Ondine (30 page)

But that was not something she could say now. She kept her eyes lowered then, afraid that she would give herself away.

“Uncle, I am not yet his wife. And when I am—” She shuddered inwardly. Oh, she despised them both! But she must carefully play this game. “It will be his touch, and his alone, that I endure. Until that moment, I demand that I be left in peace!”

“You demand—!” Raoul snapped in a whirl of fury, but his father pushed past him, planting his hands upon the desk once again.

“You demand, Ondine?” he asked softly. “You have no demands! You have come here—given yourself into my hands! It is at my whim whether you live or die, and you still think to speak to me as some crystal-pure princess! I will make the demands, Ondine, and you will jump to the tune of my voice.”

She leaned back sedately in the chair, eyeing them both most serenely, though her heart continued to plague her with its erratic beat. “Raoul!” she said softly. “We are not, as yet, wed. And until we are, I do have demands!”

He did not touch her, but he came so close that he well might have done so, and it was all that she could do not to shrink away in fear, for he bore no resemblance than whatsoever to the childhood companion she had once known. She wondered at the things she saw in his dark eyes, rage, frustration, greed—and even a certain pain, something that might have been coupled with loss. She wondered, too, if at some time he might have really cared for her, and if that caring had twisted to something more deadly.

“Cousin, I see your feelings for me, yet I care not what they are. Scream if you will when I touch you, still I will do so. Most pleasantly, my dear love, God has made it that you maintain your beauty, despite your mouth. It will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to mold you into a good wife—to break you, Ondine. And don’t delude yourself, sweet innocent. Tis more than possible that I can also turn you into the most ardent of lovers. I want you, Ondine. Let it suffice at that I want you, and I want the land.

That last I shall have one way or another. The other, well, it is by your choice. My kiss, or that of the ax.”

She pushed the chair away, rising as calmly as she could to escape them both. She tried to keep her fingers from shaking as she poured herself another badly needed drink.

“It is not completely my choice,” she said, her back to them both. “We must see if an agreement can be reached.”

“Agreement!” William thundered, coming to a red-faced rage again. “I remind you: I hold the cards—”

“Let’s hear her out, Father,” Raoul said smoothly with a tinge of humor to his voice. “Don’t you wish your victory complete? None could wrest the title or the land from us—ever!—if she were to be my wife!”

So! Ondine thought, quickly lowering her eyes. They were afraid! There were cracks in this ploy of theirs, and it seemed that even her uncle would rather have her alive than dead. It was true, a marriage would secure the claim.

“Duchess!” Raoul sneered nastily, bowing to her. “Let us hear your demands.”

She spun around, uplifted by the port—and the added faith that she could play for time.

“One month.”

“One month?” William queried warily.

“One month. I will marry Raoul one month from today. In that time he will not touch me; nor shall you. I will live here again as is my right and—accustom myself to the future.”

“And why,” William asked, “should I give you any time at all?”

“Because, if you do not, I will scream ‘traitor’ all the way down the aisle. I will tell the servants, I will shout to anyone that I see, that you were the ones to attempt to kill the king. I might well reach the Tower, but it will not be silently, I do assure you! The servants here, they loved my father well. Give them but a chance, and they will all be surly and suspicious. Give me the time I ask, and I will keep silent, and perhaps”—she sighed, then cast Raoul a hesitant smile—“perhaps we might consider it a normal betrothal time, in which two people come to know one another before their nuptials.”

Ah, how quickly Raoul took the bait! She might almost have pitied him for the hope that leapt into his eyes, except that it was true, she would never forget the blood that stained his hands.

“A month, then,” he said huskily, stepping forward.

But his father waylaid him, pointing a finger upon Ondine’s breast, despite her demand that she not be touched.

“Not so fast, Raoul! You all but drool, yet you do not know the facts. I want to know, Ondine, where you have been all this time!”

She sighed once again, very wearily. “I told you, Uncle, many places. I hid with thieves in the forest for a while. I—I found work in one of the north country manors—”

“You did not purchase this clothing through honest labor, Ondine. I’ll know where it came from and now.”

“I did purchase it, in London.”

“Where did the coin come from, girl?”

He kept pointing at her,,and she found that she backed away from him, despite all resolve, until she sat upon the window seat with him staring down at her.

“Gambling! And that, Uncle, is partially what sent me home! I hated film and poverty! I took my earnings from the North and came back to London, and there fell into a game of dice. Luck was with me, and I had coin once again to buy these things! Oh, I was heartily sick of having naught. I realized then that Raoul’s offer could give me that life to which I was accustomed, and that to keep running, I must do so in poverty and filth!” She lowered her eyes, praying that they could not see the lies within them. “I thought… I thought that if I could have the time … if I could just come to know him again, I could accept it all to regain my position. I—I just need time.”

“The time is yours! We will come to know one another again!”

Raoul was on a knee at her feet, holding her hands in passionate promise. She stared at his long, slender fingers, untouched, uncal-lused by work, and thought of Warwick’s. Lean and hard they were, roughened by his labor, browned by the sun …

She wanted to cry. She could not endure this smooth touch and all it stood for, and not when she compared it to one she had come to love so dearly. Her head spun dizzily as she thought of the times she had twisted and writhed in bed in sweet passion with Warwick. Even that night when he had been all but brutal, his touch had not failed to reach into her heart. And Raoul… Raoul thought to share such intimacies with her! The very thought of it was so totally repugnant that it threatened to overwhelm her and send her, fainting, to the floor. She wanted to snatch her hands away, as if he scalded them with something impure.

She could not; this was not the time to spurn him. That blessed time was to come, yet never would it come if she did not play this game, this new role, and play it brilliantly.

“No deal is yet struck!” William said, returning to his desk and sitting behind it to view the two of them.

Raoul stood, facing his father.

“I want her! She is ever more beautiful—”

“And still, I wonder, where has that beauty been?” William said laconically. “I’m truly interested to discover if our duchess has not become a whore.”

“Father!”

William shrugged aside his son’s reproach. “It’s no matter of great mystery. We need but call in a physician to attest to your betrothed’s chastity before the nuptials. You will be interested, I do assume. You are so eager for her, yet there are things you must remember. If she carries another man’s brat, that child will stand to inherit. And I shall be damned if, at this point, I have come so far as to leave this estate to a wench’s bastard and not my own blood!”

Ondine could feel the blood draining from her face, yet she knew she dared not display distress. One month … she had so little time! And if they were to call in a physician, it would be before the wedding Mass was celebrated. She never intended to go through any ceremony, but now she would have to move all the more quickly.

“Whatever you wish will be done when the time is right!” Raoul announced coldly. “Now, Father, shall we consider this done, then? I’ll ride to the bishop for the banns to be cried, for arrangements to be made. Ondine receives her time for her silence. I will unquestionably take on the tide. And you, Father, will unquestionably retain the rights to the money! It seems to me that we have accrued all that we originally intended.”

William stared hard at Ondine.

“I don’t trust her,” he told his son, not shifting his gaze.

“What is there not to trust? She will be my wife. I will keep her sharply in line, Father. That you needn’t fear.”

“Whatever it takes?” William inquired, a sneer for Ondine curling pleasantly into his lip.

“Whatever it takes; that you know.”

William shifted. “The deal is made.” He stood and walked over to Ondine, careful not to brush her in any way. “Aye, the deal is made,” he repeated softly, challenging her eyes. “Duchess, your things will be brought to your old suite. Don’t forget, though, dearest Niece, that I will be watching you. And I am not in—lust with you, as is Raoul. One month from this date, you will say your vows with Raoul. You will not think to usurp my position here. And you will tread a tender line, my dear. Oh, and one more thing! I think that you are a liar; I am hoping dearly that you are not a whore. You may say what you will; I have ways and means. And I do intend to discover, Ondine, just where you have been since you ran. And with whom.”

He straightened, eyeing his son. “Raoul—go. See that the banns are cried immediately. This will be a most public wedding.”

Raoul nodded and departed the room swiftly.

William turned to smile once more at Ondine, sweeping her a sardonic bow.

“Welcome home, Duchess.”

If ever the halls of Chatham Manor did tremble and quake with the thunderous howl of a beast, it was that morning Warwick woke to find Ondine gone.

Yet she was, in truth, gone. And in this frantic dilemma, he turned to his brother and cousin, the three having grown closer in tragedy, and told them both the truth of the matter, from beginning to end. He swore to them his behavior toward Ondine had been cruel only because he’d hoped to save her, and then he swore again, assuring them that he and his wife had been most—amiable before he had fallen asleep the night before.

Between them they commented at last that they’d all been fools; they should have noted that the lady of Chatham certainly carried her own air of mystery. Warwick quite suddenly swung a fist against the table, declaring that the king knew something and he was going off to seek Charles. Justin determined to accompany him; Clinton and Jake would join him in London once Mathilda had been lain to rest, and with Jake, too, they would scour the countryside to find her.

Warwick and Justin reached London in record time, yet it did them little good, for the king had conversely traveled north. They spent the time waiting at St. James’s Place, for Buckingham had assured them that was where the king intended to come.

At last Charles returned. Warwick gave him no time to settle in, being so impatient and anxious by that point that he felt like a pistol, cocked and ready to explode. The king had barely left his carriage, barely entered his chambers, when Warwick burst in upon him with no protocol whatsoever, startling the king’s servants, bringing his personal guards to arms.

He did not bow to the king, but burst out with a harsh, “I need to speak with you now. Sire.” The last was a hasty amendment, since he was stared upon so sourly by servants and guards alike that he might well have been slain at that point.

Charles arched a dark brow. “So I see,” he said dryly. “Leave us,” he told guards and servers alike. “Lord Chatham seems sorely lacking in etiquette this day, yet still I think he means me no harm.”

Warwick flushed darkly, but was too agitated to notice much around him. He barely waited until the door closed behind the last man before he spoke again.

“Where is she?”

“Where is who, my dear man?”

“My wife. She’s gone—and I know that you know where she is!”

“My good fellow!” Charles said indignantly. “I’ve yet to abduct the wife of a friend—”

“Nay, nay! I accuse you of no such thing, Your Grace—”

” ‘Your Grace’! He does remember who I am!”

“Charles, she has disappeared! Now, you tell me, sire, that you know nothing about her! When I first brought her here, she quaked like a leaf and tried to escape me at that time. Once she had seen you, she seemed loathe to depart! Now, sire, I have been preoccupied with affairs of my own—”

“Yes, I’ve heard that your difficulties were solved.”

“Aye, Charles; ‘twas not really such cruel murder as it was madness. Mathilda sent Genevieve to her grave; she thought to take Ondine, but her life was spared, and Mathilda is gone.”

“I am sorry, Warwick, yet relieved. I thought you crazed with guilt when Genevieve died; you were completely sane. I lend my sorrow to your family, yet am glad that ghosts should haunt your manor no more,” Charles told him.

Warwick nodded, grateful for the king’s empathy, yet still impatient. “Sire,” he said as quietly as he could manage, “you’ve yet to answer me on a matter grave to my heart and health—and sanity!”

Charles sighed, casting his boots away, and staring into empty space as though he looked beyond it. Then he shrugged. “So,” he murmured, “your mystery was solved, and upon that fruition your lady disappeared.”

“Aye,” Warwick said over tightly gritted teeth.

The king gazed at him, apparently amused with the great effort it cost him to remain in control.

“You asked me to inform the Church that I approved a divorce for you from this lady you now plague me about.”

“God’s blood!” Warwick swore, losing his thin hold upon his anxiety and his temper. “I did not want her murdered for association with me!”

“Ah, my friend, then you love her?”

“She’s my wife, Charles!”

“I did not ask you that. I believe the marriage legal and binding. What I inquired about was your concern.”

“Aye, damn you, I love her, Charles! Somewhere, somehow, she became my life’s blood, a part of me, and, by God, Your Grace! I have served you wisely and well since you came to the throne of England, with life and limb and wit, and so help me, now I beg—nay, I demand!—some assistance from you!”

Charles raised both brows, reminding Warwick for one moment that this was yet a Stuart king; a man staunchly believing in the divine right of kings—and a man not adverse to a certain ruth-lessness when he considered it necessary, despite his affability.

“You demand?”

Warwick locked his fisted hands behind his back and stood his ground, saying nothing.

“For the life of me, Chatham, but you are a rude beast! However, in lieu of service justly tendered, as you have said, I will forget and forgive your use of the language. But—I hesitate in what I say to you because of that very temper that so brings you here.”.

“What?” Warwick murmured.

The king waved toward the door. “Call for some ale, good and stout. Seemed a long journey I just took myself, and I would quench my thirst before this explanation I must give you.”

“But time—”

“Time is of no essence, Warwick. There is nowhere that you might rush, like a dragon-slayer, to snatch her from harm’s way into your arms. Call for the ale.”

Warwick knew the king’s stubbornness; he opened the door and found a servant waiting—along with two guards who continued to regard him suspiciously. He impatiently awaited the ale, then discovered that he was well glad the king had sent for it, for he had acquired an aching thirst himself. Closeted in privacy once again, Warwick found himself seated upon the king’s bed while the king thoughtfully paced the floor before the fire, sipping at his ale.

“This, Chatham, is a story that begins long ago. There once was a duke in royal service, yet he was no Cavalier, for he was strongly opposed to my father, determined that he must rule with his parliaments, and could not disband such a body of lawmakers right and left. He was no Roundhead either, yet he wound up with such men who served Cromwell, certain that my father’s policies must be stopped.” Charles stopped pacing, and once again he looked to some distant past, then shrugged. “My father truly was among the best of men—yet he was, for his time, the worst of kings! Ah, but I think few really thought that he should come to lose his head for treason!” The King sighed. “I’m sorry, I speak of the past, and this is the present. Well, this duke did not vote for my father’s head; yet such was his involvement that I near to requested his when I first came to the throne. Time can bring reason to a man; this duke was also among those who had claimed that I should be brought back upon Cromwell’s death.”

He stopped again and stared at Warwick directly.

“Do you remember the day of your joust with Hardgrave?”

“Aye, Charles,” Warwick said, frowning, and very glad of the ale then as the story grew along, ” ‘twould be hard for me to forget such an occasion.”

“Ah, yes!” Charles murmured. “My apologies again; I had forgotten that, too, was the occasion of Genevieve’s death.” He cleared his throat. “Well, it was upon that day that I came to a decision to bring the old man back into royal favor.”

Warwick recalled the day, running over each detail carefully in his mind. Suddenly he choked on his ale, coughed, and queried on a wheezing whisper, “The attempt on your life! The man slain.”

“Aye. Well, the old Duke of Rochester had a daughter—”

This time Warwick choked so violently that the ale spewed from him, and Charles felt obliged, with a weary shake of his head, to pound Warwick strenuously upon the back. Warwick waved a hand and rose, confronting Charles with a strangled cry.

“Ondine?”

“Aye,” the king said agreeably, rescuing from Warwick’s hand the mug of ale that threatened to slosh and spill all about his apartments.

“Then how in God’s name did I find her upon the gallows out of Newgate?” Warwick exploded.

“You’ve listened to half a tale, Chatham, now hear the end!” Charles said impatiently. “Sit! Warwick, I tell you, sit! Stay calm, man, or I’ll tell you no more!”

With a furious oath barely contained, Warwick perched at the end of the bed once again. Charles eyed him for several seconds, then warily passed him his ale.

“I’m telling you now, Warwick Chatham, you must take heed if I go further! Her position is precarious, and only she can solve it, and only if she takes great care.”

“Charles, for God’s sake—”

“Patience, Warwick, and discretion, please! You know that the duke was accused of an attempt on my life; he was supposedly slain in the act.”

“What do you mean ‘supposedly’? Weren’t you there?”

“Of course, Warwick! But my back was to the action; I’ve not eyes in my spine! All I knew then was that someone screamed, that the duke was suddenly down and dying, and that his beautiful daughter was running for her life while those who slew the duke were whispering in horror that she had conspired with them! No one was there but a servant, I believe, and perhaps two of my guards. By all apparent fact, it seemed that the duke had chosen just that moment to end my life.’.

Warwick said nothing; he just stared ahead, then whispered, “The girl at the stream!”

“What?”

He stared at Charles, startled. “I—I saw her, too, that day. I rode out after the joust. I wanted some peace so I took Dragon into the forest. I was disrupted by an argument, and a girl suddenly burst from the trees, and when I would help her, she disappeared into the water. I could not find her and began to think I might well have imagined the whole thing. I told Jake that I thought I had seen a mermaid, and in truth, it seems, I had.”

He stood anxiously. “From whom did she run that day?”

“Warwick,” the king said somberly, “this is where I beg you to keep discretion. I cannot identify for sure with whom she argued, for I was not there. I can only assume it was either her uncle, William Deauveau, or her cousin, Raoul. They’re step relations, and the remainder of her family. I’d heard rumor of a marriage between Ondine and Raoul, but Rochester denied them to me. His daughter, it seemed, had other plans for her life, and if she tells me true, her judgment was good, for she swears it was her cousin and uncle who made use of her father as a pawn, claiming he was the one to draw sword on me, so they could legitimately slay him, blackmail Ondine, and claim the lands.”

“But if you know this—”

“I know nothing for fact, Warwick. I can only go by feeling in this matter, and I believe the girl. But those who witnessed this event were apparently tricked into believing that Rochester performed the deed—and a king must uphold the law. Had she been apprehended men, she would have been detained in the Tower for questioning, and no doubt, it’s true that those two greedy relations have some forgery or substance to connive a court into a conviction of high treason.”

Warwick felt as if he’d come afire, as if his blood rumbled and boiled all within his being. The world before his eyes spun, and all seemed covered by a blood-red haze.

“And so you’ve sent her back to these two?” he demanded.

“Listen to me, man!” the king thundered. “She must discover what they plan; what it is they intend to use against her!”

“You are the king; you could pardon her life!”

“It would not be enough for her! Surely you know her, Warwick! She will never rest with her father condemned of treason.”

Warwick slammed his mug against the mantel and stared bleakly at the king. “You suggest that I wait? That I do nothing while my wife lives in the midst of men who seek to kill her? Charles! She is my wife by law! I have every right to ride in there and demand that she come back to me!”

“You have the right—but if you do that, Warwick, you will never have the woman. Wife or no, she could well reach the Tower. And even with my pardon, she would have no innocence for her father, and before many eyes, she would live a life in which she breathed, but was condemned for that treason.”

Warwick lifted his hands.

“You tell me that she has gone home—to these two viperous beings—and that I can do nothing?”

“I don’t know that she has gone home, I can only assume it. I did, in fact, suggest it.”

“You what?”

“Warwick—may I remind you that you married her, merely to set her up to catch a killer in your own domain?”

Warwick groaned, then his voice rasped out like a razor’s edge. “She might already lie dead by their foul hands!”

The king shook his head. “Nay, I do not think so. William wants her for Raoul, for uncontestable right to the title and lands. The cousin, Raoul, merely—wants her. If she is careful and clever—which she is—she will survive well enough.”

“There is no way, sire, that I can know this and not become involved!” Warwick stated flatly.

“I know, I know.” The king sighed, but a grin played about the corners of his lips, and in truth, he was well pleased. “You should be near, to slay a dragon should the absolute need arise. Yet I beg you, do not rush in. Find some other way, if you really love her, to help her prove her innocence. And for God’s sake, Warwick, do control that temper of yours!”

“I’ll do my very best,” Warwick replied stiffly.

“Both your lives may well depend upon it.”

Warwick inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Where do I find this place, these lands of Rochester?”

The king smiled again, quirking a brow. “Why, the duchess resides not two hours from this very place. Southwestward, Chatham. The manor ‘tis called Deauveau Place. It’s a most splendid palace, quite comfortable, really. In fact, far more so than that barbarian manor you keep up in the North.”

Warwick cast the king a most damning gaze; the king saw fit to laugh, though he knew the situation to be grave.

“I shall plan a visit myself, I think,” he murmured, “in the next week or two. It will be most interesting to see what has transpired in that time. I wonder if I shall find you near?”