He’d said this so quietly, so calmly, she felt slapped.
“Elizabeth,” he prompted, “I should like an answer, and I’d rather not have to demand it.”
She hoped her gaze sliced him clean in two. “I think you are the devil himself to treatanysoul the way you treat me.”
Only instead of taking offense, Jasper Audrey, whoreson, threw back his head in deep, delighted laughter. “Why Elizabeth, that is the most honest thing to come from your mouth yet! At last you know whom you married: the devil himself. Welcome to my world, wife.”
Elizabeth hadn’t time to retort because breakfast arrived just then, wheeled into her husband’s bedroom on a cart. She refused to look at him while she ate. Instead, she lavished her attention on Mutton and snuck him tidbits from her plate. She did not care if Milton disapproved.
He sent her to her room once she had finished, through the adjoining bedroom door. There, a slew of servants finished pouring her a bath.
As she settled into the tub, her new lady’s maid, Ginny, arranged Elizabeth’s toilette. Elizabeth barely listened as the girl prattled on, her mind a mess of thoughts, least of which was that she’d have her own maid. For years she and Bella had simply assisted one another. She prayed this marriage would keep Annabelle safe. At the very least she might give her sister finer items to pawn, for the Baron’s house dripped with expensive taste.
She slipped beneath the water, Ginny’s chatter now a muddied hum. How in the world would she convince Milton to grant her greater freedom? Miss Li’s maids had sung his praises, and he was skilled in bedsport, to be sure. Yet he did not treat her, his wife,like he treated others. Why, he treated whores,for God’s sake,better.
And in a flash it came, his motive clear: Her husband had not married her to improvehissocial standing, he’d married her to settle a score with theTon. And she—insignificant, bespectacled Elizabeth Winthrop—would now be proxy for every insult ever rained upon Jasper Audrey’s whoreson head.
Elizabeth gasped as she came up for air. She was being punished for the sins of society, subjected to the same snubs shown him. For hadn’t Milton’s mother been cast off by whatever lout for lord had fathered him?
She’d be her husband’s scapegoat in society, doomed to fail.
With a wretched sob she drowned herself again, to hide from her bleak future, for where could she possibly go? What recourse did she have? She pitied herself a second longer before she vowed to make a plan. She’d not survived her blasted father to succumb to a bloody husband instead. But to carve a path forward she must learnwhyJasper Audrey wished to punish her for punishmentshe’d endured in the past.
“Done then, miss?” Her lady’s maid asked as Elizabeth resurfaced.
“Yes, thank you.” She stepped into the soft banyan held out.
“Jasp work yer over last night?” Ginny grinned knowingly.
“And have you had him too?” Elizabeth bit back. “Tell me, has my husband hired an entire household of whores?”
The girl’s face fell. “Beg pardon, ma’am, fer speakin’ out o’ turn.” She quickly toweled Elizabeth’s hair dry. “’Tis me mum Jasp knew. Did her a good turn, hirin’ me on here. We ain’t all of us former whores an’ thieves, but Master Milton don’t look down his nose at no one in need. You’ll not find a more loyal staff in all o’ London.”
Elizabeth was at once contrite. “I—forgive me. I should not have assumed. Nor do I know the Baron well enough to judge his actions.” She wrapped the robe tighter about her.
“Oi, y’ sound like any lass just married, ma’am.”
Was Elizabeth’s slight so quickly forgiven?
“An’ I’m sure he’s not an easy man as ’usband, you bein’ his better’n all.”
“Is that how others see me? How staff see our marriage?”
“Seeyou, ma’am?” Ginny’s forehead creased. “Well, sure there’s more’n a few as can’t figure why Jasp’d want t’ marry you instead of his own kind.” Her frown deepened. “Rumor has it he paid a small fortune for yer, ma’am, an’ no offense t’ yer person, but he could’ve had th’ fairest whore fer wife, had he wished.”
Elizabeth hid her displeasure.
“So if you’re askin’myopinion”—Ginny laid a dress out on the bed—“either Jasp’s lookin’ t’ move himself up some rungs by marryin’, or the man’s sweet on yer, ma’am.” Her eyes sparkled. “Mayhap a bit o’ both.”
“Oh it is decidedly the ladder he wishes to climb, Ginny.” Elizabeth grimaced.
“You so sure, ma’am?” The maid grinned. “’Cause I’m guessin’ he climbed yer ladder more’n a few times last night!” She laughed heartily.
Clearly, no amount of training would make this girl respectable.
Elizabeth subjected herself to Ginny’s ministrations, but took offense when the maid refused to fetch Elizabeth’s drawers.
“I’ll not go about this house without smallclothes,” she informed her tersely.
