Chapter 46 #2
“You did not let me speak.” She’d poked again, harder.
“While you convalesced, you let everyone but me, your wife, visit. Why?” Poke.
“What did I do but try to comfort and support you? Why do you refuse me, Jasper? Why?” Her sharp, grey eyes had pleaded with such pain he’d stumbled from her chamber and slammed the adjoining door behind him, gasping against the wall like some goddamned gutted fish.
And now, seated at his neatly ordered desk, the memory of that moment made everything ache anew.
He had no ardor left for life, let alone bodily congress.
He’d not go near her till they must embark upon a second heir; he didn’t trust himself.
Should Elizabeth require servicing she could avail herself of one of Li’s men. So long as she did not bed Kilpert.
Though why Lizzie bedding Paul should disturb him so bloody much made no bloody sense. He really shouldn’t care. And why the devil did he sneak into her room nights while she slept, to stare at her face, which only in sleep looked peaceful anymore?
A footman entered and delivered the day’s post, jarring Milton from his despair. He sorted the stack but stopped short at a letter embossed with the one seal in Christendom that had the power to strike dread in his heart: the Duke of Lennox.
Elizabeth stared into her dressing mirror, Ginny readying her for bed, when her husband, the bastard, barged in.
“Leave us,” he ordered Ginny, who scurried off so fast Elizabeth hadn’t even time to bid her maid good night.
He rudely tossed a letter at her, demanding, “What is the meaning of this?”
She glanced at the seal. “I assume we’ve been invited to a ball, sir.”
“Did you orchestrate this?”
“And if I did?”
“Answer the question, Elizabeth.”
“Goodness, my husband knows my name. How shocking.”
“Blast it, Lizzie, did you or did you not secure us this invitation?” He stepped closer.
“I did not, sir. I presume Lady Stanton did, despite my protestations.”
“So you admit you are behind this invitation.”
“No, Lady Stanton offered to procure us an invitation, and I told her it would displease my husband if she did.”
“But you visited her. You chose to call upon a lady you’ve made abundantly clear you despise.”
“Oddly enough, I find her company now preferable to that of others.”
He winced. “Elizabeth, I do not wish to curtail your freedom more, but if your calls elicit invitations like this, I will insist on approving all visits in advance, or accompanying you to them.”
She lunged from her seat, stopping herself just in time.
“Curtail me?” Her heart raced. “I am already your prisoner for life, so you will not order me about. You lost that right. And as for your six bloody rules, they are null and void. Do you hear me, sir? Null and void! I will not obey you. I will see whom I like and do as I please, and you will put up with it, because I am your wife in name only, sir, no longer in deed!”
Milton’s face turned a shade so white he looked like he might faint. Or murder her.
“I am no longer your wife because you do not treat me like one,” she raged on.
“You share nothing with me anymore—I do not know where you go or whom you visit nights. Nor do I care. I will bear your heirs, but that is all you will get from me. Do you understand what I say, sir? I want nothing to do with you. Nothing.”
Milton’s face clouded ominously. “I’ll show you a whole new goddamn set of rules for provoking me, woman.” He dragged her to a chair and flung her, head down, over his lap, where he proceeded to lift her shift and strike her bottom with such vehemence she gasped.
“You cannot treat me like this!” She squirmed to escape his blows. “You cannot, you bastard, you cannot!”
Yet her husband’s heavy hand continued its unrelenting strikes.
And despite her searing anger she was lulled, slowly and surely, as if his slaps grabbed and held her anguish, stilling both her heart and mind.
Feelings unfurled which she’d been stifling for weeks, allowing emotion to overwhelm thought, to tear through her unimpeded.
Soon he no longer held her in place, she lay limp across his lap, welcoming his blows.
Elizabeth gripped the chair’s wooden legs beneath her as the carpet below absorbed her tears.
When Milton stopped, his breaths ragged, she did not want him to.
He briefly held her in his arms, the moment bittersweet. Then, without a word, he laid her on her belly on her bed, and walked out.
Seconds later Ginny rushed in to administer care to Elizabeth’s burning buttocks.
The cool cloth the maid applied made Elizabeth suck in her breath.
What had her husband achieved by thrashing her like this?
Had he put her in her place and reestablished his control, or had he granted her relief, shown her he still cared?
It did not matter. Nothing did. He was her lord and master whether she wanted him or not. And she did not. Elizabeth realized in that moment that she did not want her husband because Jasper Audrey did not know how to love.
***
Mere steps away from his wife, Milton paced his chamber with such intense longing he could not stand the coward he’d become.
Again, he’d turned to punishment, for what else should he have done?
He could not have told Elizabeth the truth: That he wanted her in his arms, his bed, his life.
That he regretted past actions, current actions, hell even all future actions!
While Ginny’s muted voice soothed her mistress through the adjoining wall, he wanted to break it down and beg his wife’s forgiveness.
Only he did not deserve her grace. He deserved only Elizabeth’s loathing.
And now she would be forced to attend his sire’s awful ball with him, to play a role she’d all but screamed she would reject.
For Elizabeth had made it very clear she would not be a dutiful, doting wife.
She would not follow his six clear rules.
He could spank her into a stupor, but he could not spank her soul into submission.
Hell, soon he’d not be able to spank her at all.
And then a worse thought pressed: What if he had harmed the babe just now, jostled it in her womb somehow?
Milton beat his head against his wall in torment. He didn’t want this kind of blasted marriage, he wanted so much bloody more! Yet this was all he’d ever get. All he bloody well deserved. And he, alone, had made it so.
He slumped against the wall and curled himself into a ball. He’d spared Lizzie his tears, at least. He’d mopped those up as fast as they had rolled down his cheeks, his face the mirror image of his wife’s, weeping upside down across his knees.
In a corner of his mind he heard a nasty snicker. Forever me boy, Jasp. Evermore.
The brooding baron chuffed low, his voice so base and wicked, the lady cowered in the cave. Her love lay bleeding in her arms, barely breathing from the bullet wound to his chest. She must do something to save him. She must…
“Pretty miss,” the baron hissed, “come out and show yourself. No harm will come to you, dear. Leave the servant there to die. He does not deserve your sweet affection.”
He is a better man than you! she wished to shout from the cave’s dank depths.
Only she knew better than to respond, for the baron always twisted what she said.
Her love moaned in pain; if she did not get help soon, he’d perish in her arms. Could she barter with this devil?
Could a man as dastardly as this baron be trusted to keep his word?
She had to try.
“I will come out if you swear you’ll help him. Swear it, and I will give you what you want.”
“What I want?” The baron’s voice sounded closer, as if he had already entered the cave. “Tell me what that is, miss, and perhaps I will.”
What he wanted? The lady’s heart began to pound. She knew what the baron wanted, didn’t she? Or did she not? He’d never expressly stated it, it had only ever been implied. He wanted her hand in marriage, her father’s wealth, but more than this he…
Her palms began to sweat as her mind opened to the unthinkable.
The brooding baron wanted her love.
Could she give him this, in exchange for her true love’s li
Elizabeth’s quill broke. Blast.
She crumpled the page into a ball and launched it clear across the room.
She could not even write anymore; her story made no sense.
What the devil was her heroine thinking?
The lady couldn’t possibly love the villain, not when her true love lay bleeding in her arms. It was utter, abject nonsense.
Drivel that no one would ever wish to read.
She would never be an author, never amount to more than a broodmare for a husband who didn’t love her and never would.
Elizabeth closed her eyes in pain, and then she swallowed her hurt. She fetched a fresh page. What was she if not persistent? She retrieved her broken quill and cut a new edge with her pen knife. So short now it cramped her hand, she could still write with it. Just.
She’d see where the story took her, because at least it took her away. Her writing remained the only thing she could control. It was escape from her existence.
Freedom from him.