.