Page 55 of Ondine

“Perhaps,” Justin murmured, “but think on this. His lust for you has naught to do with murder. Ondine, Hardgrave wants you alive and healthy and—well—you know, lovable!”

Ondine sank back into her chair, for Justin was right. A kidnapping on behalf of sexual appetites did not lend itself to an association with a ghost that haunted from the tomb!

Just then the door slammed. She stared, feeling as if a cold wind had swept in to haunt her.

It was Warwick. Cloaked and plumed, he seemed immense in the doorway, implacable, unapproachable.

There was silence in the room as he pulled off his gloves, staring coldly at the two of them. At last he said harshly, “Justin, leave us. I want a word with my wife.”

Justin looked as if he might argue, but not even he had ever seen Warwick so rigidly cold, tense, and without the least sense of emotion or mercy.

Justin turned and took her hand, kissed it, and offered her a troubled smile. “I’m near if you need me.”

“Brother, I have yet to beat a wife,” Warwick said narrowly.

“Yes . . .” Justin murmured. He stared at Warwick. “Perhaps you will ‘yet’ do many things. I swear, I understand you not—”

“Justin!”

“Stop!” Ondine cried, on her feet. “Justin”—she lifted her chin defiantly, staring at Warwick—“it eases me not to have the two of you at odds. I have no fear of this particular beast, although I do think him near mad to change his moods like the wind. Please, go, and bear no rancor for one another.”

Justin glared at his brother; Warwick ignored him, waiting for him to leave.

He left the room, and Ondine continued to stare at Warwick, her head high, but her heart riddled with confusion and despair. What had she done? She was the injured party!

He walked into the room, tossing his gloves upon a chair, warming his hands before the fire.

“We leave here tomorrow.”

“That makes wonderful sense; we have just come.”

He turned, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed her.

“You, madam, are trouble. I—”

“I am trouble?” She repeated the words, astounded that he could use them. “You brought me into this insanity—and I am trouble?”

“Aye, madam, you are trouble—and useless. I attempt to delve into an intrigue that I must, for all honor and duty to those beyond the grave, solve. Yet with your face and form, you attract all manner of being! We are returning to North Lambria—”

She broke in with laughter that neared hysteria. “From where we have just departed!”

“You will not be staying. I have booked passage for you on the Lady Crystabel out of Liverpool. You will go to Virginia as Mrs. Diana Brown. I’ve arranged for a house in Williamsburg, the hiring of servants, and a solicitor to see to your financial needs.

You will remain there—a widow in mourning—for the period of a year, in which time I will arrange for a divorce.

At that point you will be free to live where and how you choose, with an income for life. ”

Charles had warned her; she could not believe this—not this icy cruelty, this total lack of concern other than for financial insurance. How had she ever fallen in love with such a man? The stone of Westminster provided greater warmth!

For several seconds she could not speak, so stunned and chilled had she become. What manner of man was he, fire and ice, to love her so passionately, disdain her so heedlessly? She dared not speak, or move; she would shatter, she would break. What had come of all the love they had shared?

At last she turned her back to him and managed to speak.

“You are mad, Warwick Chatham! Completely. You hire a bride to catch a murderer; the murderer comes close and you cast her away. I know what happened this day, and it was no fault of mine. And as to passage to the Colonies. I thank you very much. I’m sure that Williamsburg is most intriguing, but I’ll not go.

Nor do I need your income. We part ways here, milord. ”

He exploded with a furious, impatient sound. “You will do as I say! And what is this of which you speak? What happened today?”

She spun back around, chin lifted regally, her eyes as frigid as his. “Your mistress, Lord of Chatham. I heard her speak of a vial stolen from the king’s laboratory. That loathsome vapor that so stole my consciousness! ’Tis obvious, sir. She and Lord Hardgrave plotted and planned this mischief.”

He shrugged at her words, as if they had little meaning, and she could not begin to fathom his lack of interest. “The lady Anne was assaulted. She is still most distressed. Hardgrave rode with us at the front of the fray.”

“I tell you—”

“And I tell you, madam, what you might have heard means nothing. Nothing at all, for there is no way to prove it. The only man who had connection with the scoundrel who paid for your flesh was killed in the fighting. I cannot go before the king with accusations and no substance. And if what you say is true, I counter again with the fact that you are trouble, and the sooner you are out of my life, the greater pleasure I shall have with it!”

“Well, then, sir, you may consider me out of your life this night!” she gasped. She had to leave him; she had to go! She would double over with awful, wrenching pain. Even now tears shimmered in her eyes, and she thought that she would wail and scream.

She had known . . . she had always known he intended this! But time and the recent magic of their night here had come to delude her into a fantasy in which life and heart and soul and mind were bliss.

Life! Her own life! What was she thinking?

Dreams of love were illusory; she must be as hard as he, as sharp, as cunning, as negligently determined.

She could not leave England—she had to escape him now, for the situation had become desperate.

How could she ever hope to clear her father’s name and reclaim her estates from those who had caused his murder if she was far across the ocean?

Her mind would not clear; all she knew was pain, the death of magic and belief and glorious illusion.

“You are not going anywhere this night,” he snapped harshly. “And you will do as I say.”

“Why should I?” she demanded heatedly.

“Why?” He arched a dark brow with absolute arrogance. “Because you are my wife.”

“A state you intend to rectify.”

“I never intended to be chained to a common thief for life!”

She felt as if his words were physical blows, lashes that dug into her, knives that twisted and turned.

Dear Lord! She would have sworn that though he might not love her, he had cared with a certain tenderness!

Ah, if he would just leave her! She could fight the tears and the injury and find strength to plan her future!

“Trust me, milord,” she said lightly, sweetly. “I am eager to be rid of a beast! Yet I will not leave England, sir. Nor do I walk from a bargain duly made, my honor bound payment for my life. I do not fear your ghosts, nor your mistress, nor even Hardgrave.”

“Fool, woman!” he exploded, leaving the fire to stride to her, doing what she had prayed he would not do—touch her. His hands gripped her shoulders with a bite. He shook her with impatience until her head seemed to snap from her shoulders.

“Fear them you should! Do you know what near happened today?”

“But it did not.”

Warwick felt the tension in his fingers, in his body; he knew the cruelty of his grip, and astounded, he stared at her in ripe anger.

Her words . . . she despised him, so it seemed, yet she clung so stubbornly to this foolery he’d invented himself!

Duty, honor, debt! Courage shimmered from her eyes; she would defy him, she’d defy the whole of England if she chose!

How could she not despise him, feel that his cause was a madness? She did not comprehend the danger!

“Listen to me, Ondine, and listen well. We go to Chatham to settle your belongings. We spend one night, and you will not leave my side in that time! Then I will place you upon a ship bound across the ocean, and, by God, you will call yourself as I have warned you!”

“Nay, I will not—”

“You will listen! You are my wife; my property, if you will. My possession. Mine to dispose of as I see fit!”

Growing frantic, she tried to wrench from his grasp.

He laughed with no humor at her efforts, and his laughter spurred her to a greater tempest. She broke free and brought her hand across his face, raking it so as to draw a thin line of blood against his cheek.

Startled, he held his face, and she broke from him at last, backing away.

“Go somewhere! Leave me! You are rid of me now, well and good! Go to your injured Anne; go to the devil! Just leave me—”

Two steps brought him to her, and he might well have been the devil incarnate at that time. His lip curled in a brutal sneer unlike any expression she had ever seen on him, and she had known many. Never before had she seen him so cruel.

And never before, even when they had first met, had she feared him so. Aye, he might well have been the devil, with the burning fires of hell alive within his eyes.

His touch when he caught her again crushed her to his chest despite her hysterical cries and desperate struggles.

“I’m going nowhere, madam.”

“Then I shall leave—”

“Nor are you.”

She ceased struggling for a moment, stunned, her breath held, her eyes round pools as she realized the insinuation of his tone and touch.

“Nay, fool! You’re so eager to be rid of a common bride, yet you think I’ll fall into your arms! And what would you want? A lowborn thief? How have you managed thus far? Oh, shame! Great Lord of Chatham! Don’t dishonor the purity of your breed so!”

His fingers moved into her nape, tearing at her hair so that her neck arched, and her face was forced to behold the laughing countenance of his own.

“Milady! Even the king seeks carnal pleasure among the common folk. In fact, I think, for such base enjoyment, none gives more pleasure. There is something . . . primal there, you see. ’Tis your status only as my wife that offends me; I find your talents between the sheets most uncommonly wanton, and that beauty betwixt your thighs doth exceed that of your fair face. ”

“Vile bastard! You’ll not—”

“Alas, I am still your husband. But then, cry as you will. I will touch you, and you will respond. Base instinct, my love.”

She went wild; she kicked him and twisted and clawed, amazed and enraged, and wondering from some daze of horror how she had so misjudged this man, this cruel and brutal stranger, hell’s own devil, ever more powerful than she.

She screamed and shrieked and pounded against him, and his only response was torturous laughter. He lifted her like baggage and tossed her upon the bed, impassive to all her blows, amused only by her desperate, frantic fight.

She landed hard and gasped for breath, thinking that she still had to escape, for he would leave her to shed his clothing, and she would race like the wind for the door, and, wife or no, surely the king would not leave her with this lunatic beast!

A breath, a pause; she thought to roll, but he was beside her, heedless of his garments.

Stunned, she realized there was little he must remove, and she cried again to escape his strength.

But she might as well pit herself against a sheer stone mountain, for she was quickly exhausted and gasping, half sobbing as she was finally subdued.

“By God in heaven, do I hate you!” she swore.

He grew still then, as if they had not fought so viciously. If his words had not carried such scorn and debasement, she might have believed that it was with a breath of anguish that he whispered, “I know.”

He held her for a moment, tightly to him, cradling her head. Then he began to make love to her.

And for the life of her, she hated him more. He had not lied. She wanted to respond, to a heated kiss she knew so well, and had come to crave, to the warmth of his flesh, the pressure of his form.

She bit into her own lip and willed herself to rigid stillness. For her life, for heaven’s salvation, she would not fall to his seduction that night. She would prove him wrong.

She stared at the ceiling with sightless eyes until he shuddered and groaned over her, then lay spent at her side.

There were no more words between them.

* * *

Hours passed, night threatened to turn to dawn.

Warwick tensed as he felt her rise. He heard a shaky sob escape her as she gathered the remnants of her nightgown and faltered in her steps to reach the low burning fire, sinking there to huddle before it on her knees.

She was silent; he could see her back quivering with the force of tears she still managed to keep from sound.

He knotted his fists into the sheets; ground his teeth into his lip until blood filled his mouth.

God! How he wanted to go to her, take her into his arms and tell her she was the greatest woman he had ever met; that her beauty was a part of her person, the shining glory of her face, the compassion and pride and honor that gleamed in the miraculous wonder of her exquisite eyes.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her above all else in life. But that could cost her her life!

She never returned to the bed; he never slept.

It was a miserable party that set forth for Chatham when dawn came, Justin at odds with Warwick. Ondine completely withdrawn, and Jake morose with the pathetic tragedy of it all.