His cock pulsed one last time and we both watched it together. Then he looked at me, kneeling and trapped, shuddering uncontrollably with the need to be fucked, my dress pooled in his lap, laced with his semen. He looked so powerful, and I was confronted once again with the almost princely virility of him, the raw strength of body and will, and the shudders shook me harder.
He tossed the dress to the side. “You wanted to learn, Ivy. Today, I will teach you the meaning of the word need. And it won’t be an easy lesson.”
He must have seen the horror in my face as I realized that he wasn’t going to fuck me or even bring me off with his fingers or tongue. I started wrestling against his grip then, no plan in mind other than to get my hands free and end this consuming roar of desire. He grinned at my fruitless efforts, and then leaned forward, whispering in my ear, “If you are a good pupil, if I feel satisfied with your progress, then I will reward you.”
“Reward me now,” I said, my voice strangled. “God, Julian, I can’t—”
His mouth slanted against mine, sealing me off from speech and air and thought. He broke off, breath ragged, and when he sat up, I could see that he was getting hard again. “I like it when you call me by my name,” he said throatily, and for a moment, I glimpsed that vulnerable, tortured soul that I loved so much, as much as I loved the brusque, dominating mask he wore over it.
He stood and pulled me to my feet. “Come,” he said, leading me by my wrists to the door. I felt a flash of apprehension when he opened the door to the hallway—what if a servant saw us? Him pulling me along like a prisoner, me completely naked? But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the thought also incited more lust. I wanted other people to know how he owned my body. I wanted the whole world to know. And I wanted the whole world to see how I owned him when he was inside of me, how only I got to see those rare moments of human desperation and vulnerability.
The hallway was empty and we were inside my room after a short walk. Mr. Markham let me go, with a glance of warning at my hands, and then began searching for a new dress. After he’d selected a dress, a fresh corset and all of the other assorted underthings, he laid them on the bed. I moved to pick them up, but he stopped me with a hand on my bare stomach.
“I will dress you,” he said. “We’re taking a bit of a journey and I want you attired in a certain way.”
“We’re going somewhere?” No. That couldn’t be. I couldn’t go anywhere like this, certainly not somewhere public…
“We have errands to run in York,” he said. “You must be fitted for a wedding gown, and I have arrangements to make with my bankers for our honeymoon.”
“Dress? Honeymoon?” These things had slipped out of my mind this morning, everything had slipped out of my mind, everything but the sight of Mr. Markham stroking his cock.
“You haven’t forgotten in such a short time?” he asked, looking diverted. “You are going to be my wife. And I want you to have the best of everything I can give you—a gleaming wedding dress, a tour abroad that never has to end if you don’t want it to.”
The idea of marrying Mr. Markham still thrilled me, excited me, but I didn’t care about dresses or travels. “I don’t want you to buy me things,” I said. “I want you to fuck me.”
He laughed, clearly delighted by this.
I was not as amused as he was. “We agreed that I wasn’t to be your whore. Why do you insist on getting me things I don’t want?”
“Because you are mine and it is in my power to give you things. It makes me happy. Will you consent to this, for the sake of my happiness?” He leaned his forehead against mine. “Do it for me, Ivy. Because I am completely at your mercy. My happiness, my fulfillment, my soul, it is all yours to make or destroy.”
He brushed his lips against mine, and I couldn’t help it—I tried to rub myself against his leg, whimpering when he pulled away. “Julian, I’m begging you,” I gasped. “If you must take me to York, fuck me first. Otherwise, it will be unbearable.”
“You only think it’s unbearable. Imagine what suffering it will be for me to restrain myself. Now, hold out your leg, it’s time for us to dress.”
I refused, tucking one ankle behind the other. His eyes glittered and suddenly his hand was sliding down my stomach, his fingers finding my clit.
I moaned, melting against him, my legs falling open as the sensation of him caressing my bud overwhelmed me.
And then he stopped, smug.
“Why?” I asked, my voice dangerously high-pitched.
He lowered his lips to my mouth. “Because when you’re coming later tonight, screaming so loudly all of York will be able to hear, it will be worth it. Now hold out your leg.”
I did. He expertly slid one stocking up my leg, then the other, making sure to brush the back of his hand against my center as he did. Then came the chemise and the corset: each nipple rolled and plucked into tight furls before he imprisoned them inside. He skipped the drawers and two of the petticoats, which would leave only a single layer in between my legs and the silk of my skirt.
“People will be able to see the outline of my legs,” I protested.
“Good,” he said.
He expertly slid the dress over my head and shoulders and began tying back the skirt. When he finished, he stepped back to examine me with a critical eye.
“You’re stunning,” he said. “Simply stunning.” He moved forward and pressed his lips to my neck, to my collarbone, pressing his thigh against my pelvis and making me moan. I could feel his hardness pressing into my hip, and it made me feel slightly better about my aching pussy. He was aching too, and that was some comfort.
“I’m going to have Gareth bring the carriage around,” he said against my jaw. “Be ready when I call for you. I have a feeling I’m going to need you to suck me off at least once on the ride there.”
At least, it had been some comfort.
He stepped out the door, then turned. “And pet?”
“Yes?”
“I will know if you’ve touched yourself. Don’t.”
I closed my eyes with frustration, but I nodded after a minute.
Fine. Fine.
I stomped around my room for a couple moments after he left, gathering up some odds and ends for our sudden trip—hair combs, a spare set of gloves, a small copy of Rob Roy that I’d been reading at night. I could barely process that we were going to York—everything was a faded blur next to my need to be satisfied. I yanked my purse off the vanity, swearing under my breath when I knocked the hair comb and brush onto the floor.
It was when I knelt to retrieve them that I saw it—a jagged scratch in the silk wallpaper that extended from beyond the vanity by about an inch. It was thin and barely noticeable unless you were close to the wall, as I was now. I squinted at it, curious. It was not only thin, but straight—not the crack of plaster settling, not the accidental gouge from moving furniture. I gave the vanity an experimental tug and succeeded in pulling it away from the wall enough to see how the scratch extended into a series of scratches, long and connected. It was a word. No—two words.
Help me.
I stepped back, my heart thudding no longer from lust but from fear. Help me.
Who had written this? And why? And when?
“She did it, you know. Not long before she died.”
I started, adrenaline sluicing through me, turning to see Brightmore framed in the doorway like a malevolent ghost, as if summoned by my silent questions.
“Mrs. Brightmore, you frightened me—”
“She slept in here most nights,” Brightmore continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Like she was afraid of the master. I caught her carving this into the wall with her letter opener one night.” Her nostrils flared. “Awful trash. How dare she touch this house? She wasn’t even fit to step foot in it.”
I had come to terms with Violet’s unpopularity—felt the same way about her myself—but Brightmore’s naked hatred and jealousy of my relative irked me. But I wanted answers more than I
wanted to defend Violet at that moment, so I swallowed my anger and asked, “Do you know why she would carve something like that?”
“She was deranged,” the housekeeper said coldly. “How should I know why a madwoman does what she does?”
“She wasn’t mad,” I said, more to myself than to Brightmore. Violet had been many things—tempestuous and difficult and loose even—but not insane.
“She couldn’t face Mr. Markham,” Brightmore said abruptly, taking a step toward me. “She couldn’t accept him. She couldn’t understand him. And I cleaned up his messes as I always do.” She was very close to me now; my neck prickled. “I have to take care of him, because no one else truly can.”
I hated the idea that she and Mr. Markham had any sort of relationship at all. I resolved to ask him about it later. But it was the subtext of her words that disturbed me. I kept my voice collected. “What did you do?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. And then she made a noise between a hiss and a scoff, a noise that said you are not worthy to know. “I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking. But I told the master how to handle a wayward wife. And he did.”
“Miss Ivy, the carriage—” Gareth’s voice was sunny as he came into the room, but he froze as he took in the two of us, only two feet apart, hatred heating the air. He quickly recovered. “Um, the carriage is ready. Mr. Markham took the liberty of packing you a trunk last night and it is already loaded, but I’ll be happy to carry anything else out that you need.”
Brightmore glared at him, but Gareth refused to leave. He stood resolutely inside the room until she finally swept away, leaving only her dark words and the scratches behind the vanity to fester in my mind. I stared at the scratches a moment more, then made to push the table back against the wall. Gareth came over to help me, then straightened as he saw the words.
“What is that?” he asked, his voice strange. “Did you…?”
I shook my head. “Brightmore said it was Violet. She caught her doing it.”
Gareth’s knuckles were white around the edges of the table, and I remembered the rumors. Poor Gareth. I shouldn’t feel sympathy for the man who’d been entangled in my cousin’s adultery—especially since I was about to wed the husband who’d been hurt by it. But I did, because in that moment, I saw a thousand seas of grief pooling in Gareth’s eyes.
“I didn’t know she was that unhappy,” he said, pushing the vanity back and then going back to the door. He kept his face from me.
“I thought it was common knowledge that she was unhappy with Mr. Markham.”
“I think maybe this was about something else,” Gareth said, but he offered no explanation for his cryptic analysis and refused to talk any more as he ushered me down to the courtyard.
Mr. Markham had indeed arranged for a small trunk to be packed with enough effects to last me for a few days, and also procured refreshments for the hours-long journey, and then we were off. The minute the wheels left the paving stones of the drive and hit the smooth dirt track to Stokeleigh, Mr. Markham drew the shades and beckoned me over.
I moved to the seat next to him, keeping us at a distance for the time being. Just sitting next to him revived the need he’d so carefully stoked this morning, and I needed my head to clear for a few moments at least.
“May I ask you something?”
“Anything, pet,” he said fondly.
“How close are you to your housekeeper?” I tried to hide the jealousy in my tone and failed.
He blinked and I could see that my question had been the last thing in the world he’d expected to hear.
“My housekeeper?”
“Mrs. Brightmore.”
“Yes, I know who my housekeeper is. But you are asking…what are you asking?”
I opened my mouth and then shut it. It wasn’t done to ask these kind of things, surely, and I wasn’t as naive as everybody thought I was. I knew what men did with their servants, and I knew that most men didn’t think it was the place of women to question what they did behind closed doors.
But I also couldn’t stomach the not knowing, and etiquette be damned, if I was to marry this man, I didn’t want him sharing anything with that dragon. “Are you friends? Do you share your problems with her? Have you fucked her?”
His laugh rumbled through the carriage. “Have I fucked Brightmore? God, no.” He laughed again. “You cannot be jealous of her, Ivy. Honestly. I would never—no. Just no.”
“She said that only she could take care of you,” I said, a bit stubbornly, not ready to give up.
“Only you take care of me.” He took my hand and pressed it to his erection. “See?”
I removed my hand. “But she’s known you so much longer than I have.”
He sighed. “What does that signify? I’ve spent more time with you in the last week than I’ve spent with her in the last ten years.”
“But you hand-selected her from another house…”
Another sigh. “To be honest, I felt responsible for her fate. She had worked in Arabella’s home before Arabella married me. Arabella’s parents—the Whitefields—died not long after, leaving no heirs. They eventually found a seventh or eighth cousin to inherit the estate, but he sold off the house and the lands and all the servants were dismissed. When I saw Brightmore working as a maid while I was a guest at another house, I felt it was my duty to give her a better situation. In a way, she had been part of my family and my duty, for however brief a time.”
“Oh.” That was understandable. Admirable even. I had witnessed firsthand what happened to servants after the family dissolved. After Thomas had died and my house was auctioned off, the old gardener and his daughter—the only servants who had stayed until the end—were summarily evicted without notice. And I had been powerless to help.
“Don’t listen to her, wildcat. I don’t. She didn’t want me to hire Gareth, even though he had excellent references and has since been the best valet I’ve ever had. I ignored her then, as you should now.”
I shook my head, anxious to get my final worry out of my head and into the open air. “But you listened once. She said that she helped you with Violet. That she helped you take care of your ‘wayward wife.’ Mr. Markham, what did she mean by that?”
His face had frozen mid-smile, mid-word, and I could see the way his pupils contracted ever so slightly, as if he were withdrawing into himself. When he finally spoke, his jaw was tight. “I’ve never taken my housekeeper into my confidence. If you are worried that she and I are close confidantes, then please stop. I haven’t shared a single detail of my personal life with her since I hired her. But housekeepers know things, Ivy. They can’t not know things. And she knew the state of my marriage with Violet. So yes, there was a time when she approached me with her advice, and to my deep regret, I admit that I took it.”
I couldn’t suppress the fears hovering at the edges of my mind, but he read me, as he always did, and he leaned forward to peer into my eyes. “Precious wildcat,” he whispered. “Quiet your jealousy, quiet your fear. You are safe with me. You are loved with me.”
And then he effortlessly moved me on top of his lap, hitching up my skirts until my waist was surrounded by silk and my bare sex was flat against his trousers. Despite everything—the words and Brightmore and his admission that he had once heeded her directions regarding his marriage—despite all that, heat flared in my core. He buried his face in my neck, nipping and sucking at every available inch of skin, his teeth a delicate torture along my collarbone.
Once again, I couldn’t help myself; I started grinding against him, feeling his stiff length under the fabric.
He looked down. “I wish you could see what I see,” he said in a low voice. “Your pussy moving against me, so desperate. So needy.”
I rubbed harder and faster, feeling the tension building inside me, twining and twining until I thought every muscle and nerve would snap. I threw my head back, feeling it surging—only to have Mr. Markham grab me by the hips and hold me up. Empty air ru
shed between him and me, cool and unforgiving, and I writhed in his grasp, trying to force myself down.
“Let me come,” I pleaded, our conversation now completely gone from my mind.
He grinned. “Absolutely not.”
“Please!”
He held me there, mercilessly, cruelly, until several minutes had passed and my body began to unwind. But my cunt pulsed more than ever, heavy between my legs, and my nipples beaded painfully under my corset.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Terrible,” I told him bluntly.
He laughed.
“It’s not funny,” I said, a little miffed and more than a little agonized. “I don’t think this game is fun at all.”
His face turned serious. “This isn’t a game, Ivy. It’s supposed to be more than fun.”
“I thought—”
“You and me, we are more than playmates,” he said, one hand letting go of me. He unfastened his trousers, exposing his erection. My body pulsed in response, every cell straining to touch him. He took himself in his hand and began rubbing the head of his cock against my sex. I gasped at the feel. He was like steel sheathed in satin—silky maleness, hard and wide.
I began to wriggle against him, urgent to impale myself on that sublime organ, and to my surprise, he let me. He let me notch the head of his cock into my pussy and he held himself upright as I slid down, crying out with bliss as I did. I finally sank to the root, my clit pressed against him, but again his hands were on my hips, buried in the silk skirts, keeping me from moving.
But a muscle in his jaw ticked, and I could see that it took an enormous amount of restraint on his part to keep me from riding him.
“We are more than playmates,” he repeated. “What do you feel when I’m inside you?”
“Like I want you to fuck me until I’m beyond my senses.”
A faint smile. “Think harder than that. Probe your feelings further.”
The Education of Ivy Leavold Page 3
