Ondine

by Heather Graham

  The one laughed and nudged the other. “Is he blind—or has he but one eye? There’s two of us, milord!”

  “And if I kill one, what is another?” Warwick queried pleasantly in turn.

  The one who had challenged him with laughter lost his surly smile; with a shriek of rage he came at Warwick. Warwick barely stirred, but narrowed an eye at the man’s angle of speed, and when he was almost atop him, he at last lifted his blade.

  The sailor fell upon it himself, sinking slowly to the floor and staring upward, amazed to discover himself dying.

  The second man stared at Warwick, then fled down the hall, entering the last cabin, slamming the door in his wake.

  Warwick stepped over the fallen man and hurried toward the cabin, certain that it was the deceased captain’s, and equally certain that it would be where Ondine was being held. Horrible images came to him, racking his heart and mind, as he quickened his speed. Ondine … a captive of this loathsome crew! With all her beauty, her fairness, her fire, her golden hair… If they had touched her—

  If they had touched her, he thought grimly, he’d slit their throats to the very last man, mercy be damned!

  There’d been so little time, he tried to assure himself.

  But rape took little time, and murder even less.

  That thought so enraged him, bringing his blood to such a chill of fear that he gave no thought to trying the door. Instead he slammed against it with his shoulder in cold, deadly determination. The door shuddered; he pitted his weight against it again, and the sea-rotten wood gave to his touch. He held still, wary before entering, not wanting to discover a knife in his back from behind.

  She was there; that he knew instantly. Her hands were strapped to the posts of the portside bunk—even her ankles were tied. Fury rose in him at the sight of her chafed and reddened flesh where those tight knots bound her, yet that fury was tempered by fear and confusion.

  She slept, her hair a halo about her, her face ethereally beautiful and peaceful in that mist of flame and sunlight. For a moment he feared that she was dead, then her brows tensed in a frown; she shook her head as if fighting some inner fog, and her eyes opened.

  He exhaled in a vast surge of relief. She lived!

  “Get him!”

  The whisper sounded from the far corner of the room. Warwick stiffened and, with narrowed eyes, observed that corner.

  There were three men: the fat brute he’d come upon in the hallway; a skinny fellow, with teeth so yellow they might have been a jackal’s; and a third, no cleaner, yet not so much like a treacherous varmint in appearance.

  “Gents,” he said quietly, “give way. And I tell you, if she is in any way touched—”

  “Damn you, Josh, for a coward!” the one with the yellow teeth cried out. “Slay him, man, he’s alone!”

  Yellow teeth drew his knife with a growl; Warwick gazed with narrowed eyes from him to Ondine. She stared at him, as if confused, barely recognizing him, but she seemed aware. He thought that he must free her first, lest they think to unman him with a threat to her person. He could not afford to have the threat of harm to her held against him as a lethal weapon. He stepped into the room, his sword held high, and quickly slashed the bonds that held her.

  “Go!” he charged her. “Topside, to Justin!”

  She tried to move; she was so dazed and sore that it was a difficult measure at best. The weasel was coming at Warwick then, crouched low, his knife in his hands. A heavy fellow she hadn’t seen before was taking courage from that action, advancing from the side, near her. Josh was taking the other side.

  “Get out of here, Ondine!”

  She couldn’t; she was dazed, but she couldn’t leave him to such odds. Glancing around, she saw the filthy water pitcher on the table, and as the men paid her no heed, she reached for it, swerving terribly in her attempt.

  The weasel lunged first—apparently he had no notion of Warwick’s talents with his weapon. The sword whistled through the air; the weasel gasped and sank into a pool of his own blood.

  The other two were stunned, then panicked. Together they rushed for Warwick, as if innately aware that neither could be hero or coward; survival meant combined strength and action.

  Ondine raised her pitcher in a heavy lunge, then gasped in horror, for she struck neither the weasel nor the burly man, but caught her husband square against his temple.

  “Oh, God!” she gasped.

  He caught his reeling head and barely twisted in time to slice the burly fellow’s arm from wrist to shoulder, reducing him to a heap of groaning helplessness.

  Josh backed away to the corner of the room, dropping his weapon.

  Warwick, stunned, turned to stare at Ondine.

  “Madam, just whose side are you on?”

  “I’m sorry! So sorry!”

  “I told you to get out of here!”

  “I—I couldn’t leave you!”

  “Go—now!”

  She tried to step; she swayed. He caught her, keeping a wary eye upon the last man as he did so.

  “What have you done to her?”

  He fell to the floor, hands clenched in prayer. “Spare me, Your Grace, spare me! ‘Tis a drug, nothing more! Will wear away in minutes now, I swear it upon my soul!”

  Ondine stared into Warwick’s eyes. He returned her glare, but with no tenderness. He touched her face, and the feel of his hand was not cruel, yet he seemed so—harsh.

  “I’ll know what happened here!” he told the man.

  Josh shook his head in desperation. “We were paid! Paid with coin and well! She was to be taken to a gentleman downriver.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, by God, I don’t know! I’d tell you if I did! Only the captain knew the man—he didn’t want himself known to any.”

  And the captain was dead, Warwick thought bitterly.

  There was movement behind him. Warwick, with Ondine cradled against him, quickly spun, raising his sword.

  “Warwick—‘tis me!” Justin warned him quickly. “Just me and Buckingham.”

  Warwick thrust Ondine into his arms. “Take her,” he said hoarsely. “Take her-—and start back.”

  Justin didn’t understand his brother’s raw emotion and stiffness. He sighed with relief and caught Ondine, baffled, for she seemed unharmed, yet she could not stand on her own.

  “Wait!” she called. “Warwick, I—”

  “Get her out of here! Bring her back to our rooms and order Jake to guard her, to sit on her if need be!”

  Ondine gave in. Her head still swam; she had no strength. Justin lifted her into his arms, and she merely closed her eyes with weary relief, clinging to him.

  Buckingham stepped into the cabin as Justin left it with his burden. “Some rubbish remains alive,” he told Warwick, staring at their captive.

  “Aye,” Warwick murmured, “but I learn nothing.”

  “Only the captain knew—” came the plaintive cry of their prisoner, but Buckingham cut him off with a cold and cruel laugh.

  “Only the captain knew! Aye, we’ve heard that one. But we’ve ways and means, my fine fellow! Wait till you feel the caress of the Earl of Exeter’s daughter!”

  The man paled, for the “Earl of Exeter’s daughter” meant the rack, and no man remained unscathed from such torment.

  “I tell you—”

  Buckingham turned calmly to Warwick. “It seems we’ve saved not only your bride, Warwick, but a score of beauties kept in the hold! This captain and his crew claimed to trade with Spain; kidnapping young lasses was their real business, bound for the harems of Morocco.”

  Warwick arched a brow. He could feel little guilt or pity for so much blood strewn now that he knew the purpose of these men.

  But neither could he feel relief, for he believed the mewling wretch before him—this man did not know who had paid the sum to have Ondine delivered to him.

  Hardgrave! he thought in fury. Hardgrave and Anne! Yet Anne had almost fallen prey to these pirate slavers
herself, and Hardgrave had fought beside him with a determination to equal his own.

  “Leave him to the courts of law, Buckingham,” Warwick said, shaking his head. “We’ll get nothing from him.” He turned, disgusted, and strode his way back to the open deck. The stench of the place was enough to rot a man.

  He held tight to the rail at the starboard side, gritting his teeth as a convulsion of anguish swept through him. How he’d quivered to see her alive and well! How he’d loved her when he’d seen her, dazed and dizzy—striking him, but meaning to be there for him, ready to fight at his side. Ah, her face, her beautiful face! The expression upon it had been sweetly comical when she’d realized her mistake.

  By God, she was his heart, his soul, his every breath of desire.

  He wanted with every fiber of his being to reach her, hold her to his chest and cherish her face, her lips, her hair, her form, her very life—her laughter and her warmth, her temper and her spirit. He winced, for he knew he could not. Today had proved him a wretched protector. And he had underlined the fact to a shattering degree that she seemed to be safe nowhere, not while she was his wife.

  He sighed deeply. In time the king’s guards would arrive to round up the living remainder of this motley crew. He could ride back to the cottage at Newmarket, where they had found such absolute peace and bliss in each other’s arms.

  And there, tonight, he must refute her, coldly and cruelly, for he knew her courage and spirit. She would fight him; she believed fiercely that she owed him the debt of her life, and even if she was frightened, she would not willingly leave him until she felt she had paid her debt to him.

  She had to leave him! She had to live! Even if he had to play the beast in truth to force her to do so.

  Ondine awaited Warwick with the greatest anxiety. She didn’t understand him, but she knew him well, and in that she knew he had changed once again. He had ridden like the wind to her rescue, yet it seemed that then he directed his anger against her!

  Jake was, as ever, good to her, but remained detached. As Warwick had commanded, he all but sat upon her.

  She had felt so touched by filth that she had instantly bathed; but then she had felt so lonely that she’d asked Jake to fetch Justin, and though Jake hesitated, he finally did as bidden.

  Ondine was irritated to a flaming wrath with both Warwick and Jake. How could anyone suspect Justin of foul deeds?

  But when Justin came, Ondine learned that he knew very well his brother held him in suspicion, and though he did not cry out against Warwick, it was apparent that he was very hurt.

  He sipped the port that they morosely shared, staring into her eyes, cleared at last of the drug.

  “He believes that Genevieve was murdered, I see that now. But that he could think that I—”

  He stopped, choking on bile.

  Ondine, convinced of his innocence, tried to soothe him. “I think, Justin, that he loved her so very much that he is still crazed by it. He—he did adore her?”

  Justin rose and shrugged. “He was always gentle and tender and very good to her. Yet who knows what my brother thinks in truth, for he is capable of great reserve and silence. And today … I can’t believe he means you any cruelty, Ondine. He is merely furious because he was so frightened for you, and because he cannot discover who was behind it all.” He hesitated a minute, not wishing to distress her further. “You do know that someone-— some man—had paid those knaves a vast sum for your delivery?”

  Ondine rose suddenly. “Anne!”

  “Anne?” Justin frowned. “Ondine, I saw her myself, wretched and shaken by the snake that almost took her!”

  She shook her head furiously. “Justin, I heard her! I heard her telling Hardgrave something about a vial from the king’s laboratory. They stole the drug used upon me! She feigned the attack so that none would notice my disappearance; Hardgrave was then the man who would have had me downriver!”

  Justin stared at her strangely, then shook his head and touched her cheek with tender affection. “I don’t doubt that Lyle Hardgrave would pay a pretty sum just to touch you with one finger, my sweet beauty! But Hardgrave rode with us and fought bravely.”

  “A sham!”

  “Perhaps,” Justin murmured, “but think on this. His lust for you has naught to do with murder. Ondine, Hardgrave wants you alive and healthy and—well—you know, lovable!”

  Ondine sank back into her chair, for Justin was right. A kidnapping on behalf of sexual appetites did not lend itself to an association with a ghost that haunted from the tomb!

  Just then the door slammed. She stared, feeling as if a cold wind had swept in to haunt her.

  It was Warwick. Cloaked and plumed, he seemed immense in the doorway, implacable, unapproachable.

  There was silence in the room as he pulled off his gloves, staring coldly at the two of them. At last he said harshly, “Justin, leave us. I want a word with my wife.”

  Justin looked as if he might argue, but not even he had ever seen Warwick so rigidly cold, tense, and without the least sense of emotion or mercy.

  Justin turned and took her hand, kissed it, and offered her a troubled smile. “I’m near if you need me.”

  “Brother, I have yet to beat a wife,” Warwick said narrowly.

  “Yes …” Justin murmured. He stared at Warwick. “Perhaps you will ‘yet’ do many things. I swear, I understand you not—■”

  “Justin!”

  “Stop!” Ondine cried, on her feet. “Justin”—she lifted her chin defiantly, staring at Warwick— “it eases me not to have the two of you at odds. I have no fear of this particular beast, although I do think him near mad to change his moods like the wind. Please, go, and bear no rancor for one another.”

  Justin glared at his brother; Warwick ignored him, waiting for him to leave.

  He left the room, and Ondine continued to stare at Warwick, her head high, but her heart riddled with confusion and despair. What had she done? She was the injured party!

  He walked into the room, tossing his gloves upon a chair, warming his hands before the fire.

  “We leave here tomorrow.”

  “That makes wonderful sense; we have just come.”

  He turned, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed her.

  “You, madam, are trouble. I—”

  “I am trouble?” She repeated the words, astounded that he could use them. “You brought me into this insanity—and I am trouble?”

  “Aye, madam, you are trouble—and useless. I attempt to delve into an intrigue that I must, for all honor and duty to those beyond the grave, solve. Yet with your face and form, you attract all manner of being! We are returning to North Lambria—”

  She broke in with laughter that neared hysteria. “From where we have just departed!”

  “You will not be staying. I have booked passage for you on the Lady Crystabel out of Liverpool. You will go to Virginia as Mrs. Diana Brown. I’ve arranged for a house in Williamsburg, the hiring of servants, and a solicitor to see to your financial needs. You will remain there—a widow in mourning—for the period of a year, in which time I will arrange for a divorce. At that point you will be free to live where and how you choose, with an income for life.”

  Charles had warned her; she could not believe this—not this icy cruelty, this total lack of concern other than for financial insurance. How had she ever fallen in love with such a man? The stone of Westminster provided greater warmth!

  For several seconds she could not speak, so stunned and chilled had she become. What manner of man was he, fire and ice, to love her so passionately, disdain her so heedlessly? She dared not speak, or move; she would shatter, she would break. What had come of all the love they had shared?

  At last she turned her back to him and managed to speak.

  “You are mad, Warwick Chatham! Completely. You hire a bride to catch a murderer; the murderer comes close and you cast her away. I know what happened this day, and it was no fault of mine. And as to passage to the Colon
ies, I thank you very much. I’m sure that Williamsburg is most intriguing, but I’ll not go. Nor do I need your income. We part ways here, milord.”

  He exploded with a furious, impatient sound. “You will do as I say! And what is this of which you speak? What happened today?”

  She spun back around, chin lifted regally, her eyes as frigid as his. “Your mistress, Lord of Chatham. I heard her speak of a vial stolen from the king’s laboratory. That loathsome vapor that so stole my consciousness! ‘Tis obvious, sir. She and Lord Hardgrave plotted and planned this mischief.”

  He shrugged at her words, as if they had little meaning, and she could not begin to fathom his lack of interest. “The lady Anne was assaulted. She is still most distressed. Hardgrave rode with us at the front of the fray.”

  “I tell you—”

  “And I tell you, madam, what you might have heard means nothing. Nothing at all, for there is no way to prove it. The only man who had connection with the scoundrel who paid for your flesh was killed in the fighting. I cannot go before the king with accusations and no substance. And if what you say is true, I counter again with the fact that you are trouble, and the sooner you are out of my life, the greater pleasure I shall have with it!”

  “Well, then, sir, you may consider me out of your life this night!” she gasped. She had to leave him; she had to go! She would double over with awful, wrenching pain. Even now tears shimmered in her eyes, and she thought that she would wail and scream.

  She had known… she had always known he intended this! But time and the recent magic of their night here had come to delude her into a fantasy in which life and heart and soul and mind were bliss.

  Life! Her own life! What was she thinking? Dreams of love were illusory; she must be as hard as he, as sharp, as cunning, as negligently determined. She could not leave England—she had to escape him now, for the situation had become desperate. How could she ever hope to clear her father’s name and reclaim her estates from those who had caused his murder if she was far across the ocean?

  Her mind would not clear; all she knew was pain, the death of magic and belief and glorious illusion.

  “You are not going anywhere this night,” he snapped harshly. “And you will do as I say.”