Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Jasper Audrey, jack of all trades and new Baron of Milton, was a great many things, but a gentleman he was not.
This did not plague him much. What plagued him was that he would never be a proper peer.
Still, he was pleased with the outcome of his morning visit, knowing Miss Winthrop would help to right that grievous wrong.
She was the perfect foil: respectable, titled, and of sufficient backbone to withstand the Ton.
She was no wilting, simpering debutante and no simpleton either—more clever than her father by far.
Though those spectacles were a shame. She might almost be called handsome without.
He considered her appearance as he strolled the leafy neighborhood streets, having sent his driver ahead so he might walk off his excess energy.
He’d been honest when he’d deemed Miss Winthrop’s sister more attractive, for the younger daughter had delicate, soft features and bright, wide eyes beneath a halo of chestnut curls.
Elizabeth was almost plain in comparison: sharp, grey gaze to match her sharp tongue—not to mention ink-black hair pulled severely to her head.
The sisters had looked unrelated, perhaps had different mothers even.
Yet Elizabeth’s person had excited him in ways he could not deny.
His body had positively hummed in response to her own, and when he’d discovered her equally eager, he’d known she’d suit his bed.
Those hips and arse of hers fair begged to be handled.
Milton’s cock twitched and his step lightened just thinking about Miss Winthrop, realizing he had a week’s time now in which to outfit his future wife and determine her course of training.
At the very least she’d need a wardrobe and a lady’s maid.
At best he’d bring her to heel before they wed.
Li would know whatever else a baroness required.
Yes, a visit to Li’s to make the requisite plans and purchases was now in order. Though his missing kidskin still niggled.
It didn’t matter. He’d buy another pair. Hell, he could buy as many gloves as he liked. There were perks to being rich as Croesus.
Elizabeth curled her body into a ball of misery and rage.
Her life was crumbling about her, and all she could do was stew in her bedroom’s window seat.
Not even her beloved books and stories held escape, for she could concentrate on nothing but the memory of that man’s unnerving blue dots piercing her when he’d lowered his price and demanded her hand in marriage.
That she should be wed to a baron so arrogant, so unfeeling and severe …
Oh! She longed to punch his smug face the way he’d punched the butcher.
Which only complicated her feelings, for in that instant he’d been a different man entirely, one who had defended her honor and come to her rescue. One who’d behaved nobly.
Though she’d all but forced his hand, she reminded herself. She’d dragged the gentleman with her, knowing Butcher Wilkes would not take no for an answer this time.
Elizabeth’s sigh held the weight of her soul, her thoughts careening every which way.
Why was Father the pathetic creature he was?
Why had her mother ever deigned to marry him?
Or had she, too, been sold in marriage like Annabelle’s mama?
The thought briefly arrested. Papa had squandered her stepmother’s income, his second wife powerless to control his gambling as he’d reduced the family to its piteous state.
Which had led, of course, to Elizabeth’s present piteous state.
Only why, in God’s name, had Papa lied outright about her and Annabelle’s ages? Elizabeth was nearly twenty-four and Bella close to twenty-one. He’d done them a disservice in this, too.
She sank her face to her hands, so angry she could not even cry.
Nor could she deny that rotten baron had somehow, impossibly, roused in her stirrings of …
No, she would not even think the word. She was a lady of virtue—at least, in deed she still was.
She’d seen too much in life to proclaim herself an innocent.
Butcher Wilkes was not the first man to assert himself.
Elizabeth had escaped more compromising encounters than she cared to recall in her attempts to stall and sweet talk her way out of Father’s debts.
She knew the liberties men took, the filthy offers they made.
But no man had ever touched her as this baron had, in his finely tailored waistcoat and fancy kidskin gloves.
His wiry frame had towered over her in the most egregious, commanding manner, as if he’d already owned her outright.
And her own tremor of weakness, that revolting trickle to gut, right to where he’d…
She would cease to think on the intimacy of that moment, the flagrant, wholly inappropriate, absolutely—why, the man was evil incarnate!
That ice-blue stare below his dark, pomaded hair had been so depthless, so fathomless, and yet …
She shook herself to escape the memory of his eyes.
Her spectacles had been no match for his scalding, searing gaze.
And if she didn’t figure a way out, she would be forced to stare into those eyes for the rest of her ungodly married life.
Elizabeth curled herself deeper into the window bench in her bedroom and peered into the black night outside, waiting miserably for sleep to come.
When it would not, she slipped to her desk, lit her small lamp, and pulled out paper and ink. She began to write. Not a comedy to distract Papa, not a drama for Annabelle to play the dashing hero or brave heroine, but a dark and dismal story of a lady trapped by circumstance.
London’s dankest rowhouse housed the worst of the city’s scum: a man more wicked than Beelzebub. Not even the low-life landlord knew his tenant’s full name. He knew him only as the brooding baron, a shadowy figure who paid coin upfront each week for his room.
The baron had just settled his rent, smoke curling from the pipe dangling at his lip. He puffed a mix of opium and tobacco, the smell cloyingly sweet, his mouth a snarl when he grinned. It chilled the landlord’s limbs.
“Go on, then,” the landlord dismissed him, though his bones rattled and quaked. “Off with yer.” Like always, his tenant’s towering presence pinned the landlord to his seat.
The baron laughed a menacing, low rumble, then trod the narrow stairs back to his rented room.
He stared at the girl who lay asleep in his bed, dead to the world, unaware of his wicked plans.
She thought she was safe, thought he’d saved her from a worse fate.
But once he ruined her properly, she’d be forced to marry him.
And then his plans could truly take shape.
“Lizzie,” Annabelle cried from the foyer, “Baron of Milton has sent you flowers! And a note!”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. She’d recovered enough from yesterday’s horror to swallow breakfast this morning, but flowers? She quelled the urge to vomit as she pushed her chair back from the table.
There was indeed a ridiculously profuse display of hothouse blooms in the foyer, utterly inappropriate given no shred of ardor lay behind the gift.
The bouquet was a dizzying array of blue hyacinth and yellow marguerite, leaving Elizabeth only more displeased, for she was versed enough in the language of flowers to know her ‘loveliness’ had not charmed the Baron in the least, hyacinths be damned.
And marguerites meant he’d ‘come soon,’ filling her with further dread.
She ripped the note from her sister’s hand.
Dear Elizabeth, I have scheduled your appointment at Madame LeBrecht’s this afternoon for your dress fitting. My carriage will arrive promptly at two. I must insist you do not dally. —Milton
She snorted. “Do not dally.” Elizabeth nearly choked on the words, making Annabelle glance at her with concern. “I must insist, he writes.” A harsh laugh tore through her. “I shall dally all right,” she muttered under her breath, jaw clenched. “I shall dally as long as I well please.”
She picked up his bouquet, opened the front door, and dumped the contents across the front step. Let him tread directly on his own blasted blooms when he arrived at two. Let him stand there and wait.
At precisely two o’clock Milton’s carriage pulled up before Miss Winthrop’s home. He straightened his hat before exiting his vehicle, then stepped over what appeared to be the remains of crushed petals on the doorstep.
He rapped the knocker twice and waited.
A footman ushered him in as Miss Winthrop was fetched, only it appeared the lady was not quite ready. Would he take a seat please, until she was?
He would not. Instead Milton paced the narrow foyer. He glanced at the clock. Ten after two. He paced more, his ire increasing with each tick of the hand. Soon it was quarter past, then nearing twenty after.
In a huff he took to the stairs, disregarding the footman entirely as he bellowed, “Miss Elizabeth Winthrop, I will not wait a moment longer!”
Magically she appeared, stepping out from what he presumed was the lady’s own chamber. She clasped a book to her chest, looking wholly unprepared in but her house dress.
“Is that you, Baron?” Elizabeth pushed her spectacles up her nose. “I am sorry to keep you waiting, but I’m afraid today simply does not suit. Perhaps you might reschedule my appointment with your modiste for tomorrow instead.”
Impudent chit. He grabbed her arm and hauled her downstairs past the footman, then promptly shoved her into his carriage with all the elegance of a tossed grain sack.
Sans bonnet or spencer, she righted herself on the seat, looking both stunned and fierce.
Milton yanked the door shut, pounded furiously on the roof, then turned to her with a glare. “You have deliberately provoked me.”
“You have deliberately insulted me.”
“Since when, pray, are flowers insulting?”
“When they are accompanied by not a shred of feeling, sir, but with a note of command, ordering me about as if—”
“As if you were my property already?” He continued to stare hard into her eyes. “Because you are, Miss Winthrop. Let us not forget your father’s word. And if you do not start following my orders this instant I can and will rescind my offer of marriage and take your sister in your stead.”
She gasped.
“It matters little to me which one of you I wed, and I must say, I am beginning to wonder if I chose poorly.”
***
Elizabeth froze, because the man seated across from her would crush Annabelle.
She swallowed her nerves and lowered her head, the rattling carriage making her stomach churn more than it already did. “I beg your pardon, Baron,” she murmured meekly.
“Better.” He still radiated anger. “But not enough. Beg me again.”
Her eyes flashed to his, meeting therein a steely determination which again pricked alarm. She lowered her gaze once more, to settle on his tall, polished hessians, the sheer size of them forbidding. “I apologize for my behavior, sir, and beg your forgiveness.”
He wrenched her across the carriage so that she found herself on her knees before his lap, her head snapped back.
“When I told you I expected obedience, I meant precisely that, Miss Winthrop. So either you do not understand the meaning of the word, or you require a demonstration of it. Which is it, miss?”
Elizabeth trembled. She would be wise not to cross her betrothed more until after they married, when Annabelle would be safe from his clutches. She swallowed her bile.
“Sir, I believe you just demonstrated your desire for obedience.”
“Good,” he told her, though his grip did not loosen. “Now remove those bloody spectacles.”
“Sir, I do not—”
“If you cannot follow an order so basic, Elizabeth, then I will rescind my marriage offer.”
She quickly pulled them off, unwilling to risk Bella’s future on so simple a request.
His breath hitched. Unable to read his expression, she squinted at the Baron, now a blur, for the rotten man had just stolen her sight.
She was suddenly, unceremoniously lifted onto his lap.
“Look at me.” His gloved hand turned her cheek to face him. “Can you see now?”
“Yes.” She stiffened.
“Good.” He leaned in for what felt like the start of a kiss when the carriage lurched to an abrupt halt, nearly throwing her from his lap. He gripped her close. “We’ve arrived,” he told her gruffly. “See to it you behave.”
She hastily donned her glasses as he pushed her off his lap and handed her down to his driver, to a boisterous London street.