Ondine by Heather Graham, Shannon Drake Read Free Book Online Page A

found no place in her perception. A smile touched her lips. Her mother had died at her birth, but, oh! She could remember her father so well, especially the day of the sixteenth celebration of her birth.
    He had given her a sword—one that was light and easy to handle, emblazoned at the hilt with their family arms. Delighting in it, she had challenged him in the courtyard, lifting her voluminous skirts. He had been vastly pleased with her prowess, yet as they parried she laughed and quizzed him. What did it matter if she could fence!
    “Ah, daughter!” he had told her. “None of us knows how the wind may blow. The day may come when I’ll not be here, guarding over you like an old buzzard. And you’ll be left to fight off a score of suiters by yourself!”
    He had teased her, but his voice had carried an edge of sincerity. She had known she might be vastly wealthy; but it had meant nothing to her. There had been no reason for her father to die.
    “Well, Meg, how goes this challenge I set before you?”
    The voice was deep and pleasant, yet sardonic and amused. Ondine’s eyes flew open with horror just in time to hear the soft click of the door as it closed behind Warwick Chatham.
    Too stunned to form a verbal protest, Ondine drew her knees to her chest and hugged her arms around them. She could not speak, for her throat was choked with outrage. Perhaps he thought himself her husband, but he was no more than a disconcerting stranger, intruding far too intimately. Her back was to him, and she stiffened. She lowered her head, hoping that the soaked cloak of her hair would give her some covering, some defense against her nakedness.
    “Ah, my lord Chatham!” Meg said happily, clapping her hands together in a pleased gesture that purely denoted her acceptance of his presence. After all, Ondine realized bitterly, from Meg’s point of view the great lord Chatham was Ondine’s husband. He had done her a great honor by making her, a pathetic waif, his wife.
    Ondine squeezed her eyes shut tightly. It was the truth. This man had saved her from death.
    Yet it was truth, too, that he was a stranger, alarmingly virile, totally masculine. If she had met him but a year ago, she might have been intrigued. She would have had every advantage, and he would have owed her the chivalrous, romantic code of Charles’s court. She might have wondered about him, shivered deliciously and speculated from the safety of her own world.
    She had not met him a year ago. She was vulnerable, at his mercy. And just as he compelled, he filled her soul with fear. And somehow he managed to play upon every ounce of her pride. She longed to pitch into battle with him and then run, as far away as she could possibly go.
    Something fell upon the floor. She heard his footsteps, light for a man so tall and sinewed.
    She heard his voice, and it caused her to tremble to the depths of her soul, to feel a force like fire rippling along her spine.
    “Let me see what we’ve got…”
    His thumb and knuckle curved around her chin, firmly demanding that she raise her chin. She had no option but to do so. Her flesh was alive with the fire that touched her, and her temper fed upon her humiliation.
    “Shall I suffice?” she snapped crisply.
    A tawny brow arched against his forehead, a crooked grin tugged at his lip, but his eyes were gold blades as he raked over her features. She had both amused him and irritated him. Her flash of temper might be entertaining, but it was hardly proper when Meg stood by as audience.
    Warwick did not reply. He tilted her chin to the left and studied her face as he might the wheels of a carriage. Silently, loathfully, she returned his stare, her teeth clenched tightly together.
    He tilted her chin in the other direction. Perhaps she should have been gratified that he gave no notice to her locked and contorted body. But she could not be so pleased, for his cold scrutiny left her feeling ever more stripped and naked—to the soul.
    With all