Chapter 8 #2
Once again, his betrothed infuriated, even if she’d behaved exactly as he’d wished. She’d held her head high as she’d stormed from their luncheon—a lady through and through. Elizabeth was the ideal mate for dealing with toffs, but damned difficult to manage otherwise.
Milton’s ire grew as he pushed into more rooms. And then an ear-splitting scream pierced the air.
Lizzie.
He ran toward the shriek, tearing open more doors until he found her, and the man atop her.
***
Elizabeth had been toppled, a hand now smothering her cries.
Fingers raked her thigh and shoved her legs apart, though she fought back with all her might.
Still, she was no match against her assailant’s awful weight.
Despair laced her limbs just as the door flew open and her attacker was bodily lifted off her, hitting the wall with a thud.
“You bloody, sodding scumbag!”
Milton’s face swam before her in a blur as thumps and grunts filled the room, the sickening sound of fist on flesh refusing to stop as her attacker fell limp beneath the Baron’s repeated blows. Good God, he was murdering a man before her very eyes!
Three large fellows burst in to separate Milton from his prey, but Elizabeth found she could not cease screaming, her throat becoming raw, dry.
Dark skirts swooped in to clap a hand to her mouth, urging hush, girl, hush!
Those hands pulled her from the room as Milton’s punches echoed in her head, the sounds so thick and awful she was suddenly, violently sick, tossing her lunch all over the hall floor.
Hands swept her hair from her face as she heaved two more times and then collapsed, shaking, into the arms that held her.
Those arms rocked her gently and whispered words that only gradually, groggily made sense. You fine, brave girl. My son’s an arse and a half. I’ll box his ears for bringing you here, I will.
Madam Audrey.
Elizabeth was adjusting to reality when new arms lifted her away. She was carried to a room and smothered in an embrace, kisses rained on her head.
“Lizzie.” Milton’s voice cracked.
She did not answer. She sank into the safety of his strong, capable hold, though he smelled of sweat and rage. Never mind she’d wished to flee him not half an hour before.
She breathed, in and out, counting her blessings slowly, deliberately in her head. One, she felt safe. Two, she’d been spared. Three, Milton had come for her, protected her.
But he protected her only from others’ attacks. Not his own.
“Luv, did that man—”
“Ruin me?” Elizabeth pulled from him, her sense of safety snapped in two. “Did he spoil your virgin prize, steal your purchased property?” She tried to disengage from him but he held her tight.
“That is not—”
“That is exactly what you meant.” She pushed him away, hurt. “Because that is all I am to you. All I’ve been from the moment we met.” Hot tears welled in her eyes. “So don’t you ‘Lizzie, luv’ me, sir. I will not marry you tomorrow. My father will pay back every pound you—”
“Christ, woman. That is not at all what I meant, and even if—”
“If?” Her voice rose. “Even if I’d just been ruined you’d what—wait a month to make sure I was without child before you married me? Turn me out if I were?”
Milton’s face bloomed red, but before he could reply his mother swept into the room, a maid at her heels.
“That is precisely what he’d do.” Madam Audrey glared at her son. “My boy does not deserve you, Miss Winthrop.”
Milton opened his mouth but was ignored.
“I shall escort you home.” Madam nicked her head at the maid, who set down a pitcher and washbowl. Milton’s mother held out her hand to Elizabeth, requiring her son to release her.
“Mum,” he growled, “a word.”
“Oh you’d like more than a word, boy, wouldn’t you?” Her lips thinned. “You’d like a great many things, always have. But right now, you can get out.”
Milton glared at his mother but obeyed.
“And Jasp.” She stopped him at the door. “Clean up the mess you left, eh?”
She rang the room’s bell, then sat Elizabeth down at a dressing table. Madam Audrey calmly brushed out Elizabeth’s snarled hair in controlled, slow strokes while the maid washed Elizabeth’s face and hands, inspecting her for scrapes and bruises.
“Tell me what happened, dear.”
“I don’t—” Eizabeth shook her head, trying desperately to refocus. “I asked a man to point me to the foyer, only he dragged me inside a room instead.”
Tea arrived with biscuits, halting Elizabeth’s speech. Madam urged her to eat as the maid knelt to stitch a rip at Elizabeth’s hem.
Numb to her core, Elizabeth sipped tea and nibbled biscuit, tasting neither. How was she in this room, this house, in such disordered, dismal state? The cracked lenses in her spectacles fractured her face in the dressing mirror, distorting her world even more.
Another pair, ruined.
“Madam,” she forced herself to speak, “why do you treat me now with kindness when before you”—she struggled to describe it—“blatantly abused me?”
The lady sighed. “Because Jasp asked me to, dear.” She eyed Elizabeth through the mirror. “Surely you’ve noticed him putting you through your paces, testing you at every turn.”
Truth dawned on Elizabeth.
“He’s preparing you for what’s to come, Miss Winthrop.”
“But I—”
Madam stilled Elizabeth’s scalp with the hairbrush. “He is preparing you for how harshly society will treat you as his wife.” Her voice grew bitter. “It is how he is treated himself—how the Ton treats any they deem beneath contempt.”
“But he was made a baron, Madam, with income and holdings which—”
“Exceed those of most nobles, yes. He’s done very well for himself.
” Her voice held pride. “My son is indeed a wealthy man. But he had to purchase his title, Miss Winthrop, whereas your father was born to his. And therein lies all the difference. In the eyes of fine society, Jasper remains a bastard and a laughing stock. He could not even purchase a British Baronetcy but had to look to Scotland instead.”
“Is that why he—?”
“He longs for what he cannot have, something no mother can give him. And he is too old and stubborn to listen to me anymore, that much I know.” She coiled Lizzie’s hair into a low knot.
“You, however, impress, my dear. The rebuke you delivered us at luncheon was as cutting as our disrespect. I see why Jasper chose you for his wife.”
“But—” Elizabeth’s attempt to turn her head was sharply corrected.
“That does not mean he is deserving of you.” Madam’s wry dimples resembled her son’s.
“Which is why you are right to make him stew. He should be punished for pushing you so hard, and I can only apologize deeply, Miss Winthrop, for the assault you just suffered in this house. Miss Li and I tolerate no violence toward our girls. There will be consequences.”
“So the man still—?”
“Lives, yes. Jasper doesn’t kill if he doesn’t have to. Simply beat him to a pulp. When you’ve lived the places we have, dearie, well, I made sure my boy learned how to fight.”
Elizabeth was grateful for it.
“That man should not have been in this house at this hour,” Madam continued. “We have rules and protections in place.” Her tone betrayed real anger.
Elizabeth lapsed into silence as Madam Audrey finished tending to her hair. A moment later the maid finished at her hem. A second biscuit eased Elizabeth’s stomach, yet before she lost courage she spoke the words that had sat her tongue all day.
“I cannot marry your son, Madam Audrey. I am sorry, but I cannot.”
Madam adjusted Elizabeth’s cracked spectacles on her nose. “I know.” She looked her in the eye through the mirror. “But you will. You’ll marry my boy tomorrow, because Jasper Audrey always gets his way.”