When it would not, she slipped to her desk, lit her small lamp, and pulled out paper and ink. She began to write. Not a comedy to distract Papa, not a drama for Annabelle to play the dashing hero or brave heroine, but a dark and dismal story of a lady trapped by circumstance.
London’s dankest rowhouse housed the worst of the city’s scum: a man more wicked than Beelzebub. Not even the low-life landlord knew his tenant’s full name. He knew him only as the brooding baron, a shadowy figure who paid coin upfront each week for his room.
The baron had just settled his rent, smoke curling from the pipe dangling at his lip. He puffed a mix of opium and tobacco, the smell cloyingly sweet, his mouth a snarl when he grinned. It chilled the landlord’s limbs.
“Go on, then,” the landlord dismissed him, though his bones rattled and quaked. “Off with yer.” Like always, his tenant’s towering presence pinned the landlord to his seat.
The baron laughed a menacing, low rumble, then trod the narrow stairs back to his rented room. He stared at the girl who lay asleep in his bed, dead to the world, unaware of his wicked plans. She thought she was safe, thought he’d saved her from a worse fate. But once he ruined her properly, she’d be forced to marry him. And then his plans could truly take shape.
“Lizzie,” Annabelle cried from the foyer, “Baron of Milton has sent you flowers! And a note!”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. She’d recovered enough from yesterday’s horror to swallow breakfast this morning, but flowers?She quelled the urge to vomit as she pushed her chair back from the table.
There was indeed a ridiculously profuse display of hothouse blooms in the foyer, utterly inappropriate given no shred of ardor lay behind the gift. The bouquet was a dizzying array of blue hyacinth and yellow marguerite, leaving Elizabeth only more displeased, for she was versed enough in the language of flowers to know her ‘loveliness’had not charmed the Baron in the least, hyacinths be damned. And marguerites meant he’d ‘come soon,’ filling her with further dread. She ripped the note from her sister’s hand.
Dear Elizabeth, I have scheduled your appointment at Madame LeBrecht’s this afternoon for your dress fitting. My carriage will arrive promptly at two. I must insist you do not dally. —Milton
She snorted. “Do not dally.” Elizabeth nearly choked on the words, making Annabelle glance at her with concern. “I must insist, he writes.” A harsh laugh tore through her. “I shall dally all right,” she muttered under her breath, jaw clenched. “I shall dally as long as I well please.”
She picked up his bouquet, opened the front door, and dumped the contents across the front step. Let him treaddirectly on his own blasted blooms when he arrived at two. Let him stand there andwait.
At precisely two o’clock Milton’s carriage pulled up before Miss Winthrop’s home. He straightened his hat before exiting his vehicle, then stepped over what appeared to be the remains of crushed petals on the doorstep.
He rapped the knocker twice and waited.
A footman ushered him in as Miss Winthrop was fetched, only it appeared the lady was not quite ready. Would he take a seat please, until she was?
He would not. Instead Milton paced the narrow foyer. He glanced at the clock. Ten after two. He paced more, his ire increasing with each tick of the hand. Soon it was quarter past, then nearing twenty after.
In a huff he took to the stairs, disregarding the footman entirely as he bellowed, “Miss Elizabeth Winthrop, I will not wait a moment longer!”
Magically she appeared, stepping out from what he presumed was the lady’s own chamber. She clasped a book to her chest, looking wholly unprepared in but her house dress.
“Is that you, Baron?” Elizabeth pushed her spectacles up her nose. “I am sorry to keep you waiting, but I’m afraid today simply does not suit. Perhaps you might reschedule my appointment with your modiste for tomorrow instead.”
Impudent chit.He grabbed her arm and hauled her downstairs past the footman, then promptly shoved her into his carriage with all the elegance of a tossed grain sack.
Sans bonnet or spencer, she righted herself on the seat, looking both stunned and fierce.
Milton yanked the door shut, pounded furiously on the roof, then turned to her with a glare. “You have deliberately provoked me.”
“You have deliberately insulted me.”
“Since when, pray, are flowers insulting?”
“When they are accompanied by not a shred of feeling, sir, but with a note of command, ordering me about as if?—”
“As if you were my property already?” He continued to stare hard into her eyes. “Because you are, Miss Winthrop. Let us not forget your father’s word. And if you do not start following my orders this instant I can and will rescind my offer of marriage and take your sister in your stead.”
She gasped.
“It matters little to me which one of you I wed, and I must say, I am beginning to wonder if I chose poorly.”
***
Elizabeth froze, because the man seated across from her would crush Annabelle.
She swallowed her nerves and lowered her head, the rattling carriage making her stomach churn more than it already did. “I beg your pardon, Baron,” she murmured meekly.
