The plan was coming together.
* * * * *
Robert Fitzwilliam looked at the clock on the dashboard of his car and then out at the rolling hills. He deduced he was, at most, fifteen minutes from Lacybourne Manor.
He did not like the look in the eye of his employer that morning and he never wanted that look directed at him again.
He was just going to make a quick stop to check on his team.
* * * * *
At the same time, but many years earlier, in the wood a fifteen minute horseback ride away from Lacybourne…
* * * * *
Royce lifted his head; his body was, as usual after he kissed Beatrice, on fire for her.
He yanked at the chain that held his cloak together at his neck, pulled it from his shoulders and whirled it out to lie it on the ground beside them.
“What… what are you doing?” Beatrice gasped, her eyes dazed, her lips swollen from his kiss.
“I cannot wait.” His voice was gruff. He no sooner wanted to bed her their first time on the forest floor in the threatening rain than he wanted the world to come to an abrupt end.
But he told no lie. He simply couldn’t wait. Something was driving him and at that moment, with his new bride’s eyes hazy with passion, her cheeks flushed, his body burning, he had no desire to question it.
She gulped and turned her beautiful eyes to his before she admitted quietly, “Nor I.”
At her words, he snatched her to him and he was not in any mood for romance and gentleness. His mouth devoured hers and she moaned against his lips, against his tongue in her mouth and he swept her up and dropped to one knee, laying her on his cloak.
The horse (neither of them noticed) shifted slightly closer, its ears up and alert.
He stretched out beside her, his hands roving her body, his groin pressed demandingly against her hip.
Lightning streaked the sky as his mouth took possession of hers and he roughly pulled up her skirts, his hand finding the smooth skin of her thigh and gliding across it, touching it for the first time and the silken feel of it made him wild.
“God’s teeth,” he cursed, burying his face in her neck as thunder rent the air. If he didn’t have her soon, he’d spend himself before they were skin against skin.
“What do I do?” she whispered, her voice half timid, half filled with desire.
“Touch me,” he replied without hesitation.
“But… where?”
“Anywhere.”
And she did.
* * * * *
The dark soul stood, hidden behind the copse of the trees.
The air had gone golden even as the clouds rolled in and lightning lit the sky. It made no sense and, further, strangely, it was hard to breath.
“They should be here now,” an accomplice hissed.
The others shifted, uncomfortable, uneasy with the golden air, the delayed carnage.
Something was wrong. The dark soul felt that it should have been done by now.