Page 92 of Ondine

“Nay, I don’t think I will. The tavern ale here wets my whistle well!

Molly . . .” He lifted an arm, and Molly sailed over cheerfully, bringing foaming tankards of ale for the three Chatham men.

“Molly, me lass,” Warwick told her, “I’ve been thinking that this place may be a bit rough for your tender age.

Would you think of entering into private service?

I’ll be returning north soon. And you might just like that northern clime. ”

“Well, I just might at that, sir!” She winked across the room, and Anne turned quickly.

Jake tipped his hat to her, grinning affably.

Anne tried to stand; both Warwick and Clinton grasped an arm, holding her to the table.

She tossed her jet hair.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded.

“Anne, you don’t admit defeat, I’ll grant you that!” Warwick sighed to her.

“Defeat—?”

“Lord Lyle Hardgrave is dead. Anne,” Justin told her.

She sucked in her breath, staring at them in wide-eyed horror. She recovered, though, quickly.

“You’ve murdered him! A viscount! A peer! Warwick Chatham, you think that you are the law! You are not! When the king hears of this—”

A tall figure suddenly stood from the center of the tavern and approached their table, raising the brim of his hat.

Charles Stuart bowed most elegantly to Anne and cast her his ever charming smile.

“Lady Anne, do go on. When the king hears of this . . . ?”

“Oh . . .” She was breathless, struck mute. She stared at the king. Charles slid in beside Warwick and looked casually about the place. “’Tis a bit of a dive, isn’t it, me lads?”

Anne found her voice again at last. “Charles! Your Majesty! I had nothing to do with treason, I swear it! ’Twas a joke, a lark, a bit of fun, no more! Hardgrave, dead! I know nothing of it, I—”

“Anne, Anne!” He patted her hand assuringly and spoke in a soothing tone.

“Anne, I suspect you of no treason. And thank God! For I would be loathe to think of your beautiful head falling from the block! A lark, a bit of fun, amusement, eh? I’m glad you think it was all so, for the fate you had in mind for Lady Chatham is quite similar to the one I have planned for you. ”

She went dead white. Her voice was barely a croak. “Sire! You couldn’t—you wouldn’t—”

He chuckled softly. “Sell you to Moroccan slavers? ’Tis a thought, since it seems I am perpetually lacking funds!

Alas, nay, lady, ’tis not quite the same.

In fact, I give you a choice. A Tower room, or marriage.

There is a certain governor of a certain remote island in the Caribbean who has been a dear and loyal servant, yet he pines for want of a beautiful wife.

He’s fat as a cat and bald as a buzzard—but sharp as a sword.

I think you’ll suit one another aptly well! ”

“I’ll not—” Anne began angrily.

“Ah, but you will!” Charles warned her. He lifted his hand; the groups of rowdies from the table where he had been suddenly rose and cast back their cloaks, displaying themselves as members of the king’s personal guard.

Two approached the table.

“Anne? They’re waiting for you.”

Clinton rose to let her by. He bowed, laughter upon his lips. She stared at the guards; she stared at the king.

Charles’s face was set. Anyone who knew him knew that look.

“Oh!” Anne cried in fury and desperation. “Charles!” she tried next with a pitiful plea.

“They are waiting!” he told her softly.

For once, Anne knew that she had been beaten. She swept by Clinton furiously and set herself between the guards. “Get your hands off me!” she snapped when they moved to escort her.

The tavern door closed in her wake. The Chathams looked from one another to the king; then they all burst into laughter.

* * *

Ondine and Sarah were taking tea, both seated cross-legged upon the foot of Ondine’s bed, when Warwick strode in, grinning smugly.

Ondine jumped up to greet him, nearly knocking over the China, all but making a disaster of the bed. ’Twas only Sarah’s fleeting movement that saved the fragile porcelain cups.

“Warwick . . . ?”

He cast his arms around her, lifting her high, swinging her about. “’Tis done! All villains apprehended!”

Breathless with laughter, Ondine clung to his arms. “And?” she inquired a bit anxiously.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “She is to have a most fitting end. Charles is having her married off to some fat governor of a most remote Caribbean isle. She’ll trouble us no more, my love.”

“Oh!” Ondine lay her head against his chest. “I’m glad. It does seem fitting indeed.”

“It was that or the Tower,” Warwick told her.

Sarah rose, smiling, for the happiness and mutual adoration seemed so wonderfully contagious.

“Well, I’ll leave you now,” she murmured.

Warwick took himself from his wife’s gaze long enough to grin at Sarah. “Clinton is waiting downstairs. And I think he has some rather good news for you.”

“What is that?” Sarah frowned curiously.

“He must tell you himself,” Warwick told her, and Sarah, smiling nervously, hurried out.

“Warwick—”

He returned his attention to Ondine, and though he knew that he saw her through the misted eyes of a lover, he knew, too, that she was in truth one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the earth, with eyes like a sparkling sapphire sea, hair that caught sunlight or moon light, a fire’s glow, and made magic of it.

He pushed her backward slowly, smiling still as he stared down at her. “Have I told you today that I love you?”

“Oh, aye! And I love you, too. But Warwick—”

“Have I told you that your beauty is greater than any sunburst, than any field, than any work of God or man?”

“Oh, Warwick! That’s beautiful! But—”

She broke off, startled, for he had backed her to the bed, and she fell upon it, to be quickly followed by him, and held against him as he stroked her cheek, still staring whimsically into her eyes.

“Warwick—”

“Are you well?” he interrupted her anxiously, drawing his hand tenderly over her abdomen. “Do you feel strong? No ill effects of such a day?”

“I am well!” she gasped, for though his fingers moved to seek his child, to her they were beguiling and . . . erotic.

“Warwick!” She caught his hand and held it to her, determined that she must talk. “What is it that Clinton must tell Sarah? Oh, Warwick! She is so terribly in love with him! Glad in it, yet so very sad, for her father is an awful tyrant and—”

“I know,” Warwick interrupted her, drawing her fingers to his lips, tenderly kissing them one by one with the greatest interest.

“Warwick—”

“They say, my love, that curiosity killed the cat!” he teased, taking then a studious interest in her earlobe, kissing it, nipping it, whispering against it with moist and heated breath. Then he was staring down at her, eyes glowing like the deepest golden fire, intense, passionate.

“But then you’re not a cat at all, darling.

You’re a mermaid. I thought you so once, that very first time I saw you.

I never told you, did I? I saw you—the day of the joust—running from Raoul.

Of course I didn’t realize then that I was destined to take you in marriage and give you mortal life.

I thought you a dream, a fantasy. And still you are so.

But in truth, my beloved, it was I who was granted mortal life—and love immortal—through you. ”

“Oh, Warwick! I love you! You saw me!”

“I did. I saw the vision. A dream. And the dream is now mine.”

She wrapped her arms about his neck, meeting his fevered, passionate kiss with an ardor that seemed to encompass all the flaming heat of the sun.

She was breathless when he pulled away, breathless when she stared into his eyes and knew that she would love him this way forever, for all their mortal lives . . . and beyond.

He laughed, rising from her to shed one boot, and then another.

He tossed his hose carelessly aside. “Vixen, you forgot your question, but I’ll answer it anyway.

Certain lands and titles had been left vacant.

Anne’s last husband left no heirs, and Charles decided that those lands should go to Justin.

So my brother is now a duke. Then there were Hardgrave’s lands, too, you see.

Vacant. And the king’s prerogative is to bestow titles and land, and so Clinton is a viscount.

I believe that should satisfy Sarah’s father. ”

“Oh! How wonderful!” She came to her knees, encircling his neck with her arms, hugging him exuberantly.

Warwick chuckled. “’Twas not my doing! I hadn’t that power. ’Tis Charles you should thank so—nay! I did not say that! You thank the king in this manner, and I shall take stern measure!”

Ondine chuckled delightedly. “Bah! My most beloved beast, you are like most creatures of a forest—all bark and growl, and very little bite at all!”

“No bite at all!” Warwick protested, rising so that she slipped from him, and gazing down at her with her hands on his hips. She couldn’t help but giggle, which drew from him a disgruntled, “Hmmph!”

Then he feverishly tugged his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor.

“No bite at all!” he repeated, and tugged next upon his breeches, pulling them from corded muscular legs. Then, once again, he stared down upon her, his beautifully naked flesh shining in the firelight, all sinew and power and completely the man she loved.

She smiled, unalarmed, and then she lay back and stretched out her arms to him.

“A beast, as anyone knows, but bites and growls when treated poorly! And, ah, but I, milord, have learned that lesson well and learned, too, that the most powerful creature, when loved and adored, is ever the most tender!”

He came down beside her, his laughter gone, his handsome face tense with passion, eyes an amber, hungry glow.

He cupped her cheek within his hand and whispered with sweet urgency, “Aye, tenderness, aye, love! Well have you tamed your beast, my witch, my mermaid, my love. Come, pour your Nereid’s waters over me, for wife, greatly do I thirst! ”

Ondine stared deeply into the searing passion of his eyes, and she sighed with delicious surrender and triumph.