“Ivy!” Jem’s yell carried from the other room.
“In here!” She opened the door and peeked out. Jem was alone. “Come in here and have a gander,” she invited, opening the door wide.
“Sweet Lord . . .” Jem stared around him.
“That toilet seat is fit for the arse of the King of England.” Ivy pointed to the square toilet cabinet framed in mahogany. “Have yeh ever seen anything like all them mirrors? You’d see yourself coming and going.” She eyed the claw-foot bathtub sitting proudly in the middle of the room. She’d be having a dip in that – mirrors or no mirrors.
“Martin Skelly told me this is a guest bedroom,” Jem almost whispered, overawed by his surroundings. “If the guest room is this fancy, I wonder what the family rooms are like?”
“We’ll have a nosy.” Ivy promised herself a tour of the mansion house. “I’m going to change.” She almost ran over to grab her case from the dresser. “I’ll feel more comfortable in a skirt that reaches me ankles even if it is old-fashioned.” She’d packed her white summer suit into the case. It would do for sitting around this fancy guest room. “I’ll only be a minute.” She pushed Jem from the bathroom.
“That’s better.” Ivy came out of the bathroom wearing the long white skirt Mr Solomon had made for her, using one of a pair of fine Irish linen sheets. She’d matched it with a high-neck lace blouse.
Jem had removed his suit jacket and waistcoat. He was standing before the long windows in his suit pants and fine white shirt. “I was wondering if you would like to go for a walk along the sand in a little while.” He was nervous now that it was just the two of them in a bedroom.
“Jem,” Ivy began as she walked towards him, an uncertain smile on her face. “Jem,” she said again, “can we go to bed now?” She wanted to get that out of the way. She had a case of the collywobbles that was going to send her running to hide in the bathroom if they didn’t get down to it soon.
“It’s a bit early.” Jem’s ears burned.
“Let’s just get it over with.”
“Is that how you think of it? Something to get over?”
“I’m that nervous me knees are knocking together.” Ivy grabbed for his hands, needing to touch him. “I’m surprised you can’t hear them. I want to go to bed with you. Lord knows it was all I could do sometimes to call a halt to our kissing and hugging. I want to go to bed and lie in your arms and see where it takes us. Am I a shameless woman, Jem?”
“Come here then.” Jem pulled her into his arms.
They stood before the wide window, kissing and caressing each other, each shyly uncertain of the next move. The familiar passion between them burned hot and bright, taking them to a world of their own making, their seeking hands becoming trapped in the unfamiliar task of removing each other’s clothing.
“Well,” Ivy put her head on Jem’s naked shoulder and smiled, “I won’t be jumping out of this bed to write sonnets to yer eyebrows, Jem Ryan.”
“Is that a fact?” He laughed softly.
“I wasn’t ‘transported to an Isle of Delight’,” Ivy whispered into his naked flesh. She’d read that in a book she’d picked up at the market. “Were you?”
“In the name of Jesus, Ivy Murphy, what are you talking about now?” He stared at the pleated material that formed a ceiling over the four-poster bed and waited for her explanation.
“I read it in a book,” she tittered. “This fella kissed a girl and she was instantly transported to an Isle of Delight.”
“Brother Theo never gave you a book like that.”
“That’s a fact.” Ivy stretched her body. She cuddled into his side, throwing one leg over his thighs, delighting in the feel of his long naked muscled body against her own.
She must remember to thank Betty Armstrong for her words of advice. Although, maybe not . . . she’d almost burned up she’d blushed that much when the woman was telling her what to do and how to do it. It was strange to think it was an unmarried woman who had taken the time to sit Ivy down and advise her on the intimacy to be found in the marriage bed. The woman certainly seemed to know her onions.
“Are you all right, Ivy?” Jem raised his head from the soft feather pillow to look down at the woman tucked into his side. He could only see the top of her head.
“I don’t know.” She moved her head slightly to meet his concerned green eyes. “You’re the expert in this bed, Jem Ryan.” She didn’t think this was the first time Jem had indulged in bed sport. “Shouldn’t you be the one telling me if it was alright?”
“Woman, you’ll be the death of me.” He moved his body, setting her gently off to one side. He pushed his body to the side of the big bed.
“Where are you going?” Ivy rose up on her elbow to watch the show as her new husband slid out from underneath the bedclothes.
“I’ll be right back.” He hurried towards the bathroom door. The rubber thing he’d put on before making love to Ivy was beginning to pinch, hurting him in a most delicate area.
Ivy fell back onto the pillows with a sigh. Betty Armstrong said enjoying bed sport with your husband wasn’t a sin. That was more than anyone else had told her. She was grateful for the advice – left to herself she’d have made a right mess of the whole thing. She’d enjoyed herself well enough with what they had done here in this bed. She supposed it was like riding one of them big heavy bicycles of Jem’s. The more you practised, the better you got.
She nestled further into the soft bed, her eyes examining the room around her. It was far from it she was raised. She wondered idly if there was something wrong with her because she’d have preferred to be in her own home. This would be the second time in her life she’d spent a night away from The Lane. It was different from last night. She’d had old friends around her then, everyone fussing about the wedding. Here she was in a strange house run by people she didn’t know and to top it all off she was far away from everything she knew.
Ivy’s sigh almost shook the bed. She didn’t know what to do with herself. It was still early – was she supposed to spend the evening in bed? What the heck were the rules?
“I’ve started running a bath for you.” Jem was standing in the open doorway of the bathroom, a white towel wrapped around his waist. “Or are you planning on spending the rest of the day in that bed?”
“You might be a useful man to have around, Jem Ryan.” Ivy turned in the bed, coming up on her elbow again. She was careful to insure the dazzlingly white linen top sheet covered her private bits. “I was lying here wondering what I was going to do with meself.”
“Well,” he said, looking over his shoulder to check the running taps, “hop out of your nest, little bird. This bath won’t be long filling.”
“Give us your shirt.” She pointed to his white shirt thrown on the floor. “I’m not wanton enough to run around the place in me birthday suit.”
“Shame.” He went to pick the shirt off the floor. It wasn’t like him to throw his good clothes around the place.
“Jem,” Ivy turned to look into his eyes as he sat and held the shirt open for her, “what was that thing you put on . . . ?” Her eyes travelling to his towel-wrapped lap supplied the words she felt incapable of uttering aloud.
“Your –” he started and stopped. He knew better than to refer to William Armstrong as her uncle – his Ivy believed titles of respect like uncle and aunt had to be earned. “Billy Flint gave it to me. According to him it’s a thing they developed for the young lads going off to war.” He felt more comfortable for some reason thinking of the man who gave him the rubber sheath as Billy Flint.
“What’s it for?” She didn’t want to guess and get it wrong. She hid her blush by lowering her head to button the shirt.
“It’s to stop a woman getting pregnant.” Jem slid off the bed. He hadn’t enjoyed wearing the thing. He was going to put it to soak in the bathroom – perhaps hot water would soften the rubber. He wanted to try and stretch it. Perhaps they made them in a bigger size?
“Oh.�
�� She joined him on the bedroom floor without another word. Together they crossed to the bathroom.
“Which one of us gets the end with the taps?” Ivy was determined to enter this new world of married women with an open mind and heart. Betty Armstrong had advised her to ‘start as she meant to go on’. She wanted to explore every new experience with Jem – even if she did feel like her body was on fire with the blush that travelled from her hair to her toes.
“Neither of us.” Jem felt like the luckiest man in the world. His Ivy was not a shy young miss having to be cajoled every inch of the way. He should have known she’d surprise him even here. “I’ll get in first.” He dropped the towel after shutting off the running water and checking the temperature of the bath. He stepped in, settling his back comfortably into the curved rim. “You’ll have to drop that shirt.” He grinned at the sight of Ivy clutching onto the shirt for dear life. “Unless you’re planning to wash the thing?”
“You’re full of yourself, Mr Ryan.” She released her death grip on the shirt front and, before her nerves could get to her, pulled it off, giving her new husband a view of her in all her naked glory.
“I am that, Mrs Ryan.” He slapped the water. “Now climb in here.”
“How?”
“With your back to me.” He held up his arms, taking hold of her hips when she obeyed his instruction. He helped her settle between his spread legs.
“You didn’t learn this at the Tara Street Public Baths,” She was glad her back was plastered to his chest because she didn’t know where to put her eyes.
“You’d be surprised.” He didn’t intend to tell her about the bath attendants that would join a man in his bath for a few pence extra.
“Did Billy Flint really give you that thingy?” She could talk about this now that her back was to him. She settled down in the warm water, more content than she could remember being before in her life.
“Yes.” He moved his hips slightly, settling more comfortably into the bath. “Most embarrassing conversation I’ve ever had with another man in my life.”
“Stop moving, you’ll drown the floor.”
“No, I won’t.” He used his foot to point at the overflow in the bathtub. “The water runs out there.”
“You’ll never get me out of here.”
“When you make all that money from old Granny’s potions that Betty Armstrong talks about – then you can have a bath like this for yourself.”
“I won’t be holding me breath for that. That woman – she talks pounds when we haven’t pennies.” The bathroom was silent for a moment before she asked, “Jem, you were only joking before when you said it,” she stopped to gather her courage, “but would you teach me to drive out with old Rosie hitched to that little cart?”
“What are you thinking of now, Ivy Murphy?” He leaned forward to try and see her face.
“That’s Mrs Ryan to you, Mister.” She pushed back against him with a grin.
“You didn’t answer the question, Mrs Ryan.” He bit gently at the pale white flesh of her shoulder.
“It was seeing all those fancy houses we passed on the way out here to Dalkey,” She turned her head slightly to meet his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind paying a visit to the back door of some of those fancy houses. But it would be a bit of a march to take with me pram.”
“I’ll teach you how to hitch up old Rosie and drive her if that’s what you want.” He’d promise her anything when she called herself Mrs Ryan. “Don’t you think you might be taking on a bit much though?”
“I’ll never know until I try.” She quite fancied the thought of herself trotting out in her own pony and cart like one of the nobs.
The bathroom was silent while they both became lost in their thoughts. Ivy had visions of herself driving around country lanes behind Rosie. Who knew what she could score from some of the mansions dotted around the country?
They settled into the bath. There was no thought of soap or scrubbing – they simply enjoyed the new experience. The bathroom echoed to heavy breathing as they explored each other. With gentle brushes from fingertips they explored the differences between them.
Chapter 42
“There yeh are, Ivy – it’s fresh and well yer looking.”
“Morning, Sam,” Ivy said to the back of the man hurrying past her to reach Hop-a-long’s refreshment stall at the Smithfield Market. She didn’t take her eyes from her notebook. She was checking off the items on her list, one by one, making sure she’d done everything she’d planned for that morning.
“Time yeh put that pram of yours to a better use, Ivy.”
She ignored the comment about her pram. God knows it wasn’t the first time she’d heard it.
“Do you have someone to fetch a mug of tea for yeh, Sally?” Eleven o’clock in the morning, she knew, most stallholders stopped to have a mug of tea with whatever packed lunch they had brought to the market with them. Some had families that brought their meals down to them at the market stall – they too needed to buy a mug of Hop-a-long’s tea. Some like Sam who had just walked past her paid a lad to watch their stall while they took a well-earned break.
“Me youngest will be here soon, love, thanks.” Sally gave the customer fingering the items on her stall a glare.
“Marriage suits yeh, love,” another stallholder shouted as she pushed her pram past his stall.
“It does, thanks.” She was learning how to live with someone else around the place. It wasn’t always easy. But there were advantages. This morning had started with a kiss. A fine way to start any day. Then she’d crawled from the bed and made a pot of tea for herself and Jem on the Primus stove he’d bought. The muggy weather made using the black range a miserable experience. The little paraffin-filled stove boiled the water for her tea without heating the room.
“E’er a whisper?” She didn’t know which of the stallholders had shouted that question.
Ivy thought if she had a penny for every time she’d heard the same remarks she’d be a wealthy woman. She’d been married for six full weeks now and people were beginning to check out her figure in a way that she secretly found very offensive. She didn’t pass any remark though – it was the Irish way, she supposed.
“Did yer mate not come with yeh today? I washed me face special, like, for the photos.” A stallholder in the crowd gathered around the refreshment stall nudged her as she parked her pram out of the way.
Ann Marie had become such a familiar figure around the Dublin markets that people were beginning to look behind Ivy as if expecting her friend to be standing at her shoulder. Ann Marie was in Galway with Edward O’Connor and Emmy. They had been away ten days. She hoped they would be returning soon.
Hop-a-long held an enormous teapot aloft while he poured tea in a continuous stream into the closely packed enamel mugs on his counter. He ignored the good-natured ribbing his customers were giving Ivy. While they were chatting to her they were giving someone else a rest.
“I saw that, Mikey Miles!” Hop-a-long shouted. “Put yer money on me counter before yeh take a mug of tea. Yeh know the rules as well as the next man, yeh bloody chancer!”
“I’ll fix yeh up later, Hop-a-long.” Mikey tried to shuffle back out of the crowd around Hop-a-long’s market stall. The dealers packed tightly in front of the stall refused to move and let him through. They all had experience of Mikey helping himself to what didn’t belong to him. “I’m a bit short, don’t yeh know? I’ll be flush later when I get a bit more business under me belt.”
“Come back then.” Quick as a flash Hop-a-long pulled the mug out of Mikey’s hand.
“I started drinking that,” Mikey shouted. “Yeh won’t be able to sell it to someone else.”
“I’ll make the same amount of money from it any way you look at it.” Hop-a-long emptied the mug of tea onto the cobbles under his feet. “I’m not standing here for the good of me health. Come back when you have money to pay for yer tea like everyone else. I’m not runnin’ a bleedin’ charity house.”
/> Ivy stood sipping tea from an enamel mug. The routine of the market was as familiar to her as her own face. She hid her face in her mug, content to stand and watch, a silent figure among the noisy stallholders and market shoppers.
“I’m off.” She returned her mug to the counter. “See yez all next week if God spares us.” She didn’t wait to hear the response. She wanted to get on her way. This spell of muggy weather was taking the energy out of her. She felt very daring in her brightly coloured drop-waist dress. The short cap sleeves and open neck of the dress allowed what little breeze there was to cool her damp skin. They needed a storm – something to break this weather that felt to her like walking along covered by a damp blanket.
“Miss Rose, isn’t it?”
Ivy felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Who in the market would know to call her by that name? She turned slowly to face the woman who had called her name aloud – her mind frantically working at possible outcomes of this unexpected encounter.
“Mrs Felman, isn’t it?” She wondered what the woman – Hannah Solomon’s mother-in-law – was doing in the market. She’d never seen her here before. There was no use in pretending she didn’t recognise the woman. She’d just have to brazen it out. She thanked God that Hannah and Betty Armstrong had set sail for America a little over two weeks ago.
The Ha'Penny Place (Ivy Rose Series Book 3) Page 23
