“No honorable man behaves like you.” She skewered him through her spectacles. “And obedience isgrantednot demanded.”
“Ah.” He smiled. “My future wife would command myfealty too.” He pulled her lower lip down with his thumb to expose her teeth. And then he leaned in, his breath blowing hot at her ear to send tremors down her spine. “Tell me,Lizzie”—too familiar, too fast—“does it not excite you in the slightest to have a man command you?”
Her breath hitched.
“Are you not, perhaps, the least bit aroused by my bold offer of marriage?”
She attempted to squirm free but was backed against her father’s desk, his hand up her skirts before she could blink. “Get. Off. Me!”
“Shh, Lizzie.” His teeth pulled at her earlobe now, making her heart gallop as his hand inched higher up her thigh, fingers tracing a frightening path along her thin drawers. “I merely need to ascertain you are indeed the maiden your father claims.” He landed at the gap in her drawers, making her gasp outright.
“I see youareaffected by me, good.”
Before she knew it his finger slipped inside her shamefully slick channel, making her mouth fall open in a silent plea for help, her brain gone blank, voice utterly fled.
“I am delighted to discover you remain both chaste, Miss Winthrop, and eager for our wedding night.” He stroked her a moment longer, making her shake beneath his touch. “I promise you great pleasure, Lizzie, provided you obey me.” He slipped his hand back out, smoothed her skirts, and righted her on her feet.
Elizabeth remained frozen in place, staring at this stranger who had just violated her so shamelessly. He straightened his cravat and then adjusted her spectacles, the finger he’d had inside her landing briefly on her nose.
“I shall procure a special license and arrange for a modiste to fit you for both your wedding dress and trousseau. The ceremony will be brief, the celebration after more grand. I see no reason for a long betrothal when the aim of marriage is, after all, pragmatic.”
“Prag-matic?” She could barely speak, still weak-kneed from his assault. Her cheeks burned as if on fire.
“I require heirs, Miss Winthrop. Many, I hope.” His eyes, hooded from their encounter, drifted lazily to her own. “And I assure you, Idonow look forward to that process.”
He took her hand and brushed warm lips across her knuckles before he let himself out.
Elizabeth Winthrop slid slowly to the floor in a none-too-elegant slump. She could scarce believe what had just been done.
CHAPTER TWO
Jasper Audrey, jack of all trades and new Baron of Milton, was a great many things, but a gentleman he was not. This did not plague him much. What plagued him was that he would never be a proper peer. Still, he was pleased with the outcome of his morning visit, knowing Miss Winthrop would help to right that grievous wrong. She was the perfect foil: respectable, titled, and of sufficient backbone to withstand theTon. She was no wilting, simpering debutante and no simpleton either—more clever than her father by far. Though those spectacles were a shame. She might almost be called handsome without.
He considered her appearance as he strolled the leafy neighborhood streets, having sent his driver ahead so he might walk off his excess energy. He’d been honest when he’d deemed Miss Winthrop’s sister more attractive, for the younger daughter had delicate, soft features and bright, wide eyes beneath a halo of chestnut curls. Elizabeth was almost plain in comparison: sharp, grey gaze to match her sharp tongue—not to mention ink-black hair pulled severely to her head. The sisters had looked unrelated, perhaps had different mothers even. Yet Elizabeth’s person had excited him in ways he could not deny. His body had positively hummed in response to her own, and when he’ddiscovered her equally eager, he’d known she’d suit his bed. Those hips and arse of hers fair begged to be handled.
Milton’s cock twitched and his step lightened just thinking about Miss Winthrop, realizing he had a week’s time now in which to outfit his future wife and determine her course of training. At the very least she’d need a wardrobe and a lady’s maid. At best he’d bring her to heel before they wed. Li would know whatever else a baroness required.
Yes, a visit to Li’s to make the requisite plans and purchases was now in order. Though his missing kidskin still niggled.
It didn’t matter. He’d buy another pair. Hell, he could buy as many gloves as he liked. There were perks to being rich as Croesus.
Elizabeth curled her body into a ball of misery and rage. Her life was crumbling about her, and all she could do was stew in her bedroom’s window seat. Not even her beloved books and stories held escape, for she could concentrate on nothing but the memory ofthat man’sunnerving blue dots piercing her when he’d lowered his price and demanded her hand in marriage.
That she should be wed to a baron so arrogant, so unfeeling and severe …Oh!She longed to punch his smug face the way he’d punched the butcher. Which only complicated her feelings, for in that instant he’d been a different man entirely, one who had defended her honor and come to her rescue. One who’d behaved nobly.
Though she’d all but forced his hand, she reminded herself. She’d dragged the gentleman with her, knowing Butcher Wilkes would not take no for an answer this time.
Elizabeth’s sigh held the weight of her soul, her thoughts careening every which way. Why was Father the pathetic creature he was? Why had her mother ever deigned to marry him? Or had she, too, been sold in marriage like Annabelle’s mama? The thought briefly arrested. Papa had squandered her stepmother’s income, his second wife powerless to control his gambling as he’d reduced the family to its piteous state. Which had led, of course, to Elizabeth’s present piteous state.
Only why, in God’s name, had Papa lied outright about her and Annabelle’s ages? Elizabeth was nearly twenty-four and Bella close to twenty-one. He’d done them a disservice in this, too.
She sank her face to her hands, so angry she could not even cry. Nor could she deny that rotten baron had somehow, impossibly, roused in her stirrings of … No, she would not eventhinkthe word. She was a lady of virtue—at least, in deed she still was. She’d seen too much in life to proclaim herself an innocent. Butcher Wilkes was not the first man to assert himself. Elizabeth had escaped more compromising encounters than she cared to recall in her attempts to stall and sweet talk her way out of Father’s debts. She knew the liberties men took, the filthy offers they made.
But no man had ever touched her as this baron had, in his finely tailored waistcoat and fancy kidskin gloves. His wiry frame had towered over her in the most egregious, commanding manner, as if he’d already owned her outright. And her own tremor of weakness, that revolting trickle to gut, right to where he’d…
She wouldcease to thinkon the intimacy of that moment, the flagrant, wholly inappropriate, absolutely—why, the man was evil incarnate! That ice-blue stare below his dark, pomaded hair had been so depthless, so fathomless, and yet … She shook herself to escape the memory of his eyes. Her spectacles hadbeen no match for his scalding, searing gaze. And if she didn’t figure a way out, she would be forced to stare into those eyes for the rest of her ungodly married life.
Elizabeth curled herself deeper into the window bench in her bedroom and peered into the black night outside, waiting miserably for sleep to come.
