“You are not the devil I thought you, sir.” Her hand felt unbearably light at his cheek; he covered it to keep her from touching him more.
“And you are not at all the woman I thought you, Miss Winthrop.”
That night in her bedroom, Elizabeth’s quill scratched a furious pace, sentences tumbling onto parchment with terrific speed. She left words half spelled, prepositions missing, articles dropping like the petals of some nodding, rain-drenched rose. Inside her brewed a storm, emotions threatening to crest. She wanted,needed,more of that unfettered peace the Baron had inexplicably granted. Until today the only way she’d known to quell her rage was to expel it onto paper. But now a new path had been delivered by her betrothed’s heavy hand.
Her bottom tingled faintly, a reminder of the relief she’d not only welcomed but embraced, even if the man behind that relief still gave her pause. Baron of Milton remained frightfully exacting, after all. Yet what if he were less dangerous, wild beast and more the falconer who captured and then released? Elizabeth no longer knew with whom she dealt. She simply wrote her story, ink spilling across the page.
The baron’s hand, heavy on the lady’s head, stroked her as she clung to his legs, her head in his lap, weeping. She did not know herself, could not reconcile her grief with such intense, unchecked longing. Nevermore would she see her family—her siblings and her poor, suffering mama. She wept tears of regret, but also tears of joy, for he had given her a gift most unimaginable. The brooding baron had broken her spirit, but caused her to break free of all her chains. She could not bear his touch but longed to touch him. She could not bear his presence but longed to remain beside him.
Like the Sphinx he was a riddle she must solve to survive imprisonment. If she did not, the baron would consume her. Yet if she did…
No, he would consume her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Before settling in that night, Milton poured himself a brandy and grabbedThe Marriage of Heaven and Hellfrom his stack of bedside books. Mutton lay beside him in his usual place upon the floor, the wolfhound’s tail thumping for attention. Milton tried to read Blake’s poems, but his thoughts returned again to Miss Winthrop’s giddy laughter in the woods, to her peculiar expression of hurt and gratitude when he’d purchased her those new spectacles. She may come from finer stock than he did, but he knew hunger when he saw it. He also knew mistrust.
She was wary of gifts, and wary of him.
His mind replayed how he’d shown the young lady a needed lesson in control. He regretted taming her in the park, because one’s future wife deserved better than a harried thrashing outdoors. Yet the manner in which she’d goaded and provoked had given him no choice but to make good on his threats.
He pictured her strawberry-red bottom and willed his cock to subside. He would have to teach her other, less pleasant lessons in the days leading up to their wedding, but he now feared those lessons less—feared their union less—though no doubt theirs would be a ‘marriage of heaven and hell’ just like Blake foretold.
He returned to his book, dogged by thoughts of Miss Winthrop. Her response to his punishment still surprised him. She may be a titled member of theTon, but she was no lily-livered miss. She’d stood up to that butcher, stood up to her father, and repeatedly, it seemed, stood up to him. She would not cross him again though, of this he was certain. Nor would she willingly subject her sister to the demands he’d wrung from Elizabeth’s body today. No, Miss Winthrop was up to the task of marriage. And she’d need her fortitude if she were to survive being both his wife and mother to his children. He needed her obedience, but he also needed her strength.
Both would test his mettle, much as he still needed to test hers.
“Lizzie!”Bella’s voice roused her from her sleep. “Lizzie, you’ve another note!”
This time Elizabeth did not scowl at her sister’s announcement but smiled secretly to herself, easing her sore bottom from bed to don her fraying banyan and make her way downstairs to breakfast. What message would the Baron deliver with this morning’s bouquet?
My dear Elizabeth, I hope today’s blooms better suit. I shall arrive at two and steel myself for rePUGnant conversation with your neighbor. Wear your new gold spectacles and I shall know you have forgiven me yesterday’s liberties. —Milton
She lowered her nose to sample the modest cornflowers winking from their vase upon the foyer’s narrow table. Theywere as blue as his eyes and whispered their intention loud and clear: She would indeed be gentle with him today. She felt she could afford to, now that her feelings toward the Baron had shifted. He was still an impudent, randy whoreson, but he was clearly something more. Miss Li’s words echoed in her head:Accept the man Milton has been, not just the man he shows himself to be.
She was admittedly now curious to know her future husband.
“What does he write, Lizzie?” Annabelle craned her neck across the dining room table to peer at Elizabeth through the door.
Elizabeth slipped the note into her pocket and proceeded in to breakfast, her thoughts awash with blue flowers. She did not share the missive with Bella but simply sat down to butter her toast, her mind replaying yesterday’s events. Spanking aside, Milton had shockingly fixed her hair, a skill no gentleman she knew possessed. And when he’d driven them straight to an eyeglass shop after, he’d purchased her not two butthreeexpensive eyepieces. A silver-rimmed pair to replace the one his boot had smashed, a gold-rimmed spare, plus mother-of-pearl inlaid spectacles commissioned especially to match her wedding gown.
She was about to take a bite of her toast, still overcome by her betrothed’s generosity, when her father barked, “Lizzie!”
She looked up from her plate.
“Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
“Forgive me, Father, I am rather tired this morning,” she lied.
“We must know whom to invite to this wedding of yours,” he decreed. “And as Baron of Milton does not deign to answer my correspondence nor honor me with his presence”—he loudly harrumphed—“it is incumbent on you to ascertain the details.”
“Of course, Papa, I shall ask him today.”
He squinted at her. “Are those new spectacles you are wearing?”
Elizabeth stiffened. “Yes. The Baron took me shopping.”
“Did he?” A gleam lit her father’s eye. “And what else did he buy you, my dear?”
