“Your brother—your cousin. Are they among those you see as candidates for the deed?”
He winced, staring down curiously at his open palms. “My blood, my flesh. Nay! I cannot see it! But Justin stands to inherit if I leave no issue. And should Justin and I both perish, Charles knows I would have Clinton receive both land and titles, legitimized by the law.”
Ondine stared into the flames, frowning. “The whispers came from this house. How could Hardgrave—or Anne—be guilty?”
“Hardgrave’s land adjoins mine. Ho or Anne might well know more of the tunnels and rooms than I suspect.”
“Clinton, I assume, was never at court.”
“But assassins may be hired; life is easily and shamefully little more than the cost of a golden coin.”.
Ondine fell silent again and then murmured, “Genevieve was not … disturbed by the ‘ghosts’ until she was with child?”
He stopped his pacing, stood still behind her. “Aye.”
“And so,” she whispered, “your announcement that I, too, was with child?”
“Aye.”
She could not help but shudder. He knelt at her side, grasping her shoulders. “Lady, I swear by my life, by my name, by all honor, I’ll see you safe of this! Safe—and freed that your life might be your own! It was an oath I took unto God when we married, and here I swear it once again! You will live; live that the years ahead—once to be sacrificed to the noose!—will be my most eternal payment, along with whatever coin will let you lead the life you desire!”
Coin! Oh, God! He offered her coin …
She wrenched from his touch and stood, proud and arrogant as she held the towel about her as though it were a cloak woven of gold.
“Milord, this is, I think, a debt evenly met. My life you did save; your mystery I will seek with all I may to bring to a close. Then, milord Chatham, as you’ve said, we will be quits of all in this life!”
She strode past him in cool fury ; yet something of her manner must have stung his temper despite the passion of his vows. He caught her about the waist before she could leave, spinning her close into his arms.
“Even, milady? I wonder! For about you there are secrets, too, secrets deep and dark, and I wonder what it is that I abet in holding you close to my heart!”
“Wonder away, milord!” Ondine retorted, eyeing him quite regally, for well was her bargain met, or so she thought. “I am your ‘bait’; I will, with all my power, play your role. But then, milord, I say that you have had all of me that you will ever touch!”
She twisted from him and walked again, held held high. He watched her through the hallway of the bath; watched her enter her own chamber.
“Ondine!” The passion and the timbre of his voice swept through her. She felt a rage of fire consume her with that sound, and she turned, wary … tense … frightened, so frightened, deep within her heart.
For even then he closed the distance between them, strong, determined, alive with a sudden fiery temper aglow in his implacable gaze.
Chapter 16
He was almost upon her. Warily she backed away from him, closer to the fire that burned in her grate, cornered against it.
“Nay—get away from me!” Ondine cried, her temper soaring. “You, sir, are a beast! I’ll not be among your lusting number, a pet to be pawed and patted and stroked and kept in a cage! I, sir—”
“You are my wife,” he reminded her with humor.
“Not your wife!” she corrected him fiercely. “Rather an associate, milord! An accomplice, an abettor, paid for my cooperation, as it were, with life—and coin, so you assure me. Jealous? Nay. Hope, have none! You, sir, will respect me, you will—ohhhh!”
A long and startling shriek swept away her words, for it was not all the heat of anger she had felt, or even that of his presence. So far had she moved that a spark of the fire caught on her towel, and sensation warned her that her flesh was near to scorching.
“Oh!” She spun, on fire, confused, carrying the towel with her. Warwick moved with the swiftness of an arrow hurtling toward her, wrenching the burning linen from her grasp, casting it to the floor and quenching the flame hurriedly with his boot. Ondine stared first at the floor, concerned lest the flame catch, yet so quickly was it out that her concern became far more for her person, flesh now naked to the night—and her husband’s perusal.
“Are you hurt?” he asked her.
“No, not hurt!” she gasped out, racing for her bed, wrenching from it the brocade cover to hurl about herself.
He walked toward her slowly, as ever amused, yet imperious as ever in his bold and open scrutiny. “Scorched, milady? It grieves me to think that the purity of your flesh might have been kissed by the flame.”
He came too close, and she rolled across the bed, finding her feet quickly, facing him with the expanse of a safe barrier between them.
“You had let me alone at first!” she reminded him reproachfully. “You swore some oath that I should be freed—and you let me be! What is this, then? You foreswore your manners as poor; you promised that they would improve!”
“Aye, I know,” he murmured apologetically. “I did long to live with the belief that I could be withdrawn; a cavalier. A man with a haunted past, vowed to release a beauty. Alas, my love, all that I find myself to be in truth is a man, haunted not by the past, but by the present. My vow was that you should live; my manners I demanded of myself lest I should become involved, but that, I am afraid, I am, and manners cannot bend nor ease the torment!” He clutched the bedpost as he talked, in movement slow and silent, yet it brought him around without haste or measure to where she stood, undecided now to keep her ground—or dash across the bed once again.
“Get away from me!” she warned with a shaking voice, but he gave her no heed, just leaned against the second post and smiled with rueful bemusement as he caught her gaze in the fiery glow of his own.
“I have thought, and thought, my lady, of manners, or rights. I have given all the gravest concern. 1 have thought on the freedom you so crave, and none of these makes any sense, not when memory intrudes. Night after night, milady, I have paced these halls in torment, paced and strode and walked in the night so far that I might have reached London on foot. I have lain awake in my bed, knowing you were not but a few yards distant. I have dreamt of you, imagined you, reached for you in the night, burned in hell’s gravest agony as some torture of the mind brought the recall of your flesh bare to mine, tense and seeking. I’ve twisted, lady, turned and tossed. I’ve sworn and raged inside, and prevailed upon all that is decent in a man. I’ve endured rigor, strain, and sleepless nights—all for the honor of her I call wife. Yet tonight, Ondine, even as truth became known, I pondered once again the ungodly restraint, the tortured hours, the high tempered days. And all that I could surmise upon the confused ending of such thought was, For what?”
He came to her, clutching the spread at her throat where she held it close. His smile ever in place, dark lashes over a prism of amber eyes that glowed warm with seduction.
“My dear lady,” he murmured, “I did, quite frankly, think merely, to hell with all this! The future is always some distant thing which must unravel itself.”
The future … oh, the future! It was that one word that loomed before her, that broke the spell of his rugged allure. “To hell with this!” she shrieked, jerking furiously from his touch, choosing that option to bound across the bed once again. Yet she bound with no barrier upon her, for his hand caught the brocade spread, and before she could pitch from the mattress, she found herself captured beneath the lean hard length of him, staring into mocking eyes that glittered with amusement and the triumph they had known all along.
“Nay!” she cried in maddened panic, for if he touched her further, she would be lost, and he would know that all resistance was a lie. She was free and she thought to strike him; her hand caught his cheek, and he reacted with no anger, but twisted her arms beneath her so that she could not lash out more. All that was left was
words, and she used those bitterly, the best she could, trembling violently at the impression of his body against hers. “Go to those who long for this caress! Go back to your voluptuous Anne with the feline eyes! I want nothing of your well-worn touch, I—”
His kiss stopped her, the hungry, encompassing pressure of his mouth against hers, filling her with warmth, the taste of brandy, moistness, enveloping sensation. Ah, that kiss! It burned greater than any fire; it reached inside of her, and all of her was alive to the manly feel of him. His tongue moved deep into her mouth, caressing, seeking, creating what was surely madness, an ache of longing within her womb. That kiss was slow, leisurely, creating pressure but no pain, a force not brutal, but undeniable. His hand played upon her naked breast, fingering that bud he called a rose. Subtly, subtly he stroked her, moving the tip of his thumb over the peak, then splaying his fingers to leave it free as he at last took his mouth from hers to use upon her breast, tasting it, suckling so that the nipple came to graze his teeth. Explosive flashes shuddered throughout her; she gasped in pleasure and pain, wishing to wrench herself from him, wishing to hurry that promise of the flesh, which now filled her like liquid fire.
“Nay!” she charged him brokenly, but they were both aware that the denial meant nothing.
He did not respond at first, but nuzzled his head between the deep valley of her breasts, and there her flesh knew all textures, that of his hair, his cheeks, his lips. Then he tended as carefully to one breast as to the other, and she knew that she was betrayed, betrayed by her body, as never by her word or mind. He rose slightly above her, and she saw a different look in him. Humor gone, his tension and passion were foremost.
“Lady!” he demanded, staring hard in heated challenge. “Can you say that I truly wrong you, that this, this wonder between us, is something that you want not?”
She twisted her head to the side in anguish. He caught her cheeks tenderly between his hands and drew her face back, pressing then with the force of his muscular thighs against her long limbs so that they, too, were forced to give. Though he remained clothed, she felt all the strength and ardor of his body fully against hers. She had no control over the mystery of the sexes, no way to ebb the longing that washed over her, hot and pulsing, with the relentless sway of a tide.
She closed her eyes tightly, whispering her answer.
“What choice have I, milord?”
“Damn!” he exploded harshly. “I speak not of choice, but of desire!”
“You, milord, may do so. The power is yours, and the strength. I’ve no weapons such as yours—”
“Your weapons, Ondine, have always been your beauty and your wit, your pride and spirit, and all those secrets that lurk in your soul. And, lady, you use them well!”.
“What is it, my lord, that you wish from me?” she cried. “Surrender? As I told you^ it seems I’ve little choice!”
He shook his head with impatience, pressing his hips against hers with blunt, evocative insinuation. He trailed his fingers from her cheek to her throat and down to her breasts, where he played idly and spoke softly, tensely, almost with anguish. “Nay, lady, never surrender! Admission, nothing more! Say only that this fair flesh craves the caress of my hand, just as that hand hungers for the touch. Say that your fair form is eager to be water for my thirst, for all that I am is arid without your cascading liquid rhythm. Say that the sweet place of nectar between your thighs longs to be a receptacle for my seed, just as I cannot be whole this night unless I fill you, body and soul, with all myself.”
“Oh!”
“Ondine!”
“Take me, then, milord!” she cried, hating him afresh. How could he do this to her—draw forth these words she was loathe to say!
“Nay, my countess, there is no talk of surrender; you shall take me, and I shall come eagerly!”
“What…”
He was gone from her, at the side of the bed, divesting clothing with the greatest speed. He returned to her naked, and she was in his arms, too quickly at sea, lost and adrift in his kiss, the fierceness of his ardor, the muffled urgings of his words.
“Ah, surely, lady, never hath God created flesh so fine, so fair, breasts so ripe as to haunt a man, waking and sleeping. Never have hips been so sleek and smooth, never have legs been so long and sensually wicked, their movement a lair that might create internal imprisonment …”
And, dearest God, all that he said was true! He’d known beauty, vast and wide, in many guises. Anne’s feline tempest, Genevieve’s angelic delicacy, and many arts and graces in between. Never had there been a woman to occupy him so, to take his heart, his mind, his soul, to shake him with a passion that could not be slaked! Ah, this water witch! Nymph of cascading glory, strong in spirit, unbreakable. Love me! That is all that I command of you, he might have cried, but though he could live sanely no longer without touching her, the vow of freedom was one he could not break, more binding than ever with the tangle of his heart. And he was Warwick Chatham, earl and lord, a man, a champion who did not falter or fail. For all that he was, he could not fail himself now. But neither could he leave her, her beauty, the symmetry of her sweet movement, endless splendor …
He caught her hands and brought them to his chest, reveling in their tentative touch, in the sharp and ragged tremble of her breath. “No shyness, milady, for it is this for which we are made, man and woman, and truly given!”
And with that glad cry he kissed her again, giving free rein to the throbbing thunder of his blood, the pulse of his groan. With his hand he parted her thigh, with knowledge and tenderness he moved thumb and fingers against feminine secrets, stroking, soliciting, bringing the blaze that urged her to match his own. All around him he heard the snap and crackle of the fire, the shriek of the wind, even the howl of the wolves in the forest, and they were all a part of him. He led her to touch him further, burst in glory at the tentative measure of her fingers, and shuddered with a new desire, unlike any he had known. He teased her still, in torment that was divine, for when he had her at last, it would be the greatest bliss. He moved and manipulated her, ever stunned by her beauty, the fine perfection of her back, of her buttocks. He stroked her spine and whispered that he would see that the lick of the fire had harmed her not. As his kisses seared her flesh the rasp of his tongue was a greater flame. Never was there such reward, for her whispers came in turn, pleading that he came to her, and he did, a thrust of mercury and steel, heat and midnight magic.
He was all, and more, that she had craved. He was a tempest, giving to her a sweet, shattering climax. What wondrous God had given man and woman! And when they lay spent, he remained at her side.
Ondine awoke, but did not open her eyes. A coldness about her warned her that Warwick lay with her no more, and she could not still the heavy feeling of fear that this morning would bring with it the mockery of that past occasion.
She lay still, not moving, feeling that sunshine entered the room, that the air was fresh, that everything should be beautiful.
Carefully she raised her lashes slightly, then started, for she was not alone at all, her senses having played her false.
He was there, on the bed, an arm’s span away from her, watching her curiously, smiling just slightly with amusement at her obvious pretense of sleep. He was completely clothed, leaning upon an elbow so that he might stretch out his length for easy perusal of her while keeping his booted feet from dirtying the bed.
Ondine shrank further into her covers, her eyes wide but wary, tensed as she awaited his words. His smile deepened with a rueful humor, and his lashes shielded all expression.
“We can never go back now, you know,” he told her softly, and for a moment she wished that he had left or been cruel, for the sight of his fine chiseled features in that daylight touched her with emotion from the depths of her heart. She did love him, all of him, the hazel eyes that so oft loomed amber and gold; the twist of his jaw, willful, strong, determined, even arrogant. She loved his pride, she loved his stance, the set of his smil
e, the arch of his brow. The tender, wistful, rueful smile that marked him now as younger, a man not to be bested, but to be met upon his terms.
“No,” she murmured.
He sighed, a soft expulsion of air, as if he might have said more, and withdrew his touch. He rose, tense and brooding once again, great shoulders squared as he strode to her dresser, idly drumming his fingers upon it.
“I have been to the tombs.”
Ondine frowned, made aware that more was at stake here than the state of her heart. She did not like his tone, and still within the shelter of her sheets, she twisted to watch him.
“And?”
His back was to her, and she saw the dark knit of his brow in the mirror. He turned to her, his questing gaze that of a stranger, one that seared into her as if he might see truth.
“There was nothing amiss.”
“What?”
“There was nothing amiss. Stones were all in place; Genevieve’s coffin was tightly sealed. There was no sign of cape or mask or— talons.”
She sat up, furious at the insinuation that her mind might have wandered, that her imagination had tricked her.
“I tell you, milord, that a creature, caped and cowled and, aye, taloned, did accost me! What is this now, that you doubt my word! How absurd, Chatham! Would I cast myself into a crypt for amusement, run with spiders and rats and mold and darkness for the fun of it all?”
He leaned back against the dresser, casually crossing a booted foot and shaking his head with a grin. “Nay, lady, I accuse you of nothing of the like. I wished only to see that certainty from you. I should have gone there straight last night; alas, you were my concern. I do not doubt your word; I but asked to see that streak of certainty come from you.” He hesitated and appeared dark and strained once again. “There were times … there were occasions when I knew that Genevieve did see things with her mind, and not her eyes.”
Ondine brought her knees to her chest, hugging them there. She lowered her eyes from his absent gaze, swallowing tightly. The pain and tenderness that brought low his voice when he spoke of Genevieve seemed to clench about her heart, and she longed to cross herself, for in truth, she was so sorry for the woman slain, and yet yearning that she herself might be so gently regarded.
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