Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Madam Audrey herself escorted Elizabeth home in a hansom, having shown her how a little powder could readily hide a bruise. The Baron’s mother thought of everything—except, of course, Elizabeth’s desire to stop this marriage.
The moment she entered her father’s house she marched to his study and laid forth Milton’s character in starkly honest terms. But when this failed to move Papa in the slightest, she decried her betrothed outright, which only seemed to harden her father’s resolve.
Before she knew it, Elizabeth was railing at Papa, her nerves sapped of all control.
By the end, she fell to her knees to beg him outright, and it was not in her nature to beg.
Still her father refused. He repeated in anger that she was promised to the Baron and nothing she might do or say would change that simple fact.
She suspected he had squandered her blasted bride price already.
Thus, Elizabeth did the only thing left her. She bolted from the townhouse, but her father’s uncouth, new footman dragged her back upstairs, where she was shamefully locked into her room.
In despair, she fell to her bed, Madam Audrey’s words echoing in her head: You’ll marry my boy tomorrow, because Jasper Audrey always gets his way. Only what of her own dreams and desires? Why could Elizabeth never get her way?
When Annabelle was allowed in later with a plate of dinner, the footman locked her inside as well. The awful fellow now stood guard outside Elizabeth’s bedroom on Papa’s purported orders.
She refused the tray of food, scoffing when her sister proclaimed starvation never aided escape.
“Lizzie,” Annabelle leaned close enough to whisper, “I shall come for you tonight after the footman falls asleep. I shall steal his key and release you so we may both flee Father.”
Tears sprang to Elizabeth’s eyes. “Oh Bella, how I wish…”
Her sister patted her arm with false assurance. “But now tell me of your day, of all that came before Papa locked you up. What is the Baron’s mother like, Lizzie? What did she serve for luncheon?”
Elizabeth wiped dry her tears. “I admit I rather liked her, Bella.”
“That is wonderful news, sister! Only why, then, did you—?”
“Attempt to call the wedding off?” Elizabeth snorted. “Because I cannot marry that man. He is … horrid.”
“But I thought at times you had enjoyed his company this week?”
“Bella, you cannot imagine how base the Baron is. And I cannot even tell you any details lest I—” She broke off.
Annabelle’s eyes were twin moons of concern. “Lizzie, what are you not telling me?”
Elizabeth shook her head and Bella’s moons slivered into crescents. “What has he done that you cannot tell me, of all people? And why are you wearing powder on your face? What happened to you today? I will not rest until you—”
“It matters not.” Elizabeth sighed, resigned. “What matters is that you will not be forced to marry the Baron. You will find a better husband than the bastard who will be mine.”
It sounded like a line lifted directly from her story. Did life now imitate art? Had she written her own assault?
Elizabeth shuddered, all appetite fled.
In the dead of night, a form slipped into Elizabeth’s bed, hushing her with lips and hands before she knew her up from down. Her betrothed’s muscle overpowered, but her tongue could still protest, “You’ve no business being here!”
Milton enveloped her more tightly in his arms. “I’ve come to apologize, Lizzie, before it’s too late.”
“Too late?” She harrumphed. “It is indeed too late for you to—”
He silenced her with his mouth, his kiss sinking deep into her bones, settling there a sweetness that scalded.
Then he wrapped his lean frame about her own, tucking her head beneath his chin as he radiated warmth.
She was again struck by the same odd sense of safety she’d experienced just that afternoon.
Only this time she was not reeling from a stranger’s violence.
She was reeling from her betrothed’s molten kisses.
“Elizabeth, I must apologize on the eve of our wedding, because you’ve passed every test I gave you with aplomb. And I was not gentle in my testing. My mother has berated me enough on your behalf for my conscience to burn, yet the trials I set you were necessary.”
Trials?
“The moment we wed, the world will treat you with as much disrespect as it does me, and you shall have to be very brave to withstand it—braver still once children are born. You must defend them against society’s cruelty.”
His words reminded of his mother’s, yet why he was so hell bent on gaining entry to the gentry when he had enough wealth to—
“I have worked very hard to prove myself, Lizzie.” He continued.
“For thirty-five years I have fought and clawed my way to where I stand, and I will not give up what I’ve achieved.
With you by my side, the mother of my children, I will forge a dynasty to last beyond my death, elevating my heirs to their rightful place. ”
Was this his idea of success—heirs?
“And I will let no one, ever, harm you again, Elizabeth. That man was the exception, not the norm, at Miss Li’s brothel. My mother and Li take unparalleled care of the women who work there. They tolerate no violence or coarse handling, or any—”
“Do you mean to say they run a respectable whorehouse, Milton, or merely a reputable one?” She could not help but nuzzle her nose deeper into the hollow of his throat to more fully savor his scent.
“Both. Li maintains the most respectable bawdyhouse in our fair city, with only the finest, most impeccably trained whores money can buy.”
“Whores you do not visit yourself?”
He stiffened, but then his hands began to tickle her beneath the covers. “You think I have not tasted of those fair courtesans myself?” He cupped her breasts through her night-rail, making her suck in her breath.
“No, I—”
“Do you think I have not worked there, as one of Li’s paid male courtesans?”
Elizabeth froze.
“Because I have, Lizzie. It is where I learned how to service women deserving of pleasure. And you, my dear, are this night wholeheartedly deserving.”
Milton slipped low upon the bed and slid Elizabeth’s night-rail up her legs.
He nudged his head between her thighs and proceeded to consume her in such exquisite, bawdy manner she took leave of all her senses, flesh succumbing to his skilled lips and tongue until she could not keep from crying loud his name in heady rapture.
She hadn’t known such act as Evie’s could be done to woman too, but oh the bastard did it well. So very, very well.
Elizabeth’s loins shook, her muscles trembling still, sapped of all strength. Miss Li’s maids had not lied, for Jasper Audrey did indeed know how to grant great pleasure. Yet the man also granted pain. Though she would forget that pain in this moment, and simply bask in his gift.
She shut her eyes, exhausted by bliss.
***
Milton crawled in beside Elizabeth and lapped beads of moisture from his betrothed’s flushed skin, then stroked her feverish forehead. He’d just broken her last defense, using gratification to overpower, sheer sensuality to persuade. She would marry him tomorrow; Miss Winthrop had been swayed.
He nuzzled her lovely neck, content. It was not a feeling he often experienced, especially not after disastrous events. He remained furious at himself for endangering her today, yet hopelessly aroused by her now sleeping form, wrapped snug in his arms, safe.
His.
Tomorrow could not come soon enough.
His hand stole possessively to her breast, the other gripping her hip as he stroked the lovely swell in anticipation of his wedding night.
He pushed his cockstand against her lovely, round arse, desperate for contact.
He did not deserve this woman for his wife, but he hoped he’d made her feel deserving this night.
Small consolation for all she had endured, yet how else was he to show her he wasn’t a complete cad?
Tongue her a pretty speech, rather than tongue her pretty cunny, he berated himself.
Milton cursed his crass, pathetic self. He vowed right then and there his wife would lack for nothing in their marriage, though the one thing he could give her least, was what he secretly wished to give her most: himself.