Chapter 31
Lizzie shivered with cold and fright. She had not exactly fainted away. Lying on the floor helped clear her head.
“Damn it, Lizzie!” He swept the burning cinder back to the hearth, then swept her up to hold her close to his naked chest. She could hear his heart beating in a most disquieting way.
When he had recovered, he reverted to his hideous French accent. “If you faint again, ma chére Elizabet’, your little derrière will suffer.” He ran his hand down there. “Not more than one handful each side—does your ’usband complain of it?”
“Let go of me, you damned Felmont! You painted that on just to frighten me.” Lizzie’s relief at knowing it was Dace made her giddy. Not that she hadn’t known it all along! How could he scare her so, when he knew how highwaymen terrified her? In the dim light of just the fire and one lamp, it was impossible to see the internal injury to his shoulder.
He kissed her neck. “You can rub it for me, chérie, after I have made you mine.”
“Wash it off, you are being ridiculous. Branded? How can you pretend such a thing just to torment me?” She’d never touch him again, that way lay an awful death. Stroking his shoulder didn’t count as a caress.
“Alas, chérie, I can’t wash it off. It took long enough to heal.” He released her to let her kneel between his knees, to let her peer over his shoulder.
Lizzie touched the brand. “How did you get this?” she whispered in his ear and felt the slight shudder of his reaction to her breath. “What happened?”
He gave a careful half shrug. She sat back on her heels to face him. “Tell me.”
“Angel was wounded. I borrowed a French surgeon, along with his wagon and his patient. It was giving them back that got me in trouble. Got caught. The branding was just a joke before they killed me. Angel sent some men to rescue me.”
“Did it hurt dreadfully?”
“No. The smell was the worst. Knowing it was my flesh burning.” He leered comically. “So, chérie, now you know I am a thief, and I ’ave the brand to prove it. Am I worthy to be your ’usband? You shall soon forget about that rotting Felmont and love only me.”
He rose to go to the window. “Do you hear that?” He peered through the shutters. “Someone is coming up the fell. A friend of yours, my Elizabet’? I shall fight him for you.” He gave a comical grimace and resorted to his own voice. “But first we saddle that damned Lucifer. Watch out for his teeth. He bites.”
He gave her no choice.
The horse snorted a warning from the stables adjoining the hunting lodge. The Beast ignored both their pleas to be left out of his mad folly. Lizzie thought it unfair when the horse tried to bite her while it was being saddled. They didn’t hang horses for highway robbery.
The Beast tossed her up to ride pillion behind him.
She shivered as the wind swept over the fell, unhindered by trees or dwellings. Not even holding on for dear life made her any warmer. She heard a horse and carriage getting nearer and nearer, and finally could see a glimpse of it from over the Beast’s shoulder.
The viscount roared into the darkness, “Stand and deliver!”
“Heavens!” cried Rax as he came into view, seated in a pale curricle that glowed in darkness. “Do you have to make so much noise about it? My apologies, Lady Felmont, I assume you are here, must just make clear that I could not talk him out of it. Head is as hard as an oak plank!” The curricle stopped beside Lucifer. The pair’s whinnies were answered with a low snort from the huge horse.
“You were supposed to bring a carriage, Rax. Hell of a long way in a curricle,” complained the Beast.
“My sisters needed the carriage. I really don’t know how you talk me into these escapades.” Rax tutted to himself. “Are you listening to me?”
“If you’d help my wife down, we’ll be on our way.”
“Help her down? Where is she? Not up a tree, Dace. Tell me you have not stowed her in a tree!”
“Behind me. Quick.”
Rax scrambled down and caught Lizzie as she slid from Lucifer’s back.
“I will not go with him.” She took Mr. Rackham’s arm. “He is pretending to be a highwayman to frighten me half to death.” She clung to his elbow. “Help me get back to the Folly. The marriage is over! If he touches me, I shall scream loud enough to wake the dead!”
“Tsk, Dace, what have you done? Your lady is in her nightclothes, if I am not mistaken. Couldn’t help but notice, not that I didn’t avert my gaze as soon as I realized her condition.” Mr. Rackham led her over to his curricle and helped her climb up to the seat.
To her dismay, Dace tied Lucifer to the back and came to sit next to her, squashing her between them.
The journey over the fell took the rest of the night or as much of it as Lizzie stayed awake for. Wedged between the two men, kept warm by a rug shared by all three of them, she dozed over the smooth areas and was jolted awake over the rough. They were headed towards Driscombe, in the vicinity of Quorr House.
Lucifer took a dislike to Mr. Rackham, no doubt the horse blamed him for keeping him awake all night. It nipped and lunged until the Beast tied the huge charger in such a way as to keep its head down and its teeth clear of Mr. Rackham’s person.
“Are you going to rob the duke?” Lizzie asked the Beast.
“Bien sûr, chérie. Why not?” He gave that half shrug she knew so well. “If you want me to rob the duke, I shall do it for you.”
“Good!” Lizzie crowed. “He shoots highwaymen.”
Hedgerows began as they descended the fell, with rustlings and night squeaks heard in their busy depths. An owl hooted his displeasure at their interruption of his hunt. The dawn lit the sky as they rolled along a road edged on one side with a high stone wall that ran for miles.
Lizzie wondered what great house or asylum lay beyond it, for it was built to keep the uninvited out or its inmates locked inside.
Mr. Rackham stopped and turned the pair into a narrow lane guarded on both sides by the high stone walls. The lane ended abruptly at tall gates, chained closed.
Iron spikes pointed outward and upward in a distinct warning, yet the lane was not well traveled nor well maintained. An air of neglect hung over the entrance to the grounds, so unlike the Duke of Saint Sirin’s gatehouse, yet she knew they were close to Quorr House. Not that she’d dare arrive there uninvited, in her nightdress, to ask for his help. Her curiosity grew with her confidence in the daylight. What did Dacey Felmont have in his twisted mind?
Lizzie sat up straighter. She knew Mr. Rackham was the duke’s neighbor. Had he brought her to visit his family.
The curricle lurched as Dace got out to try the gates. He rattled them, shook them, and then went to explore the side postern doorway almost hidden by a hazel shrub.
The low sun shone under the clouds, but what it illuminated gave her no comfort at all. A crow flew down to perch on the gate to inspect the travelers. It cawed a query that was echoed by a chorus from a rookery far inside the grounds.
“Where are we? Do you live here, Rax?” Lizzie asked. She abandoned her formal manners with everything else she had left behind at the Folly.
Mr. Rackham gave a nervous cough. He kept glancing back towards the road as if he feared they’d be discovered by someone passing by. “No, I don’t live here.” He tsked and tutted his distress.
“Aren’t you coming in with us?” Lizzie wondered if she could throw him out and flee in the phaeton. The team sidled, wanting to be on their way. Lucifer gave a great snort of contentment near her ear.
Rax gave a nervous start. “Oh, I live nearby, Lady Felmont. You can practically whistle for me. I’m just across the river, so is Saint Sirin. No,” he said, as Dace returned to drag her out of the phaeton, “I must be on my way. I do hope you forgive me, for everything.” He handed her the rug and waited until the Beast untied Lucifer.
His voice trailed off while he backed the horses to the road. “Do try to explain it properly, Dace. My mother would hate to see me hanging at a cr
ossroads. I’m sure the only reason I’ve survived this long is your sojourn on the continent.”
Mr. Rackham turned to address her. “That he can bring you here of all places, dressed or rather in such a state of undress and expect to survive it. Heavens!” He waved his whip, tipped his hat and set off with a final despairing glare at the viscount.
“Good day to you, Lady Felmont.”
“Coward!” Dace called after his friend.
Lizzie wrapped the rug thoroughly about her body. “Who is going to kill us? I’m not going in there.”
“Rax spoke of my death, not yours, Elizabet’. Don’t worry, I ’ave a pistol and sword to defend myself. Come, I want to show you my lair.”
“What a shame.” Lizzie lifted her chin to give him a Felmont stare. “I believe I’ll plan your funeral in case you are wrong.”
He laughed and leered. “Look for one last time at freedom, chérie. You stay locked in my lair until you love me.”
He meant to ravish her. For a moment she warmed and then she laughed at the idea of loving him in any way. She might shake hands with him, on his deathbed, but nothing else was going to happen.
The gates had not been opened in a century from the looks of it, but she did not want to linger where any passing stranger might peer down the lane and see her. She hurried to the side door, well-oiled, no doubt used by the servants. At least, she hoped there were servants. She had no wish to spend any time alone with her husband.
He followed her with a slight delay in persuading Lucifer to duck under the stone lintel. The horse seemed content to be led like a large dog.
The drive had reverted to weeds. The land sloped down towards a river she could hear in the distance. The trees lining the drive had originally been pollarded, a dead one stood like a silvered sentinel with a rounded head of ghostly branches, the others crowded overhead casting a deep shadow.
Lizzie followed the path from the postern door. It skirted the drive to fall towards the river through a set of long sweeps edged with stinging nettles. She trod carefully in her thin slippers.
Dace followed leading Lucifer. Occasionally the man toyed with her hair or touched her shoulder. She could not outpace him so she shrugged him off.
The path opened onto a lawn, beyond it a castle rose out of a lake formed by a widening of the river. A leftover from a bygone era, half fallen into ruin, with towers at each corner that were dilapidated with age, allowing a glimpse of thatched roof inside. An ancient clapper bridge connected the castle to the lower edge of the lawn.
“Is it very old?” Lizzie asked. She stopped to stare, to let Dace approach close enough for her to lean against him.
“The stone walls date to the thirteenth century,” he said. “They replaced an older wooden fortress. There’s an Elizabethan cottage in the bailey. Rather elegant, isn’t it? Rax is keeping an eye on it for Angel. He makes sure the old retainers don’t want for anything. It’s called Desolation Castle.”
“What an odd name.”
“I think it got changed from Dissolution. Monks built the walls around a monastery on their island. Damned Vikings kept raiding ’em. The roof went during the Reformation. The Anston family bought it and built a great house from the stone buildings. Don’t go looking for it. Angel sold the lot of it, down to the timber and tiles. It was quite a sight to see it being carted off. You can see the outline of the foundations on the lawn when you look up from the bridge.”
“This is Edward’s home!” Lizzie was not scared of him. “Why is Rax so frightened of Edward?”
“Angel isn’t always angelic, though he tries to be.” Dace laughed. “If Rax has any trouble with Angel, I’ll tell him to apply to you for aid.” He pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head. “Bravest woman I’ve ever met.”
When he wasn’t pretending to be something he was not, there was no denying the viscount had a certain charm. As if he read her mind, he leered down at her. “I thought you’d like to see it, ma chère Elizabet’. I ’ope they have breakfast ready. A man cannot make love on an empty stomach.”
She refused to answer him, her snort of laughter didn’t count. She just walked on with her head held high and the rug wrapped about her wicked body.
They walked over the clapper bridge. The Beast kicked a pebble into the moat. It plopped into the depths leaving a trail of tiny bubbles. A silver pike flashed by among the dark reeds to see what had disturbed the calm water.
There were no signs of life, except a thin tendril of smoke from an old thatched cottage in the castle courtyard. The grounds were an enormous kitchen garden. Netted fruit trees basked against the walls, scenting the air with their sweet burden.
An old gray dog barked and wagged its tail amid the currant bushes, while a cat hunted butterflies between the rows of cabbages.
“If you were really a highwayman, you’d have kept Mr. Rackham and held him for ransom.” Lizzie giggled at the idea. She liked having Rax around, he seemed to make the Beast saner. At least Rax sympathized with all she had to put up with being married to a madman.
“But chérie, who would pay to ’ave him back,” asked the false highwayman. “Besides, I know where he lives, is a simple thing to catch him and ’is sisters.”
“You can’t mean to kidnap his sisters!”
“Why not? If they enjoy what I do to them?”
“Horrid Felmont!” Lizzie laughed with him, certain the Rackham sisters would think it a great adventure.
“One day, I h’aspire to be your Viscount Felmont, for now I am only your ’ighwayman.”
Clouds obscured the sun. A servant hurried out of the house bowing low to them, except he could not straighten up. He took the reins still bent double. Lucifer clomped off behind him with a contented whinny.
The Beast led her, in much the same manner, to a tower room. He did not want to use the cottage, explaining that a few old servants lived there and he didn’t want to displace any of them.
The round tower room had a bed covered with fine linens and pillows. There were wax candles, an expensive Turkey carpet and chests, one of which looked familiar. It was the old snuff chest from the Priory.