12. Catherine
Iwas awakened early by the servants drawing the curtains and I took the opportunity to scuttle hastily out of bed and call for a maid to help me get dressed.
I didn’t look back at my husband, but I could feel his gaze on me, an uncomfortable rake across the nape of my neck.
We had breakfast at the inn, and I felt rumpled and irritated. My entire body ached. The skin on my back and arms and legs felt sore and scratched from lying in the hay. My face felt itchy. My hips ached from where my husband had gripped them tightly to force himself in me over and over. And worst of all was the place between my legs, throbbing in pulse points, on fire with a strange heat.
I didn’t look at my husband as I sipped the strong hot tea, but I heard him whistling what sounded like a popular opera song. I wondered angrily if he had an opera singer mistress like many in the Ton did, and, if so, why he didn’t go bother her instead of me.
“What an instructive night,” my husband said languidly, as I nibbled on a piece of toast. “I hope you won’t be the kind of wife who needs continual discipline. Though it would certainly save the servants work to never have to pour you a hot bath.”
I said nothing, refusing to look at him.
“What I want,” St. Erth went on, his voice light with malice now, “is a docile and submissive wife who won’t bother me when I’m busy with matters on my estate.”
I fixed my eyes on an elderly couple at a different table poring over a map together. I could hear the word “Bath” bandied back and forth between them. They must be going to the seaside resort town. I had never been and always wanted to go.
I reflected bitterly that I would be in a much better position if I managed to stow away in their carriage and then begged them to take me on as a scullery maid when they got to Bath.
“Look at me,” St. Erth ordered, his voice suddenly sharp and hard.
I had seen enough to him to obey reluctantly, and that golden, cruel smile spread over his face.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now, Viscountess, we will be arriving at my country estate tonight. And why did I marry you and bring you to my home?”
For a moment I wanted to return a saucy answer, but I looked at my husband’s long limbs stretched out and I was afraid.
“To bear your children,” I said quietly.
“And when is your cunt to be available to me?” he went on, his body motionless in the chair, his bright blue eyes boring into mine.
“Whenever you want,” I replied, my cheeks flushing as I dropped my eyes.
“Look at me when you say that, Catherine,” my husband said sharply.
“People are going to hear!” I hissed uncomfortably at him, wondering if the nice couple in the corner had interrupted their perusal of the map to stare at us.
St. Erth’s tanned hand shot out, the long fingers tightening under the table on my thigh.
“Look at me when you say that,” he repeated, his fingers stretching up my leg until they almost reached between my thighs.
I squeaked in distress and finally dared to look up at him.
“When is your cunt to be available to me?” he went on, his voice like steel.
“Whenever you want,” I repeated, my voice at a whisper, forcing my eyes to hold his.
Each plane in his face was perfect, the cheekbones high, his jawline flawless. I had seen the envious glances other women in the inn taproom shot at me, but if they only knew!
He was a monster. I felt sick with worry for what he intended to do to my family.
“This is mine,” he said again, and he shoved my legs apart impatiently so he could give my cunt a firm slap.
The blow was only barely muffled by my dress and I tightened my lips to smother the strangled squeak.
St. Erth dabbed both sides of his mouth with the damask cloth napkin.
“Now get up and wait in the other room until the carriage is ready to go,” he said.
We had a whole day until we got to his home of Rosewood Manor and I was determined to escape before I got there.
I didn’t want another night of his cock inside me, another night when he filled me with his release. If I had a baby, it would mean the end of my family! Wendover House would be his the moment I gave birth.
My brain worked furiously, trying to come up with a solution.
How could I escape the Viscount?
The horses and carriage were readied in a commendably short time by Liversedge and Gilly and all too soon we were off, St. Erth and I riding inside once again as I sat resentfully across from my husband.
“You look sore,” St. Erth said.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know I am sore,” I said, choking on my words. “You are a brute.”
“You will address me as befits my station,” St. Erth said, stretching one long leg out so that I was forced to practically sit on my feet to avoid him.
“You are a brute, my lord,” I retorted, feeling the anger at his inexorable power inside me again.
“Try not hiding in chicken and cow shit next time,” St. Erth said. “And you won’t get fucked in the barn.”
We rode in silence for several more miles. Every time I thought St. Erth was asleep, I’d glance over at him, hoping to see his eyes closed so I could relax and think about how to escape. But every time he was looking at me, making my skin prickle with the sensation of his gaze.
I leaned my own head against the back of the carriage. I felt sleepy, but was it even safe to sleep around the Viscount?
Just then, I heard the hasty clopping of horses outside, like riders coming up from a distance.
St. Erth didn’t seem particularly interested, but then I heard the loud, rough cries.
“Halt! Stand and deliver!”
I gasped. “Highwaymen!”
St. Erth only looked annoyed. “What manner of country bumpkins are these?” he asked with annoyance, yanking the carriage window open.
Liversedge was already pulling our equipage to a halt.
There beside the carriage were three men on horseback, all wearing rough clothing and dark handkerchiefs pulled over their eyes.
“You there!” the first one said. “Get out of the carriage. And you, there!” he called, addressing Liversedge. “Send down the strongbox.”
“What should we do?” I whispered.
“I supposed we had better get out,” St. Erth said, rolling his eyes. “If we don’t, they’ll just start pawing at the door.”
I felt disappointed. I had hoped he might suggest fighting them off or something.
However, maybe there were possibilities here. Maybe I could escape if there was a scuffle.
Maybe they would shoot my husband.
The thought excited me, even though I felt wicked. But that would be lovely.
However, maybe they would also shoot me too.
I would have to wait and see.
St. Erth was so tall he had to bend down to get out of the carriage door, and I followed along after him.
As we got out, Liversedge and Gilly were arguing about the strongbox.
“Where is it, you fool?”
“I thought you had it!”
“What is this infernal noise?” St. Erth snapped as he stretched to his full height. The highwaymen looked leery of him, all three men keeping their revolvers trained on him.
But the Viscount didn’t make any moves toward them, only brushed specks of dust from his lace collars.
“Give us the money, my lord,” the first highwayman said, dismounting from his horse carefully, his eyes trained on my husband.
“Please,” said St. Erth, leaning against the carriage and looking bored, “There’s no need for these theatrics. Take what you want and leave. Liversedge!” he called up to his driver. “Send down the strongbox.”
I took a careful step sideways. I didn’t think St. Erth was looking at me. I would run into the nearby woods and not stop until I reached Bath.
Liversedge suddenly threw a heavy chest down in front of the men, sending clouds of dirt and dust flying into the air.
“You aristocrats are like fat pigeons,” the leader of the highwaymen said with some satisfaction. “Easy for the plucking.”
The robbers bent over and one man produced a tool he used to break the lock with a sickening crunch.
I took another step so that I was now behind the men with the guns. They had their revolvers trained on my husband; his servants were too far away to grab me. I needed to use this to my advantage.
“Take me with you,” I whispered as loudly as I dared. “This man kidnapped me,” I continued, forcing myself not to look at St. Erth as I grabbed the highwayman’s arm desperately. “Bring me back to London and my family will reward you handsomely for protecting me from him.”
“Eh, what?” the leader of the robbers said distractedly, turning in a fury to St. Erth. “Sir, this strongbox is empty!”
But St. Erth wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at me, his blue eyes blazing with fury.
“That was a very stupid thing to do, Viscountess,” he said harshly.
Then I saw a knife appear in his hand, flashing between his fingers faster than I could see where he had hidden it. He took a step toward the robber and tore him away from me.
The knife flashed in the sunlight and the other man sagged.
Suddenly, I heard a gunshot and Liversedge had taken out a substantial revolver of his own and shot at the second robber.
The third robber tried to put up his gun, but St. Erth whirled on him, gripping him by the cloak and running him into the side of the carriage before twisting him around and slashing the knife across his throat.
Bright crimson blood appeared under the other man’s neckerchief and I screamed, the tightness on my throat suddenly loosened.
St. Erth turned to me and I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t force my legs to move.
He seemed to have grown to enormous proportions as he loomed over me, holding the dead robber in one hand.
“Look at him,” he said, yanking on the front of my dress with bloody hands. “See what happens when you touch another man.”
“You’re a madman!” I burst out desperately, tightening my thighs together so I wouldn’t fall on the ground in a faint.
St. Erth smiled at me, and I couldn’t help remembering the serpent in the Garden of Eden again. Beautiful and deadly.
He drew fingers through the blood on the dead man’s neck again, then, as I watched in horror, he suddenly moved them toward me, dropping the corpse on the ground.
The Viscount dragged his bloody fingers across my cheek, then down my throat, as I screamed as loudly as I could, screamed until I was hoarse.
But nothing stopped my madman of a husband.
He grabbed my chin with his hard hands, pulling me closer to him. “Touch another man only if you want him to die,” he warned me, releasing me so suddenly that my head began to swim with panic and adrenaline.
“Dispose of these bodies,” he ordered Liversedge and Gilly. “Turn the horses free. They’re most likely stolen and they’ll head back instinctively to their owners.”
They both got down from the carriage and began to bicker between themselves as they rolled the bodies efficiently into a big tarp and then began to haul them away.
The blood moved from a sticky wetness to a taut dryness on my cheeks, and I resisted the urge to claw it off my face, scrub every place that St. Erth touched me.