“Why?”
He pressed his forehead against mine just as he had this morning. “Do you remember me saying that I had become a creature of needs after Violet’s death? I wasn’t exaggerating and I wasn’t joking. I’m accustomed to getting what I want. And I want you.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I managed to ask. “Why can’t we want one another?”
“You don’t understand what I mean. When I say that I want you, I don’t mean your company or your conversation. I don’t want to pine over you and write you poetry. I mean,” he pronounced carefully, “that I want to bend you over this sofa and slide inside of you. I mean that I want to pin you to the ground and watch you squirm as I drive into you over and over again. I mean that I want to spend my evenings watching your pretty little head bob up and down on my cock.”
He took my hand and pressed it against the front of his breeches. There indeed was the object of his words, hard, so very hard, and thicker than I ever imagined. The knot inside of me threatened to snap. I wanted all of those things too, I realized, too aroused to feel embarrassed or shameful. I wanted him inside of me and I wanted to feel his mouth on me once more…
“You see now,” he said, lifting his head and looking me in the eyes, “why you must stay away from me. You don’t want to be the kind of woman who lets a man fuck her just so she’ll have a roof over her head.”
It took only a second for the meaning of his words to sink in, what he was implying about me and my sense of dignity…not to mention what he was revealing about his own concept of hospitality. My blood turned hot, scorching my own veins, ire pounding through me.
I slapped his face as hard as I could.
“I’m not a prostitute, and I’m more than capable of surviving on my own if I have to,” I said.
He turned his face slowly back to me, a handprint blooming on his cheek, each finger clearly delineated in bright red. I wanted to hit him again and again until he apologized, but as I raised my hand, he caught my wrist. We wrestled for a moment, his arms coming around my waist, and before I knew it, I kneeling on the floor, both of my arms pinned behind my back. He knelt in front of me.
My breath came quickly and adrenaline pumped through me, but it wasn’t fear I felt but a feverish rush instead.
“Oh, my little wildcat.” His voice was rougher than normal. “You give me no choice. I have to take this one thing from you. Just this once.”
He pressed his lips against mine. They were soft, oh so soft, and warm, and then he gently parted my lips with his own, and slid his tongue inside my mouth.
I wanted to pull him closer, wrap my arms around him and never let go, but they were still pinned behind my back, and his grip tightened as he deepened the kiss, as if he knew exactly what I wanted to do.
Our tongues met, silky and flickering, and I moaned into his mouth, the sensation so delicious, so perfect.
After what felt like several thousand heartbeats later, he broke his lips away from mine but remained close, so that I felt the breath of his words.
“I am going to try my hardest not to ruin you,” he said. “I am going to try my hardest not to touch you again, after tonight.”
He released my wrists, but I didn’t move them, almost missing the restraint. His hand slid up my skirts and under my chemise.
“Are you scared, Miss Leavold?”
In response, I parted my knees as far apart as I could, my body overriding my brain to give him access to whatever he wanted, because it was what I wanted too.
If I looked down, I could see him straining against his pants, but other than his thick erection, he gave no outward sign of his lust. He seemed perfectly calm and in control as his fingertips traced spirals up to my center, his eyes fixed to my face, his chest swelling with deep, even breaths. The moment he made contact with my clitoris, I inhaled fiercely, shuddering. His fingers moved down.
“So wet,” he murmured. “How can you be so wet from a single kiss?”
“It’s you,” I managed to gasp out. “You are the one doing this to me.”
His arm wrapped around my waist and yanked, so that I slid on the wood floor a few inches, spreading my knees even farther apart. One arm held me tight, while the other was under my skirts, and God, the things he was doing there.
“I am doing this so you can see why I need to stay away from you,” he said. One finger slowly pushed inside of me and everything within me shuddered and clenched and I let out a single, desperate, “Oh.”
“You’re so tight now,” he said, his lips now near my ear. “You have a tight little cunt and the man you marry will want it to stay that way. It’s so perfect and so wet, and he will want to be the first to feel it around his cock.” The finger moved deeper and deeper, until he reached a spot that made me writhe and push against that hand; all the while, he held me with his other arm, kept me pressed against him.
“And with your perfect cunt around me all the time, with those perfect breasts and that plump mouth, if I don’t make myself stay away, then I can’t answer to what will happen.”
“What will happen?” I whispered, needing to hear more, his words making everything in me tighten around his expert finger, making my body quiver and tense all around a central point deep inside of me.
His grin was wicked. “Then I will bend you over that sofa. I’ll watch you wrap your lips around me and suck until I’m satisfied, and then I’ll fuck your pussy until I spill inside of you. And once we start, there will be no stopping. I’ll have you in every room of this house, on every surface. I’ll make you climax as often as it suits me, even if it’s several times an hour for an entire night. I’ll make you thrash underneath me and beg, and maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you ride me and use me until you’re too limp to keep yourself upright any longer.
“And I’m sorry. I lied earlier…because I am taking one more first from you,” he said, and then he plunged two fingers inside of me, his thumb pressing once more against my clit in small, fast circles.
The quivering in my core was almost too much to bear. I grabbed on to Mr. Markham’s suit jacket, feeling almost panicked.
“Mr. Markham, please…”
“Please what, wildcat?”
“I…I…don’t know.” The tightening felt as if it would split me in half if I let it, as if it would unravel my entire being. How could I possibly survive something so strong, so elemental, a tidal wave threatening to surge and crash on top of me and—
He pressed his lips once more against mine and the wave crashed, my body shook, the muscles in my pelvis and inner thighs and belly convulsed and released and convulsed again. I thought I would die, the waves went on so long, radiating to every part of my being, all centered on his hand under my skirts.
I came to, fumbling my way out of an unimaginable glow, to find him supporting almost all of my weight. With no visible exertion, he lifted me easily into his arms, walked to the library door, unlocked it, and carried me to my room.
He laid me in bed and I stared up at him, sharply handsome even in the dark, unable to speak or think or feel beyond the small waves of pleasure that still pulsed through me.
“Lock your door at night, wildcat.”
“Why?”
White teeth flashed. A grin.
“Because of me.”
I slept better that night than I had slept since Thomas died—or possibly even since my parents died. When I woke, the sun was already streaming full in the window, signaling that mid-morning was not far off. I closed my eyes once more, pretending it was firelight that glowed through my eyelids, pretending that someone’s arms were around me, that expert fingers were caressing me and coaxing me to that state of exultation once more.
I wondered why I didn’t feel guilty or regretful that I had allowed such liberties last night. I should feel guilty. I hadn’t been in a church since my parents died—with the sole exception of Thomas’s funeral—but I did remember the clergyman constantly referencing The Unchaste Woman as the source of
society’s ills. In our library at home, there had been many tracts in the same vein, as if Thomas wanted to make up for his frequent absences and excesses by at least ensuring I had the right sort of literature around.
But what Mr. Markham had done to me last night hadn’t felt wrong. Nothing had felt more right—as if he and he alone were created to touch my body. I decided to ignore the clergyman and the dusty tracts. What did it matter, really? Mr. Markham spoke of a future husband, but surely a smart man like him could see that a husband was unlikely for a girl as poor and unconnected as I was. No, in all likelihood, I would spend the remainder of my days alone, at the mercy of others, and it wouldn’t matter how pure I’d been.
Knowing that Mrs. Brightmore would judge me for lying in, I decided to make every effort to avoid her today. After dressing and putting up my hair, I settled on a walk to Stokeleigh to post a letter to Solicitor Wickes thanking him for all of his help in securing me a place to stay.
My plan was ruined when I encountered Mrs. Brightmore on the staircase, me with my letter in hand and her with a bucket of steaming water.
“Pardon.”
“Out of my way,” she snapped.
I’d only been here a few days, but I’d never seen her attend to any of the drudgery work herself. “Do you need any help?” I asked tentatively.
“You’d probably just muck everything up,” she said and pushed past me, slopping hot water onto my dress.
I came the rest of the way down the stairs, hot with anger, and was met by Gareth carrying a cord of firewood. He stopped, but behind him I saw a few other servants moving in and out of rooms, carrying rugs to be beaten and mattresses to be aired.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“I’m perfectly fine,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow, and I realized that my fists were clenched, crumpling my letter in the process. I took a deep breath and relaxed my fingers. “What’s all the bustle about?” I asked him.
“Ah, that.” He shifted the firewood so that he could brush some of the blond hair out of his eyes. “Mr. Markham has invited a party of his acquaintances to come stay a while. Several men and women. Markham Hall hasn’t had visitors since I can remember—Mr. Markham prefers to go off to see his friends—so there is quite a lot of work to be done.”
Visitors? I wondered why and why now, so soon after Violet’s death. And then I felt a sharp pang of disappointment. Despite what Mr. Markham had said about not touching me again, I still wanted to see him and talk to him. I wanted him all to myself. I didn’t want to share his company with a party of his friends and risk him ignoring me. I knew I was being unreasonable, that I was only the orphaned girl kept out of some distant sense of duty and charity, and that I’d only known him for a few days, but I didn’t care. I would tear this house apart, stone by stone, if it meant we could share another night like last night. And besides, I didn’t like large crowds of refined people. Making strained polite conversation and pretending to laugh at stale witticisms exhausted me. I’d much rather hide in the library or escape outdoors.
“Are you going into town?” Gareth asked, nodding at my letter.
“Yes,” I said, forcing myself back into the present. “To the post office.”
“Could I escort you? Mrs. Brightmore wants me to requisition more help for the house.”
I agreed, and after he finished with the firewood, we started off together, down the winding sun-dappled lane to Stokeleigh. Birds sang and animals chittered as we walked; summer felt as if it was poised to explode into heat and growth any second. The more we walked and the further away from Markham Hall we got, the less my thoughts centered on last night and the more they alighted on more troubling matters.
“Gareth,” I asked after we’d been walking in companionable silence for several minutes. “The cook said something to me yesterday that I’ve been thinking over. She said that the constable had investigated Violet’s death as if it had been a murder. Is that true?”
“She told you that, did she?” Gareth scratched his face. The gesture was oddly endearing, as if he were a young man just growing his first beard. “You shouldn’t listen to old Wispel. She likes nothing more than to tell stories.”
“But is it true? She’d said that the saddle cinches had been cut.”
He rubbed at his face again, clearly uncomfortable. “Her death was investigated,” he admitted. “But they found no cause to suspect Mr. Markham. They ruled it an accident.”
“No cause? Or they didn’t want to accuse a man as powerful as Mr. Markham?”
Gareth stopped, his blue eyes pained in the happy light of the forest lane. “I know she’s your cousin and so you feel the need to know the truth and that’s why you are asking. So please believe me when I say, from the bottom of my heart, that no one in the world would ever lift a hand to hurt her.”
“But that’s not entirely true either, is it? Mrs. Wispel said Mr. Markham and Violet fought—violently even.”
He hesitated. “It’s true that they did not get along well after they married. But if you could have seen him while they courted—he was a man entranced. He took me along with him to London—usually he hires a valet from whichever city he’s staying in—but I think this time he wasn’t planning on staying long. Just a day or two. And then he met her at a ball. He came back to the hotel that night, vowing to win her hand. And he did. It took months, but he did.”
“How romantic.”
“I suppose. Mr. Markham began bringing me more frequently on those trips and I got to see their courtship firsthand.” He paused again, as if unsure how to phrase his words. “Your cousin was very pretty and very well-liked, but there were rumors…”
I nodded. “I knew Violet’s temperament. It doesn’t shock me. Continue.”
“Rumors that she was more than flirtatious. Carnal rumors.” There was a color to his cheeks now, although his expression wasn’t suggestive of bashful innocence. Growing up with older brother had taught me what young men liked to joke about, and I could easily picture Gareth listening and sharing those same rumors. The coloring came from guilt, I decided, from indulging in the salacious tales surrounding the newly dead.
“I’m sure there was nothing to them, of course,” he continued, “but there were some who said she would not be a proper wife. This didn’t bother Mr. Markham at all—he seemed almost excited by her reputation, as if it presented a challenge. And there were many who thought that if any man could bring her to heel, it would be Mr. Markham.”
“So what changed after they married?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. It started slowly at first—not talking during dinner, spending afternoons apart, that sort of thing. All she wanted to do was go back to her old life in London; I think she thought that marriage would be the same as being single, except with more money and with a large house to her name.”
That sounded like Violet. “And what do you think Mr. Markham thought marriage would be like?”
“He had been married before, but only for a month. Who knows what he expected from Mrs. Markham?”
“And then the fights grew worse?”
“Loud. Messy. They’d say things to one another that would make you cringe to hear them. She’d pound her fists against his chest and lob whatever was near at him, and he wouldn’t hit her back, but he’d issue such cruel remarks that he might as well have struck her.” His voice went low and strange. “He didn’t understand her. He didn’t deserve her. She was caged in that house, she was lonely and deprived, and he wanted to keep her isolated and all to himself. And now she’ll never leave Yorkshire.”
His words made the summer air heavy and we walked the rest of the way in silence. We arrived in Stokeleigh ten minutes later, the small village I had been unable to admire on my ride through a few days ago. Charming and small, its three principal streets lined with snug cottages and one cluster of ancient timber and plaster shops, it was a cheerful place, seeming in its bright industry to be miles away from the bro
oding manor house rather than a short walk.
Gareth directed me to the post office, touched his cap and went off to complete his business. Bells tolled from the tiny stone church as I walked into the post office. After paying my penny, I went back outside, meaning to wait for Gareth at the edge of the village, but I was approached straight off by a prim-looking girl who seemed about my age. Her navy poplin, trimmed with lace and set off by a large brooch, spoke of modesty and wealth. Her wedding ring glinted in the sun.
“Hello,” she said, and somehow in one word, she managed to pack in both condescension and obsequiousness. She held out her hand. “I’m Mrs. Harold, the rector’s wife.” The emphasis on rector made it clear exactly where she thought her place in the community was—at the very top.
I shook her hand, trying to discreetly search the street for any sign of Gareth. “Ivy Leavold,” I said, warily.
“Oh yes, we know who you are.” At the we, she turned and looked knowingly at three women behind her whom I hadn’t noticed before. They looked as young and stiff and self-assured as Mrs. Harold did. Discomfort prickled at my neck and shoulders; I was always at sea with groups of people, especially well-dressed, judgmental groups of people. “You are the new girl who’s come stay at Markham Hall.”
She seemed awfully gossipy for being married to a man of the cloth. The wheels turned and clicked in my mind, and I realized she was going to pump me for information, search me for all the juicy morsels of news she could carry and then disseminate around the community. I looked around for Gareth again.
“Is it true that you are Violet Markham’s cousin?” she asked.
“Yes.” I supplied nothing further.
“And that you had nowhere to go after your brother died?”
I bit off the irritated remark that floated to mind. “Yes,” I said instead.
“And that they had to sell your family’s house to pay off your brother’s debts?”
That stung. Of course, as advertised as the auction had been, it would be easily discoverable knowledge for anyone who wanted to know—but still. The thought of my snug home, nestled so close to the sea cliffs, now lived in by strangers…
The Awakening of Ivy Leavold Page 4
