in a thick curtain to hide her face. “So stupid of me, but he was alone at first and I was tired and not thinking straight and I wanted to consult him about Monty’s burial. I did not realize he had invited all his cronies to join him-” She stopped, shuddering a little. “When I saw that he was drunk I asked him to show a little respect with Monty’s body still lying next door.” She shuddered again. “He said that Monty could rot in there for all he cared and then he-” She gulped. “He…”
Nat grabbed her hand. “What, Lizzie?”
“He killed Mrs. Broad’s chicken and threw it on the fire!” Lizzie wailed. “He said he had brought it in lieu of payment of tax and it was just the first of many fines he was going to inflict now he was squire and he might as well cook and eat it there and then!” She gulped in a breath, the tears shining on her cheeks again. “I hate him!” she said vehemently.
Nat drew her into his arms and stroked her back as she cried against his coat.
“Then he said he was going to hire me out-whore me out was the phrase he used-to his friends,” Lizzie finished, muffled. “He said he wanted all my money, so he had to be sure no one wished to marry me so they might as well make use of me. I ran up here and grabbed my pistol and barricaded the door. They came for me,” she added, “but they couldn’t get in and soon they got bored and turned to easier game.”
“Christ, Lizzie…” Nat pressed his lips to her hair. He was shaking with rage and with despair that she had had to suffer this. “He’s mad,” he said. “He has lost his mind.”
“Tom always was unstable,” Lizzie said. She was shaking, too. Nat could feel it as she lay in the curve of his arms.
“But this…” Nat soothed her, stroking his hands up over her gently. “He needs to be locked up.”
“He has not done anything illegal,” Lizzie said. “Not yet.”
Nat shifted. “You said that this was just one of Tom’s orgies,” he said. “Those were the words you used. Has he then done this before?”
“Not like this,” Lizzie said. She fidgeted, playing with the buttons on his jacket. “We all know Tom’s proclivities,” she said. “We all know he ruined Lydia twice over and she was hardly the first. Oh, he would bring women back here sometimes. So would Monty. I saw things…heard things. But not like this. It was never as blatant as this before.”
“You never said.” Nat was appalled. He had known Montague and Tom Fortune for years because his family lands had run with theirs, but he had never realized the scandalous truth of what went on at Fortune Hall. He felt obscurely ashamed now that he had not known about it or prevented it from touching Lizzie’s life.
“It must have been shocking for you,” he said.
Lizzie shrugged again. Her face was averted from his. “I was not naive, Nat. Not in that sense. When Mama ran away I knew exactly what she had done to earn her disgrace. People made sure that I knew all about her trysts in the stables. They told me so that I could be ashamed of her. And Papa…” Her mouth drooped, a beautiful curve. “Well, he was the most loving papa to me, but I understood about his mistresses. I heard things and saw things at Scarlet Park, you know.”
Nat stared at her wordlessly. His own introduction to the world of physical pleasure had been the straightforward one that, he imagined, was the experience of many youths of his class and generation. A willing courtesan or two, then various eager widows of whom Lady Ainsworth, the mistress Lizzie had mentioned that night in the folly, had been the most prominent. It was a world away from Lizzie’s vicarious, furtive and confusing experience of sex. Her true innocence had been stolen years before their night in the folly.
“I am so sorry it was like that for you,” he said.
She shrugged again. “I loved living at Scarlet Park,” she said. “It was warm and opulent and as I said, Papa doted on me. Until I was older I did not realize that not all men keep their mistresses accommodated openly in their homes. It seemed quite natural to me. Although sometimes I think Papa forgot I was there so I did see more than I ought…” She sighed. “And whilst Monty was alive I could bear living here. At least he had some sense of common decency-until recently. Tom has none.”
“No,” Nat said. The whooping outside the door grew louder, accompanied by the sound of the riding crop raining down on some eager person’s bare rump. “I have to get you out of here,” he added, “but I doubt we can go now or we shall probably both be overpowered and ravished indiscriminately, even with your pistol to protect us. We will have to wait until they drink and fornicate themselves into a stupor and then we shall be able to slip away.”
Lizzie looked at him. “You want me to leave with you?”
Nat held her gaze. “You cannot stay here, Lizzie,” he said. “Not now. It is impossible for you to live at Fortune Hall whilst Tom is here behaving like this.”
Lizzie’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose so,” she said. “Damn him.” She looked up, an angry spark in her eyes. “I will go and stay with Alice and Miles until Tom drinks himself to death.”
“A charming solution,” Nat said, “but sadly, one that might take some time.” He shook his head. “Alice and Miles are too much in love to wish for a permanent houseguest. You would be better off married to me.”
Lizzie was silent for a moment, but when she looked at him there was a spark of amusement in her green eyes that reminded him of the way things had once been between them before it all became so intolerably complicated.
“How neatly you have maneuvered me,” she said lightly, “until I can see I have no choice.” She sat up, out of his arms. “I don’t have a choice, do I, Nat?”
“No,” Nat said. “Not anymore. You owe me fifty thousand pounds,” he added, “and I know you always pay your debts.”
He saw her fingers pause in their fidgety pleating of the bedspread. She looked at him, head on one side. There was a different glint in her eyes now. She was surprised and a little taken aback. She had not been expecting this. Lizzie was accustomed to seeing the gentler side of him. Normally he kept the iron fist for his work and she saw the velvet glove. Not anymore.
“How so?” she said.
“I called off my marriage to Flora because of what happened between us,” Nat said. “I lost her fortune. So now I am claiming yours in its place.”
She chewed her lip. “I see. And what is in this arrangement for me?”
“You escape your brother,” Nat said, “and thwart his plans to steal your money.”
“So that you can steal it in his place?” She was cool, noncommittal.
“It’s the best offer you’ll get,” Nat said. “I’m tired of being nice about this, Lizzie.”
She gave him another sideways look from those slanted green eyes. He could see that his determination had intrigued her rather than repelled her. It excited her and appealed to the wilder side of her nature. Suddenly, violently, he wanted to kiss her. Tom’s orgy, whilst repellent in some respects, had, inevitably, aroused him and he did not resist the impulse. He took her by the shoulders, feeling the slippery slide of the swansdown wrap beneath his fingers and beneath that the slenderness of her. He laid his mouth against hers. She felt cool and sweet and her skin smelled of roses. Nat took a gentle handful of her hair and buried his face in it, inhaling the scent. It was soft, slipping in sleek threads through his fingers, catching against his lips like silken bonds. He raised his head and kissed her again and this time her lips parted against his and the hunger roared through him and he kissed her deeply, searchingly, desire leaping to further desire, and she reached for him and drew him down onto the bed beside her, her hands moving over him, encouraging him out of his clothes even as she kissed him with a feverish need.
“I want you,” she whispered and the robe slipped from her and Nat pressed his lips to the hollow at her throat and to the freckles that dusted her shoulders. He pushed down her nightgown and saw that she had freckles scattered across the swell of her breasts as well and for some reason that excited him beyond measure as he lowered his head to lick and kiss them and she writhed beneath the caress of his mouth and tongue.
He had shed his jacket and now she was tugging at his shirt so that she could slide her hands beneath it and touch his naked skin. She was wild, insatiable, nipping and kissing him, running her fingers over him in blatant curiosity, her nightgown long gone, her alabaster-white skin stung pink with passion and the effect of his kisses. He was enormously aroused, even more so as Lizzie’s hand closed about his erection, as curious and questing as she had been in her exploration of the rest of his body.
“Not now. Not this time…” He knew if she touched him he would explode and he did not want that. Not this time. Later there would be time for her to learn and discover and for him to study every inch of her.
