Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Elizabeth sat tucked in bed, reading Austen’s Persuasion. The servants’ loud revelry still filtered through the house as they continued her birthday celebration with bottles from her husband’s cellar.
She’d insisted on it.
Annabelle must have spilled the beans, for Elizabeth had told no one it was her birthday.
Still, cake and champagne and a table full of foot-stomping well-wishers was not a bad way to end the day, especially when birthdays were usually disasters.
Father forever gave gifts too expensive to keep, forcing her and Bella to pawn them back.
And if he gave no gift at all, it sent him spiraling with guilt so that his daughters spent their fêted day striving to improve his blasted mood.
This birthday, however, had felt different.
As to where her husband was, Elizabeth did not care.
Perhaps he’d left the house to avoid the hubbub.
Perhaps he was visiting Miss Li again this night.
Given all she now knew, why shouldn’t he choose Li over her, his wife?
It didn’t bother Elizabeth in the least whom her husband now spent his nights with, so long as he did not spend them with her.
She brushed back a tear, irked by her annoying emotion. Equally irked when Gerald, not Ginny, poked his head in.
“Ma’am.” He refused to meet Elizabeth’s eye. “The Baron asks that you attend him in his chamber.”
She wanted to howl her fury at the moon.
Had the man no soul? And on her birthday no less?
To send Gerald to deliver such edict too, rather than her maid, felt all the more debasing.
Why was Milton so unfeeling? What had made him into such a beast?
Her thoughts brought little comfort as she flung off the bedclothes and pushed her night-rail to the floor, slipping on her stockings before she threw her banyan about her naked limbs.
She’d lie there like a lump again, an unresponsive wife, and see how well he liked that.
She stomped down the hall in her stockinged feet to her bedroom, pausing to steal a look at the nearly-completed shelves lining two walls. Elizabeth steadied her pounding heart, entered her husband’s chamber, and gasped.
Milton knelt at the foot of his bed, naked, in the same position he’d taught her to assume. His head was bent and his palms lay flat at his sides behind him, every sinewed muscle in his bearing bulging and straining, his jaw clamped rigidly shut.
She stared at him. “Is this some joke, sir, meant to mock me?” Her eyes flitted to the object lying prone beside him on the floor: a ruler.
“Do you find this humorous? Piquant? To present yourself to me now for punishment?” Her ire rose.
“Or is this meant instead to goad me into action so you might turn on me more savagely than before?”
“For God’s sake, Lizzie, just take the bloody ruler and beat me with it!”
His anguish made her freeze, his voice unrecognizable. For one terribly long breath she contemplated his very real words before she hefted the vile implement in her hand and tested its feel, tipping it for balance before she poked him with it.
He did not flinch.
“You do not jest,” she said in shock.
“No.”
“You wish me to strike you as you struck me.”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“You are insane.”
“No, Elizabeth.” He ground out her name through clenched teeth. “I have given this great thought.”
“Great thought?” She felt insane herself. “You have given it great thought?”
“I wish us to start over. This … evens the score.”
“My God, you are a fool or fiend—nay, both, to imagine this might even the score.” She shook her head.
“What does that even mean, Milton, what score? Are we keeping points as to who’s been beaten more, who’s the greater cad, the lesser whore?
What the devil do you mean, to present yourself so …
so …” She was suffused with rage and sorrow and such wretched, awful confusion, she couldn’t finish.
“Elizabeth, take the ruler and beat me, woman, you know you want to. Do it, blast it. Just do it!” His gaze was so intense she had to tear her eyes away.
She picked up the tool and braced herself to perform as her husband demanded. She stared at his naked back, at the scars riddling his flesh, and dropped the ruler to the floor, sinking to her knees beside him as her lungs gulped air.
She was better than this. Elizabeth would not strike a fellow human, even if that human ordered it.
Her next breath caught on a cry she did not utter. And then she fisted his hair, to hell with his rules. She forced him to look at her. “I will not.”
He seemed stunned.
“This does not even the score, it only makes me into you, as someone surely made you into them.” She was shaking so hard her teeth rattled in her head.
“I will not beat you or any person. I’d rather you beat me yourself than be forced to mark you now.
” She trembled with the truth of it, even as she let his head drop to his chest.
He choked back a sound and Elizabeth drew him to her without thinking.
She cradled him to her breast and stroked his silken curls, feeling his chest heave with effort.
His weight sank deeper against her until she enveloped him in her arms. And then she pulled him across her lap as if he were a boy and not a man.
In that moment a strange calm overtook her, for she recognized the gift she’d just received. Her husband had opened himself to her in the only way he knew how—through pain. She might not agree with his approach, but shockingly he had tried.
“Jasper.” She rocked his body there upon the floor the way one rocked a child to sleep. She did not know where the instinct came from. “Take me to bed, husband. Regain yourself.”
***
Had he heard her right? Had his wife just offered herself after all he’d done and said?
Had Elizabeth called him by his true name?
Milton’s howling, inner demon retreated to its cave, allowing his breath to flow and his flesh to feel the rise and fall of her soft breast against his cheek—soothing, pillowy. Her words rang so earnest, so honest, something splintered in his soul.
“Lizzie, I’ll not take you against your will. I would never—”
“I know this,” she told him softly. “You did not take me last night.”
He lifted his head. “You hate me.” He was convinced.
She exhaled. “I do not hate you, husband. I do not understand you.”
“There is nothing to understand.” He slumped again.
“Oh, I beg to differ.” She did not smile; the moment was too solemn.
“I think, sometimes, ’tis you who hates me.
Sometimes I think you should have … It no longer matters.
” She sounded sad. “We are stuck with one another, so we must make the best of it.” Her eyes blinked back tears as she shifted, straightening her body.
“I am willing to try to improve things between us, Milton, if you will also try.”
This was too much, when he’d expected so much less. His arms slipped about her as he reversed their positions. “I am willing to try, too, Elizabeth. I mean that, but you were correct, before, when you said that someone had—”
“Did they beat you when you were young?” she asked. “Is that how you got your scars?”
“Were I to tell you every evil I have witnessed, experienced, or myself inflicted, Lizzie, it would only scar you.”
“Tell me!” she implored. “Scar me with words so that you are not my devil but instead caught in some other devil’s path, the recipient of a different devil’s wrath. Jasper, if you keep me at bay I will insist only more. It is my nature to seek answers.”
Lord was that ever true.
“Lizzie, I’ve made a mess of things.”
“Yes,” she declared, “you have. But I have too. Another woman would have better accommodated your wishes and followed your six rules. Not to mention cost you a great deal less in broken spectacles.”
“And bored me to no end.” Milton was amazed he could smile. It felt good to smile. “You challenge me at every turn and please me very much in bed, Lizzie.”
“Nonsense,” she mumbled.
“’Tis true. You, wife, have the most gorgeous derriere, and the most pleasing breasts to ever fit my palms.” He slid his hands inside her robe.
She let out a sound like a kitten’s faint mewl, melting him into a puddle. He pulled her up with him. “Come, I’ve a gift for you on your twenty-fourth birthday.” He led her to his dresser, where he handed her a package.
Elizabeth slowly unwrapped it, her face alighting with pleasure. “How did you—?”
“Annabelle took me shopping this afternoon and informed me not only of your true age, but of my being a true arse. Why did you not tell me it was your birthday, Lizzie?”
“Birthdays are fraught,” she admitted. “But your gift…” She looked longingly at the book. “To receive a first edition with the author’s signature is…” She smiled up at him. “Thank you, Milton.”
His body bloomed as if fed by warm, summer rain. The sensation made him bold. “I thought, perhaps, we might read it together evenings in bed.”
“I should like that very much, Milton.”
Had his wife’s heart just opened a crack?
“Shall we start tonight?” She surprised him more.
“It is your birthday, Elizabeth, you may do as you like.”
“As I like, eh?” She grinned. “Now here is a side of my husband I very much enjoy seeing.”
“At last, a bit of me she likes!” He plopped his naked self upon the bed and patted his side for her to join him. “Shall I read first, or would you like the honor?”
“Oh, I think you should begin.” Her eyes perused his person before they landed at his groin, his blasted cock at half-mast already.
She handed him Shelley’s Frankenstein as she eased in beside him.
“I should like to hear you read the story. You’ve a lovely, deep voice, Milton. It is most melodious.”
“You joke.”
“I do not.” Though her eyes laughed back at him. “I paid you an honest compliment; be so good as to accept it.”
Milton cleared his throat and opened the book to read.
To Mrs. Saville, England.
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17--
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday; and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare, and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking…
Elizabeth snuggled closer, soon resting her head on his chest. He liked how she felt. How this felt. He read on, content.
Milton turned pages as quietly as he could, the sun boldly peeking in through curtain cracks as his wife stirred beside him.
He’d been unable to sleep. Too restless from conversation, lovemaking, from all that had changed between them, he’d taken up the book again to read. He found he could not stop.
She stretched and yawned before scratch, a page scraped, and her eyes flew open.
“Milton, are you—?”
“Reading, darling.” He gave her nose a quick peck before he turned another page.
“If you are reading ahead, sir, that defeats entirely the purpose of our reading the book together.”
He planted a warm, wet kiss to her forehead next.
“How long have you been awake? And just how far ahead have you—?”
“Shh, Lizzie.” He placed a finger to her lips, eyes not leaving the page. “I am just at the part where Dr. Frankenstein’s creature has found his creator, listen.”
Life, though it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine; my joints more supple.
But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee.
I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also perform thy part, that which thou owest me.
Elizabeth cleared her throat.
“What?” Milton frowned. “Do you not like my monster voice?”
“Oh, your monster is even better than your Victor Frankenstein.” Her lips twitched. “No, it was the last line you read which, er, resonated.” Her eyes glowed.
Milton looked back at the text. “Why, Lizzie,” he smiled, “do you mean to say you will be mild and docile to your natural lord and king?”
She poked him beneath the covers. “Not unless you perform your part and give that which thou owest me.”
“And just what doth your lord king owe you, woman?”
“Respect!” Her grey eyes flashed. “And freedom and—”
He hushed her with his lips, letting the book fall to the floor. He kissed her silent, then kissed her silly, kissing her into submission as he kissed his way to her core, to make up for past wrongs and past hurts, for birthdays gone awry.
Milton worked very hard that morning to be the lord and king his wife deserved. The sort of man he felt Elizabeth was owed.