Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) (43 page)

“He was Angela’s first born.” The earl went on to explain
the circumstances of Kieran’s disappearance when Donovan remained silent. “I
tried to get my daughter to leave Fletcher many times over the years. I
threatened to take the children away, although I never had the heart to do it.
I told her I’d never see her again and did not see her for an entire year, the
last year of her life.” Again, the man’s hand flew to his chest. “Something
I’ll regret for the rest of my days.”

This time, Donovan did go to his side. He took the earl’s
wrist. His pulse was racing. “Take deep breaths, relax.” He pulled the
footstool over and lifted the man’s legs to rest upon it. “Have you had a
doctor examine you?”

“Yes, several. They all say the same thing, I’m old.” He
waved Donovan’s hand away. “Surely, you’ll not deny an old man the chance to be
acquainted with his granddaughter before he cocks up his toes?”

“You are welcome in my home provided you keep in mind that
your granddaughter’s health is fragile and she must not be distressed by
demanding guests.”

The earl nodded. His eyes glazed with moisture. “You are a
godsend, young man. You saved my family from ruination. If not for you, my
grandchildren would be starving and I would die without finding them and
reclaiming them. You may call me James, son.”

Chapter
Thirty Seven

Lizzie sat before her dressing mirror. Her maid was brushing
out her long, luscious hair.

Donovan was watching. It was a habit he’d fallen into,
watching his wife each morning.

He no longer felt the need to rush away early in the morning
to escape the swollen desire he always awoke with. He no longer needed to run
from his lust or his bride. Now, his main goal was trying to entice her away
from her family in order to enjoy a few precious moments alone.

He couldn’t get enough of his wife. Two weeks had passed
since their first coupling, and they’d managed a running tally of two to three
times a day. He smiled. Lizzie was very accommodating when it came to soothing
his desire. More than accommodating, she seemed to have acquired a taste for
his flesh as well. Lizzie met him in the stables just yesterday when he sent
her a note. She came to him quickly, and then came for him, twice, in the tack
room. Once against the wall, and once bent over a saddle with him taking her
from behind.

“What are you grinning so deviously about this morning?”
Lizzie asked.

Her maid had left the room. “I was remembering yesterday, in
the tack room.”

Lizzie blushed and looked away. It made him feel wicked. And
horny. His cock surged to life in response to her maidenly blushes and her
scanty attire. She was wearing only silk stockings, garters, and a silk
dressing robe.

She busied herself by arranging the glass bottles of
feminine potions in front of the mirror. “We shouldn’t have done it there. What
if one the stable boys came in to the tack room?” She looked up at his
reflection in the mirror. “Little Gavin, even my brother, Michael? We should
not be doing it outside our chambers, don’t you think?”

Oh, fuck and damn. He was sick of her family. The same day
he booted the older brother off the island, and had hopes of having her to
himself for a much deserved honeymoon, the younger brother showed up with the
cantankerous old earl in tow. He wanted Lizzie to himself. He wanted to make love
to her in the garden or the billiard room, right on the billiard table if the
mood took him. And he wanted her at this moment.

“As a newly married couple,” Donovan began, careful to
temper his words to hide his resentment. “We should not be inundated by family
and forced to restrain our affections in our own home. If it upsets someone
when they enter a room without knocking first, shame on them, not me. There’s a
reason people don’t visit newlyweds for months after their nuptials, not until
the couple extends a proper invite that they are receiving visitors. At least,
that is how it is done in proper Charleston society.” He couldn’t help adding
the last, having heard more than he cared to about proper society with the earl
in residence. Damn. He was ranting. And she was frowning.

Lizzie rose, giving him a tormenting view of one full breast
before quickly adjusting her dressing robe. She came to him and placed her hand
on his chest in a soothing mien. “I know you dislike having people about. You
needn’t be jealous, dearest. I’m always happy to escape with you. When you sent
me that note summoning me to the stables yesterday, I was relieved.” The hand
on his chest was no longer soothing. It was slapping him in her agitation. “I
love Michael, I do, but he’s always talking of some incident I cannot recall,
and then he niggles me to death because I cannot remember it. And then
Grandfather looks down his nose at--”

Donovan took her face in his hands. He kissed her and the
thumping hand on his chest stilled. He undid the fastening of her robe. The
fabric opened, displaying her luscious body.

“You scoundrel.” She chastened, pulling back. “How long has
it been, an hour?”

“Two.” He laughed, infinitely pleased as he glanced down at
those pert breasts. She was divine. Part of him noted that she could do to add
a little more flesh to her bones. He’d like his wife to be a little rounder, a
little more pampered. “It won’t take long.” He whispered, desperate to be
inside her as his hands slipped beneath her robe to outline her shapely hips.

“What if I want it to take a long time?” She asked saucily,
placing her hands on her hips. “Are you in such a hurry, my lord?”

“No, Ma’am.” He said in an exaggerated Charleston drawl.
Donovan pulled her into his arms and kissed her again, this time from the
depths of his soul. His hands skimmed over her hips beneath her robe, and then
upward as he lifted her at the waist. “Put your legs around me.”

She did so, wrapping her long legs about his hips and her
arms about his neck. Donovan’s hands moved to cup her round bottom as he
carried Elizabeth to the dressing table. He set her on it and stood between her
open thighs. She looked uncertain. Before she could protest, he kissed her
again, soft, subtle nibbles against her lips, distracting her until he could
bring her to his level of desire. His fingers found that soft, moist cleft
between her thighs and he plied his own magic, bringing her to arousal with
knowing strokes.

“You’re wicked.” She whispered against his lips with obvious
pleasure at the assertion.

Donovan looked down and feared he was about to become undone
as he watched her arch against his fingers, her legs spread for him as she
leaned back on the table and allowed him full access to her delicate lotus
petals. He glanced in the mirror behind her. He looked ravenous, dangerous. No
wonder she was afraid of him when he was aroused in their earlier days.

He returned his gaze to his lovely bride, convinced all his
future happiness lay within this delightful woman. He leaned in to kiss her,
devouring her mouth with his tongue. She started to purr, soft, demure little
moans, letting him know she was starting to ascend the planes of bliss.

“Release me.” He directed hoarsely. Elizabeth unfastened the
placket of his breeches. As he sprang free, she palmed his swollen cock without
reluctance--another hurdle breached in recent days as she explored his body
with innocent curiosity during their lovemaking. “Lizzie, my sweet Lizzie.”

She tugged him, leading his rigid sword toward her soft,
silken sheath. As she gazed into his eyes her look was so sensual he feared he
was about to end this erotic interlude prematurely. He closed his eyes,
gathered his self control, and plunged inside her.

Lizzie gasped at the intrusion. He guided her thighs about
his hips, tilted her back and plunged deeper into her hot silken core. He
braced one hand on the wall as he pushed them closer and closer toward the
gates of paradise. She arched up, boldly meeting each thrust, joining him as
her delicate sighs transformed into desperate moans of sweet, primal pleasure.
She tightened around his granite spear, pulsing and squeezing him as she
achieved release, assuring that his completion followed close on the heels of
her own.

Donovan gave one final deep thrust as his world exploded
into pure exhilaration and triumph. He heard a dense crack beneath them as if
from a great distance and Lizzie clutched at him. The table she was perched on
dipped. He gazed down. A front leg had given way, bending at an odd angle
toward the wall. The table was cockeyed, and Lizzie was in danger of sliding
off.

He swore aloud, more from the bereft feeling his hand
experienced upon leaving the lush, round moon of his wife’s bum rather than the
destruction of furniture. Lizzie laughed against his neck. Her legs dropped
from around his torso, but she hugged his thighs with her own. Her arms were
still about his neck. She eased her head back from his shoulder and gazed up at
him. Her eyes had that far away, dreamy look that brought pride and pleasure
deep within him. He was still inside of her, sated, reluctant to pull out of
her welcoming folds. They were content to remain joined, clinging to each other
and steadying their breathing.

The gasp to their left caught them off guard. Alice,
Lizzie’s maid, stood inside the doorway, a gown draped over her arm and her
mouth hanging nearly to her knees. “Mum--oh--sir--I--I--pressed yer gown like
ye asked---I--I--” She lifted the garment draped arm as if to add proof to her
claim. Her face resembled a volcano about to erupt. She hurried the nearest
chair, draped her mistress’s freshly pressed gown over it and fled the room.

Donovan chuckled and pulled out of Lizzie. Damn, he hadn’t
had this much fun flummoxing servants since he was nineteen and lived with his uncle
in France. It was a game among the younger nobles at the French court, getting
drunk and then tupping the maid, or a pair of them in the palace. And getting
caught tupping one was even more the rage among his jaded companions. As a
green lad from the colonies, he’d had to work hard to keep up. He grimaced as
he tucked himself inside his breeches. “Will she recover or will you need a new
maid by lunch?”

Lizzie giggled. Her sweet face twisted into a delightful
smile. “I’m certain she knows we do this as she changes the sheets and draws my
bath each morning. Still, I am rather fond of her.”

He nodded, pleased by the knowledge that he could still
shock a maid now and then, even as he neared thirty. “I’ll give her a raise. Is
there anything I might do for you, Ma’am?”

Lizzie’s hand moved from his neck to smooth a stray wisp of
hair from his brow. She had a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Yes. Tonight, I’d
like you to wear the silk mask to bed.”

Donovan grinned. She was becoming quite the accomplished seductress.

*******

Elizabeth waited until Donovan left for the stables before
checking on Kieran. Giles, her butler, was proving to be worth his weight in
gold. He’d sent the letters to her brother in Basseterre and brought Kieran’s
replies to her every day for the past week without anyone knowing, including
her spouse. Giles would pocket the letters from him and deliver them to
Elizabeth when she was alone. Kieran wrote long letters to her, mostly answers
to her questions about magic and their gifts, giving her instruction on some
aspect of their heritage.

Today, the supply wagon was scheduled to arrive with fresh
produce from Basseterre. She decided it was best if Kieran arrived on the
supply wagon while Donovan was distracted to prevent any unpleasantness between
the two men before she was able to present Kieran to Grandfather. Donovan was
easy to distract these days. She’d sent Alice to the kitchens to inform Giles
that his lordship would be occupied for the next twenty to thirty minutes.
During that time, Giles was to escort her brother into her private parlor, the
library.

Kieran rose when Elizabeth entered the room. She embraced
him warmly.

“Are you ready?” She asked, gazing up at him with
excitement.

“No.” He made a face. “I doubt I’ll ever be ready to meet
The Earl of Greystowe.”

“Donovan is out of the house.” She told him, rubbing his
forearm in comfort. “I wanted to do this with him away for as you well know he
tends to over-react where I’m concerned.”

“He is your spouse and the owner of this island estate.” Kieran
released an exasperated sigh at her description. “We’ve neither of us little in
the physical realm to trump that high card.”

“We have Grandfather.” She informed him. “No one denies Lord
Greystowe anything. Earl trumps count every time.”

Kieran tossed his coppery head. “You’re quite the
strategist. How did that come about?”

“Growing up with a military man, and a grandmother who
behaved as if we were at war with him. Donovan will accept this after it’s
finished. I will not have him interfering because he thinks I’m too fragile to
deal with anything more strenuous than pouring tea.” She paced before the
mantle as she spoke and wiped her moistening palms on her skirts. “We should
have a couple hours before his return. By the way, he never did tell me why he
sent you away.”

Kieran turned from her and studied a small shepherdess
figurine on the mantel. He picked it up and turned it about in his hand, as if
he’d never beheld anything so dainty before. He was nervous, too. She could
sense the tension in him. He set the piece back where it belonged, but did not
face her as he rested his elbows on the mantel and spoke to the mantel wall.
“It was over our astral journey. He said you looked terribly frightened and he
feared your eyes were going to roll back in your head any moment and you would
have another seizure.”

“Bollocks!” Elizabeth spat the word as she went to stand by
his side. She moved the shepherdess so it was situated in front of the gilded
music box instead of beside it. That was rich. Donovan had been making her eyes
roll back a couple of times a day, for a different reason.