Chapter 4
Flowering plants lined the walls, tall palms in pots waved over the golden marble floor. It was the strangest place of worship Rax had ever seen. He perched on his seat in the middle of a row of Felmonts feeling like a one-winged sparrow amid a flock of hungry crows.
The windows went floor to ceiling in a manner more suited to a conservatory than a chapel. Rax stared at the large fountain in the center. It seemed an oddity but at least it had a religious theme, if the water trickling over the half-naked angels was anything to judge by. He forced his gaze away from their moist caresses.
The viscount swayed away from the bride like a man on his last legs. Rax watched Dace’s masterful display of weakness with an envious eye, not that it fooled him. He simply appreciated the skill involved and wished he had it. Poor Miss Tempest grasped the bridegroom by his coat in yet another attempt to keep him by her side.
For a moment it had been touch and go. Miss Tempest seemed to have lost her courage, judging from the expression on her face when she entered the ballroom on Dace’s arm. A condemned criminal facing imminent execution could not have looked any more reluctant. Only Dace’s show of weakness had calmed her.
Rax glanced around with apprehension. The masked lady seated behind him was in hot pursuit of someone. He sincerely hoped she did not breathe so noisily on his behalf.
The bride, distracted by Dace’s antics, managed to recite her vows while she concentrated on not letting him topple off the dais. They were perilously close to the edge.
Lizzie felt a strange calmness descend on her as if she watched herself from a distance. She was immune to bad odors after years in the sickroom. The smell of the vicar’s rotting teeth, which had sent her bridegroom reeling backwards, did not affect her at all. How on earth had the viscount served in Wellington’s army?
A mere unpleasant odor could not remove the expression of calm dignity from her face. The dreadful faintness had passed. She had decided it was best not to think of Felmont as the Beast, lest it slip out of her mouth by accident. Calm dignity worked best with Felmonts, and name calling was very undignified.
He murmured some words under his breath, forcing her to raise her voice to drown him out. Her vows to love, to honor and to obey him cost her nothing to say, for she had no intention of keeping them.
The vicar’s invitation for the Beast to recite his vows drew only silence. Had he changed his mind? Lizzie looked up at him hopefully. He stared at her as if he had just noticed she was there and was not happy at the discovery.
She let go of his coat. He could fall off the dais for all she cared. His left hand came up to curve around the back of her neck to hold her close to him. It shocked her. Her heart missed a beat.
“Listen to the words, dearest Lizzie. I say them for you because you bargained so delightfully. Look at me.” He waited for her to look up into his eyes.
The Beast began his recitation. All the while, he stroked the nape of her neck in an unsettling caress.
Lizzie paid no heed to his words until the dreadful, “And with my body I thee worship.”
There were a few titters of laughter from the family. The cold shakes started in her legs. They moved upwards at an alarming rate. Only the Beast’s distracting hand kept her from fainting at his feet.
Bertram Felmont’s voice rose above the others. His remark about a sacrificial lamb being restrained for slaughter was offensive enough to earn a glare from the vicar. That rebuke did not stop the rest of the Felmonts from bestowing praise with their laughter.
Uncle Tempest, the elder of her two uncles, also the most choleric, rose to the bait. His threats to never invite the family again did nothing but encourage Bertram Felmont. A small private income made him independent of the Tempest fortune.
Lizzie felt sick, her skin grew clammy. She could not marry the Beast, but he did nothing except pull her closer and closer towards him. The walls began to tilt away from her.
The vicar’s voice rose nervously, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
It was too late to protest.
“Kiss her! Kiss her!” echoed through the chapel. What a pity they had not married in a church, where the thought could not have been voiced.
Cool lips fastened on hers—she felt as though she were suffocating. Lizzie opened her mouth slightly to take a breath. The Beast moved his lips to follow hers, letting her breathe inside the kiss. The scent of him surrounded her. Not unpleasant, when compared to the vicar’s.
This was the only kiss he was ever going to get, unless he wanted to kiss at midnight. Lizzie doubted very much if kissing were part of those awful duties she had agreed to in the library.
Both his arms went around her. The kiss ended. She rested her forehead on his chest for lack of a better place to recover from her dizziness, though she was careful to keep the rest of body her away from him.
He whispered close to her ear, “Remember, Lizzie, from now on you are my loving wife or our pact is broken. Be careful or you will find yourself mine to do with as I please, whenever I please. Pretend you care for me, my own dearest wife.”
Drat the man! She had not thought of the consequences of her breaking the pact.
No answer came to mind, though anger roiled through her. It made her feel better. Stronger. She raised her head to glare at him only to find his lips claiming hers once more.
Cool and still.
Lizzie had seen the distasteful sight of her mother and stepfather kissing. It had been nothing like this. He did not bite at her lips, neither did he make sucking noises. He moved not at all. He did not force her towards him, only the warmth from his hands coaxed tingles to rise up her spine until she shuddered away from him.
A cheer began, rising till it rang from the gothic stone ceiling as the viscount’s friends gave voice to their happiness. Easy for them to celebrate! It was not their necks in the noose of matrimony. It was hers.
Cries of, “Lady Felmont,” rang from the great hall as the servants cheered the news that she was safely wed and now belonged to them.
Even the family deigned to smile, looking pleased as cats with a mouse secured by claw and fang.
Lizzie Tempest Ruins A Viscount (Felmont Brides Series Book 1) Page 4