Ondine (19 page)

“Nay! One more year, and we’ll see to that wager!”

“Aye!” Warwick declared.

“You’re about to ride?” Justin said. “Wait but a moment, and your wife and I might accompany you.”

The laughter faded from Warwick’s face; again he stared at Ondine in that harsh way she had as yet to fathom. Yet she cared little now; her heart pulsed with the excitement of riding. Surely he could not deny her when he rode himself!

“Ondine may not ride. I’ve an appointment with a Flemish wool merchant and haven’t the time to wait for her to change clothing. Nor should she be so reckless with her health and our— child.”

“I beg you, milord!” she said very softly. “I swear, I can ride well in what I wear! My health is excellent. The exercise would do me and”—she paused, challenging him with her eyes—“the child a world of good.”

She heard his
tsk
of anger and knew with a fleeting pleasure that she had annoyed and embarrassed him, behaving like an abused spouse before his brother and cousin.

“Come, then!” he said irritably.

“It will take no time to saddle a suitable mount,” Clinton said pleasantly, and Ondine gazed at him quickly with wide grateful eyes, further annoying Warwick, yet she did not care in the least.

“I’ll tend to my own mount,” Justin told his brother, “and there will be no wait at all!”

Ondine did not gaze at Warwick; she sped behind Clinton, finding a bridle even as he selected the saddle for a small chestnut mare. She thanked Clinton warmly for his support, yet thought fleetingly that Clinton, too, had that manner about him! Indomitable; arrogant for all that he was, pleasant when he chose, kind when he chose. But he, too, was a Chatham, not the younger in birth, but of improper birth. Chathams! All possessive, too proud. And around them lurked a shroud of mystery. She should fear, but she didn’t know what it was she should fear, only that whispers plagued the manor, and Warwick kept his secrets to himself.

“Come, my lady, now or never!” Warwick called out harshly.

Clinton boosted her onto the mare; she was aware that his hands were powerful, like her husband’s.

Justin paused for a word with Clinton; Ondine started off with Warwick. They were but paces from the stable before he turned to her, eyeing her most callously.

“What now, my lady? The king’s rapture was not enough? Would you string along my own flesh and blood?”

She was already on the horse; there was no further need for even her customary nominal courtesy.

“The devil take you, Warwick,” she said with a condescending smile and a lift of her chin; then she nudged her heels against the mare and felt that she flew—beyond him, beyond his hurting reach.

“Ondine!” The roar of his voice followed her, yet could not touch her. She laughed with delight, laughed with the wind and the freshness of the air and the marvelous feel of the muscular horseflesh beneath her. The mare was sound and small and swift. She raced! But Ondine had forgotten that Dragon was indeed a fierce steed, a stallion as powerful as his master. He was soon beside her.

“Cease this reckless speed!” Warwick blazed out as they came neck and neck. “You know not the terrain! By all heaven I swear you’ll never sit upon a mount again …”

The threat brought her fleeting glimpse of freedom to a staggering halt. She pulled in on the reins, but not before she discovered what he meant of the terrain. The mare’s hoof caught upon a root. The horse stumbled, and Ondine was left to leap quickly away from the falling horse, lest she be crushed.

She landed in a thicket, with Warwick quickly at her side, his hands too intimately upon her as he swore vociferously and checked for broken bones.

“Leave off!” Ondine pleaded. “I am fine!”

“Leave off! Fool! Vixen, you’ll not listen, even when it’s your life and limb I look to!”

She lowered her head as he dragged her to her feet, loathe that he should know how his touch, even in anger, too vividly reminded her of a different time.

“Ah, marital bliss!”

Both of them started violently at the sound of a female voice. Warwick moved from Ondine, frowning as he turned. They had both been too involved with one another to notice anything else, not even the approaching thud of hooves.

And Ondine could have sworn she was as startled as he at the mounted appearance of Lady Anne.

“Anne,” Warwick stated irritably, his hands upon his hips, a frown creasing the line of his brow. “What—”

A second horse moved around the lady Anne’s, carrying Lyle Hardgrave.

“Hardgrave,” Warwick said quietly, yet the name sounded from his lips like a curse.

“Chatham,” Hardgrave returned. He doffed his hat to Ondine. “My lady …”

And those words sounded like a caress.

“The viscount so kindly invited me to his estates,” Anne said sweetly, “and so here I come upon the two of you!
Tsk! Tsk!
Warwick, I can’t imagine that you’ve not taught your bride to sit a horse properly! Poor lady! Ah, and with child, at that! I shall pray all is well. Oh, my dear girl, you’ve grass all about you! Such a fall! Or is the grass from your sleeping quarters? Warwick, surely you do not keep her in the barn?”

“Nay, lady, he does not!” Ondine spoke out, carefully modulating her voice to sound cheerful before Warwick could answer in anger. ‘ ‘Do you ask because that is where he might have kept his … sluts before? Have no fear, I am well housed. And I ride quite well.” She smiled as sweetly as a contented kitten, slipped her hands about Warwick’s rigid arm, and moved closer to him with an adoring gaze. “We just discovered that we must touch one another at the strangest moments… anywhere, at anytime …”

Warwick’s arm then locked around her shoulder; he pulled her closer and idly moved his fingers over her shoulder, apparently moved from wrath to amusement, and more than willing to take his cue from her. “Hardgrave, what are you and your guest doing on my land?”

“I beg to differ,” Hardgrave responded to Warwick, but his eyes did not leave Ondine. “This is my land you’ve stumbled upon.”

“Ah, perhaps we have,” Warwick said lightly, giving his attention to Ondine, as if she were such a rich distraction that his mind could fathom nothing less. “Ah, love, see!” he accused her as tenderly as a lover. “You’ve led me far astray.”

Anne made an impatient sound from her saddle. “Ride with us a while, Lord Chatham.”

“What? Oh?” Warwick tore his eyes from Ondine, lazy eyes that fell over Anne with little interest. “I’m afraid we cannot. I’ve an appointment.”

His chilly gaze then turned to Hardgrave. “We’ll take care not to stumble upon your land again, Viscount!”

He turned about swiftly, hands encircling Ondine’s waist so that he could set her upon the mare once again. Then he moved to procure Dragon, who had wandered several feet away to feast upon a thicket of high grass.

Anne moved her horse closer to Ondine’s. She smiled quite pleasantly.

“Lady Ondine. Lady! I’ve a mind that you are no more than a common and talented … whore! And I will prove it, my lady. Mark my words—I will discover you!”

Ondine smiled in return. “Do your best, Anne.”

Over Anne’s head she saw Hardgrave staring at her, leering in such a way that her blood ran cold. It seemed that he would consume her with greedy eyes, and despite herself she blanched, even as he bowed from the saddle, spurred his horse, and rode away with the lady Anne following at his heels.

Warwick, mounted upon Dragon once again, came to her side grimly, gripping the mare’s bridle.

“Damn you and breakneck paces!” he swore. “I warn you, and my words make no difference! You caused this, girl, and I warn you the two of them will stop at nothing; they are not to be trusted!”

“Trusted! It appears to me that you long and well ‘trusted’ the lady Anne, with all your heart, mind, soul—and body!”

“Jealous, my love?”

“Nay! Revolted!”

“I am ever so sorry to offend you. Yet something like this cannot happen again. Perhaps you should be restrained to the house!”

“Were you not such a horrid beast of a jailor, it would not have occurred.”

“Horrid beast! Watch it, Lady! Should you request one, you will get one!”

Justin came dashing up just then, warning them that they crossed the border of their lands.

“I know!” Warwick spat out. “And I believe that my lady is now aware of her boundaries, too!”

Justin gazed at Ondine; she shook her head. Warwick rode ahead, and Ondine and Justin followed behind in silence.

Ondine spoke no more at the stables, except to thank Clinton for helping her from the mare. She turned her back before Warwick and Justin had dismounted from their horses, and hurried back to the house. She didn’t have to turn around to know that her husband was close on her heels, but he made no attempt to stop her.

Mathilda was in the entryway, there to warn Warwick that Monsieur Deauvin from Bruges awaited him in his office. She paused in her second sentence to stare at Ondine’s state of disrepair. “Oh, milady! What happened?”

“Nothing, really nothing at all, thank you,” Ondine replied, striding past her for the staircase. She knew that Warwick stayed below; she heard him ask refreshments be sent to his study for himself and his guest. But seconds later she heard the tread of footsteps behind her. Without turning she knew that Jake had taken his place as watchdog once again.

She slammed into the music room, felt no apology as she rifled through Warwick’s desk to procure a bottle of port, then smiled bitterly as she threw the door back open, confronting Jake with the bottle.

“Would you like a drink, Jake? Seems a pity you must suffer constant boredom due to my presence.”.

“I’m—uh—seldom bored, milady,” he mumbled quickly.

“Oh, but you are!” Ondine protested. “You, Jake, are a pleasant man with wit as well as loyalty, and I do think it an eternal shame that you have chained yourself for life to that beastial viper, the Earl of North Lambda!”

Jake grinned at her, apparently unoffended—and equally unaffected by her speech. “You’ve straws or grass or something in your hair, milady. Shall I send for your maid?”

“No!”

Ondine smiled sweetly and closed the door again. Muttering, she passed through Warwick’s bedroom and the elaborate bath into her own chamber, carelessly shedding her gown and donning a new one, then stroking her hair endlessly before the mirror until the grass and twigs were all removed and it again shone like fire.

Dear God! That she could understand anything at all in this household! First, there was a subservient housekeeper who was an illegitimate relative; then there was Clinton, whose illegitimacy didn’t seem to bother him in the least; and finally there was Justin— an easygoing rake, fond of his brother, fond of tormenting him, too! Then, too, there was a whisperer who crawled the halls— and disappeared into thin air—in addition to a lascivious neighbor with whom Warwick had already done battle. And of course she couldn’t forget lady Anne, an ex-mistress, wasn’t she? Ah, but she didn’t intend to remain an “ex,” and there’s the rub of it! Oh, they were all insane, and at the top of the group was Warwick himself, striding in upon her to take her in anger, then dragging her back to ignore and chastise her!

She realized that her hand, with her fingers curled taut around the brush, still trembled with a score of emotions.

“Oh, I do hate you! I hate you, vile beast!” she swore out loud. Then she brushed, and clenched her eyes tightly together, because she knew that not to be the case at all, and she could not bear that she—in truth the Duchess of Rochester, the once proud and independent Ondine!—could have stooped to loving a man who might touch her, yet would never love in return.

“Oh, my lord, I will have my revenge on you yet!” she swore, stamping her foot. She tossed the brush across the room, watching it land on the bed. Then she swirled around. She could not stay in the room.

Jake made no pretense of doing anything other than watching her room when she came sailing out once again.

“The garden, I think, Jake.”

“But you brought in flowers for the house this morning—”

A small wry smile curled into his lips at the admission that he had watched her all day. Surely they both knew it! There was nothing to hide. Jake was about unless Warwick himself stood over her.

“Then I shall bring flowers to the chapel!” she announced, and he was left with no other choice than to follow her down the grand stairway once again.

At the foot of the stairs she was hailed once more by Mathilda, who came anxiously racing toward her.

“Milady! A spill from a horse and you are up and about again! You must lie down, you must take care!”

Ondine shook her head in confusion. “Mathilda, I assure you that I am fine.”

“But the babe! You should look to yourself!”

“Pardon?”

“Your condition, my lady!”

Condition, my foot! Ondine thought furiously. Oh, God, she was forever forgetting that she was supposed to be with child!

“I’m fine, Mathilda, honestly,” she said gently. “I’m just going to the garden.”

“I shall bring you goat’s milk later.”

“Wonderful,” Ondine murmured. She forced herself to smile, but could no longer abide the manor and so hurried past Mathilda.

She plucked rich red roses from the gardens in back, helped by Old Tim, who provided her with gloves and a basket. When Old Tim disappeared into a small storage shed, Jake came around from the corner of it, panting a bit.

“I do love roses!” Ondine called to him.

He nodded bleakly.

With her basket filled, Ondine swirled about and hurried around the house to enter the chapel from the front. She saw Jake in hurried pursuit, smiled, and closed the doors behind her. Poor Jake! But then he chose to serve his master!

With the doors closed behind her, Ondine paused, leaning against them to survey the chapel. It was a beautiful place with its wonderful stained glass windows and altar sculptures in marble and glass. The afternoon was waning now, but still sunlight flickered through the stained glass in rainbow hues. There was shadow and a pastel glow, and Ondine thought that here one might truly commune with a more ethereal world.

She pushed away from the door, intending to head straight for the main altar. But she did not; she paused along the way, observing the monuments. The most recent memorialized the old lord and lady, and Ondine found herself musing on what they must have been like to have parented Warwick and Justin.

She studied the monument to the Earl and Countess of Chatham who had come before them, he who had died upon the battlefield in defense of Charles I, and she who had died in his wake, pitching through the wood on the staircase. Cherubic angels prayed that they should rest in peace, and Ondine found herself fervently desiring that they did, then wondering where the lord’s mistress might have been interred.

“Certainly not in the family vault!” she mused with a touch of amusement curling her lip.

Farther along she came upon the altar dedicated to the first of the Chathams—the Norman who had earned them the rumor of being “beasts.” The simple stone was so worn that little could be read of the inscription.

“Ah, but your legend, sir, lives on, long and well!” Ondine murmured. Then she touched the stone, a little tenderly, for despite all, she was in love with that long-ago lord’s descendant.

“Except that he is a beast, and it seems I must soon escape him and his madness, else become prey!” Squaring her shoulders as if she might shed her whimsical words of nonsense from them, she returned to the center aisle to reach the main altar. Then she found herself wondering where Genevieve had been interred. She stopped to turn about, and realized that the altar dedicated to Genevieve stood opposite that of the last Earl and Countess of North Lambda. She gave pause, curious, for she was not easily frightened, yet she suddenly felt a tension and a chill. Walk to the tomb, see it! she commanded herself, and she could not do so. She gave herself a furious shake and continued to the main altar, where she dropped briefly to her knees, then stood to set the flowers in the urns there.

She was thus engaged when she heard what first seemed to be a moan. Hands upon a rose, she stiffened, still and silent.

And then the sound came again, like the wind, a whisper, a moan. She spun about, seeking out the corners of the room. But it had grown darker still, and all that flickered about her was blue and red light, a haze of it at that, a swirl of mystery.

“Who is there!” she called out, keeping her voice low and annoyed. Never show fear, her father had warned her once, for it is a weakness one’s enemies might feed upon.

There was no answer. She wondered if the air of the place might have played upon her mind, if all the superstitions did not haunt her good sense, and so she turned to her task again.

But the next sound was a husky whisper of her name, a sound with neither sex nor substance, but so clear that she pricked her finger upon a thorn on a rose and shuddered where she stood.

Now she swung in the greatest anger, ready to find her tormentor, determined to challenge him. Yet when she turned now, she was so startled that only a gasp came from her.

There was no need to search out her tormentor.

Not ten feet away stood … a creature. It was a mirage, an image surely created by the surreal light, by the pall of darkness and shadow, by the fears that lurked in her mind.

It was a creature, completely cloaked in black, its face a demon’s mask cast in a hideous leering grin. And even as she stood, stunned and incredulous and gaping, the demon raised its arms to display hands that boasted talons, long and lethal, curled and poised as if they longed to strike, to come across throat and vein and render death with a single swipe.

Somewhere in her heart she knew no demon stood before her; no beast dragged from the bowels of this place of death. It did not matter; be it man or beast, the creature that faced her intended her harm, and she knew she must escape it.

As in a dream, she could not make a sound. She dashed toward the main aisle, yet the creature blocked her, and she was forced to the far right. There she gave no heed to her surroundings; she ran, not daring to see if she was pursued. She found her voice and called out, grateful for once that Jake lurked nearby. Yet she did not know if he responded to her call, for the creature had taken a different path between the pews and awaited her at the end.

She paused, backing away once again. Dimly she realized where she stood—before the ornate and beautiful monument to the last Chatham to have passed beyond the portals of death.

Genevieve’s tomb.

And even as she came to that awareness, she discovered that where her sightless journey had taken her there was no flooring. There was stone beneath her feet as she stared at the cloaked creature, then there was nothing. With a scream she pitched downward, and the sound of her voice was lost in echo.

Her skirts saved her from injury as she fell, yet she felt no bumps or bruises, so desperate was she to discover her whereabouts. She stared upward, at the empty space above. She saw nothing but the eerie blue light, and then heard a scraping, a rasping, and realized that a stone—removed so that she might fall!—was being slid back into place.

And once it was done, not even the eerie blue light would come to guide her.

She rose, reaching above her to stop that stone from falling. “No!” she raged, but the sound of her own voice was horrible, echoing all about her.

She closed her eyes tightly, stunned and trembling and afraid. She tried to tell herself that she did not believe in evil death ghosts, in spirits or the like.

Oh, it was impossible not to feel the chill, the terror! Impossible not to know that she was surrounded by the coffins of those Chathams memorialized above her!

She swallowed fiercely and opened her eyes, then half shut them, seeking something, some pencil streak of light to guide her. And, ah, there was light! Oh, vague, vague hope—a ribbon-thin streak that beckoned her, far along a tunnel.

Yet when she would have moved, she paused instead, bumping into the coffin beside her. She had to blink again, strain desperately to see.

And then the most horrible scream welled within, a scream of unspeakable terror.

The coffin had been opened. Within its silken lining lay a body, and even in the darkness Ondine knew it to be a woman, clad in rich velvet, the hands locked in prayer, hair spilling long about the pillow… face rotting, as time and death would have its way with even the greatest beauty.

Genevieve …

She knew no sense or reason, no courage whatsoever. In that moment Ondine knew nothing but panic, blind and raw. She edged by the coffin, dimly saw row upon row of those that stretched beyond it.

Then she ran for that thin streak of light, that one ray of hope. She was in some tunnel, some tunnel damp and rank with moss and the eternal odor of death. A place where shrieks that were not her own, but those of rats and mice, disturbed the silence in a mortal terror not unlike her own.

She ignored them when they tread over her feet, when they scampered along her path, and coughing, gagging, choking, she likewise ignored the spiderwebs that clung to her face and gown. Spitting, half sobbing, she clawed at them, even as she ran, learning to place her hands before her.

At long last she reached the source of the light—another wall, where but a crack lay open. Still sobbing, she raised her hands against that stone, pulling and prodding, scratching her flesh and breaking her nails. It refused to give, and she lay against it, panting raggedly, then set forth once again, feverishly clawing at the stone. Then she forced herself to stop, stop with her heart pounding like a hammer against an anvil. Logic, sense, patience, oh, God, how desperately did she need those virtues! She breathed deeply, paused, then once again set to her task, pitting all her weight against the stone.

It groaned, as if long untouched; as if it balked and fought her. She rested and panted again and returned once more to the labor, using all the reserves of her strength. And then …

Quite obediently and unexpectedly, the stone slid back, as if on some ancient hinge. Amazed and panting still, Ondine stepped past it.

A certain darkness lingered here, too, but from the wall, light glowed from two candles set in service sconces.

She was in the wine cellar, she realized with disbelief. Some secret path had taken her from the chapel, past the armory, and below the kitchens. There was a stairway at the end of the room that would take her to the larder, she was quite certain.