Ondine

by Heather Graham

  Warwick opened one eye and scanned her angry features. He sighed. “Anne, I am married now. To Genevieve.”

  “Genevieve!” Anne exclaimed heatedly, stalking behind his chair like a caged tiger. “Gentle Genevieve! Sweet Genevieve! Innocent, wonderful Genevieve. Warwick, I warned you not to marry her.” Anne laughed, and a bitter twist made her words sound like the shrills of a harpy. “Do you know they say that she trembled, knowing that she was to marry you! The man who was the rage of the court—so handsome, but so rough and battle hard. A demon on women! The great magnificent beast, so exciting— and so distant! Many would have died for your touch, but not Genevieve! You fool! Your wife fears you, just as she fears your specters—the ghost of your grandmother and more ancient haunts! If a beast of a husband is not enough, he adds a family curse—”

  “Anne!” Both eyes snapped open. His voice was quiet, but it carried the dangerous edge of a razor. He was suddenly on his feet, stalking her in a way that both thrilled her and made her wish uncertainly that she might take back her taunts. He began to speak again in that soft tone that was also threatening. She backed toward the solar door. “On many things I agree with you, Lady Anne. My wife is a gentle creature, and, yes, she has been called upon to face a legend-riddled past! But she meets no beast in her bed at night, I assure you. Where gentle is, gentle comes. When you have craved a beast, my lecherous lady, you have received one. But mat is in the past, Lady Anne. Genevieve is two months with child, and beast that you call me, I would not hurt that gentle lady I call wife upon the forfeit of my own life.”

  “You don’t love her!” Anne cried out. “You married her only to fulfill a promise! You—”

  “Anne, I pray you! Ply your charms upon Charles this evening, for I am sorely vexed. No matter what your feeling for Genevieve, she is my wife, and she carries my heir. Anne, leave me be.”

  She paused at the doorway, men tossed her beautiful mane of black hair over her shoulder. “Carries your heir, does she, Warwick? I doubt she expects to survive its birth!”

  A step brought him to her. His fingers bit into her shoulders, and he shook her so that her head lolled; but though her teeth rattled, she did not care. She was in his arms, if only for a moment.

  “Anne, by God! I dislike the thought of force against your … fair sex, but twist your knife no further!”

  “Warwick!” she cried out, leaning against his chest, a sob catching in her throat. “I love you, I need you! And I can make you happy, where she cannot!”

  “Anne!” he exclaimed, more softly now, for though he knew she could easily sway to one lover from another, he felt that she did care for him. “Anne … I have taken a wife. A gentle wife. And I will not bring pain to her soul, for I do love her gentle heart.”

  Anne jerked from him with a scowl darkening her features. “You will come back to me, Warwick Chatham! I swear it! By Christmastide next, you will seek the passion of my arms!”

  She spun about and left him. Warwick sighed, feeling again all the little strains and bruises in his body. He started to limp back to his chair, then paused, staring at the door to the bedchamber.

  Genevieve stood there.

  She appeared almost ethereal in the fire’s gentle glow, her hair so pale a gold it neared white, her lovely flesh so light as to be translucent. Her eyes, fine powder blue, were wide and stared at him. Her delicate fingers held tight to the door.

  “You heard?” he asked her, regretful that she had witnessed such a scene.

  Genevieve nodded, but then she smiled. “I… had a nightmare, Warwick, and I hoped …” Her sentence faded as she walked to him. She slipped her slender arms around his neck, and her eyes held gratitude as they sought his. “Thank you so much, my dear lord!”

  Her lashes lowered and she rested her cheek against his chest, feeling the hard, sure pounding of his heart. She knew his virility; she knew his strength. Yet no man could have dealt more gently with his wife.

  “I… I fear that I have disappointed you greatly,” she whispered, “and yet in this court, you cling faithfully to me. What… pride it gives me, Warwick.”

  Warwick lifted his hand to smooth her pale shimmering hair; then he lifted her into his arms and returned to the chair, holding her in his lap. “You do not disappoint me, love,” he told her, cradling her close.

  Genevieve, with her head bowed, smiled sadly. She knew that he lied, but did not accuse him of doing so. For all his great tenderness, she could not accustom herself to his strength in their bedchamber. She feigned sleep many nights to avoid her duty, though she had found that she loved him dearly. She knew that he was aware that she pretended sleep, yet he would sigh and stare into the night and allow her that pretense. One day, she promised herself nightly, she would make it all up to him. She knew—as the ladies who sought his favors did not—that he was far more the gentleman than the beast. She had come to him in fear. He had seen her fear, cast aside his own needs, and cajoled her from it. Sometimes she was still frightened; he was so strong, she was so … so very weak! He exercised such patience. She had always planned on entering the convent where she had been schooled. Her father, on his deathbed, had asked Warwick to marry and care for her, and for his deep friendship and loyalty, Warwick had done just that.

  A log crackled in the fire, and she jumped.

  “Genevieve!” he admonished her softly.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried.

  “Nay, nay! Just be easy, my love, be easy,” he crooned to her. Again she settled in his arms, content with his strength about her. If only it was all like this!

  They sat in silence for many moments, feeling the warmth of the fire surround them. Warwick’s thoughts were remorseful— and painful. One of Anne’s vicious taunts was true. He should not have married Genevieve, even though he had vowed to do so. By nature she was timid, such a gentle, ethereal beauty. Too gentle for a beast, he told himself wryly. And too gentle to combat the rumors.

  “Genevieve?” he said softly.

  “My lord?”

  “What Anne said isn’t true, you know. There are several legends about the family, but my grandmother’s death was an accident. We’re really not beasts—no more so than the rest of England! All the stories about the family come from the days of the Conqueror.”

  “Except the one about your grandmother,” Genevieve murmured.

  “My grandmother fell- through a staircase, Genevieve. There was nothing ‘cursed’ about it. Rotten wood brought about her death.”

  “I know,” Genevieve whispered. “But—but, Warwick, the dream that awakened me—I saw her! Warwick, I saw her!”

  Suddenly she tensed in his lap, sobs catching in her throat, her fragile hands pounding against his chest. “Warwick, she came to me! She was green and rotting with the mold from the grave, and she told me that I would join her, that I would come—”

  “Stop it, Genevieve! You saw who? My grandmother? No, my love, you did not see her. Genevieve, I will let nothing harm you!”

  She heard the passion in his voice, and she thrilled to it, just as she felt the terror leave her trembling limbs as he warmed her with his all-encompassing strength.

  “Oh, Warwick! I will try not to be such a coward.”

  “You are not a coward.”

  “Then I am weak—I have no strength.”

  “You have the strength of my love.”

  “Warwick …” He was so good to her! She lifted her eyes to his, and they dampened with the tears of her love. She huddled to him, and she determined that she would love him as a wife should. She forced herself to push her fears to the background, remembering that they had come to Westchester to settle a dispute. “Oh, Warwick, I do love you so, and I was so very proud of you today. You were magnificent. No man is a nobler knight!”

  He laughed. “If I am so to your eyes, it is all that I ask. And now, my sweet, my beloved wife who carries a beloved child, you must be off back to your bed! I crave but a glass of port, then will come and sleep beside you.”
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  She smiled at him, finding her courage in him.

  “I will wait for you, my lord husband,” she told him.

  He touched her cheek gently with his knuckle. “You needn’t do so, sweet. I know that you wish to rest—”

  “Nay, Warwick, I wish to wait for you.”.

  He smiled at her tenderly, then set her on her feet. “I do love you, Genevieve. And I have never been disappointed in you.”

  She knew this was another lie, but it was wonderfully stated, as wonderful as the virile, handsome man who was her husband. She would be brave! She would not give into phantom terrors in the night!

  “I await your leisure,” she promised. With a little flush, she hurried into the bedchamber.

  Warwick limped around the solar, then poured himself a glass of strong port from a decanter on the sideboard. Anne, he reflected, had taunted him far more than he cared to admit, about Genevieve and their child and the supposed “curse,” and about himself.

  Tension held his body in a firm grip as memory heated his blood to a painful boil. How he longed to hold a woman like Anne; one strong and ripe and primed for passion, willing to welcome his desire! He stood still and swallowed fiercely, desperately trying to swallow down that blaze of longing.

  He tossed back his head and finished the port. His wife was good and gentle—in truth, he would not betray her. Yet, in truth, it was sometimes most painful to restrain all his passion and need.

  Curiously his thoughts turned to the woman in the forest again. Had she been real? Or had he been dreaming?

  A man had been threatening her, and she had been fighting back. Then she had taken to the water and disappeared. Real— or imaginary? Though he hadn’t really seen her, he could remember that she was beautiful. Passionate and glorious. Thoughts of her made him hungry now, eager to hold such a sprite of fire and fury in his arms.

  Genevieve, he reminded himself, was his life. He owed her his life and his loyalty—and his dreams. Warwick sighed and sat again to cast off his boots. They made a thud as they hit the stone floor.

  And then he heard another thud.

  Curiously he turned, stunned to see that the door between the solar and the bedroom had been closed. He frowned; Genevieve had never, even as a new bride, sought to close a door against him. And tonight she had not been afraid of him at all. She had invited him in.

  “Warwick! She comes! Oh, she comes!”

  He sprang into action at the scream of anguished fear and beseechment, throwing himself at the door. It was bolted.

  “Genevieve!” he thundered, but there was no answer.

  He threw his shoulder against the door, again and again, ignoring the burning pain that tore through him with the effort.

  “Genevieve!”

  The door gave, its hinges broken. He staggered into the room. But Genevieve was not there. The curtained, canopied bed was empty. A breeze stirred from the balcony, sending the pale gauze drapes drifting about like whispering ghosts.

  A scream sounded from below.

  Dread filled him; his legs seemed leaden as he forced himself to the balcony. The scream came again, and his eyes were riveted downward.

  ‘ ‘Genevieve!”

  Genevieve was set in the king’s own chapel as prayers were offered up for her soul. Warwick barely left her side until the day came to lead the black-shrouded hearse back to North Lambria, where she could be interred in the family crypt.

  And on that day he sat in the bedchamber they had shared and brooded deeply on the folly of taking such a tender maid to be his wife. It was at that time that he noted a draft where there should not have been one. Pensively he studied the tapestries that hung on the walls flanking the fire and mantel.

  Then suddenly he pulled aside a tapestry, discovering that it concealed a break in the wall. When pressure was applied, the wall slipped silently back, creating a small passageway.

  He followed the passageway, almost tripping down a flight of dank, dark, and treacherously curved stairs.

  He returned to the chamber for a torch, then followed the stairs. They lead to an old, long-deserted dungeon. Amidst the rats and ancient slime Warwick found something peculiar—a monk’s cowl and a Greek theatrical mask.

  He stared at them in a dark and furious silence, bundled them into his arms, and returned to his chamber.

  Everyone in the king’s court knew that the Earl of North Lambria was disconsolate. He withdrew to his estates, isolating himself.

  Charles, who sorely missed his friend’s visits, at last journeyed out to North Lambria. He was greeted as befitted the king, Warwick was polite; he offered his finest hospitality, and he tried to laugh at the king’s renowned witticisms. But the coldness in his heart could not be warmed.

  Charles, a wise and shrewd man despite his reputation for levity, came quickly to a somber point.

  “You did the girl no ill, my friend. You were a better husband than most by far, including myself, God and the queen forgive me! You must continue your life. Marry again—”

  “Nay,” Warwick stated. “I’ll not take another to her death!”

  The king snorted. “You know as well as I, Warwick, that no curse from heaven hounds the family! Ghosts do not exist, nor kill—”

  Warwick at last flared into a passionate fury, pounding his fist hard against the table so that the plates and goblets before them rattled. “Her death was no suicide, Charles! I do not believe in ghosts, but I do believe that she was murdered.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Aye, My Grace. She was murdered.” Warwick hurried to his sideboard and produced the cloak and mask. The king was stunned.

  Charles lowered his eyes. “By whom?”

  “I don’t know,” Warwick muttered in dismay, sinking back into his chair and rubbing his temple. “Charles, I do know that she was killed. Unless I discover why, I cannot take another wife.”

  “God in Heaven!” Charles exclaimed. “This must be madness. Who do you suspect? Justin, Clinton? I cannot believe—”

  Warwick laughed bitterly. “I pray not!”

  “Then—”

  “There is Lord Hardgrave,” Warwick said bitterly.

  “Oh, come!” Charles muttered impatiently. “You two have your differences, but for such an accusation—”

  “I am sorry, perhaps it was unjustified. But who, dammit, who? Mathilda loved her dearly, as did Justin. Even Clinton thought her entirely too good for me! Charles, it leaves me cold. I must discover the truth, else spend my life in the company of paramours.”

  Charles sighed. “Warwick, I tell you, this is a plague of your imagination. Genevieve was … I’m sorry, Warwick, but I believe that she was suicidal. You found an old mask and a cloak. Many wear masks at court to hide their true identities when planning a tryst with a lover! You must get over this. You are coming back to court with me.”

  At the king’s insistence, Warwick returned to court. Not only did Charles miss his friend, but there was the business of a kingdom to run.

  And as the lady Anne had prophesied, he spent the Christmastide next in her arms, where she worshipped an ardor grown silent, roughly passionate, strangely distant.

  She took to calling him the “beast” again, for he went to many women. He claimed their desires; yet he gave none his heart. He was a heated lover, but a cold man, harder than ever before.

  A year passed. Time healed the rawest pain, but Warwick’s suspicions did not die, and his determination never wavered.

  “You need to marry again, my friend,” Charles advised once more.

  Marry …

  Nay, he needed to bait a murderer first. But he did not feel like arguing with Charles.

  “Aye, Your Grace,” he would say, smiling. “I need a wife.” But to take a wife, he firmly believed, would be to risk that lady’s life. He was certain that someone was determined he should leave no heirs.

  Lady Anne’s elderly husband, Geoffrey, succumbed to a fever and died. In bed Anne turned impetuously to Warwick.
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  “We could marry now, my dearest!”

  Warwick rolled from her side, planting his feet upon the ground as he ran his fingers through his hair.

  “I will never marry again,” he told her.

  The lady Anne chuckled huskily, rising upon her knees to rake her nails sensuously along his back. “I shall change your mind!”

  Nay, she could not change his mind, but she could ignite his senses. He turned, taking her into his arms, fiercely easing the tempest in his body. But when dawn came, he left her.

  Genevieve haunted him always. Dear God! But he owed her justice! There had to be a way to flush out the killer!

  In April of 1679 Warwick walked with Charles along Market Street. The king sought trinkets for his wife, and Warwick, in a rare light mood, sought to purchase an ivory fan for the lady Anne.

  He and the king stopped in a tavern for ale. Charles, a king easily accessible to his people, readily sat in the common house. He made the serving wench gasp with pleasure when he discreetly pinched her rump, and he rewarded the innkeeper with a fat gold coin.

  The king’s guards stayed far behind them as they laughed merrily and ambled into the streets again.

  Suddenly a flurry of darkness descended upon them, and a sword was raised against the king. Warwick sobered quickly, drawing his own sword. The skirmish was swiftly ended with the man, a hearty if filthy and toothless soul, panting at Warwick’s feet and begging for a quick death.

  “Slay me, my lord! I beg you! ‘Twill be Tyburn Tree—”

  ” ‘Twill not be Tyburn Tree for a traitor against the king’s own person!” A guard, rushing upon the scene, declared, “Ye’ll know the agony of being drawn and quartered, scum, or perhaps the fires of death will rise to the sky!”

  The beggar was dragged away. Charles, his dark and handsome eyes upon his friend, sighed wearily. “Would that I could do something to save such wretches. The man was surely mad.”

  “Then surely he should be mercifully hanged!”

  “Hanged? Nay, man, hundreds hang for far lesser crimes. They rot for debt, they die for stealing bread.”