Page 60 of Brutal Serpent

I gasped thankfully for air, and St. Erth swept me up with one hand, my thick skirts soaking his breeches.

“How dare you,” Papa was sputtering, but St. Erth was in no mood for conversation.

“Convenient,” he said. “My revenge will come early. 9 months early, to be precise.”

With his left hand, he tightened his hold on Papa’s neckerchief, suddenly twisting so viciously that I heard my father’s neck break under his fingers.

I was still gasping for breath, held so tightly by my husband that his strong, firm heartbeat reverberated in my own chest.

“Kitten, your father is dead,” St. Erth said dismissively as Papa’s body sank down into the cold waters.

“Thank you,” I said weakly. “How did you know I was out here?”

“You left my bed without saying where you were going, naughty puss,” he said. “Of course I came after you.”

And the serpent won.

Like Eve, I couldn’t resist. I knew what he was and I still said it.

“I love you,” I said, throwing my arms around my cruel husband’s neck.

“I love you too,” the Viscount returned, my husband’s mouth on my throat, my lips, every inch of skin he could see. “And now,” he said, “I want you to sit here on the bathing machinewhile I put the weights from your dress on your father’s clothes, so I can send him out to the ocean without fear of his corpse floating back onto the beach and thoroughly ruining our breakfast.”

So I sat, shivering, on the side of the bathing machine while St. Erth slit the bottom of my dress and tied my weights to my father, and I watched as he waded out until the water was waist-high and he sent my father out to the deep sea.

Then he waded back and took me in his arms, carrying me back to the beach and back to our rented house.

“Let’s take to the sea,” the Viscount said, the hot waters of my bath finally taking the chill of my attempted murder away. “I’d like to sail to Italy.”

“That sounds wonderful,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to go on a sea voyage.”

“Good,” my husband said. “But you have no choice in the matter, you know. You’ll be doing what I want whether you like it or not.”

And then my husband’s fingers were slipping into the bathwater and down to my cunt and then inside me, and my body moved in rhythm with his touch, always his to take and command.

Epilogue

The good ship Viper almost sang as she sliced easily through the waves. She was a well-made vessel with a good full crew.

It was going to be a good trip to Italy.

My 1-year-old son Arthur toddles across the deck from my arms into his mother’s.

He’s a fine, strong boy, red-haired and brown-eyed like his mother.

With his birth my eternal triumph over the Wendovers is complete.

But being on dry land bores me. If my wife and I both hunger for the sea, I am rich enough to make it happen.

Wendover House and Rosewood Manor are now run by competent stewards while my wife and I sail wherever we please.

Lady Julia and Millward have been moved into one of the tenant farms and are now responsible for a small garden, keeping hogs, and washing everyone’s laundry from Wendover House.

Catherine says I should show mercy. After all, she argues, my revenge against Sir Philip ended up as much more satisfying than even I had planned.

And the Viscountess is right. The feeling of her father’s neck breaking under my fingers was extremely satisfying. I should have done that to begin with.

Perhaps after a year or two we’ll visit and I’ll see how hard they’ve been working. But I’m in no rush.

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