Chapter 36
“We have to stop,” Lizzie commanded, when they reached the turn in the road near the Thwaite cottage. She hoped James had done her bidding and made sure no one would be there. “I want to rob someone.” She fiddled with the jewels sewn onto her highwayman costume as she lied to her husband. “I think we should rob Bertram Felmont.”
“Of his jeweled cane, my love?” Dace rapped on the roof to tell the coachman to halt.
“Why not? As long as we give it back.” She couldn’t return to the Folly, not yet. She’d been thinking about her plan all the way home.
The viscount opened the door and helped her down. She’d made sure they stopped close to the Thwaite cottage. He sent the carriage off to the Folly and escorted her through the wide farmyard gate into a garden devoted to the kitchen. Flowers peeped among the vegetables. Someone had been weeding, for it was as neat and tidy as Ma herself.
“Is anyone home?” Lizzie asked. She desperately needed to do something and didn’t want any witnesses, or anyone close enough to hear.
“No, dear heart, the Thwaites have a boisterous way of welcoming anyone who comes to call. I doubt any are hiding to surprise us.” He seemed wary of her.
No doubt he thought her reluctance to return to the Folly was odd. She stifled laughter at the thought of his reaction, though her heart ached with unspoken words. “Can we go inside?” she asked, as if nothing more was on her mind than curiosity.
Lizzie followed Dace and watched him retrieve the key from under a stone near the door. The cottage inside was neatly scrubbed and silent. It looked as if the inhabitants had left just moments before.
“Why are we here, Lizzie?” Dace put his arms around her.
She melted into his embrace. His body tensed and he held her away from him. “Did you want to see the place I grew up in?”
She smiled up at him. “Do you think I never visited Ma? After you’d gone, I often stopped by to make sure she lacked for nothing, and to make sure your father didn’t take his bad temper out on her family.”
“Thank you, my love, for all you did for them.” He bent his head to kiss her. “Are you as reluctant to end our adventures as I am?”
Lizzie slipped deeper into his embrace to find him trembling. “Even if I promise not to chain you to a bed?”
He stroked her back. “My love, if you’d stayed with me and laughed with me, we might both have enjoyed the chains.”
“I didn’t enjoy it. It made me sad.” She rubbed her cheek against him and eased her arms free.
“I know. But you must admit that Gordon and Gladys enjoyed my dilemma immensely. Luckily, Jim had the situation well in hand. He had the twins hold Con for me until you’d gone to bed and I could substitute him for myself.” He let her open his coat.
“Is Con still locked up at the Folly?’ Not that she cared. She reached up to ease his coat down past his shoulders, taking care not to press on the injured one.
“No, my love, he escaped long ago and has been making mischief ever since.” He sighed as she stroked his chest. “Why did we stop here?”
Her heart overflowed with joy, but she couldn’t tell him and spoil the fun. “I have to do something....” She eased his coat down to his elbows, trapping his arms behind him. He’d never be able to escape now.
He didn’t even seem to notice she had him at her mercy.
“Lizzie, let me confess, I have found a friend in you. If the rest is too much for you, my love, then I ask you to live with me in peace and friendship. I shall wait to make love with my own true love, and simply live in hope at midnight.”
She opened his shirt one button at a time, touched by his words, and almost strangled by the lump in her throat. Luckily, she didn’t need a voice for what she intended to do next.
Her husband looked down at her. “Lizzie, remember when we made our pact in the library. I told you I wanted to marry for love. I wanted a wife I could love, and one who loved me. I have half my wish. I love you. I want you, you alone to be my wife. How lucky for me you are mine. Even if you never love me in return, I’ll love you, Lizzie. I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”
A muffled sob was all the answer she could manage. She kissed his chest. That got his attention. All his words disappeared into a deep rumble in his chest.
“Lizzie? Are you sure you want to keep the pact? It gives me rights at midnight that I’d renounce to gain your love.”
Couldn’t he tell that he had her love? She could only nod and stay silent to encourage him with her touch.
Her husband began to vibrate. She gave a muffled sound of encouragement, and positioned him against the kitchen table. She touched him with both hands until he rose on his toes to groan his pleasure.
“Lizzie, I swear I shall live by your pact forever, if you’ll live happily with me.”
Lizzie looked up and raised an eyebrow. She stayed silent.
“Sweet, lovely Lizzie,” he whispered, as all the muscles of his belly moved under one of her hands, she needed the other to hold him. “Could it be you have forgotten that you are still in my power. Didn’t I warn you that if you are silent I shall take it for consent?”
A laugh was her only answer. She had him trapped with his arms as good as tied with a rope. She kissed him with a low hum of pleasure as she stroked him, sure he couldn’t move.
He growled, “It is daylight and you are silent, my love.”
She laughed, content to let love shine from her eyes as she looked up at him.
To her surprise, he shrugged out of his coat and wrapped her in it. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered in her sensitive ear.
Lizzie hid her face in his chest. Silent in his arms.
“Speak Lizzie or suffer the consequences.” His hands stroked her breasts through all her clothes.
She cupped his bottom and stayed silent. Her hips tilted towards him of their own accord. Her breasts raised for his mouth. Her body spoke for her.
A squeak escaped her when he lifted her to sit on the solid kitchen table while he undressed her. “Speak, Lizzie. This is the last time I ask you. Tell me you love me.”
She pulled his shirt off and hooked her legs around him to draw him closer. To want him, and to burn for him, and urge him on. She whispered in his ear, “Spode.”
He drew back to look at her.
Lizzie whispered, “Spode, Spode, Spode.” She giggled at the look of surprise on his face.
“Minx! Yes, I did get stuck on that word. Did it take this long for you to laugh at me for it?”
She shook her head for an answer and kissed him all over his beautiful body. He laughed with her and began to make love to her.
A mewl sounded in her throat. A sob formed at the beauty of him. She raised her face for his kiss, to let him ravish her lips and then her breasts with gentle nips. To let him take her higher and higher until she cried out and clung to him like one demented.
She dared not speak when he turned her on her belly and raised one of her legs to the table top, not even when he held her down to thrust with long strokes. She dared not speak for fear he’d stop.
At last he held her nestled on his lap in front of the hearth, still inside her. The slightest movement made her tremble with ecstasy. She stared at his knees and hers, at her legs and his.
Lizzie held his hand away from her delicate place. “Dace, I saw no legs wrapped around Con, no legs spread for him. Where were her legs? No feet, no ankles, no legs at all.”
She gave a gasp. “You were right! He held his own waist! No wonder he did not stop his disgusting thrusting when I burned his bottom with a candle—to do so would have revealed his pretense. The next time I see him, I shall shoot him.”
She gave a great sigh. “Don’t stop, why have you stopped? You must Spode me forever!” She tipped her head back for his kiss. All Felmonts were completely insane and that included her.
Hours later, as dawn lit the sky, Lizzie watched Dace sleep. She kissed his shoulder and slipped from the narrow bed in the l
oft.
Lizzie Tempest Ruins A Viscount (Felmont Brides Series Book 1) Page 61
