* * *
Lizzie awoke with a start. Where was he? Had he gone to slake his lust with his black-haired whore? He had unfastened her bonds.
She rose and hurried to the narrow window to look for him.
He stood naked, waist deep in the lake, illuminated by the moonlight.
“No!” Lizzie shrieked. She raced down the stairs to cross the courtyard at a run. The clapper bridge defeated her. She dared not run across it, so she hurried over at her fastest walking speed, not wanting to fall in and risk meeting a pike in the dark water.
“Get out of there,” she called to the Beast. “Get out before the pike bites you.”
He stood absently rubbing his shoulder as the water lapped around his waist. “What is it, Lizzie? Do you want to talk to me?”
“Get out before the pike bites it off!” she commanded. Didn’t he understand the danger to the manly part of him?
“What do you care, dear heart? Let the pike have it. I shall sacrifice that part of me you disdain to prove my love for you.” He gave a mournful sigh.
Lizzie leaped off the jetty into the water to save a Felmont from his folly. She waded out to him, giving little squeaks of terror at being in dark water in the dead of night. “Cover yourself with your hands, Dace.”
He shook his head.
With a groan of fear, Lizzie plunged her hands in the water to cup that most private part of him. For an awful moment she thought a pike had already swallowed it. Nothing reared from his body or floated in front of him. Her frantic hands searched until she found him and cupped him.
“You Beast! You are wearing your britches!”
“Thank you for caring, my love. If you’d remove your hands, I’d be grateful. Not that I don’t relish your touch, but I have sworn to find release only inside my true love.”
Lizzie rubbed his hardness through the cloth.
He lifted her hands from him with a frown and a groan. “Your presence, alas, is no help at all. Angel swore this would work. I’m beginning to doubt his Felmont blood, despite the nose.”
Lizzie leaned against him. Her hands reached around to touch his bottom. “Does it hurt,” she asked.
“Not when you are with me. Hurts like hell when we are apart, my love.” He bent his head to kiss her.
Her lips met his as water lapped against her back and his hands caressed the arch of her back. She stood on her tiptoes to reach up into his embrace. To shiver in his arms, up to her breasts in cold water, passion warring for ascendancy over her fear of the pike.
When at last she broke the kiss, she whispered to him, “Don’t tie me up again.”
“It’s the only way I dare touch you, Lizzie. Couldn’t risk you encouraging me, lest I fail to keep my word.”
Lizzie wrapped her arms around his waist and rubbed her cheek against his naked chest. “When have I encouraged you?”
“My love, man is a hopeless beast. You encourage me when you breathe, when you sigh, when your body curves around mine, when you tremble with desire and passion. When your lips seek mine and your hips raise in invitation.”
“I have never invited you.”
“Not with words, my love, never with words.” He kissed her. “Trust me, Lizzie, one day I hope to earn your love. Until we return to the Folly, I am not your husband and do not claim his rights. I am your highwayman. A wretch aspiring to one day earn your heart.”
The sound of wood creaking on iron, and the sound of oars splashing drifted over the lake.
Dace hid Lizzie in his arms.
“Heavens! Dace is that you,” called Rax in a hoarse whisper. “Lady Estelle will be at Quorr Lake soon. I’ve had a devil of a job finding out who owned those things. Maybe I’m wrong. I just cannot imagine how anyone persuaded her to do it.”
His wife clutched his waist. “You shall not go! Tell your friend your wife won’t allow it.”
Dace pulled her hands free. “We are here to find the woman so she can tell you it was Con not me.”
His wife turned from him to splash her way to the jetty.
He waded after her. “Something just nibbled me. Damned if it wasn’t a trout. Glad it wasn’t your pike, Lizzie.”
Rax waited some yards from shore, rowing in circles. “Tell me that is not your wife in the water, Dace? Are you mad? What are you doing?”
He gave a gasp of horror, then coughed in a fit of embarrassment. “Lady Felmont, if I am not mistaken you are still in your night attire. Never fear, I have brought you some clothes. Actually, they are costumes. My sisters, the older ones, have eagle eyes as far as their wardrobes are concerned and the younger ones are too small. I had to raid the attic.”
Dace hoisted Lizzie onto the low bridge. She tried to kick him away, but was hampered by her reluctance to hurt his shoulder.
He climbed out and swept her into his arms to carry her to the boat.
“Come on, Rax,” he called. “Row us over there.”
Lizzie Tempest Ruins A Viscount (Felmont Brides Series Book 1) Page 53
