Ondine by Heather Graham, Shannon Drake Read Free Book Online

him for more than a brief respite, an interlude of lusty entertainment?
    She didn’t believe so. Not if ice hovered about his heart the way it did his eyes.
    Ondine stiffened, hearing Meg’s voice as the door to the chamber opened. “Hurry now, lads; the tub center, and fill it quickly. There’s business aplenty downstairs, and if you’d earn your meals, you’d move quick!”
    There were “Aye, Megs!” respectfully given, and the sounds of shuffling feet and spilling water. Then there was silence again after the door closed softly.
    “My lady, ‘tis only me here now. Come while the water’s hot and the steam’s arising!”
    Ondine didn’t want to walk before Meg. She felt terribly thin and horribly vulnerable.
    “I’d prefer privacy,” she murmured. As the wife of Lord Chatham, she reflected dryly, she could surely issue a firm command that would, by right, be instantly obeyed. But she was supposed to be a common waif, unaccustomed to the firm voice of assumption. Nor would she demand things of Meg under any circumstance, as the woman seemed to have a heart the size of the moon.
    Meg chuckled softly. “Ah, my girl, come, now! ‘Tis only me, Meg, and I raised a household of young ladies, I did. I’ve a mind to set into that tangled mop of hair upon your head, and come away assured that the vermin are clean of it!”
    Ondine hesitated only a second, thinking of how lovely it would be to have someone thoroughly clean her hair.
    She sprinted quickly from the sereen to the tub, yelping slightly as her tender flesh hit the heat of the water.
    “It must be hot!” Meg commiserated cheerfully. “Now, here’s a cloth and two squares of the soap. The first will near take the skin from you, I must warn, yet it will leave you clean as a new-washed babe. Now, the second … ah, it was a special purchase when my man did travel to Paris! It has a scent of roses that lingers long and sweetly—just what you might crave now, I dare say!”
    “Thank you,” Ondine murmured. She accepted the soaps, watching Meg’s pleasant and homely features as she did so. “You’re very kind.”
    “Kind, oh, no, dear.” She sighed softly. “I’ve a longing for young people, ‘tis all. My girls are all wives now, with broods of their own. Oh, and I do love to have the babes …”
    Meg chatted on. Ondine began to furiously scrub her skin. Meg had been quite right, she discovered quickly. The soap stung at first—she felt as if it peeled away a layer of her flesh. But it felt wonderful.
    “Now, if I get me hands into that mop—” Meg poured a bucket of water onto Ondine’s head. Even that felt wonderful, but not so good as the movement of Meg’s fingers, scrubbing away at her scalp. “Ah, thank the Lord for this fine soap, for without it, we might’ve had to snip the length of this. And what a glory it is, dear child. As thick and long as a pelt of fur! Now duck!”
    She shoved Ondine’s head into the water and vigorously worked her fingers through the young girl’s scalp once again. Ondine came up sputtering. Meg stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest and surveying her efforts with pleasure. “Ah, but you’re a beautiful child! So thin, so—but no matter! You’ve breasts aplenty, even if your hips and ribs could use a pound or two of flesh!”
    Ondine felt a heated flush flame throughout her body, yet she could take no offense at Meg’s words; they were spoken so good-naturedly. She smiled, leaning her head back against the tub and relishing the feeling of being clean—and carrying that subtle scent of roses Meg had described. There was only one thing she thought to combat in the matron’s words, and that she did a little wistfully, a little wearily.
    “I’m not a child.”
    Yet how she longed to be one again! With her eyes closed and the steam misting around her, she could see the past all too clearly. A time when she had believed in the goodness of men; when treachery and death, poverty and deceit, had