Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Milton.” Elizabeth stirred on his lap. “How did you … know?
“Know what, luv?”
“Know to … do what you just did?”
“Because I’ve needed it meself. We’re not so different, y’ know.”
She paused. “I do not understand, sir.”
He pulled her closer, stroking her hair.
“When I were…” He corrected his speech. “There was a time, Elizabeth, when I was younger, that I lost control all too easily, my temper too readily riled. Li helped me find an outlet for that anger, a means of controlling my emotions by letting go the impulse to control.”
“You mean you allowed others to do to you what you just did to me?”
He hesitated to reveal more, yet he needed her to trust him in this business with Finch, with her sister and Arty.
“Yes, only I did not just allow it, I welcomed it, as, I sense, you welcomed your own release just now. That does not mean I continue to need it. I am better at controlling my impulses. But I have sensed in you a similar need since that day in the park. What I did just now, Lizzie, was not done in anger, it was done to assist. It can be done even upon request.”
She pulled her tear-streaked face from his waistcoat, making his heart constrict.
“You mean to say that if I asked you to … spank me you would … indulge it?”
“Of course. I enjoy it, Lizzie. Not to cause you pain—though pain is involved, that is not the point—but to help you gain peace. It is not unlike the release found in bedsport, is it not? One can give and receive pleasure in this manner, too.” He feared he’d said too much.
“And if you needed such release yourself, would you ask me to aid you too?”
“Hmm.”
“Well,” she pressed, “would you?”
“If you were able, yes. Only you were not able before, if you recall, when I offered retribution.” He did not wish to remind her of his awful, past transgression.
“But that was different, Milton, you were asking me to—”
“How was it any different?”
“That was not spanking, sir, that was flogging with a ruler.”
“Hmm.”
“Surely there is great difference between—”
“Is there?”
She frowned, her face, however, now curious.
“Elizabeth, whether one uses ruler, hand, switch, or whip matters little, in the end, so long as the desired result is achieved, the outcome willingly agreed upon by both parties. What I did to you that time was—”
“No, it cannot be the same.” She shook her head. “The pain of one is so much worse than—”
“Some find release only in pain.” He looked away, to hide his own. “Some gladly suffer pain, while others can barely tolerate a splinter or a scratch. It varies.”
“But—”
“Lizzie, what I inflicted on you that day was wrong not because I used a ruler instead of my hand, but because I forced you to bend to my will when you did not consent to it.”
“But I did not consent that first time either, nor did I consent to—”
“Yes, and I am not proud of those moments.” He inhaled a breath, unsure how to explain his twisted logic to her. “I was training you, teaching you how to be my wife.” He paused. “It was also because I sensed in you a need.”
***
Elizabeth was awed by her husband’s sudden honesty. She wanted more, wanted to keep him talking now that he at last shared something of himself with her.
“And just why must I be trained?”
“Because of who I am, Lizzie, because of my past! Because there is great evil in this world, men like Hieronymus Finch, who now threaten the very family I wish to create with you!”
“So all you’ve just revealed, actions reprehensible in nature, all of it you claim to have done solely to protect your future family, to protect me?”
“Yes.” He traced her cheekbone with his knuckles in such a gentle, loving manner, she shivered to his touch, incredulous.
He made no sense.
“Milton, will our children also suffer at your hand? Would you—”
He reacted so violently she nearly tumbled from his lap. “I do not strike children.” His pain was so raw, so tightly coiled, brutal understanding flooded her core.
“Finch’s message … Your scars …”
He looked away.
“Milton, let me touch you, please.” The urge to comfort overwhelmed her.
He dropped his head and she cautiously tilted his chin.
She traced his Grecian nose and beautiful, full lips with her fingers, before she placed both hands to his cheeks and drew him in for a gentle kiss.
She rained tender kisses across his brow and temples, along his nose to chin and neck, returning again to his lips as she whispered into his mouth, “I do not wish to hurt you, husband, I wish only to understand you.”
He groaned as if in pain.
“Will you let me? Do you trust me enough?”
He buried his face in her neck. “I am not worthy of the effort, Elizabeth.”
She fisted his hair as she pressed him to her breast. “I shall be the judge of that,” she told him gruffly. “If you would but open yourself to me, I would fill you with worth, smother you with it. I’d sink my greedy hands into your flesh and ply you with—”
“Greedy hands, eh?” His own elicited a soft oh from her mouth. “And what might I, in turn, sink into your flesh, wife?”
His lips caught her neck’s tender skin and suckled there until she moaned. He’d leave another mark, but she didn’t care. Elizabeth welcomed his possession.
“Mmm.” He moved on to a different, more sensitive sliver of skin.
“Milton…”
“Call me Jasper, Lizzie.”
“Jasper.” She closed her eyes in rapture. “Take me to bed, please.”
“Now, wife?” he teased. “’Tis midday, madam.”
“Now,” she repeated. “For if I am to give you that family you crave, we’d best get to it.”
He laughed, warmly, from his gut. “Purely for reasons of procreation the lady wishes to bed her husband, eh?”
“Jasper, I am not—”
“You are no simpleton, Lizzie, no demurring wife.” His lips curved. “No, you are a hoyden who must be fucked, well and often, only not always in bed.” He began to untie her painting smock.
“Jasper, we cannot—”
“You are to call me master or sir when we play, woman, and right now I wish very much to play.” His hands continued their work as his normally blue eyes smoldered grey.
Elizabeth thrilled with anticipation.
He yanked her dress to her waist. “Be a good wife and go lock the door. Then stand before me and strip.”
She flushed to her roots. “Here?” she asked. “In your office?”
“Yes, here.” His eyes flashed. “Over the footstool. Many a night I’ve dreamt of such a moment and now that you are willing, I’ll not deny myself the pleasure.”
Elizabeth hurried to do as bid. When she returned she stood before him and stepped out of her dress.
He stared at her as if he wished to tear the remaining garments from her himself. Instead, he pushed her to her knees, a sly grin upon his lips. “Does it thrill you to acquiesce, Elizabeth?”
The moment demanded honesty. “Sometimes,” she whispered.
“Does it arouse you to obey me?”
“Yes, sir,” she hissed as his hand encircled her neck. Desire pooled in her gut.
“Then I was right about you, sweetheart.” He spoke softly. “There is no shame in submission, Lizzie, there is instead great strength. It pleases me to command you, it pleases you to obey, and our pleasure need be that simple. This, too, a form of release.”
Elizabeth’s longing for this man was so counter to all she thought of herself that she puddled right there on the floor.
“Touch yerself, luv,” he ordered wickedly. “Strip bare fer me an’ touch yourself. I want t’ watch you spend afore I fuck yer t’ within an inch o’ yer life.”
Elizabeth died and went to heaven. Or perhaps, she went to hell and back with this man. She didn’t care. She’d take communion with her devil of a husband if it meant learning, knowing his soul.
The more he revealed, the more she understood. And wanted.
“Bella!” His wife startled upright, naked on his lap.
Blast. Milton was sure he’d made her woes disappear by sating her completely. But no.
“Lizzie, there is nothing we can—”
“Jasper, my spectacles.”
He pulled them from his pocket and placed them on her nose, only to suffer the full force of her frown.
“You must tell me why you trust this man Harris, why I should entrust my sister to his care. I shall not rest until I know all, sir. You shall not distract me again.”
He wanted to kiss away her crease of consternation but knew this conversation was inevitable. The day was rife with talk.
“Arthur Harris is like a brother to me, Lizzie. His mum was a whore, same as mine. We grew up together, looked out for each other.”
“So he is family, like Miss Li?”
“Yes, though being older I took Arty under my wing, at first.” She snuggled deliciously back into his arms. “That’s what we call him, though he hates the name.” He suppressed a grin. “But Arty’s treatment of women has always been impeccable.”
“He employs whores at his gaming den, does he not?”
“He does.” Milton paused. “And his whores, Lizzie, are treated even better than Li’s.”
She snorted. “One’s treatment of women cannot be impeccable, Jasper, when one employs them as prostitutes.”
“It can when it’s their choice.” He reminded himself he’d married a lady. “You do not understand, Elizabeth, you cannot fathom how—” He shook his head. “There will always be a market where men, even women, pay for sex. What matters is not if it happens, but how.”
Her brow creased even more.
“Arthur Harris is no more a gentleman than I am, not as the Ton defines the word. But he forces no woman into employment, and if a girl comes to him in need yet is unable to sell her body, he finds her another position, often in service, here in my house.”
Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide as saucers.
“Arty pays his girls well and protects them even better.”
“And his father?” she asked. “Is Harris, like you, a bastard?”
The thought of Arty’s father raised the specter of Milton’s own. “Unknown, nor do Arty much care. He were a happy mistake, one his mum failed t’—”
One look at her face made Milton get hold of himself fast. “Lizzie, for me to detail the life Arty and I led would only cause you—”