Page 20 of Ondine

Ondine awoke to discover Lottie tapping upon her door, offering Ondine a scented bath, and food in the salon when she should desire it.

Ondine, quite delighted with the thought of the bath, flashed Lottie a smile and hurried for the dressing room, hastily shedding her gown.

She sank her feet into the water, then more carefully her rump, for the water was hot indeed.

Sweeping her hair about her head, she leaned back with a contented sigh, luxuriating in the swirling caress of the bath oil.

After a moment she opened her eyes curiously, surprised to find Lottie still stationed before her, waiting with a massive length of towel.

Catching her mistress’s eyes upon her, Lottie flushed again and bowed.

“Lottie, whatever are you doing?” Ondine inquired gently.

“Why, I—” She broke off, dropping her chin. “I don’t know, milady. I’ve never held such a position before.”

Ondine chuckled softly, then sobered, for she had no wish to hurt the young girl’s feelings. She liked Lottie; her broad face, farm-fresh smile, and cherry-red cheeks.

“Then, Lottie, I shall tell you a secret,” Ondine said, giving the girl an encouraging smile. “I’m a bit nervous myself, so we shall bluff our way through it together. If you would, I’d enjoy a cup of tea while I soak. Then, perhaps, you could lay out a gown for me.”

Lottie nodded eagerly. Ondine closed her eyes again as she heard the girl scamper through the master’s chamber to the room beyond.

Seconds later she was back, a cup of tea in her hands.

“Perhaps you could draw that little stool near, and I could use it for a table,” Ondine suggested, and again Lottie nodded eagerly.

It was as Lottie brought the small stool that Ondine noted how badly she shook. Curiously she set her cup upon the stool and asked, “What is it, Lottie? Surely you’re not afraid of me?”

“I’m not afraid of you—you seem ever so kind! It’s—” She broke off quickly, alarmed at her own words.

“It’s what, Lottie?” Ondine demanded with a sigh of exasperation.

Lottie looked anxiously to the door of the master’s chamber, as if she were afraid someone might be hovering there. She knelt down by the tub and stared wide-eyed and frightened at Ondine.

“I’m afraid for you, milady!”

“Afraid for me!” Ondine repeated, astonished.

“Why ever would you be?” Ondine felt a furious tremor shake her.

Was there, then, something more about the handsome, tyrannical, and secretive rogue who had married her than she had dared to guess?

Something of the demon that hinted only in his eyes?

Was there an intrigue dark as his brooding perusal?

Once more Lottie’s glance skittered to the door; then her timid gaze returned to Ondine. “Didn’t you hear them?”

“Hear what?”

“The wolves—blessed Jesus, did they howl last night!”

Ondine started to laugh, relief flooding muscles she didn’t realize had gone so taut. “Lottie! Wolves are prone to prowl forest land, and to howl with the moon when they do so.”

Lottie shook her head with frustration, saying, “Lady, I fear for your life! The first countess was sorely afraid—poor delicate thing!—and she did die, sweet lady!”

“Lottie! She was afraid—of her husband?”

“Oh, nay, lady, ’twas never him, though others sometimes thought so! Genevieve had her own maid, a Yorkshire girl, but she did speak with me oft in the kitchen, and she was so afraid!”

Ice suddenly seemed to sluice through Ondine’s veins, yet she fought to maintain control. She could not let the girl see how very ignorant she was of her husband’s affairs, else she might lose all she was gaining in truth.

“Of what was she afraid?” Ondine tried to ask casually.

“The ghosts.”

Lottie spoke so solemnly that it was all Ondine could do to keep from laughing and submerging herself deeply into the water with pure relief.

“Lottie, you must not fear for me, then, for I have no fear at all of ghosts.” She smiled brilliantly.

“All great castles and manors have ghosts, Lottie. But my father, who was a dear and wise man, taught me that the dead were the safest men that one could meet; the only ones who could not—assuredly not!—harm you in any way.”

Lottie did not appear at all soothed or appeased.

“How did the countess die, Lottie? Childbirth? It is a cruel trick of fate, yet does occur—”

“Nay, nay, my lady! They all said that she was unstable—all but the earl, that is—”

“Unstable?”

“Mad! But she was not! Just fragile and—frightened. She had been promised to the Church, but her father pleaded that the earl take her to wife on his deathbed, and”—Lottie quickly crossed herself—“such a request needs must be met. The two were wed—”

“Lottie, how did she die?”

“She heard voices, you see. The ghosts’ voices.”

Ondine was growing impatient, yet she could see how deathly serious it was to Lottie. “Lottie, what ghosts?”

“Why, of His Lordship’s grandmother, of course.

Dead—fallen from the old wood staircase to the chapel.

And of the old lord’s mistress, hastened to her own death.

Genevieve died the same, poor, most noble lady!

From a tower at court, she fell, and I knew she had heard the voices, calling to her again! ”

“Lottie!” The shocked and horrified gasp came from the doorway. Both girls—Ondine and Lottie—found their startled, guilty attention drawn there. Mathilda stood there quite white-faced, one hand to her heart, the other leaning against the doorframe.

“Lottie, you wretched child! How dare you upset the countess with such wicked gossip!”

Lottie, stricken, fell back on her heels beneath the tongue-lashing. Ondine, irritated at being so disturbed in the bathtub no less, attempted to assert her opinion.

“I’m not upset! I questioned the girl, she but—”

Mathilda had reached Lottie by then and was wrenching the girl’s arm angrily.

“I meant no harm!” Lottie cried out.

“Horrid child! You should have remained in the kitchen!”

“Nay!” Ondine proclaimed, gripping the rim of the tub on either side, determined to outrule Mathilda. “I don’t wish—” she began, but her words were curtly cut by a masculine voice, thundering in upon them with aggravated authority.

“By the rood—what in God’s earth goes on here?”

Warwick now stood at the door, decked in riding coat and breeches, tall with hat and boots, dominating the scene. His eyes, searing points of gold, leveled upon Ondine, were alight with accusation, as if she were surely the cause of this uncustomary domestic upheaval.

She met his gaze with a simmering fury. She was but the victim of them all, trapped within a tub of melting bubbles, naked and waterlogged, and sorely bereft of her privacy.

She longed to scream, to throw things at them all!

It seemed a horrible invasion, especially so with Warwick there, his eyes upon her, before the other women, and they all decently appareled.

“What is the difficulty?” Warwick demanded of them all.

Ondine bent her knees quickly to her body, alarmed at the crimson color staining her flesh from a vivid flow of humiliation, yet even as she wrapped her arms around them, she was retorting with the best restraint of manner that she could.

“There is no difficulty here, milord. Mathilda was concerned with Lottie’s service; I am not. If you would all just leave—”

“And what is your difficulty?” he asked his housekeeper, coldly interrupting Ondine.

“I—milord—I was concerned with the child’s choice of rumor to convey to the countess.”

“Oh!” Lottie’s head fell to the floor as she buried it in the crook of her arm. Her cry was muffled. “I meant no harm, truly! I—”

“No harm is done!” Ondine snapped out, wishing for nothing more than it all to end, for Mathilda and more especially Warwick to depart so that she might rise from the tub and salvage a sense of dignity. “If I might be left in peace with my maid—”

Warwick apparently hadn’t heard a word that she had spoken. He was striding into the dressing room and bending to the distraught Lottie. “Come, girl; ’tis the end of it.” He brought her to her feet.

“She should be punished!” Mathilda stated.

“I’ll not have it!” Ondine commanded in a sudden fury. They were all standing right over her! “Must this go on while I bathe?”

“Mathilda, Lottie, you are dismissed,” Warwick said smoothly. “There shall be no recourse, Mathilda, as the countess has requested.”

Mathilda, with the still-trembling Lottie at her heels, began to depart. Ondine realized that she was about to lose her maid while retaining her husband.

“Milord, I need Lottie’s services. Lottie, you will stay—”

Lottie paused.

“You will go,” Warwick said quietly. Lottie nodded mutely and fled, and Ondine learned quickly the lesson that her husband’s orders would always override her own, no matter how softly they were spoken.

With their departure, Warwick closed the door behind them, then came forward, resting a booted foot upon the stool and leaning an elbow upon his knee to stare at her.

“Milord, if you don’t mind—”

“I do mind. What was it all about?” He was intense, and far too close. She was losing her protective covering of bubbles and was shivering fiercely.

“What was it all about?” she hissed, tossing her head back.

She inadvertently displayed a long smooth column of neck and the rise of her breasts.

“It was, milord, over things you might have thought to tell me, since it is some role I am to play for you, and I have not been given any lines! You have not thought to warn me, sir, that you were a widower—and the servants claim some ghosts to have lured your bride to death!”

He did not reply, but straightened slowly and walked across the room to lean against the latticed doors of closet space. She could not fathom at all his expression when his eyes touched hers again; he seemed both distant and too near, aware of her in every aspect, yet disinterested.

“Countess . . .” His use of the title was always sardonic. “Certainly you do not believe such things.”