“It’s sweet of you to say that.” Ondine knew if she’d had the time again, she still wouldn’t have listened to sense because she’d been so smitten with the handsome lord. Someone had paid her attention and she’d ignored the warning signs. “And there I was thinking it was all because you were jealous.”
Hamish gave her another comforting smile. “Aye, I was jealous. How could I compete with the son of a Duke?”
You were competing with the son of a Duke? For me? The thought cheered Ondine immensely until she directed her thoughts back to the problem at hand.
“And now that son-of-a-Duke has stolen my keys. We’ll have to get new locks in the morning. Da will be furious,” Ondine said.
“Unless he breaks in tonight.”
“Oh dear.” Ondine made for the door. “Grumpy or not, I’d better get Da.”
“No, wait. I have a better idea.” A warm hand landed on Ondine’s shoulder, sending more whirly things through her system. “If Lord Vincent’s planning on making a return tonight, let’s give him a welcome to remember.”
He gave her a grin hot enough to melt her slippers.
“ALL SET?” HAMISH ASKED as they huddled in their hiding place, in the darkened dining room.
“I think so,” Ondine said, trying – and failing – to stop her hands from shaking as she oh-so-carefully laid a single strand of fake pearls across the top of the jewellery box. “You’re sure this will work?”
“Nope, nawt at all. He may nae even come tonight, and tomorrow we’ll change the locks so after that we won’t have to worry. But he’d be a fool if he didn’t send someone over before he thinks you’ve noticed the keys are gone. Ach, this coat is too tight.”
When Ondine turned, she saw Hamish pulling the coat off with a fair amount of force, giving her a magnificent display of his lean chest and arms. If her hands were shaking before, they were full-on trembling now.
Thank goodness it was dark, he wouldn’t see how much she was staring at him. The one saving grace in all this was the complete lack of searing heat up her neck. She’d finally stopped blushing. Although in the darkness he wouldn’t have noticed. Stupid hormones. What was the point of not blushing if nobody was around to witness it?
The shard of moonlight through the window exposed his marvellous bare chest only an arm’s length away, sapping her concentration.
“I’ll make some coffee, to help us stay awake,” she offered. Partly to help them out, but mostly so she could clear her head for a moment and get away from him, to catch her breath. Drinking the coffee was not an option – she felt jittery enough thank you very much.
Suddenly she heard a noise.
“Hawd yer wheesht.” Hamish’s strong hand grabbed her arm and pulled her down to the floor, where they hid behind an upturned table.[72]
No translation needed for Ondine. She clamped her mouth shut and breathed as silently as she could manage, while the close contact with that male flesh made her pulse hammer in her ears. It made so much noise she was sure Hamish – or their intruder – could hear it.
In the many books that Ondine had read, she’d often come across descriptions of men. They could be brutal or whiny, fat or scrawny, nervous or domineering, have funny gaps between their teeth or nervous tics. But nothing had prepared her for the reality of being this close to . . . the real thing. The real flesh and blood, the very masculine scent of him invading her senses, how he could be so naughty and charming and then so confident all at once. A girl could easily lose her head. Just as Old Col must have.
And then he’d let Old Col down in a very public way, embarrassing her in front of her friends. How could one person be so much fun, but such a liability?
In silence, they heard a key turn in the lock. The front door made a soft shudder as it came away from the jamb. Footsteps padded on the new carpet. From their hidden position behind the table, they watched the legs move about. At first they walked over to the fireplace, checking inside it and among the ashes, then over to the piano, where they heard the lid lift up and close down with a soft “tunk”. Ondine thought they’d put the jewellery box in a really obvious place, but it still took an agonisingly long time for the intruder to get anywhere near the goodies. Come on, come on, Ondine prayed silently. At that moment Hamish’s warm hand pressed over hers in unspoken support, as if he’d heard her. She looked at his face. He held his index finger over his lips to indicate their need for absolute quiet.
The pulse coursing through her system had other ideas as it banged away in her ears.
In the silence, something made a horrible – and loud – snap.
“AARRRRGGGHH!” the thief cried out. He pulled his hand from the jewel box and shook it all around, their pre-set rattrap clamped over his fingers.
Hamish pushed the table back and they came out of hiding. All the while the thief kept screaming in agony, in between torrents of swearing.
In a blur of movement, Hamish grabbed him by the collar, forced the man to the ground and sat on him.
“Ye right there?” Then he grabbed a bottle of blue food dye out of his pocket and squirted it over the man’s head and down the neck of his shirt, staining his skin good and proper. Ondine grabbed the thief’s free hand (the one not turning red from the rat trap) and held it steady, so Hamish could douse that with more food dye.
Hamish cried out with victory, “Ha ha! Caught red-handed, or blue-handed in this case.”
“Need a hand?” Ondine asked, as she turned the restaurant lights on to reveal the identity of their thief.
Ondine’s father, with his stubbly face and messy, sticky-up hair, chose that moment to stagger into the restaurant. “Oh dear heavens,” he blurted as he took in the scene.
It couldn’t have looked good. In fact, it was any wonder the old man’s heart didn’t give out on the spot. His daughter wearing pyjamas, a man who used to be a ferret wearing nothing more than a bed sheet around his middle, and the son-of-a-Duke lying screaming on the floor, with a blue face and his hand caught up to the knuckles in a rat trap.
“We caught him in the act, Da, he was trying to break in and steal all that money we found. So me and Hamish set this trap and –”
“Hamish and I,” Josef corrected.
“He stole my keys earlier tonight, so Hamish and I were waiting for him. We thought he’d send a lackey but he was stupid enough to come himself.”
It would have been a heavy silence passing between them if not for the whimpering Vincent on the ground trying to budge the rattrap off his hand.
Josef looked down at him. “I’m calling your father,” he said.
Several furtive looks passed between Ondine and Da, as well as Hamish and Da, and then back to Vincent.
“Get the old man in then, and let’s get this over with,” Vincent said, blowing air on his swollen knuckles. They looked red and cracked. For a moment – but only a moment – Ondine felt sorry for him as she removed the metal trap from his joints. Would his hand recover?
“Sit tight, Hamish,” Da said as he turned to leave the room. “I’ll call the Duke.”
Da has his number? Interesting.
When Ondine turned back to look at Vincent, she could have sworn she saw a smile playing over his face.
Strange that he should smile when the shock of the events might give his old man a heart attack.
“Mercury’s wings!” All the pieces fell into place. “You wanted to get caught so the trauma would give the Duke a heart attack. You can’t wait for him to show up and die of shame. You were there that night when we came to warn the Duke about the attack at the station. You were there at the station, and you knew what was coming because you organised the whole thing. How dare you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Good luck trying to prove it,” Vincent said, sounding more confident than he had any right to, considering the circumstances.
“You’re forgetting one thing. I’m a witch,” Ondine said, overcome with a fresh bout of shakes at how daring she sounded.
“I’m from a long line of witches and I can read your thoughts. You want your father dead so you can inherit. Right now you’d pretty much like me dead as well but that’s beside the point.”
A snarl grew on Vincent’s face. “Nice try. As soon as my father turns up with his lawyers I’m out of here.”
“He’s on his way,” Da said.
And now Ma, Old Col, Melody, Mrs Howser, Cybelle, Chef, Thomas and Marguerite all appeared in the dining room, in various stages of wakefulness. For the first time in Ondine’s memory, Marguerite’s hair looked messy.
Another thought raced through her head: since when did Chef and Thomas start spending the night in the hotel?
“Hamish!” Ma, Mrs Howser and Old Col said together.
“Evening, ladies,” Hamish said back, still sitting on the disgruntled Lord Vincent.
Everyone looked at Vincent and then back to Hamish, then they all started asking questions at once.
“What’s going on?” Margi asked.
“What’s he doing here?” Cybelle asked.
“When did Hamish come back?” Ma asked.
“Is that Ondine’s bed sheet?” Old Col asked.
“Oh, he’s gorgeous!” Melody said.
It took a while to explain everything. Ondine felt grateful when the Duke finally turned up and they’d be able to bring the crazy evening to an end.
Then things got ugly.
Chapter Seventeen
Who broke the silence first? Vincent, of course. “Father, thank God you’re here. They’ve kidnapped me and are holding me for ransom,” he said. “They’re all in on it – they planned the attack on you at the railway station too. Look what they’ve done to me! Charge them with treason.”
It took all of Hamish’s strength to hold Vincent down on the floor.
“That’s complete rot. He stole my keys earlier tonight so he could break in and burgle us,” Ondine said in their defence.[73]
“Don’t listen to them, they’d say anything,” Vincent countered. “Ring the police!”
Sickness threatened to overwhelm Ondine. Who would the Duke believe? Or should that be whom?
Ack! This is no time to worry about grammar.
“Shut up, prat!” Da thundered, then he turned to the Duke and modulated his voice. “I apologise for being the bearer of bad news once again, Your Grace. It is hard to believe your flesh and blood can be anything less than perfect. However, Vincent was attempting to steal our takings from tonight. From what I understand, he may well have been attempting to steal the virtue of my youngest daughter as well.”
Embarrassment pinged through Ondine. Now everyone would know.
For a moment the Duke looked at Vincent with concern on his face, and Ondine felt something twist in her gut.
“If I may make a suggestion,” Hamish said, still sitting on top of their would-be burglar. “We’re all in our pyjamas, and he’s come dressed to steal.”
Brilliant! Ondine beamed a smile at Hamish. He beamed one right back at her, making her insides feel all funny. She felt embarrassed at the intensity of his smile, but Hamish had just saved their collective skins. She had every right to beam with pride at how clever and quick he’d been.
“And if we wanted to kidnap your son, we’d have stayed anonymous. So why would we call you here?” Ondine added.
Hamish beamed at her again and she liked it.
The Duke looked mightily annoyed as he glared at his wayward son. “I warned you, you stupid boy. I’ve signed the papers for Fort Kluff. You’re shipping off tomorrow.”[74]
Veins bubbling with happiness, Ondine grinned at Hamish while little things fluttered and flip-flopped inside her tummy.
“Ondine,” the Duke began, “lately it seems, whenever there’s trouble in my life, you’re there to stop it. Your information saved my life at the station and now you’ve saved my family’s reputation. I don’t think we could have survived the scandal if this had gone public. Thank you.”
She beamed with happiness and curtsied, then realised the unsaid “between the lines” kind of implication – everything that happened here tonight must be kept private.
The Duke continued. “Mr and Mrs de Groot, I apologise for the grief I caused your family in sending the health inspector. That was Vincent’s idea and I should have checked things out for myself before acting. Two of my best advisors have retired in the last year and I find myself lacking . . . information . . . from people I can trust.”
Then he looked at Ondine and a puzzled expression flashed across his face. “How old are you, Ondine, really?”
“Your Grace, I’m fifteen.”
“Good. I appreciate your honesty. Now, where is that ferret I saw you with?”
Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. He’d remembered that? Perhaps the hotel’s new name had jogged his memory?
“Aye, that would be me,” Hamish said.
Now it was the Duke’s turn to lose his eyebrows into his greying hair.
Squashed beneath Hamish, Vincent let out a groan of misery.
“I got yer son a good one earlier tonight,” Hamish said. “On the leg.”
Time slowed down for a moment as the Duke digested the information. A pang of sympathy in Ondine felt completely appropriate. After all, a man wearing a bed sheet, with a foreign accent, had just claimed to be a ferret.
The Duke’s mouth opened and closed a few times. Perhaps he needed to unlock his jaw so his ears could open more?
To add to the general confusion, some of the hotel’s paying guests, wearing dressing gowns and sleeping caps, turned up to check out what was going on.
“Nothing to worry about,” said Da. “We’ll provide complimentary breakfast to compensate for your disturbed sleep.” He encouraged the rest of his children and soon-to-be in-laws back to their respective rooms, and told Melody and Mrs Howser, “It’s all under control.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Ondine saw her mother lingering in the kitchen, listening in on the conversation.
The Duke’s eyes twitched as he looked over Hamish. “You say you are the ferret? In that case, change into one.”
Gulp went Ondine. What if he can’t? It’s all my fault. I spent so long wishing him to be a real man, maybe he won’t be able to change back. Then the Duke will think we’re liars. And if he thinks we lied about a man being a ferret, he’ll start to think we’ve lied about everything else.
Still sitting on Lord Vincent, Hamish adjusted his toga. “I’ll do what I can.” A look of concentration crossed his face and his eyes rolled back under his eyelids.
It was a tense time for Ondine. As much as she loved seeing Hamish in his human form, if he couldn’t become a ferret again on command, they’d be in a whole world of trouble. Relief washed over her as Hamish groaned and clutched at his stomach. He started to shrink and grow dark. His face – that handsome face – turned furry. It was painful to watch, but Hamish must have been in even more pain.
While everyone stood dumbfounded in wonder, Vincent bucked the suddenly reduced weight off his back and sprang up to make his escape.
“Hold it!” Flinging his arm out, Da leapt forward and clotheslined Vincent, sending him sprawling.
“Khaaak!” Vincent coughed. “That’s assault!”
“I didn’t see anything,” The Duke said with a shrug. He didn’t take his eyes off Hamish as he reverted to his Shambles form. You could tell by the way he stroked his goatee with his pinky and ring finger that he was thinking really, really hard about what he’d just seen.
Panting, Shambles looked up at the Duke, then across to Ondine. The tip of his nose looked pale and he swallowed a lot.
“Well, I’ll be.” The Duke clapped his hands. “I’ve seen some magic in my time, but that’s mighty powerful. How do you do it?”
Shambles the ferret panted on the ground, gathering his strength. “It’s a lawng story.”
The Duke turned to Ondine. “You are too young to serve alcohol. You could not have been working in the b
ar that night. It wasn’t you who overheard the plot against me, was it?”
Twist, lurch, flip went her belly. “You are right, Your Grace, I wasn’t in the bar. It was Hamish . . . I mean, Shambles. That’s what we call him when he’s a ferret. He was under a table and he overheard the whole thing. He was the one who encouraged us to warn you of the plot against your life.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. What an incredibly convenient talent to have!” the Duke said, still shaking his head as he looked at the ferret on the ground.
Ondine didn’t think it was very convenient at all.
“I wouldnae call it that,” Shambles echoed her thoughts as he clutched his stomach.
The Duke stood there. All the while a smile played over his face. “You must tell me, Ondine, how does he do it?”
“It’s a strong enchantment,” Ondine said. “My great-aunt, Colette Romano, cursed him, and only recently he’s been able to rediscover his human form.”
“Hmm, how very interesting,” the Duke said.
Ondine blushed furiously. Mercury’s wings, what an inconvenient time to start blushing again. She managed a squeaky, “Hamish is very glad to be human again.”
“You’d make a good politician.” The Duke winked at her. It had a strange effect in that it should have been friendly, but it creeped her out.
This doesn’t feel right.
“Your great-aunt is the one with the magic?” the Duke asked. “She sounds like she’d make a wonderful ally. Would she be here by any chance?”
Something prickled in Ondine’s conscience. If the Duke had Old Col under his command, how far would he take things? Sure, the old woman had acted in frustration against Hamish, but that was a one-off. At least, Ondine hoped it was a one-off. But what if someone like the Duke ordered her to turn other people into animals? Would her great-aunt be able to refuse?
“Did somebody ask for me?” Old Col appeared at the kitchen doorway, her eyes wide and innocent. Like she just happened to be nearby.
Listening in, more like.
“Your Grace, this is my great-aunt Colette.” Ondine made the introductions.
The Ondine Collection Page 15
