Page 61 of Ondine

Ondine managed to travel as far south as London with a group of holy sisters on pilgrimage. There she spent Warwick’s coin in good measure on a proper wardrobe in which to return home in splendor.

It was the twenty-first of October when Ondine at last came in her hired carriage down the cobblestoned drive that led to her home, Deauveau Place, as it was called, for the family name. It stood like a crystal palace, blanketed in new snow, the first snow of the season.

She pulled apart the drapery of her hired carriage’s window, clutching the new silver fox cloak she had purchased in London to her throat. Home . . .

Ah, it was so beautiful! she thought with a gripping pain of love and nostalgia.

It was so gracious, so fine. Unlike Chatham, it was not an ancient structure, having been built at the beginning of the century during the reign of James the First. Her great-great grandfather had been a Frenchman, assigned to service in the household of young Mary, Queen of Scots, when she had spent her brief time as the French queen, until her husband’s death.

On Mary’s return to Scotland, Deauveau had come to Edinburgh Castle to serve; in time, he had become invaluable to the young James, Mary’s son, and again, in time, had come with him to London on his first ascension to the throne after the death of Elizabeth the First.

It was then that he had been granted his lands, and was proclaimed Duke of Rochester. That founder of the English line had built not for defense, but for beauty.

Deauveau Place stood tall with turrets, but they had been fashioned for view onto the gardens and entry.

Her windows were arched and mullioned, her lines entirely graceful, and her stones were whitewashed.

The great entry always stood open, as it did now, so that guests would first come into a courtyard, where they could be met at the main door by the master.

Master! That Raoul could ever think to claim such a title!

She stiffened then, biting her lips for redness, pinching her cheeks for color.

She passed then through that elegant entry in the courtyard, and within the house, she knew, servants would be running to inform either her uncle or Raoul that a carriage was arriving.

They would, perhaps, await her entry. Or perhaps curiosity would bring them to the entry steps, frowning to see who might have come and for what reason.

The carriage came to a halt. She didn’t wait for her driver, but pushed open the door and alit, pulling the silver fox more tightly about herself as she stared up at her home. It was so beautiful, shivering and shimmering beneath the frost, so very much like an ice palace.

The great arched and carved entry doors opened, and Jem, her father’s aging valet, stood there, gaunt and wrinkled, showing his years as he had never before. He stared at Ondine for long moments, seemed to waver and go pale, and then he came down the steps, shaking and still white.

“Ondine?” He whispered her name incredulously, with the greatest reverence.

She smiled, ready to cry at this tender welcome. The old man came to her, and she put her arms around him, hugging him vigorously, then easily, for it seemed that his bones had gone very brittle and that scant flesh remained to cover them.

“Jem!”

He pulled away from her, and she smiled radiantly with tears stinging her eyes.

She’d come with no real plan—except to face those who had wronged her.

In these few seconds she felt that whatever she suffered, whatever road she might have taken, this was the right thing to do, for in that brief reunion with Jem she knew that neither she nor her father had been forgotten.

“Lady, lady, lady!” he gasped, still grasping her hands, still staring as if she were an apparition.

“We’ve searched half the country for you!

Prayed and begged before God! At times all sense decreed we give you up for dead, but I never could do so in my heart!

When I heard of your father, I was ill, for never was there a better master.

To this day I puzzle over it! I cannot believe him a traitor!

He would not vote to kill the old king, why the new?

And you, lady, part of it all! Never!” Panic lit his crinkled old face suddenly. “We should hide you—”

“Jem!”

The irate order came from the doorway.

Ondine stiffened at the sound of her uncle’s voice. She realized that the hood of her fur covered her hair and that he could see none of her yet.

“If we’ve guests,” her uncle continued, “bring them in, man! Don’t stand there like a dolt!”

Ondine turned slowly, casting back her hood to face her uncle.

William was no Deauveau, except by some distant relation.

Ondine’s grandfather had married William’s mother after his first wife’s death, and William had taken on the name Deauveau.

He had been raised with Ondine’s father, treated as a full brother.

He had, in turn, served his stepbrother.

As a child, Ondine had never realized that William raised his own son in the presumption that the two children would be wed, and that Deauveau Place would fall to him in that manner.

She ground her teeth together even as she smiled at him, for she wondered sickly whether her father might still be alive if she had only agreed to marry Raoul.

Anything might be worth the price to bring him back to life.

But she hadn’t known, she hadn’t even imagined that such a sinister and devious plot had brewed behind William’s smiling swarthy features.

He was a man of near fifty years; yet with rich dark hair still, and slim features that held his age well. His nose was very long and slim; his lip, too, was narrow and could curl with cruelty, for his humor was quite dry. He was very tall and slender and, in his way, a man to be reckoned with.

“Hello, Uncle,” she said simply.

“Ondine . . .” He said her name as if he, too, gazed upon a vision.

And perhaps she was, having dressed most carefully for this day.

Beneath the frothy silver of her fur cloak she had chosen to wear all white—a full white velvet skirt over a bodice of white linen and lace.

The only color about her was from her eyes, her cheeks, and the sunburst spray of her hair against the fur when she cast the hood back.

After all that time in which he had surely become convinced she had been eaten by some wilderness beast, she was back, decked in splendor, all elegance and all beauty.

William’s eyes narrowed sharply; his hand came to his heart, and though Ondine continued to smile sweetly, she hoped inside that he was about to suffer apoplexy. For long moments silence surrounded them, silence, and the gentle fall of snowflakes, crystalline and beautiful.

“You live,” he said at last.

She laughed softly. “Aye, Uncle.”

“And you dare to come here, traitor!”

Again she laughed, but this time with an edge. “Come, Uncle, ’tis me to whom you speak! Not some misguided fool!”

He looked quickly from her to Jem, then thundered out with obvious annoyance, “Get in the house! What we have to discuss will be done in private. Jem—see to your lady’s things. Ondine—come.”

She smiled, lowered her head, collected her skirts, and started up the steps. At the top he grabbed her arm in a thoughtless gesture, his long fingers biting into her so that she almost cried out her loathing. She reminded herself that she must play her game most carefully, buying time.

“Into my study!” William rasped harshly into her ear.

“Yes, Uncle,” she said demurely.

They came down the entry hall, bypassing the great room to their right.

Ondine gazed inside and briefly saw that nothing had changed since that long-ago day when she had left.

A fire burned from the wall-length grate.

The long Tudor table still occupied the middle of the room.

The sideboard was still neatly decked in her mother’s finest Irish lace, and the silver services still gleamed from atop it.

“Come!” William said sharply, urging her along so quickly that her feet could barely tread the floor. With her head still lowered, she smiled grimly, glad that he was anxious to remove her to privacy before more of the household met her.

He threw open the door to his study—his!

’Twas her father’s study, in fact, she thought painfully.

A long window looked out upon a row of secluded hedges; the rest of the room was lined with cases and books, French mostly, for William always believed that things French gave him an air of sophistication.

Ondine heard the door snap shut behind her. She continued on to the windows and stared out at the beautiful falling snow, aware that he watched her.

“Where the hell have you been?” he snapped out.

She turned, negligently slipping from her fur and allowing it to fall upon the window seat.

“Many places, Uncle, among them hell itself, I do believe,” she replied casually.

Eyeing her warily he strode across the room to where a score of bottles, various wines and various ports, were kept within a recess of the wall. He stared at her while he poured himself a shot, drank it, then poured another.

He seemed to find a grip on himself. He shoved back the chair to his desk and sat in it, waving an arm for her to sit.

“Don’t be uppity with me, Niece,” he warned her narrowly. “I have it in my power to snap my fingers, call my men, and have you hauled off to the Tower. I have, at my disposal, proof positive that you conspired with your father to assassinate the king.”

Ondine started to laugh. “Oh, come, Uncle! We’re alone! Who is this act for? We both know that neither my father nor I conspired to kill the king! You, Uncle, rather, conspired to steal my father’s place and property.”

He rose, smiling then with the cruel curve to his narrow lips. He poured her a small glass of his port and brought it to her, not batting an eye as he stared into hers.