Chapter 33
Lizzie scrambled onto the low bed. “You’ll never touch me again,” she cried.
“Then you must talk to me, dear heart. Talk to me of trust.”
“Are you mad? Trust a Felmont? When they lie and cheat and debauch and make women forget how dangerous they are to health and life.”
“Even Felmonts can fall in love and be faithful.”
“Don’t speak of love to me!” Lizzie bit her lip. She couldn’t let him talk of love, not when the thought of loving him made her ache with sadness. “If I must speak to you, then I shall confine myself to domestic matters. Where is dinner? Do you intend to starve me to death?”
“You fell asleep before you could eat.” He sat on the edge of the bed and dragged her over to sit on his knee. “Look, dinner awaits, my love.”
A tray with cold chicken, bread, and fruit from the garden tempted her. She didn’t struggle as she should have. She sat in the circle of his arm and ate a little of everything.
The food made her sleepy.
Exhaustion wearied almost every inch of he, but Lizzie resolutely ignored the wicked bits. She fell asleep watching him, wanting him, making solemn promises to herself never to reveal her heart to him.
When she awoke her, wicked bits still ached for him. Lizzie had to tell herself, severely, that she was not disappointed that he had forgotten to ravish her.
Perhaps her falling asleep while eating dinner had dulled his ardor.
Lizzie opened her eyes.
She had to stop falling asleep at the slightest opportunity. Not that she had slept for long. It was dusk. The birds were calling the end of the day in a frenzy of chirps and whistles.
She stretched and tried to turn. No! The Beast had tied her to the bed. Her wrists were bound with soft cloths, her arms outspread. Her ankles were tied together.
Drat the man!
His spoke in a low voice from near the window. “Sleeping beauty awakens at last.”
“Untie me at once,” she ordered.
He knelt near her ankles to run his hand up her leg.
“Don’t!” Her command didn’t move him, he played with her knees. “I’m thirsty.”
He gave a sigh and moved to help her drink a mouthful of lemonade. “Is that better?”
“Yes. Thank you.” Lizzie let him stroke her hair over the pillow. “Dace, it is not midnight. At least keep to our pact, if you must ravish me.” She’d take Lucifer and run from him long before midnight.
“You pact is no more, my love. I am not your husband, I am your highwayman. Alas, gone with the pact is my right to ravish you. Don’t look so sad. Talk to me and you shall be safe from my lust. Stay silent and you are mine,” he warned.
“You speak! Say what you must.” Lizzie waited while his hand lazily stroked her knees.
“I am innocent of whoring in our bed at Quorr House.”
Lizzie snorted her reply. His hand shot up her thigh to cover a place that needed no warming.
“Don’t!” That way lay ruin, disease and death. Her mind knew it, her body knew only that it wanted him. “I saw you fornicating with her. Every time I close my eyes I can see you thrusting into her.” Lizzie stopped to think.
Even a lit candle extinguished on his bottom hadn’t stopped him, but surely he’d bear a mark from her attack. How was she going to see if he had a mark there?
His stroked her belly where his child lay sleeping. “Saint Sirin and everyone at Quorr House saw me singing when you thought you saw me fornicating. It is an easy thing to ask them to bear witness, but a difficult thing to prove without a doubt.” He bent to kiss her. “Trust is hard won and easily lost, my love.”
“My mother trusted her Felmont husband and died for it.” Lizzie felt his hand rove higher to the underside of her breasts.
“He married her because he loved her. Felmonts are capable of love.”
“He married her and killed her.”
The Beast shook his head. “No one has told you this, Lizzie. Your mother was poxed before they met. She gave it to him and it killed them both.”
Suddenly, Lizzie made sense of all those half-whispered conversations she had overheard. After her mother’s death, all the times her stepfather had thought she was her mother and had told her there was nothing to forgive, as he declared his love.
The Beast wiped the tears as they dripped from the corner of her eyes. “It could just as easily have been the other way around. Two of his brothers gave syphilis to their wives. And Harry’s mother, poor Aunt Clarissa, has gone mad through no fault of her own. It led to my father’s obsession with keeping his mistresses close by his side so they could not stray and infect him.”
He sighed. “Not very romantic, is it? All this talk of death and dying from love and lust. You had to know. Forgive me for telling you?”
Lizzie nodded. “I’ve wept enough for them.”
“Good, because now I intend to prove you can trust me.” He kissed her cheek when she turned her mouth away.
He meant to caress her into being a docile fool ready to accept his wickedness! Lizzie struggled against the restraints. “Stop that at once! How can you say the word trust then touch me? I trusted you and you betrayed me.”
Not her ear! Or her neck! Let him go and kiss Lucifer if he must kiss something.
Lizzie moaned. What was he doing? Why had he stopped?
He stripped off his shirt. When he made no move to remove more of his clothes, Lizzie considered how best to give him a hint to do so.
“You aren’t allowed to retain any clothes.” Her clumsy tongue ran away with her. “Not if you intend to remove mine. Not that I want you to. But if you must, then you must disrobe completely.”
Asking him to turn around when he was naked so she could see his bottom was beyond her. She could, however, ask him to fetch her something from the other side of the room after he had finished divesting himself of his clothing.
She looked the other way, not wanting to seem eager. Only when his naked body perched on the bed next to her did she turn to meet his gaze, deliberately not looking at his obvious desire for her.
“Trust me, Lizzie. You are in my power now–”
“I’m still thirsty,” she said plaintively, and watched as he went to get the glass of lemonade. There it was! On his left buttock, a mark! He was nothing but a Felmont liar and fornicator.
Tears choked her as she sipped from the glass he held.
“Careful, Lizzie,” he warned.
“Get away from me!” She tried to bite his hand. Had she burned the right side or the left? She couldn’t remember. What did it matter? He bore the mark of Cain on his bottom and all his protestations of innocence were lies.
“Hush! I am not going to sate myself in your trembling body.” One side of his mouth quirked as he smiled down at her. “I promise you can trust me, Lizzie. I shall do nothing that can harm you.”
He moved to hold her in his arms. To caress her.
Lizzie struggled at first, until she realized her traitorous body was trying to get closer to him. After that, she closed her eyes and tried to ignore the warm hands that stroked in places desperate for his touch. She could no more deny the pleasure he brought her than she could believe his lies.
The Beast stole her breath with his kisses. Surely she couldn’t catch a disease from kissing?
His unsteady breathing and whispered encouragement goaded her to curve her knees apart to let him soothe her. To let him touch that part of her unable to resist his Felmont temptation.
True to his word, he brought her to sinful pleasure, alone.
“I love you, Lizzie. Sweet wife. If this is all I can have of you for now, I am content.”
She fell asleep in his arms.
Lizzie Tempest Ruins A Viscount (Felmont Brides Series Book 1) Page 52