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He needed to know that no matter what life threw at them that he could not only handle it, but that he could come out on top, keeping his family safe while making something of himself here. He needed to do this on his own and that meant that he did this completely on his own, without his family’s purse strings or influence.
He sure as hell didn’t need them paying for his honeymoon.
“I don’t want your money, James,” he bit out, insulted that everyone in his family and in hers kept offering to throw money at them, terrified that they were going to die in the streets.
“You know the money really belongs to Elizabeth,” James said quietly, saying the one thing that was guaranteed to make him stop walking and turn around so that he could face his brother.
For a moment he considered breaking his brother’s nose for bringing up something that was better left unsaid, but the tormented expression on James’ face stopped him.
“We don’t want the money, James,” he said, suddenly feeling every single one of those long hours that he’d worked to make sure that they had extra money in the bank so that they could survive another year without having to beg their family for help.
“It should have been yours,” James said tightly, a muscle clenching in his jaw as he stood there, forcing himself to look Robert in the eye.
He met his brother’s gaze and shook his head, “I got what I wanted.”
His brother’s lips twitched as he nodded in understanding. “Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth,” he agreed with a chuckle and a wink as he headed inside, more than ready to put an end to this day and crawl in bed with the woman that he loved and hold her all night.
Chapter 3
“Dear, it will be fine,” Mrs. Brown said even as the normally stoic woman shot the two young women cowering in the corner a pleading look, praying that they understood the silent message that she was sending them, but of course they were still ignoring her and fixated on the young woman in her arms crying.
“I-I don’t un-understand what went wrong,” Elizabeth sobbed, somewhat hysterically as she hugged the basket filled with burnt biscuits, which really looked like discs of charcoal, to her chest as she continued to sit there, in the corner, on the floor, finally having the breakdown that Mrs. Brown had been waiting for since the twins were born.
“They just got a little brown, that’s all,” Mrs. Brown said, trying to not to glance down at the basket full of charcoal as she told Elizabeth yet another lie just to make it through the day. “I’m sure Robert will love them,” she said, this time forcing a smile that unfortunately probably resembled a grimace, because just the thought of that boy eating these things turned her stomach and she was a woman known for having a strong stomach.
“T-the boys,” Elizabeth mumbled absently, looking a little lost. “I’ve gotta make the boys something to eat.”
“They’ve already eaten,” Mrs. Brown pointed out soothingly even as she did her best not to think about exactly how much food the babies had gone through or the fact that they would probably require a second dinner in another hour or two.
She’d raised a lot of children in her lifetime, but none of them had been anything like the Bradford twins. Not that she didn’t love them, because she did, probably more than she should since one day they would grow up and wouldn’t need her, but until that day came she was going to allow herself to foolishly love those baby boys more than anything else on this earth.
It was probably the reason why she pretended that some of the things that they did didn’t terrify her, like the silent way they communicated when they planned something out, the look they shared just before they did something that had run off more than a few of the village girls that she’d been able to convince to ignore the rumors that had spread through town like wildfire about the twins and Robert’s insatiable appetite and work for the Bradfords for a few hours a week, just to lighten the workload on Elizabeth, who was determined to be the perfect mother and wife.
It wasn’t possible, not with a husband like Robert and babies that could eat more than most men. A shiver tore through her just at the thought of how much those boys could put away. While most babies their age were just learning to sit up, crawl and starting to make the switch to solid foods like porridge and mashed vegetables, the Bradford boys were already the size of two year olds and could put away more food in one sitting than all her sons and nephews combined.
Sometimes at night when she was in bed and the house was quiet and the only thing that she had to keep her company were her thoughts, it was a struggle not to grab her bag and make a run for it, but the reminder that the twins were sweet boys that adored her, and probably wouldn’t resort to eating her if they had a really bad winter and ran out of food, kept her there. She couldn’t imagine spending her days without the Bradfords.
With that being said…
She really couldn’t imagine how Elizabeth had lasted this long before she’d finally cracked under the pressure of keeping up with the twins. They were cute, but very demanding. Every hour, sometimes twice an hour those boys were hunting their mother down, demanding to be fed and snuggled while Elizabeth did her best to be the perfect wife, something that she knew damn well that Robert didn’t expect or want.
He only wanted Elizabeth…
She would love to say that her own husband had loved and adored her the way that Robert cherished Elizabeth, but she couldn’t. Never once had Roger looked at her the way that Robert looked at Elizabeth. She knew that he had grown to care for her and had adored their children, but he never loved her, not the way that Robert loved Elizabeth. She’d never seen a man look at a woman the way that Robert looked at Elizabeth, like every dream that he’d ever made had come true.
It was something that made her smile every time she saw it.
She only wished that Elizabeth realized just how much she meant to Robert and how little he actually cared if things were perfect. As far as she could tell, the only thing that he seemed to care about was that she was healthy and happy, which at the moment was a problem…
“I can make fresh ones,” Elizabeth mumbled almost desperately, looking seconds away from passing out, which again, was to be expected considering how hard she’d been working over the last few month to make everything perfect.
“No, sweetie, that okay’s. I’m sure that-”
“Elizabeth?” Robert said brightly with that smile that belonged solely to Elizabeth as he walked through the back door, making Mrs. Brown cringe and damn near made her whimper, because any chance of stoppin
g this before it got worse was gone now.
“Oh, God,” came the soft mumble, followed by a terrified gasp as Elizabeth, who was probably surviving on less than an hour of sleep a night, jumped to her feet, dropped the basket of burnt biscuits to the floor, shoved her messy hair back and in the process ended up spreading ash over her beautiful tangled hair as she raced to the table, grabbed a large dirty mixing bowl and with a panicked expression on her face, began making more dough right around the time that the Robert spotted her and the smile slowly slipped away from his face.
She opened her mouth to make another excuse for Elizabeth, to distract him away from the fact that his wife was beyond exhausted, covered in soot and ash, trembling and quietly sobbing, because there wasn’t enough lard to make another batch of biscuits, when she saw all the good humor evaporate from Robert’s face only to be replaced seconds later by a look that she prayed that she never saw again, because it was in that instant that she realized just how dangerous Robert Bradford was.
*-*-*-*
“It’s okay, Robert. Just let me-”
“Watch the boys,” Robert said firmly, shutting the bedroom door behind him and cutting of Mrs. Brown before she could give him another bullshit excuse.
“I thought we agreed that there would be no more secrets,” he murmured softly, kissing Elizabeth’s forehead as he carefully carried his trembling wife across the room, berating himself for letting this go on for so long.
He’d known that she was overdoing it. Hell, it was the one thing that they were always arguing about. He’d tell her that she was overdoing it and she’d tell him the same thing. He’d threaten to spank her bottom raw if she didn’t slow down and she’d threaten his balls.
No matter what he said or did, she wouldn’t listen to him. If he was going to work himself into exhaustion to take care of their family, then so was she. She didn’t understand that he was doing this for them, that he had absolutely no fucking choice but to take every single job that came his way no matter how exhausted he was or how much he’d rather be able to sleep in with his wife in the morning, spend the day playing with his sons and making them smile, but he couldn’t.
When he’d sold his investments, he’d expected to have to support a wife, maybe a servant or two, but twins? Christ, he’d never expected to have boys that could eat more than most grown men. Right now they were fine, he could afford to keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and their bellies comfortably full, but he knew that could all change at any time. If he got hurt or sick, then he wouldn’t be able to provide for his family and that absolutely terrified him.
So, he took as many jobs as he could, pretended that he wasn’t
