Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Wollstonecraft, eh?” Milton’s tutor looked surprised. “I didn’t take you for the sort to open Pandora’s box, Jasper, but I am happy to open it with you.”
“Yes, well.” Milton dismissed Kilpert’s words with a wave of his hand. “My wife mentioned the author in passing, so I merely thought to—”
“Wife, right.” Paul Kilpert had been one of a handful to miss Milton’s wedding. “All the more reason to read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman then. It will give you plenty to chew on, and even more to discuss with your wife should she be inclined to—”
“I have no intention of discussing it with her,” Milton bit back.
His tutor wisely shut his lips. “Transcendentalism then, for today.”
“Transcend-what?” Milton frowned. “Paul, you know I’ve no patience for pseudo-science and attempts to speak with the dead.”
Kilpert grinned. “I am speaking of transcendentalist philosophy, Jasp. The idea that both man and woman contain knowledge of themselves and the world which ‘transcends’ that which our five senses can perceive.”
“Poppycock.”
“I assumed you’d think as much. But transcendentalism proposes knowledge can arrive through intuition and imagination, rather than through physical senses, or human logic, alone. It argues we should trust our inner selves to be the authority on what is right and wrong.”
“I trust only those who trust in my own—” He was about to say ‘authority’ when a knock interrupted.
“Enter,” Milton barked, annoyed.
Elizabeth walked in, stiff as a board.
He was at once put on edge.
“Please forgive the interruption, sir. Permission to speak with you a moment?”
Milton stared at his wife who stared down at the floor in a manner most unlike her. He grimaced. “Granted.”
“In private?” Her eyes flicked to his guest.
“Paul won’t mind.” He suddenly did not wish to speak to her alone. “Kilpert, my wife, Elizabeth Audrey, Baroness of Milton. Lizzie, Paul Kilpert, my tutor.”
“Tutor?”
“Yes.” Milton flinched. “Kilpert fills the gaps in my education. You may recall I was too busy amassing my fortune to comb the hallowed halls of Oxford or Eton.”
“Lady Milton.” Paul bent politely over Lizzie’s hand. “It is an honor to meet you. I am one of your husband’s greatest fans, as he is not only my best student, but also my benefactor.”
“Benefactor?” Elizabeth seemed only more surprised. “How, sir?”
“In exchange for our scholarly sessions, your husband pays me a stipend to research and write books on—”
“Kilpert, I pay you to tutor me, not my wife.” Paul had stared at Lizzie long enough. He was also undoubtedly the sort of erudite young man to appeal to a mind as curious as Elizabeth’s. “And Lizzie, you’ve obviously come with a request, so ask it quick, before I lose patience with you as well.”
She promptly changed tack. “I would like permission to redecorate my chamber, sir,” she asked.
Milton scowled to himself, irritated that she should interrupt him for something so frivolous as this. “Of course you may redecorate. I don’t care how you arrange your private chamber. Cost is no issue.”
“Thank you.” Elizabeth bent her head again in deference. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kilpert.” She paused. “And to learn my husband continues to improve himself with further study.”
Milton stared after her as she exited. “Scratch transcendentalism,” he told Kilpert. “I wish to tackle Wollstonecraft instead.”
Relieved her husband had granted her request, Elizabeth sought Gerald to discuss constructing bookshelves in her bedroom.
She would ask Murdoch and Ginny to move her to a guest room in the interim, because she was determined to progress toward something now, rather than stagnate in the morass that was her marriage.
Bookshelves might seem insignificant, a paltry endeavor even, but they were a change, and any change, however slight, would help improve her mood.
She’d been surprised her husband had a tutor, though, for what did this Mr. Kilpert talk to Milton about?
What did they read together? And why could she not join in their discussions?
It might have brought them closer, she and her husband, had he only allowed it.
Instead, he’d flippantly given her leave to redecorate, no expense spared—as if that would shut her up.
Well it would. She’d barricade herself with books and tutor herself. In fact, she’d write her own blasted books. She’d emerge only when duty—
A footman appeared. “You’ve a caller, ma’am. Madam LeBrecht.”
“Oh.”
A minute later, Elizabeth greeted Miss Li in the parlor. “It is good of you to call, madam.”
“Your note concerned me, Elizabeth.” The lady stared back, unblinking.
“Yes, well, wedding jitters are long behind me.” Elizabeth’s own pulse raced. “I have no illusions anymore as to the man I married.”
“My dear, you know next to nothing of the man you married.”
“And you do?” Elizabeth despised Miss Li’s impertinence.
“Yes. And I will share what I know about your husband, provided you will listen.”
Elizabeth squared her shoulders just as tea was brought in. “I am all ears, madam.”
Li’s gaze flicked over her as if she did not believe Elizabeth. “I urged Jasper to tell you himself about his past, but he remains mulishly reticent.”
“But why?” The question burst from Elizabeth’s mouth. “Why not reveal things to one’s own wife, for goodness’ sake?”
Miss Li took up the teakettle just like in her shop, pouring them each a cup in that long, fluid motion she had. “Elizabeth, you’ve been a wife for less than a month, knowing Jasper at most a week longer. That is reason enough, I daresay, as to why he won’t reveal more.”
Elizabeth tried not to scowl at the lady.
“If you had an unsavory past, would you wish to confide its sordid details to a mere stranger?”
“But I am not a stranger, I am his—”
“For all intents and purposes, Elizabeth, you are as much a stranger to him as he is to you.”
Elizabeth’s retort died on her lips.
“I am not here to defend your husband’s behavior,” Miss Li continued, “which is reprehensible, to say the least.”
So Li also knew Milton had beaten his wife? Had he told her himself? Or did the lady have spies amongst the servants? Perhaps all of London knew.
“But I am here to explain, in part, why Jasper does what he does. I do not condone his actions, Lizzie, let us be very clear on this. But I should like you to consider, at least, that the man you married is perhaps not so terrible as you think.”
Elizabeth’s hackles rose. “And how is it you know him so well, madam?”
Her smile turned rueful. “Jasper and Roland—the Duke of Allendale, that is—saved my life. I am not a native of your land, as I am sure you have guessed. They found me on their travels to East Asia, where I was shackled, you might say, to a deeply undesirable fate.”
Elizabeth’s thoughts flew in a million directions, but she knew better than to interrupt and give Miss Li a reason to tell her less.
“I was grateful enough for their help that I rewarded both men in the only manner I knew how. And Jasper and Roland, being of youthful temper in those days, did not take kindly to being rewarded in like fashion.” Li barely contained her smirk.
“They thought themselves in love, but really they were but enraptured by my skill.” She paused.
“I know how to wrap a man about my finger, Elizabeth. I believe that is the expression here, yes?”
Elizabeth could not imagine her husband in love with anyone, not even Miss Li.
“When I let both men know I wanted neither of their hearts, they decided their friendship was worth more than a woman who did not return their affections. So they dumped me here in London and went about their—”
“They dumped you?” Elizabeth exclaimed. “After they’d used you so shamelessly?”
Li’s eyes sparked. “Elizabeth, your outrage flatters, but I assure you it was I who used them. Back then, I trusted no man, none. I believed myself better off without them. Little did I know that London was not Kyoto. It was impossible to be as self-sufficient here as I’d been there…
” She broke off, as if memories pained her.
“Suffice to say, I did not fare well in your fair city. Yet Roland and Jasper selflessly came to my rescue again, past grievances forgotten. They saved me not once, but twice, Elizabeth. Twice do I owe both men my life. And in return they asked for nothing.”
The intensity of Li’s expression nearly blinded Elizabeth.
“I do not think you realize what a gift that is to a woman with my past. They asked for nothing in return, Elizabeth. Nothing. And so I trust them like I trust no others. They are my family. And though I do not hesitate to call them out when they are being what you English call knuckleheads”—Elizabeth smiled at the lady’s choice term—“at heart they are the most noble men I know. They are noble when it counts most, you see. When a person needs them most. I cannot call them good men, not the way you English define this word ‘good.’ But noble, honorable, these are words I understand. This is what allows me to trust them implicitly.”
Elizabeth’s tea had grown lukewarm. She recalled what the Duchess of Allendale had said of the Duke, and what all Miss Li’s servants had told her of Jasper Audrey, friend to whores.
Again and again they’d spoken of Milton’s generosity.
And yet with her, his own wife, the Baron remained callous and cruel.
Miss Li lifted the teapot as Elizabeth held out her cup for more. The liquid arced to the porcelain, not a drop spilled. The lady swirled the dark brew in her cup before she inhaled its steam, bathing her face in mist.
“He beat you, I know,” she told Elizabeth quietly. “He should not have.”
Elizabeth could not respond to such a statement.
“He told me how much he regrets it, Elizabeth.”
Her lips merely tightened.
“Jasper was beaten himself, often, as a boy. He was beaten to comply. And it was not his mother who beat him.”
Elizabeth sucked in her next breath.
“When he was older, he beat others for their pleasure. It is a difficult concept to grasp, but for some, there is release in pain. And Jasper…” She sighed. “He was forced to do things to spare his mother, to defend those he’d sworn valiantly to protect.”
Li’s eyes met Elizabeth’s with painful honesty—a look she imagined this woman showed few.
“For a good part of his life, you see, Jasper had no control over his existence. He worked incredibly hard to regain that control, so when anything threatens to steal it, to upend the life he’s so carefully built, I believe it robs him of his ability to think clearly.
He reverts to old patterns, to instincts carved deep in his bones. ”
A chill crawled up Elizabeth’s spine.
“And you, my dear, threaten Jasper in ways he’s not been threatened before.
Your very presence disrupts his life. With every attempt you make to understand him better, you force him to understand himself, to reconcile the present with the past—a task few willingly undertake.
I do not think Jasper understood this when he married you.
He did not realize that to open himself to feeling, he would also open himself to hurt.
And so he fights this hurt, fights you, Elizabeth, with the only weapons he knows: punishment and pain. For that is how others hurt him.”
Li took a long sip and leaned back against her seat.
“I do not tell you this to excuse his actions—please understand me.” She looked at Elizabeth intently.
“Never will I excuse a man who beats his wife, who beats any woman. But I do not believe it was Jasper’s conscious intent to do you harm.
And I stand by my knowledge of him as an honorable man. ”
Elizabeth remained silent, because Li’s words made matters only more difficult; it was easier to hate her husband than to feel empathy for him.
“Tell me, Miss Li, do you know about his rules?”
“Rules?” The lady frowned.
“The Baron taught me six lessons the week we courted. Rules specific to his wife, apparently.”
“Interesting,” Li murmured.
“Do not cross him, do not insult by being late, do not goad him, do not touch without permission, do not try his patience, and do not disobey.”
“Hmm.”
“You do not find this odd, madam?”
Miss Li regarded Elizabeth over her teacup. “If I know Jasper, he created those rules in order to protect you, Lizzie, from himself.”
Elizabeth struggled to comprehend the lady’s words.
Miss Li looked at her. “When it comes to Jasper Audrey, my dear, nothing is black and white.”
The two fell silent, staring into their cups, until Elizabeth felt the need to ask one final question.
“He also—” Her face heated. “He spanked me too, you see, and I did not—I did not find it unpleasant. It was not—” She struggled to explain.
“It was more the release you mentioned before, when you said that some people seek…” She was too mortified to continue.
Li took Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed. “My dear, what pleases two adults in the privacy of their bedchamber is no one’s business but their own.
What you enjoy and consent to is very different from that which is imposed on you.
” She tipped her head closer. “Should you consent to forms of punishment you find pleasurable, that is perfectly alright. It is only wrong when it is done against your will. Do you understand, Elizabeth?”
Pleasure in punishment?
“What you consent to accept from your husband is a matter between you and him alone. But you must consent to such obedience. You must desire it. Give it willingly, freely, and you may well derive pleasure from it, but if taken by force, against your will, you shall have no marriage.” She set down her cup.
“Jasper must understand this too. You must both find your way in this.”
Li abruptly rose from the chaise as if she’d said too much.
Elizabeth let the lady go, her mind awash with thoughts too astonishing to contemplate.