Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Must we truly unwrap each blasted gift?” Milton tossed another useless parcel aside as his wife jotted another name to her list. “Murdoch is perfectly capable of—”
“It is not your housekeeper’s duty to catalog wedding gifts, sir. It is our duty, as recipients, to thank our guests for their generosity.”
“Such the proper wife, Lizzie. You’ve taken nicely to your role.”
“I told you I should make you a good wife.” She glanced up from her task. “I need neither Lady Stanton’s lessons nor your instruction.”
He frowned at her opinionated tone. What’s more, he was still irked she’d discovered that poem by Blake. He’d hate to think she would ‘discover his joys he knew this gift giver’s scrawl.
“Milton?” Lizzie quizzed him through her spectacles. “What have you received, please, and from whom?”
“The Duke of Allendale has given me a pair of red silk stockings with matching red ribbons.” He suppressed a grin.
“Stockings?” Her brow furrowed. “Is this a joke, sir?”
“I do not don women’s garments, Lizzie, if that is what you think. Though I know men who—” He checked himself. “It is a jest between friends.”
The cheek of Wellesley!
She handed him another package, and while he opened it, she furtively pulled the Duke’s note from the box, reading the same words he just had.
For Lord Redstocking, with gratitude for past services rendered. May your marriage be as happy as mine, old friend. —Wells
That night Elizabeth was told to await her husband in his bedchamber, though the instruction had come from Gerald this time, rather than Milton himself.
Ginny’s compassionate look told Elizabeth not to test the Baron’s direct order.
She tamped down the excited panic in her breast, wrapped her banyan about her nakedness, and opened the door to her husband’s chamber.
For a moment she stared at his room, because she’d been unable to observe anything but the plush carpet and firm mattress up to now.
Tonight she noted the plain, dark drapes and simple wallpaper, his only two paintings those of a stormy landscape and a pompous Mutton in canine pose.
Books were piled haphazardly on end tables and dressers amid decanters of liquor and snuff boxes, or were they boxes of pipe tobacco instead?
It was every bit a masculine room, yet wholly unlike the rest of the house.
Milton’s bedroom was stark in comparison—and not a little out of order.
She longed to rifle through his books but did not dare.
The space surprised her, given how neat he kept his person and his dress.
Yet the man also chose to dine alongside his staff; she’d been shocked to take dinner with her husband downstairs at the servants’ table, rather than in the formal dining room.
She’d sat beside Milton while Gerald had sat opposite, dishes passed hand to hand amidst pleasant household chatter.
An’ Mutton approves o’ the missus, Jasp? She’d overheard her husband’s groom, two seats down, conversing with the Baron. The fact that every servant called Milton by his Christian name still boggled Elizabeth’s mind.
Her husband’s laugh had been so warm, so different in response.
I’ll say he did! Ignored me through breakfast, th’ cheeky mutt, an’ wouldn’t leave ’er side!
I’ve a mind t’ give t’ beast a drubbin’ fer it!
He’d been as crass as the rest, Cockney spilling from his lips, as if Milton were not at all whom he presented to the world outside his own home’s walls.
Perhaps here he was more his true self. Though not with her.
With his wife he remained an enigma, a taskmaster, a…
Footsteps approached from the hall and Elizabeth quickly threw off her robe to assume the position he’d insisted she display. Such ‘marital duty’ made her feel apprehensive and exposed. It also made her—
Two raps to door. “Elizabeth?”
“Yes,” she answered.
He entered quickly, turning the lock behind him, before he stopped dead in his tracks, making every inch of her flush hot.
He slowly walked about her, inspecting every angle. “I am pleased you now follow my orders without prompting, wife.” He slipped her spectacles off her nose. “We wouldn’t want these damaged during our … endeavors.”
“I will remember to remove them next time. Sir,” she added softly.
He inhaled, as if about to speak, but then walked to his dresser and opened a drawer. “It is good you address me as sir in the bedroom, Lizzie, though I’d be even more gratified if you addressed me as master.”
She choked on a cough, to imagine herself as willing as that. Yet Elizabeth remained deferential. She’d not push him this night. She wished to discover how he behaved if she behaved.
He approached her from behind to sweep aside her braid and clasp something weighty about her neck. Though she longed to touch it, she kept her gaze down and her palms pressed into the carpet.
“This necklace belonged to my mother and is by rights now yours, Baroness. Someday, you will pass it down to our daughter.”
He wanted daughters, too, not just male heirs?
“I will give you more jewels, of course, but these will be the first our Barony holds.”
There was that need of his again, to claim all he’d been denied. It was admirable, his desire to grow a dynasty, to protect what he built.
But only jewels could be owned, not people.
Milton traced the gemstones at her neck, his touch deliberate yet light.
She shivered when his finger landed between her breasts, where the heaviest stone nestled.
He traced the slope between both swells, then rolled one nipple into a knot.
He palmed her breast lovingly, his other hand resting at her shoulder before his knuckles slowly stroked up and down her neck, achingly soft.
In all her life, Elizabeth had never felt so … worshipped.
Milton whispered, “Come to bed, wife, and let us make a family.”
She was awakened by a warm, wet pull. Something was pulling at Elizabeth’s left breast, sending sparks straight to her gut, where a fire simmered low in her belly. She was beginning to spark all over in short bursts of…
Her eyes flew open to her husband’s head at her breast, his lips enveloping an entire areola, suckling and laving as if he wished to milk her dry. “Milton!” she gasped. “What are you—? Why are you—?” She looked down at his tousled dark hair in shock.
He released her orb only to blow across the glistening tip, sending a fresh jolt to her loins. “I can’t wait to drink my fill.” He looked up at her, propped on one elbow, his muscular, scarred chest staring her full in the face.
Elizabeth flushed only more.
“It is sweet, you know, mother’s milk.” His fingertip traced the same throbbing nipple, making her loins tense with ache.
“I was allowed a taste once.” He smiled at the memory.
“And I never forgot, always wanted more.” His finger slipped to her other, unattended breast. “Like liquid sugar, Lizzie. Oh, to be a babe!” He laughed.
“Here in this bed, you will feed our child and feed me, your husband. I’ll stroke my heir’s soft head”—he stroked her breast—“as you stroke mine.”
Presuming those words permission, Elizabeth cautiously touched his locks, unbearably soft. How often did her husband bathe that his hair should feel so silken?
He straddled her torso to give both orbs his undivided attention while she squirmed beneath his bulk, her hands releasing his hair. She remembered his rule. “Permission to touch you more, sir, please?”
Milton’s voice purred like a contented beast. “My back, woman. That is all you may touch. Only my back.”
Elizabeth’s hands scored the length of his flesh, feeling him shudder in response.
He roughly spread her legs and impaled her with one swift thrust.
She welcomed the rough ride.
After, she lay on her side and watched her husband’s chest rise and fall, his eyes closed to the sun’s bright rays, a grin dimpling his mouth. She wanted to kiss that mouth but wasn’t sure she was allowed.
She wanted to ask him a hundred questions, too, not least of which was how he knew how to render her … speechless.
She let her eyes traverse the litany of scars that riddled his chest since her fingertips could not. Some were superficial, but some cut very deep. One long, nasty tear went clear from rib to abdomen, as though he’d been sliced wide. She shivered to imagine it.
“Are you staring at me, wife?” Milton’s dimples deepened, though he kept his eyes closed.
“I am enjoying the view,” she boldly answered.
“Marred flesh does not offend the lady?”
“Milton,” she ventured, “may I touch your scars? Do they hurt you still?”
His eyes flew open. “You may not, and they don’t.”
Elizabeth quickly looked away.
“They are not marks I like reminding of.” He turned her chin back to face him. “It is not your touch I fear, but memories better left buried.”
“Then may I hold you instead?” She did not understand this sudden urge she had, when she barely knew, let alone respected, this man. “I wish to…” Yet she couldn’t say ‘comfort,’ for it made her sound as if she thought him weak.
“What do you wish, wife?” His dimples winked at her again.
“I wish to please you.” She surprised herself. “And I don’t know how, when so many others have pleased you so well before.”
He roughly pulled her to him, molding her to his form. “Christ, Lizzie, you please me immensely. Just look how my prick leaps to your touch.”
His manhood did indeed press hard against her belly, though she mumbled into his chest, “That is not what I meant, sir.”
“Then what did you mean, wife?”
“I don’t know!” She pulled from him, but he would not let go.
“Lizzie.” Milton’s voice turned stern. “Do not overthink this, or overthink me. ’Tisn’t wise. You let that head of yours run away from you too often.”
“Milton, I could no more stop thinking than I could stop breathing.”
“Oi. An’ don’t I know it.” His finger traced her nose before he reached for her spectacles on the nightstand, placing these squarely on her face. “But too much thought in a woman’s head only leads a lady astray. I prefer my wife remain—”
“Ignorant? Passive? Doltish?” Elizabeth’s hackles rose. “Milton, you do not speak so dismissively of Miss Li, who is also a woman—an accomplished businesswoman, I might add.”
His eyes flashed.
“You’d not dismiss your own mother in such a condescending manner either, and she is an equally accomplished woman of business.”
His dimples vanished.
“I deserve the chance to prove myself of equal worth. A woman as capable as both Li and—”
“Lizzie,” he uttered sharply, “you are immensely fortunate not to have led the lives my mother and Li were forced to endure before either found success in bloody business.”
“I do not question their pasts,” she defended. “I question your dismissal of my person, your wife, as an equally capable, rational woman—circumstance notwithstanding.”
He removed himself from the bed, allowing her a clear view of his fine backside.
“You are adorable when arguing a point, wife, but I am spent from a night of lovemaking and therefore in need of more sustenance than words. We can continue this discussion later, when I’ve a full belly and you are less hysterical.”
Which was the worst thing he could have said, pummeling her pride only more. Elizabeth leapt out of bed, donned her banyan, and stormed back to her room, determined to spend the rest of the day away from her belittling toad of a husband.
She didn’t care how well the bastard fucked, or how generous his mood might sometimes be. His comment had stung worse than the spankings he’d given, far worse than she wished to admit.
He’d wounded her intellect.
For the rest of the day, she remained locked in her room, skewering a certain brooding baron with her scraping, racing quill.