Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
No longer did the brooding baron eye his captive with a lecherous, bold gleam. He now abandoned her for days on
Elizabeth put down her quill and sighed. “Bella, what ails you?”
She tried to hide the fact she wished her husband, rather than her sister, had just interrupted her writing. Because she’d not had one word from Milton still, despite the stern talking-to she had delivered both Murdoch and Gerald regarding the Baron’s untenable behavior.
They’d been unable to sway him either.
“It’s gone, Lizzie.” Bella tore off her gloves.
“What is, dear?”
“Your necklace. The one you gave me to pawn. The one I swore I’d return. Gone.”
“Are you certain? Did the Lombard say who bought it? And the terms of the loan…” She frowned. “Has it truly been so long since you—?”
“That’s just it, Lizzie. I had enough to buy it back and had every intention of doing so, but then Arthur dragged me to Gretna, and when we returned all thought was only for Milton, and now…” She looked distraught. “I am so sorry, sister, truly. I never meant to lose it.”
Elizabeth sprinkled pounce on her page. “Given the Baron’s present mood, Bella, I doubt very much he will inquire after some necklace.”
In truth, the only business Milton inquired after anymore seemed to be business itself.
He holed himself up in his office to pore over what?
His overflowing coffers and the daily newspapers?
She knew he took long walks with Mutton and even longer rides in Hyde Park, by all outward appearances healed from his ordeal.
At least, the doctor no longer stopped by.
“Lizzie, is the Baron still unwell?”
Elizabeth hated when Annabelle read her thoughts. “I do not wish to speak of him. I wish to hear from you, sister.”
Only Bella did not say more. Instead, she stood there and wrung her hands in the same annoying manner as Papa.
“Dear, in a week’s time you will come of age. Have you discussed your future at all with Mr. Harris? Because I must be honest. The law makes it exceedingly difficult to—Bella, would you cease twitching!” Elizabeth could not take a second more.
Annabelle dropped with a thud into a chair.
“Please be frank with me about your feelings for Mr. Harris.”
And Bella was. She declared herself utterly, miserably in love with Arthur Harris, who lamentably, regrettably did not love her back.
Elizabeth was not surprised by her sister’s impassioned response, but it was hardly love Annabelle must feel for the man.
Love existed in myth and story only, not in the misery of everyday life.
Surely, Bella confused gratitude for affection when it came to Mr. Harris.
Though gratitude was not the worst way to begin a marriage.
She feigned a headache so that her sister would leave, her thoughts returning to her own cur of a husband who did not merit her concern in the least. She deplored how the entire household now tiptoed about the Baron as if he were a fragile vase, or worse, a box of lit tinder.
She couldn’t stand the fact she lay in bed nights debating going to his room, begging him to tell her all that plagued him.
Elizabeth knew what plagued him: demons neither she nor anyone in this house could vanquish. Instead, they all walked on eggshells about their master while he spurned every attempt at approach.
Her only comfort had been her brief conversation with Mr. Kilpert—and her writing, which she’d taken up with a vengeance. The Brooding Baron grew more dark with every page she penned, for the hero was no longer the lady’s savior. He was a thorn in her side, his motives obscure.
She shook off the pounce and re-read the last line she’d just inked .
No longer did the brooding baron eye his captive with a lecherous, bold gleam. He now abandoned her for days on
Elizabeth dipped her quill in ink.
end, locked in his rented room, to go where she did not know. The landlord alone delivered the lady sustenance, tasteless fare, but she ate it nonetheless. She was determined to survive.
Only the landlord soon sent a servant in his stead, a lackey instructed to ignore her every plea, but she would not give up her attempts.
The lady began to converse with the servant at mealtimes, using every feminine charm she possessed.
And slowly the man spoke back, grunts only at first, until she’d gleaned he, too, was a prisoner in this house, beholden to the wicked baron.
She must break not only her own chains now but help this poor servant break his. Perhaps in solidarity there was hope. Perhaps together they might defeat the baron.
The lady had no choice but to try.
From outside, in the hall, Milton observed them hunched over a book, seated so close their foreheads almost touched.
Inside him, something snapped.
He stepped into his parlor. “Kilpert, I did not give you permission to tutor or seduce my wife.” His snarl made the scholar jump and Elizabeth drop the book.
Kilpert instantly stood. “Jasper, I assure you, I have not—”
“You most certainly have been making love to my wife in a most egregious manner.”
“Milton!” Lizzie’s initial elated expression quickly turned to dismay. “Why, nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Kilpert simply—”
“How dare you shamelessly cavort with another man under my roof, woman?”
“Jasper, please,” Kilpert beseeched. “This is a simple misunderstanding which—”
“I gave neither of you permission to meet,” Milton stated coldly. “Yet you have done so behind my back, and even now—”
“Milton,” Elizabeth cut in, “for God’s sake, listen to yourself.
” Her small frame shook. “Before you fell … ill, I wrote to Mr. Kilpert asking him to instruct you in dance, as you had agreed. When I replied to his response, I informed him you were unwell. He only stopped by to enquire after your health.” She paused as if to steady herself—or embellish her tidy story.
“Had you deigned to speak with me, I’d have discussed his letter with you, but instead you’ve spurned my every attempt to—”
“Instead, you thought only of your own interests.”
“No! That is the—that is the very opposite of what I—”
“Elizabeth, you may cease with your excuses, and Kilpert, I no longer require your services.”
“Jasper.” The man tried again. “Lady Milton speaks the truth, for had I known you disapproved of our meeting, I should never have—”
“You’ve had your eye on her since the Denbigh ball, sir, don’t try to deny it.”
Kilpert’s blush confirmed as much. “Baron.” He defended himself. “I admit your wife is an exceptional woman, but I would never be so bold as to—”
“But you have, and you’d be bolder still, no doubt, with time. So let us do away with pretense and speed things to their natural completion. Lizzie, on your knees.”
Her face blenched as Kilpert’s eyes widened into saucers.
“Did you not hear me?” Milton’s gaze pierced Elizabeth. “I have her trained, you see.” He glanced at Kilpert’s horrified face. “She obeys my every order.”
His words were foul, but the beast inside him demanded to be fed. “I’ll let her give you payment, as it were, for services rendered.” He pushed Lizzie to her knees before Paul. “And since she remains my legal wife, it’s best I watch the transaction, to ensure payment is received in full.”
Elizabeth struggled to rise but Milton held her down, gripping her shoulders as he pushed her toward Kilpert’s crotch.
“Jasper,” Paul hissed, fists balled at his sides. “Do not do this. The man I know you to be, the man I admire, would never demean his wife in this manner.”
But Milton’s hands only tightened on Lizzie’s frame, digging into her dress. “Elizabeth will service you in my presence, rather than do so behind my back.”
With a look of pure disgust, Kilpert stormed from the room.
Elizabeth wrenched herself free. “Bastard,” she hissed from the floor. “How could you be so cruel? To your own friend, to me!”
Her pain mirrored perfectly the ache in Milton’s breast. He stared at her, at a loss for words.
“How could you treat me so abominably, when for weeks I have worried myself sick for you! When all I longed for was your safe return, your health and well-being.” She backed away from him on the floor like a wounded, cornered animal.
“You are despicable to treat me thus. You are the very worst of humans, Jasper Audrey, to turn the love and respect of marriage into something so hideously ugly!”
Elizabeth fled the room in tears.
Milton stood a moment longer in his parlor, frozen in place. Had she said love in regards to their marriage? Had she uttered the word respect?
He walked right out of his lavish townhouse. Not once did he look back.
Elizabeth stumbled to her room, to her bed, tears stinging her eyes. She could neither forget nor forgive what Milton had just done, whoring her to another man on his parlor floor. She was not a wife, she was chattel.
And her husband was no better than Hieronymus Finch.
Whatever tortures Milton had endured, whatever evils others had inflicted to make him into the monster he was, did not absolve him of this crime.
She had obeyed him in marriage, denied her own needs, compromised her own morals and judgment as his wife, but this crossed a line.
Now, she could hope only for survival. She would wall herself into her room with her books and her writing and avoid him at all cost, simply suffering his existence.
She would destroy all hint of feeling she’d ever held for Jasper Audrey and resign herself instead to the brute he’d just savagely shown himself to be.
Elizabeth physically recoiled from her thoughts, a wave of nausea overcoming her so fast she rushed to her bedroom washstand to lose the contents of her stomach, as if she purged her husband from her soul.