Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Elizabeth’s remaining few possessions and books arrived the very next day, accompanied by a brief note from Annabelle, bless her.
Only wherever was she to put them? Unlike her old bedroom, her new quarters had no bookcases.
She stared at the two chests resting in the foyer beside four footmen and Gerald, who awaited her order.
“Bring them to my room for now,” she told the butler.
“Bring them to the library, Gerald.” Milton’s voice called down from the upper landing. “That is where books belong.”
“I should like to sort them in my private chamber,” Elizabeth objected.
“So you can hide from me what you read?”
She wished to hide from him, but that was neither here nor there. “I am not ashamed of what I read, sir.”
He looked down at her, into her almost. She imagined he was picturing her naked, because last night he’d made her lie very still upon his bed as he’d slowly stared his fill. His scrutiny had thoroughly unnerved her, but also made her tingle, like it did even now.
“Allow me to show you my library, Elizabeth, that you may assess my collection and determine it worthy of adding your own.” He motioned for her to follow.
She trudged up the enormous staircase, two steps behind him as he led her through his cavernous townhouse—a home she had yet to fully explore. Yet when Milton pushed open a pair of weighty double doors, Elizabeth gaped.
“I take it you approve my sheer quantity of books, but do you approve their contents, I wonder?”
Row upon row, shelves floor to ceiling, his library stole her breath.
Light streamed in through south-facing windows, reflecting a dome of cerulean blue.
Unlike the rest of her husband’s residence, his library was not overly ornate, its chairs and tables more utilitarian than decorative.
A stunning Persian carpeted the floor with birds of turquoise nesting in leaves of verdant green, all woven into the rug’s dark maroon fibers.
The smell of leather and parchment pricked Elizabeth’s nostrils.
What adventures lay await betwixt the many pages here?
What worlds remained uncharted, what art unseen?
She must tread lightly in such a holy space, though like a magnet, the stacks called to her.
Escape. She ran her fingers over spines embossed in lettering proclaiming Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dante, Sappho.
Euripedes smiled back. Science. Mathematics.
Latin. Greek. Geography. What riches Milton had!
And what was this One Thousand and One Nights she spied?
“Does it suffice, Elizabeth?” His voice pulled her back.
“Sir, I am bewitched.”
She pulled those Nights from the shelf to slowly turn the book’s pages, a universe in ink, ripe for plunder.
“Good.” His voice again interrupted. “I’ll have Gerald bring your chests up. You may show me what volumes you’ve brought.”
“I—”
“Elizabeth.” His tone warned. “I should like to know what my wife reads.”
She swallowed, not in fear this time, but pleasure. Would he approve her paltry collection? Surely the man read, if he had a library like this. Or was this room merely meant for show?
She thrust her nose back inside the book she held, surprised by how her hands trembled. It was too much to hope her husband shared her love for the written word.
A minute—ten minutes? an hour?—later, Milton returned with the footmen carrying her heavy chests. These they deposited beside a long reading table.
The Baron bent to undo the latch on one.
She shut One Thousand and One Nights. “Allow me to assist, sir.”
“Elizabeth, there’s no need to—”
Their heads collided and she tumbled, inelegantly, to the floor.
Milton helped her up. “Are you always this addled around books?” His hand steadied her as she dusted herself off.
“No.” She flushed. “Just … nervous.”
“Nervous around your husband?” His mouth twitched. “Why Lizzie, I am flattered.”
She took courage. “I’ve known you such a short while, sir, and in that time we’ve—”
“Had our share of disagreements, yes. But we’ve had our share of enjoyment too, have we not?” His smoldering look sent her insides galloping.
“What I meant was, I know little of your interests—outside the bedroom, that is.”
Their eyes met.
“What do you like to read?” she asked, her hopes all pinned on this one question.
He began to pull her books from the opened chest, glancing at the titles. “I’ve not had much time for study, Elizabeth, so that is hard for me to answer. I like what I’ve read of philosophy and mythology, though. And history. I should like to learn another language someday, to expand my reading.”
“Which?” she asked.
“Which do you know?” He looked up.
“Italian and French.”
“I’ll start with French.” He averted his gaze to pull out more books and stack them on his table.
“I would like to read your collection, with your permission. You, of course, may read any book you find in my library, which I admit was compiled with paid guidance. Unlike men of your class, I did not have the luxury of a university education.”
“Neither did I,” she grumbled before she realized what she’d said.
His lips curled faintly in response, but he made no snide comment as to her sex. She was grateful for this and equally gratified he’d asked her permission to read her books. Such small acknowledgement of her person quietly thrilled her.
“What should I begin with?” He continued to peruse her collection.
Elizabeth opened the second chest and searched for Ovid’s Metamorphoses. “This.”
“That I know.” He smiled. “Pick another.”
She handed him Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
“I cannot read French, Lizzie. Not yet, at least.”
Right. She rummaged until she found Ethelinde by Charlotte Smith.
“Fiction?” he asked.
“Yes.” She hoped he’d like it. “You might appreciate the antihero.”
He flipped to page one. “Mind if I skim this while you unpack?”
“Not at all.” Her heart beat faster, curious as to what he’d think of the orphaned Ethelinde and the men who pursued her. What did he think of her, his wife?
“Hmm…” He mulled as he wandered to a window, seeking better light. For a moment his profile evoked the book’s most villainous rake, Davenant.
Milton settled into a wingback and Elizabeth stole glances at his serious, handsome face. She liked the sharp planes of his cheeks.
She continued to unearth her beloved books, relieved to find all accounted for.
She carefully packed them back into their chests and then explored her husband’s shelves, noting not only how many titles were unknown to her, but how many books lay strewn about the room, as if his library were well used.
She found a page open to a poem and stopped to read.
The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys I’ll not touch his shite.”
“And Blake?” she called after him, wishing he’d turn back. She yearned to know what words, fair or foul, moved his heart. For a heart existed in her husband’s breast. It must, to own a library like this.
Had she not heard it beating loudly just last night?
Milton paused, his back still turned. “At least Blake, unlike Byron, knows experience corrupts.”
***
He left her in his library, to do whatever she damn well pleased.
He needed to escape his blasted wife, for she’d nearly put a spell on him, handing him that Smith book, precisely the sort of wild, fantastic fiction that sucked him in and did his brain no drop of good.
Nothing useful to be gleaned from a book like that. Hmph.
Milton marched to his office to clear his head and pour himself a drink.
He gazed out the window to the empty street below, the echo of hooves on cobblestone clattering as a lone hansom rumbled by.
Nothing like the streets he’d grown up in.
His children would never know the stench, nor weight, of poverty.
His wealth would spare them that. He’d show his rotten sire that a bastard firstborn could not only achieve a ridiculous level of wealth, but form a dynasty all his own, a new bloodline to inherit the title and lands he’d amassed in Scotland, just like a bloody goddamned duke.
Milton’s thoughts turned to the future mother of his children.
Would Elizabeth read them stories at bedtime?
Shower them with kisses while she did? She knew Blake, but did she read the poet’s verse as Milton did?
He doubted it. Magic lay in the alchemy between reader and book.
He’d discovered this as soon as he had taught himself to read.
It wasn’t the author’s words that mattered so much as the reader’s mind feasting on them.
Inside his head, his breast, his gut, words lived and breathed meaning—his meaning, and his alone—no longer the blasted author’s.
The soul of any man was built upon his word.
He recalled the poem he’d read just last night in Blake’s Proverbs of Hell:
Prisons are built with stones of Law,
Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
God yes, woman’s nakedness… Milton closed his eyes and pictured his wife in all her God-given glory. There was poetry in a woman’s flesh. Art in sex.
This much, he knew.