Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Two days later, Milton entered Elizabeth’s room unannounced. “Why are you not dressed?”
She stared at him from her bed. “I do not feel well enough to attend tonight’s ball, sir. Please extend my apologies to the Duke, who I am sure will understand once you inform him of my condition.”
Milton scowled. “Get up.”
She scowled back. “I do not feel well, sir.”
“I don’t care how you claim to feel, wife. This is one engagement we must both attend, nor will I make excuses when you are perfectly well. You will dress this instant.”
She did not blink.
“Elizabeth, I will not hesitate to dress you myself, so I advise you—"
Up she got, striding to her wardrobe to grab the first gown she saw. His loathsome tone reminded her of when they’d first courted. When he would approach her like a wolf primed to strike.
Perhaps they’d come full circle.
Sure enough, her husband barked more orders. “Choose a gown that suits my mother’s jewels.”
“I have decided to wear the diamonds instead.” She prayed he’d not react.
Milton grabbed her arm. “You will wear the stones I tell you to wear and you will match your dress accordingly, Elizabeth. Do not argue me this.”
She swallowed her emotion, for she must be honest if she wished to survive his wrath. “Milton, I am sorry, but I no longer have your mother’s gemstones.”
He dropped her arm in shock. “How do you not have the blue jasper?”
Elizabeth’s breath hitched. Not lapis lazuli, jasper!
“I let Bella pawn the necklace when she needed cash. You’d given me no pin money, and I thought the diamonds too valuable, so I—”
“You what?” His voice thundered.
“Milton, I am terribly sorry.” His indigo eyes had turned to flint, his face shrouded in darkness.
Still, she must come clean. “Annabelle promised its return, and as I had nothing else of value to offer her … She planned to buy the necklace back, but then Harris stole her to Gretna, and when they returned Finch had stolen you, so …”
His lips became a thin, taut line.
“By the time she could visit the Lombard again, the necklace was gone, and the man would not say who’d bought it.”
Milton stared at the floor, inhaling so terribly slowly she feared he might cease altogether to breathe.
“Sir.” She bowed her head. “Had I known the stones were dear to you I would never have given them to Bella. I am truly sorry.”
He straightened his spine. “That was my mother’s necklace, Elizabeth.
You knew that. It was the sole gift my father gave her, the stones a very rare blue color.
She sold it when he abandoned her, and I spent years tracking it down to gain it back.
She gave me the necklace for you to wear as a family heirloom, to pass down someday to a daughter. It is no small thing you have lost.”
“Forgive me, Milton.” She meant it. “I never meant to—”
“See to it you dress,” he told her coldly. “And do not wear the diamonds. If you cannot wear my mother’s necklace, you shall wear no ornament at all.”
His rebuke cut more than any rage he might have shown. She’d wounded him gravely, failed him by losing what she now understood was his very namesake.
Already, this night was a disaster.
Their carriage ride passed in stunning silence; the Baron did not so much as glance at Elizabeth, not once. Everything about his person exuded betrayal. Disgust.
Perhaps he’d hate her forever.
She did not want to attend this awful ball or meet Milton’s awful sire, the Duke. She was certain Lennox was his father, though she was not about to ask.
When they arrived at the Duke’s impressive residence, Milton stiffly took her arm.
The entrance hall embodied old-world charm—the very opposite of her husband’s modern townhouse.
Its dark, oak paneling and ornately carved flourishes breathed of history, legacy, and power.
Elizabeth imagined it the very house young Mary Audrey had scrubbed and polished as a maid.
Of course Milton would insist she attend; she’d been a coward to make excuses.
It must be brutal for him to stand in his father’s home as guest only, never family.
She vowed to play her role as best she could to support Milton, for his mother’s sake. When this ball was over, she would allow her anger full force again, but tonight she would perform with grace.
Elizabeth exchanged vague pleasantries with whomever approached, while inwardly upbraiding herself for the loss of the jasper gemstones. How had she not realized their significance? Nor recognized the Duke’s invitation for what it was: an abject insult. Although if Lady Stanton had been the one to—
“Lady Milton, may I have this dance?”
Elizabeth looked into a face oddly familiar.
“Lord Marley, madam,” the gentleman introduced himself. “I believe you met my brother, this evening’s man of honor, at the Denbigh ball.”
Ah, Lord Mathers, Milton’s half-brother and her own all-too-rude dance partner that night.
Meaning Lord Marley was her husband’s other—
They were interrupted by Milton himself, who pulled Elizabeth away without a backward glance at his half-sibling.
“Why were you speaking with that man?” His fingers dug into her arm.
“Because he spoke to me, sir. Should I behave instead as ill-tempered as you?”
He tightened his grip and dragged her to a row of side tables. “You will stand here”—he positioned her beside a potted palm—“and drink punch with all the other married ladies while I speak to men of business.” Milton’s face remained inscrutable. “You are to dance with no one.”
Elizabeth reined in her pique; she’d not make matters worse for her husband. Not this night. “Whatever you desire, Baron.”
“Do not test me, wife.”
“I do not, sir.” He’d misread her. “There is no need.”
He looked queerly at her a moment before she disengaged from his grasp and headed for the punch bowl, her heart and stomach heavy.
“Lady Milton!” A voice rang out behind her.
The Duke of Allendale.
Elizabeth forced herself to swallow a sip of the overly sweet drink.
“Madam, are you quite well? You look uncommonly pale.”
“Your Grace.” She bobbed a curtsy. “I believed you to be in Cumberland with the Duchess. Is she well? Has she—?”
“Charles is fantastic.” He beamed with pride. “Gave me a blonde angel this time. We named her Addie after her grandmother, though I think she’s more a Maddie the way she howls for her mother’s teat.”
Elizabeth smiled at the Duke’s unseemly description.
“Now where’s that bastard husband of yours? Hiding, no doubt. I can’t believe Lennox had the gall to invite him. How’s Jasp handling it? Skulking in a corner I imagine.”
The Duke took one look at Elizabeth’s face and fast led her from the punch bowl to a corner enclave. “Lady Milton, you look decidedly unwell. I’ll fetch Jasper.”
“No, I am fine. Please do not … Please, do not fetch him.”
He stopped short, frowning. “Madam, I am entirely at your disposal tonight, should you wish to leave the ball early. Or should you wish me to thrash your husband instead.”
Elizabeth hastened to amend his opinion. “Your Grace, I am—” She resorted to honesty. “You see, I now find myself in that state your wife most recently—”
The Duke’s entire bearing shifted. “Why Lady Milton, that is great cause for celebration! And explains much. I must congratulate Jasper, and you’ll write to Charles, of course. I am only here on my wife’s orders, you see, to interfere on behalf of her…”
Only Elizabeth stopped listening. She felt nauseous again. She longed for a dark corner in which to hide, or an empty room to lie down in.
“Again, my congratulations, Lady Milton.” The Duke bowed low over her hand just as Elizabeth looked up into the face of the one person she might rightfully blame for tonight’s disaster: Sir Wigglebottom’s mistress.
She nearly lost her punch right then and there.
***
From clear across the ballroom, Milton watched the insufferable Lady Stanton take Wellesley’s place.
Lizzie would survive the dull sycophant, same as he’d survived the boring swell he’d just sent packing.
Milton could talk business with toffs, but he didn’t know how to make idle chit chat.
That’s what a wife was for: to ward off the nobs who forever made him feel ten inches tall.
He both longed to be these preening peacocks and simultaneously murder them.
Meanwhile, his sire’s weighty presence cast a heady glow the Duke’s guests were drawn to like moths to a flame.
They’d come to curry favor, to be seen and heard and acknowledged.
Milton had come because he’d had no choice.
To refuse such an invitation was social suicide—to accept was his own private hell.
He knew where the Duke of Lennox sat, but he refused to look the man’s way.
He’d not acknowledge a father who did not acknowledge his own son.
Two could play that game, though he wondered again why his invitation had been sent.
He doubted very much Lady Stanton had swayed Lennox. At most, she’d simply planted the idea.
He was envious of his friend, Wellesley, for having not only a dukedom to his name but a loving duchess for his wife. His own Baroness was more enemy than ally now; Elizabeth would sooner help a louse than assist him this night.
They’d made their appearance. Could they not already leave?
How long must one stay at these affairs before one was permitted to vanish?
Perhaps he could use his wife’s condition as an excuse.
God knew she employed it often enough. He was about to go and fetch Lizzie when Lady Stanton handed his wife off to his bloody half-brother, heir to all that should rightfully have been his.
***
Elizabeth had no desire to dance again with the unpleasant Lord Mathers, yet she’d no choice but to accept his arm, foisted on her by Lady Stanton. Had the woman no tact? Milton would be livid; she sensed her husband’s fierce frown from clear across the room.