Chapter 9
The clock on the mantle chimed the half hour before midnight, when Lizzie heard the viscount enter his bedroom. She reminded herself not to call him the Beast. Name calling was not worthy of her, and soon she’d be on the best of terms with the new Lord Felmont. If he wanted her to be godmother to his children, she’d even agree.
Lizzie could hear him splashing and humming through the adjoining wall when she went to her own dressing room to change out of her nightdress into a day dress. She just could not face him undressed. She pulled on her longest pair of gloves.
If only Gladys was back from Bath. Lizzie had sent for her people but had no hope of them returning for a few days yet. All her precious things were being packed once more to be carted back to the Folly. With any luck she’d arrive in Bath before they left.
She giggled at the thought. Even Dacey Felmont in the adjoining bedroom could not dampen her spirits.
Lizzie heard him give a low rumble of dismissal to his valet, who had arrived from London, bringing the rest of the viscount’s clothes.
The clock struck quarter to the hour. Lizzie took a calming breath. She unlocked the adjoining door and tapped on it.
Felmont called, “Come in, Lizzie.”
She opened the door.
Suddenly he loomed in front of her, clad in a dark green robe with white nightshirt underneath. Her body reacted to his presence with a sudden hum of warmth, as if it had missed him, while her mind rejoiced in the thought of being rid of him, of being safe from his Felmont lust forever. She smiled at him. She was going to make him very happy, perhaps even as deliriously happy as she’d been since the idea had occurred to her.
He smiled back, puzzled, quirking the corners of his mouth in a way which made him look not quite as saturnine as before.
Lizzie moved backwards as he walked towards her. The faint scent of soap from the Priory drifted into her bedroom with him. She led him towards the hearth and the tea table, glad to have something between them.
“Dearest Lizzie, you are before the hour. How kind you are not to keep me waiting. But why aren’t you ready for bed? Perhaps you require my assistance?” He raised an eyebrow at her day dress.
“Would you care for some tea, Felmont?” Lizzie invited him to sit beside the small table, set with cups and teapot, in front of the fire. Even in July a fire was welcome at night in the cavernous rooms of Felmont’s Folly. “You did require me to invite you to take tea with me.”
His agreed warily, as if expecting to be poisoned.
“There is something I must tell you, Felmont.” She poured the tea and couldn’t stop a gurgle of laughter from escaping.
He smiled at her with a query on his brow.
Her heart beat merrily as it had all day since she’d realized how to solve the problem of their marriage to both their satisfaction. “I have decided to leave you,” she said.
He gave her the Felmont stare before sighing like a bad actor in a melodrama. He was going to be difficult.
Lizzie hurried on. If she could just explain it to him, he’d be as thrilled as she was. “You have witnesses enough to our marriage ... to your consummation of the marriage, so my uncles cannot deprive you of the Priory. By leaving you, I take the blame and you may sue for divorce on the grounds of my desertion.”
“Coward,” he said in a gentle cajoling voice. “We can only hope our children get my courage and your nose, dearest wife.”
“Think for a moment,” she pleaded. “You need never see me again. That has to please you, I know I disgust you. Surely you aren’t worried about money? I’d continue to pay your bills.”
“We are married, dear heart and must learn to make the best of it. Truly you are safer with me than you know.”
“You never wanted to marry me. Be reasonable. Please, I beg you. Just think, Dace, you’d be free to marry for love, just as you wanted.” She cast a nervous glance at the clock. Twelve minutes to midnight.
“I am honored you called me Dace. Does that mean you think of me as your friend, dearest Lizzie? I am truly honored and want nothing more than to be your friend.” Was he mocking her by pretending he was pleased by her mistake? If she didn’t know him better, she’d think he meant what he said.
“I am leaving you so you can be free! Why aren’t you pleased that I shall take the blame for ending our marriage? Do you feel a need to torment me for the rest of my life?” She should not have said that. “I apologize, Felmont, I know very well that you will be delighted when you are free to marry as you please.”
He sipped his tea. His eyes glittered over the rim of the cup, but he answered in a conversational tone. “I gave you your freedom when I broke our engagement six years ago. Yesterday, I tried to get you away from your uncles to give you a chance to escape. It’s too late for a third attempt.” He replaced the cup in the saucer. “We are married, dearest Lizzie, because you chose to act as if we were engaged.”
Lizzie shrugged away her guilt. “Pretending to be engaged to you kept most of the fortune hunters away. It allowed me to live here after my mother died, though Bertram Felmont’s son tried to persuade me to marry him by forcing himself upon me. If I’d not had the dogs with me, he’d have succeeded.”
“And you had Con locked up in debtor’s prison. Good for you, Lizzie, let’s hope he sobers up there. I shall teach him better manners when he is released.”
Lizzie seethed inside. Why wouldn’t he take the freedom she offered? “You blame me for our marriage, so why can’t you thank me for ending it?”
“You cannot end it, neither can I,” he said gently. “I don’t blame you, Lizzie, I understand why you didn’t tell your uncles that we were no longer engaged to be married. Come, my dear, let’s not argue. It’s almost midnight.”
He put down his cup and saucer with great precision. The table, pushed by his hand, moved slowly back from the hearth till her cup sat far out of reach, leaving only a few feet of carpet between her knees and his.
Lizzie hunched her shoulders when the Beast rose to walk past her to her bed. She turned in her chair to see him take her doll from the pillow.
“Lizzie, you still have Titania?”
Lizzie rose from her chair. “Put her down.”
“Or what? You’ll tell your mother and have me flogged again?” He strolled back to the hearth with the doll held in the crook of his arm.
“You deserved it! You removed one of her eyes.” She moved to stand behind her chair. She did not intend to back down. The doll had been a gift from her father. One of the few things she had managed to hide from her mother’s wave of destruction after he died.
He cradled Titania against his chest. “Her eye was an unfortunate accident.”
“Just like the lake was an accident?”
“Nonsense, Lizzie, I threw you in on purpose. Thought we were not going to speak of that again. After last night, we are even about the lake.” He stroked the doll’s back with a soothing rhythm, his voice as gentle as his action.
Lizzie tried again to reason with him. “Friendship, companionship, mutual esteem, those things which make marriage bearable, are impossible for us. Please let me go. Find another more suited to your taste.”
“Sit down, Lizzie.” He studied the clock on the mantle. As if to encourage her to obey him, he sat in his chair with her doll perched on his knee.
Lizzie slid into her chair.
He examined the doll’s eyes. “I am very glad you managed to have her fixed, Lizzie. It was not me who removed her eye. The guilty party must remain nameless. I only took your doll to show the little Thwaites. They had never seen a doll with such lifelike eyes and perhaps they were not as careful as they should have been. I did eventually find it and return it to you.”
“You left her eye on my pillow!”
His look of aggrieved innocence fought with his warning frown as midnight struck.
To her great relief, he ignored the chimes.
“I left it there so you could find it. Didn’t leave it on you
r dressing table, it was too cluttered. Did I get any thanks for returning it?” He placed the doll high on his chest and rubbed its back. “Got flogged for it, Lizzie, paid my debt. Do not mention it again.”
“Give her back, at once! I wish I had something to threaten you with.” The look of sadness on his face froze her tongue in her mouth.
“You are too late, Lizzie. Forgive me. I consummated our marriage last night while you were drugged with laudanum.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Did I err, my love? Did you truly expect to be able to leave after I had put on the shackles of matrimony for you?”
Lizzie could not take her gaze from his face. The Beast had consummated the marriage! He’d wanted her unconscious to do it. She didn’t know if she felt relieved or insulted at his preference! It was so ridiculous that she almost laughed. Her body recognized his, she felt its interest in him, and his confession did explain the warmth she felt.
“Let me go, Felmont,” she said kindly. “Please, let me live free of your presence. It would make us both have happier lives.”
“But you might already be with child. My child, Lizzie. How can I let you go?”
It was a gently worded death knell to all her hopes of freedom.
“Why should you care about children? What has any Felmont ever cared? You are tormenting me out of selfish spite, which is the only reason any Felmont bestirs himself to do anything!” Lizzie lashed out with words, wishing she dared strike him, but fearing his violence. With a gasp, she realized she might already be diseased.
Lizzie shuddered in her chair at the thought. She wanted to stand, but her legs could no longer support her. With a sob, she wished dear dependable James was there to keep the madman at bay.
He gave a weary, exasperated sigh. “Lizzie, I have told you several times that a family of my own is my dearest wish. No bastards shall spring from my loins, by your command. By your pleading, you persuaded me to marry you. I submit to all your rules and now, dearest Lizzie, you submit to me. Midnight has struck.”
He rose, towering over her, the doll clutched in his hand. “Come with me, Lizzie.”
“I cannot do it!”
The air simmered around him as he loomed over her.
“I shall never be your friend.” She choked back a sob.
The Beast meant to ravish her and there was nothing she could do to stop him. Fear made her lose the ability to understand his words. He rumbled on unaware that all she could see and hear inside her head were Felmont urges being sated on her body. The thought that she might respond to his lust terrified her more than the thought of any pain.
The room began to tilt. Lizzie took a deep breath, then another.
He sat down opposite her to pat the doll and talk on and on, with her not understanding a word.
The clock struck quarter past midnight.
She recovered enough to wipe the tears from her cheeks and to watch him.
The Beast took from his pocket a large white handkerchief to fold into a complicated arrangement. In a few deft movements he gave the doll a nether cover such as babies wore. What was he doing? She forced herself to listen to him rattle on.
“My foster mother raised me to be useful. This is only one of my skills. Some of them were of use when I....” He looked up and Lizzie saw him close his lips deliberately when he recognized she had regained her wits.
With a weary sigh of relief, he raised the doll to his shoulder. “Lizzie, there is no need for hysterics. I beg you, do not make my bed a battleground. There is no need at all for you to fear me. Think, dear wife, what would I gain by giving you a dislike of the act? You think you have nothing to threaten me with, but you will bear my children. The family I want so badly must be got through you. I swear, I will give you no reason to run from me, Lizzie, or to dislike our hours together.”
The Beast stood and stared down at her, his hand stroking Titania’s back. “Perhaps, from the look on your face, that was a poor choice of words. Let me try again,” he drawled in a low voice. “I see no reason to tarry over a task we both want finished. I only worry I may disgrace myself by an inability to do my duty, and so deprive myself of children.” A mournful sigh escaped his lips.
Lizzie shivered when he walked past her to return her doll to the pillow. He returned to kneel behind her chair.
His warm fingers stroked her neck. “Do you know you have a pulse in your throat, which I long to soothe with a kiss?”
She shook her head.
“Not one word more, Lizzie, not unless it is a word of thanks or of appreciation for the great care I am going to take with you.”
“How do I know you truly have no disease, Felmont? Did you bribe the doctor? Don’t touch me.” She pushed his hand away. “Men are disgusting, lustful, loathsome creatures.” He was entirely too close to her. Her body warmed at the feel of his breath on her neck. His closeness sent shivers down her spine.
“Hush, Lizzie, hush. Do you really think I’d expose myself to the disease that has ravaged the family?”
Lizzie turned her head away and lifted her chin defiantly. “If you are going to insist on ... on doing this, then I refuse to talk to you. And do not expect me to participate in any bizarre acts. The sooner you tire of me, the sooner you stray, the better pleased I will be, for your sinning will be my salvation from you.” She hoped he didn’t notice the tremble in her voice.
“Hush, Lizzie, there is nothing to fear.” He stroked the side of her neck.
It was too much, she couldn’t do it. Lizzie rose from her chair. The Beast rose with her to block her escape.
“Give me your hand, Lizzie. Come with me.”
Impossible. Surely he must see how impossible.
“Lizzie, give me your hand. Do you wish me to carry you? I beg to be excused, my shoulder still hurts like the devil. Come with me, Lizzie.”
Slowly, he led her by the hand towards the door to his bedroom. Only her long gloves protected her from his touch.
Her feet dragged over the carpet, she had forgotten how to walk. It seemed to irk him, for he suddenly put his left arm tight about her waist to sweep her away to sin.
His bedroom was colder that hers as the fire had just recently been kindled. The bed had been turned down, a place of dark shadows inside the curtains. The windows were not shuttered, allowing moonlight to streak the floor beneath them with silver. He let go of her to close the door to her bedroom, cutting off any hope of escape.
The key grated.
The sound of her breathing filled the room.
“If you’d worn a nightrail you might have kept it on, dearest Lizzie. You may wear your chemise.” His hands stripped off her day dress while she refused to take another step towards her doom. It fell to circle her feet, leaving her shivering in the cool air.
“Come, step out of it before you catch cold.” He half lifted her with an arm around her waist.
Her lungs hurt, she could feel every breath she took. Her hip hit the side of his bed.
“Please get in, Lizzie. Serenity, my wife.” He enunciated every word in soothing tones as if he spoke to calm his mount. “Everything will be fine. It will all be over in a moment.”
Her legs were swung up as he pushed her to the center of his cold bed.
Lizzie lay with her eyes closed, her fists clenched, her head dizzy. She hated his lust, his Felmont need for debauchery. She’d do nothing he wanted. Not say a word. Not touch, not look. Definitely not look! Had she not seen enough when she had nursed her stepfather?
“Lizzie, I have to ask a great favor of you—it’s about the Folly.” He rustled beside the bed. What was he doing? Was he removing all his clothes? She opened her eyes. What about the Folly?
“What?” The word escaped her only because he spoke about the house, her house. She had earned it last night without knowing it.
“It’s just that I can’t stand the color red. Reminds me of blood and, heaven knows, I have seen enough of that to last me a lifetime.” The mattress sagged at the edg
e with the weight of his body. “Would you mind changing the Chinese dining room?”
Her teeth chattered but she managed to answer him. “Change?”
“Yes. I know, I promised you may do anything you like to the house, but I can’t stand red. Remember, you didn’t like it either, you never liked to dine in there. Change it to any color you like, only not red.”
“Not red,” Lizzie repeated. She moved over when the Beast lay down beside her. He wanted to talk about the house. He had not climbed on top of her, though she knew that came next. Lizzie turned to see his nightshirt gleaming in the darkness next to her.
“Hmm, change it any way that pleases you.” He drew the covers over them. “Warmer like this, isn’t it? I wonder if you’d consider buying new plates? Something English. There is a set at the Priory I always liked. Cream with hedgerow flowers. Don’t know if you ever saw it?”
She unclenched her jaw sufficiently to answer him. “Yes, very pretty. Delft?”
He turned her towards him and stroked her back through her chemise, just as he had stroked her doll. “Can’t remember the maker. Wasn’t it English? I always thought it was Staffordshire or Devonshire or perhaps Wedgewood….”
At last her shivers stopped as the heat from his body warmed her and his list of pottery manufacturers grew longer. He ended with, “Could have been Welsh. Rax’s mother has a set from Wales.”
He rolled her over onto her back, his weight settling on her hips. “Spread your legs for me, Lizzie. It could have been English Delft, I suppose.”
He moved to make her comply.
Lizzie turned her head, so as not to look at him.
His lips touched her neck, tickling her. Such soft kisses he rained there. Her legs grew used to the feeling of him lying between them.
She tried to push him away when he tickled her earlobe with his kisses. Unwelcome sensations raced down her body to a wicked place she had always ignored.
“Lizzie,” he whispered in her ear, “would you prefer something other than hedgerow flowers on a cream background? I offer it only as a suggestion of what you might consider. What do you prefer?”
Who knew ears could be so sensitive? Or that they were connected to sinful places. She tried not to melt under his caresses or at the sound of his voice.
A shiver shuddered through her when he touched her face to turn it up towards him and the heat from his body seemed to lure her to him. She felt compelled to answer in the hopes of hiding her reaction. “Hedgerow is pretty.”
The Beast was turning her into his whore. She could feel a burning where none should be. A wetness where his fingers stroked in a place she hardly ever touched, except to do what was absolutely necessary.
Her stepfather’s voice echoed in her mind. “Are you my vile, slippery creature?” He’d whispered the private joke to her mother, to make her laugh and invite her to his bed. He’d whispered the words in his madness as he roamed the house searching for a woman long in her grave.
Lizzie took the nearest piece of cloth, the viscount’s collar, between her teeth and clenched everything in her body under her control, which was not very much. It only intensified the sensations and the wetness. She was indeed a vile, slippery creature.
The Beast must have felt it, for he rumbled a sigh as his finger invaded her. “Kiss me, Lizzie. Come, it is long past midnight. Kiss me, dear wife.” His lips grazed her cheeks. She felt him pull gently away to try to get her to release his nightshirt so he could kiss her. When she held firm, he rumbled on as if talking made a difference. “You can design another coat of arms, if you’d like. That nonsense showing the serpent devouring the winged nike was only the first viscount’s joke. You could use a view of the house or anything you’d like.”
One long finger stroked. It did not hurt. Why should it? He had taken her virginity the night before. Strange sensations, deep inside her, stirred a response despite all her efforts to control herself. Vileness seeped from her.
She opened her mouth to protest but all her words had fled.
He placed his lips on hers and moved them not at all. Her hips twitched a complaint when he withdrew his finger. Suddenly, the dreadful pressure began. One of his arms braced his body above her, while the other did the devil’s work between them.
She held her breath and refused to kiss him more. He raised higher on one arm until he loomed above her.
“Lizzie, don’t move.”
His bracing arm shook, trembled as he pressed on and on. She gripped his nightshirt with clenched fists.
“Tell me if this is too painful for you. I can….” He grunted as something opened and his wickedness edged its way further inside her. “My love, you can put your mark on the Folly for all time with a new … new coat of arms.” He shuddered and leaned down closer, almost resting on her.
Then her body did something awful. It welcomed him, for suddenly he slid forward towards her heart. She could not take a breath of air. Her lungs froze as he filled her with that most horrid bit of him.
It almost hurt.
He groaned as if in pain and spoke through clenched teeth, “Have the n-new coat of arms p-painted on the n-new p-plates….”
It all felt terribly wrong and wicked, so tight and deep that she could not take a breath. A high, sweet pain seared inside her.
If he moved, she’d scream.
He moved.
She opened her mouth and gasped as the sweetness intensified, liquefied her body, making her ignore the pain. The Beast rocked with slow deliberate movements. She could feel herself tremble with spasms that matched his rhythm.
“For…forgive me, Lizzie. I can’t help it. I can’t think of any more potters, except Spode. I forgot Spode. How could I forget Spode?”
He kissed her mouth, her neck, while he muttered Spode. If only he’d stop moving his hips. His body was driving hers to madness. If he didn’t stop she was going to lose control. Something awful was going to happen.
Lizzie tried entwining her legs around him in an effort to make him stop bewitching her, but that only made her hips move in time with his. Locked in his embrace, she raced with him in an unending dance.
She burned with terrible sweet spasms that grew with the strength of his thrusts. Lizzie curled her body around his until he shook as if he had an ague.
“Hellfire! Lizzie, don’t!” He suddenly collapsed on her. His injured shoulder hit her chin. But she could not stop moving, moaning, twitching.
The Beast’s entire body vibrated. He cried out with an unearthly moan and turned both their bodies to lie on his side. They were still joined by that dreadful act. Someone’s body shook and thrust—she very much feared it was hers. A large hand gripped her bottom to press her closer, to stop the convulsions from shaking him lose from her.
She was having a fit in his arms. She’d never live down the humiliation.
Tears swept down her cheeks to be kissed away. Salt on his lips. She tasted her tears with his kiss. Still deep inside her, he pressed her onto her back to thrust with long strokes. It intensified her fit. On and on she went, unable to stop herself.
At last he groaned. “Lizzie….” He shuddered. “Lizzie.…” He called her name in one long litany of whispered Lizzies while he held her caught in his embrace. For long minutes they lay entwined.
The throbbing inside her finally stopped. Her very heart ached, as did some part of her down there. Her lungs were scorched. They lay still while she recovered from her fit.
“Lizzie? Are you … Lizzie?” The Beast rested his forehead on hers. “There is no help for you now, you must surely learn to love me.”
Hysterical giggles rose in her throat. She didn’t try to stop them. She was glad they broke the spell he’d cast over her. Her body shook with suppressed laughter.
“That’s right,” he said in a soft drawl. “Laugh at me. Men are strange creatures, aren’t they? Not frightening, just silly. I hope I didn’t hurt you when I fell on you Lizzie. A man needs two good arms for what we just did. Forgive
me.”
Lizzie tried to sit up, to push his body from hers, to untangle her limbs from his. She didn’t want tenderness or sympathy from him. “You have finished. Say it, Felmont, say you have finished and I may go.”
“Of course, let help you up.” He moved as one tired to death.
Lizzie let the viscount drag her to the edge of the bed. He took each of her feet and unhooked them in turn from the back of his knees. She’d no idea how her legs had got there or why they refused to release their grip on him.
“Can you stand up, dear wife?”
“Let go of me.” He was entirely too close. Lizzie had to get away from him before another urge took hold of him. Men could do that awful act again and again. Her stepfather’s evil boasts rang in her ears. Five times! Or was it six? She had to leave before he recovered enough to do it to her again. She had scarcely been able to keep silent through the terrible ordeal.
“I am not holding onto you,” whispered the Beast. “You are holding onto me.”
It was true. His nightshirt was caught in her fists at his waist. And worse, she could not unclench her fingers.
Drat the man! Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped from her chin.
“Don’t cry, my love. I can free you.” He rubbed each gloved finger and pried them open one at time while she sniffled in a most embarrassing way.
“Thank you,” she said, when he had freed them all.
“My pleasure, my lady.” He brought them to his mouth to kiss each fingertip. “May I escort you to the door?”
Lizzie nodded. She was not at all sure she could get there by herself. He seemed to understand, for he walked very slowly with his arm around her waist. After what he had just done, it seemed petty to complain about the liberty.
He unlocked the door and gave her the key.
“Goodnight, Lizzie.”
“Goodnight, Felmont.”
“You may call me Dace, if you wish Lizzie, to celebrate our union.”
She lifted her chin to keep her voice steady. “I am not your friend, Felmont. I, for one, do not mistake your lust for friendship.”
“A pity. But you will kiss me goodnight, wife.”
She rose on her toes to kiss his cheek.
Lizzie Tempest Ruins A Viscount (Felmont Brides Series Book 1) Page 11