Page 6 of Ondine

A roar of laughter rose like the wind. Filthy scum!

Ondine thought. Perhaps she would rather die than be touched by the likes of him.

Her eyes narrowed sharply. Marry, yes! The words would mean nothing to her except escape!

The leering buzzards! If one would only offer for her, she could live—and then teach him what rot he was before disappearing!

And then she thought of her own appearance—and her smell!

Dear God, but what two weeks in Newgate could do to one!

She knew her hair was tousled and wild, streaked with bits of hay and dirt.

Her cheeks were pinched and filthy, and her ragged gown hung about her like a muddied sack. No one would ask for her.

“Well, then,” began the magistrate, “I’ve no maid for the old man or boy, and no lad for the girl. The hanging will commence—”

“Wait up there, guv’nor!”

Ondine was startled to see a sprightly little man jump close to the three-legged structure called Tyburn Tree, that instrument of misery and death.

Tears sprang to her eyes. He was an ugly fellow—short, sallow, with a beak for a nose—but his dark eyes were bright and warm, and there was a whisper of command to his voice.

He was not one of the lascivious gawkers.

He was decked out as a coachman. His breeches and jacket were a dignified black, his shirt white.

His appearance was that of a well-kept servant, yet he spoke as one accustomed to voicing his own mind.

“I’ll wait up for a moment, I’ll warrant. What is it, then? Do you wish to wed the girl?” The magistrate guffawed loudly. “’Tis the only way a jackanapes with such a face could hope to win a wench of youth or beauty—be that beauty filthy and grimed!”

“I’d have a word with the girl,” the ugly little man said. He came close to Ondine and spoke softly, not willing to entertain the crowd with his business.

“Be ye a murderess, girl?”

Ondine shook her head, aware that she barely kept the tears that hovered in her eyes from spilling down her cheeks. She’d been accused of murder—but not here, and not now. And she was guilty of nothing.

“Yer crime?”

“Poaching.”

The ugly little jackanapes with the warm eyes and beak nose nodded, smiling at her not unkindly.

“Would ye be willing to wed to escape the hangman’s noose?”

The executioner began to laugh loud and laboriously, the sound muffled by his black face mask. Apparently he had been close enough to hear the words of the swarthy little man.

“Ha! ’Tis like as not the maid would choose death o’er marriage to the likes of you, gnome!”

The little man flashed a look of scorn to the executioner that silenced the hooded man immediately.

The thought of refusal had never entered Ondine’s mind.

She had been wondering furiously at the terrible seconds between life and death, imagining one moment the feel of the sunshine and the breeze, and the next moment .

. . the rope snapping tight. She might have died instantly, entering what great chasm she did not know.

Or perhaps she might have strangled slowly, knowing horrible agony as the sunshine paled to webbed shades of gray.

And this little man, this ugly little gnome of a man, had come to save her. She began to feel guilty, knowing that he was a good man and not a cruel one, and that despite his kindness, she would have to leave him, too. If he was serious, if she managed to live!

“Sir,” she said loudly for the benefit of the crowd, for she could, at the very least, commend his kindness to those who mocked him.

“I would gladly wed a beast of the forest, a dragon or a toad, so dear to me is life. I should be forever grateful to call you husband, for you are none of those, but a man of greater mercy than any who calls himself gentleman here.”

The jackanapes smiled at her reply, then chuckled softly. “’Tis no toad you’ll be receiving, but some might say as that ye have joined up with a beast of the forest—or a dragon, mayhaps. ’Tis not me ye’ll be marryin’, girl.”

“Here! Here!” the magistrate protested. “The law does not hold for you to take the girl away for another! You wed her here and now, as is the law, or she swings—”

“Stop!” was suddenly roared in interruption. “If you must bluster out the law, I charge you to uphold it!”

The voice, coming from the rear of the crowd, was deep and sure, accustomed to authority and brooking no opposition. Ondine frowned, trying to stare through the crowd and discover the speaker.

Then the crowd began to mumble softly and give way to the man. Ondine emitted a little gasp when she saw him, for he was not one of the common crowd.

He was a tall man and appeared to be more so because he was lean, and his clothing—tailored tight-fitting breeches, elegant ruffled white shirt and frock coat—clung to the handsomely proportioned muscles with a negligent flare.

He was obviously of the aristocracy, but though he had condescended to the ruffled shirt, there was nothing else frilled about him.

His hair was a tawny color, not at all curled, but clubbed severely at his nape.

He wore no beard or mustache, and though his features were handsome—his cheekbones high, his nose long and straight, his eyes large and wide set beneath arched chestnut brows—he had a look about him that was unnerving.

His face was . . . hard. But something about his eyes was chilling.

Ondine thought, surprised that she could think this at such a time.

They were bright, sharp, alert, and thickly fringed with lashes, but like his features, they were hard.

And, apparently, they made as much an impression on the magistrate as they did upon her, for he stepped away from the cart as the man stepped forward.

It was not just that the man was obviously of the nobility, it was the threat he offered as a man.

His appearance was arresting and promised an uncompromising danger, should he be crossed.

Ondine saw a glimpse of warmth about him as he nodded briefly to the little jackanapes, a single brow raising as if the two exchanged a thought, the thought being that the magistrate was a man contemptible, beneath dung.

A slight smile seemed to tug at his lips, but it vanished quickly so that she thought she might well have imagined it.

“I am the man who wishes to wed her—here, and according to the law. I wish to speak to the girl myself,” he said, and without awaiting a reply, he turned to Ondine. She noted that he blinked briefly, offended by her scent, but then he proceeded to speak.

“What was your crime, girl?”

She hesitated only briefly. “I killed a deer.”

His brow knit into an incredulous frown. “You’re about to hang for killing a deer?”

“Aye, my lord, and it should not surprise you,” she heard herself say bitterly.

“The deer belonged to a certain Lord Lovett—or at least it lived upon his property. ’Tis your kind that has sent me here.

” Her own kind, she reminded herself dryly.

But she had been with Joseph and his fellows through the long nights at Newgate and aligned herself with them.

He lifted a brow, and she quickly wondered why she had chosen to offend him, and then she wondered why not.

That the ugly little serving man might marry her, she had found possible.

But not this man, not a member of the landed gentry.

Hope had become a twisted torture, a macabre jest. And since he was certainly not about to marry her, he was nothing more than curious.

And since she was about to die, she might as well quell his curiosity with a truth that was offensive.

But he did not retort to her insolence. She felt his eyes raking over her from head to toe, and despite herself, she felt a flush rake through her.

“Your speech is excellent.”

Ondine felt like laughing. She had met many a lord and lady in her day who could not say a line of the King’s English.

And then she sobered quickly. If she was about to die, her true identity would go to the grave with her.

And if she was possibly to live, then she must be very careful.

If she lived, so would her dreams of justice and vengeance.

She closed her eyes briefly. She wouldn’t live.

This was all a merciless joke. But it suddenly seemed senseless to insult him further, so she offered up a quickly fabricated lie.

“My father was a poet. I traveled to many courts with him.”

He nodded at her, still watching her. Then, to Ondine’s amazement, he turned irritably to the magistrate.

“Release her so that I may marry her.”

“What?” the magistrate shrieked, his fleshy cheeks puffing out. “But, my lord! The girl is nothing but a thief. A pretty piece, I’ll warrant, but—”

“Sir, if I am not mistaken, the law reads that she goes free if a man takes her as bride. I promise you, I am a man. I wish to marry her. Now get that rope off her neck and take her from the cart.”

Too stunned to speak, Ondine stared at the tall stranger. He couldn’t be serious. It was a grisly joke, meant to torture her to the very end.

“Do not be so cruel as to taunt me further!” she begged.

He emitted an impatient oath and sprang to the cart himself, slipping the rope from her neck, then lifting her with startling strength that almost sent her sprawling as he set her upon the ground.

“Friar!” he snapped impatiently. “Are you a man of God, or aren’t you?

Certainly you can stumble through a brief wedding ceremony. ”

“My lord—” the magistrate began again.

The stranger’s temper snapped and harsh authority clipped his tone. “Get to the paperwork, sir.”

“But, my lord! To whom—”

“My given name, sir, is Warwick Chatham. May we proceed? I am not a man without influence. I would not like to have it brought to the king’s attention that his magistrates are slow witted—”