A hush fell over those close enough to hear.
Elizabeth did not think; she reacted. “The only ill-bred individual I see here, Your Grace, is the one seated right before me.”
***
From afar, Milton watched his bloody half-brother present Lizzie to their bloody sire for no other reason than to humiliate her, he was sure. He pressed his way through the crowd to try and reach her, but it was difficult to push through the throng.
He’d been set up; he felt it in his bones. The invitation to this ball was but a ruse to give him a public drubbing, a stern ducal set-down. His old man reveled in demeaning others, which was why Milton had worked so damned hard to prove his worth in wealth, title, and influence. Yet here he was—amidst a slew of blood relatives, no doubt—trapped beneath his father’s roof, prey to the Duke’s power.
He clenched his fists, desperate to snatch Lizzie from his sire’s clutches and protect her from that man’s ugliness, yet he failed her even in this. Again, he could but impotently stand by and watch his wife take the brunt of his father’s cruelty. For Lennox was as brutal as Finch. He used words instead of knives, cut-downs and social jabs instead of beatings and gouged flesh. But the effect remained the same: to bend one to his will.
***
The Duke looked livid.
“Turn around,” he barked, and Elizabeth’s body obeyed as if Milton himself had ordered Muttonsit. She obeyed without thought, facing the ballroom now instead of the Duke, her mind a sudden blank.
A weight fell to her chest as His Grace clasped something cold about her neck. She shivered.
“This belonged to an old acquaintance of mine, Elizabeth, a person close to your husband.”
Her wits returned; he’d not only demeaned Milton’s mother, but used Elizabeth’s given name.
“It seems they were misplaced.”
Hehad purchased the necklace from the Lombard! Only how had he known?
“It is only fitting, I think, that I should be the one to place these stones about your neck.” He tugged the clasp, and then his finger traced her breastbone in a manner so intimate and degrading, a vision of Finch with Jasper flashed through Elizabeth’s mind.
She twisted about and slapped the Duke of Lennox flat across his face, the crack of her palm ringing in the hall. “Bastard,” Elizabeth hissed at the Duke’s disbelieving face. “You are a bastard of the worst degree. A true bastard, sir, not one born, but one made. And I do not care who hears me say it.” Her voice grew louder still, for Elizabeth had entered a state from which there was no turning back.
“You would treat you firstborn with such contempt as this,and publicly no less? What mandoessuch a thing?” She wished to slap him again. “What man deliberately,cowardly shames another by so vilely abusing his wife? What man disavows his own flesh and blood?”
Her rage only rose. “You are no Duke, sir, for you have no honor. My husband is a far better man than you, and shouldhave made a better duke. He may be but the fruit of your base actions, but to those who love and serve him, he is more worthy of fealty and affection than you will ever be.”
And Elizabeth, without thinking, spat at the Duke of Lennox’s feet.
Outrage ensued, voices shouting, talking over one another, as spittle trickled down the Duke’s immaculate black boot. He remained still as a statue, his face turning purple, while his heir, Lord Mathers, crept slowly backward.
Elizabeth’s heart beat with righteous contempt.This manstood between her and Milton’s happiness. Not Finch.
“Husband,” she announced at the top of her voice, “if you can hear me, take me home. I do not wish to lay eyes upon your rotten sire ever again.”
Within seconds Milton was beside her, leading Elizabeth through the crowd of dumbstruck onlookers who stared as if the pair were ghosts, the throng parting for them like water.
As if they were untouchable.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Mind in a blur, Milton hauled Lizzie past footmen lining hallways, past statuary and vases overflowing with blooms. The bouquets brushed his body as he dragged her at a terribly fast clip, her anger continuing to pulsate, vibrate between them.
He was in awe of this woman who’d just spat like a common fishmonger’s wife upon the Duke of Lennox’s feet.
“Milton.” His wife’s voice remained clipped. “I will apologize for my public display just now, but I willnotapologize for my words to that man. Because he is the most wretched, abominable, most?—”
Milton pressed her up against the wall in a kiss so urgent, he paid no heed to the stony footmen and marble busts that stared their fill. “Don’t you dare apologize, woman.” He dipped his lips for another wild kiss, his heart pounding madly in his breast. “It isIwho must apologize,Iwho am speechless before your bravery. I am more humbled, more proud, more?—”
She looked back at him, thoroughly confused. “Milton, I just destroyed all chance of you ever?—”
