Chapter 14

CHAPTER14

After a long minute, he stood and pulled on his trousers. Without asking, he lifted me in his arms again, setting me down on a chair near the fire, then he went to his washing table and wet a linen towel. He came back and knelt in front of me, gently parting my legs. Slowly, he began cleaning me, starting with my inner thighs and working his way to my center, and when he pulled the towel away, I saw that it was tinged pink.

I had bled; it was a moment that was supposed to be reserved for my wedding night, but I didn’t care. I knew no wedding night awaited an impoverished orphan—at least not a wedding night with a man I truly wished to be with. But despite the transgressive nature of tonight—the shock of the blood and its confirmation that it all had been real—I still felt that fragile happiness. And no bridegroom had ever been tenderer to his bride than Mr. Markham was to me in this moment.

The towel was soft and cool against my skin, and when he finished, I almost asked him to keep going. Instead, I waited as he brought me his dressing gown, a heavy thing of gold and crimson brocade, trimmed with velvet. As I stood to pull it over my shoulders, to tie the sash around the pleated folds, a knock sounded at the door. I cast my eyes around, desperate for a place to hide—I’m sure Mr. Markham didn’t want the servants to know what he was doing with his dead wife’s cousin.

“Have a seat, Miss Leavold. I assure you, my servants are very discreet.”

I doubted that, but I was also buoyed by the fact that Mr. Markham wasn’t ashamed to have it known that I was in his chambers. He wasn’t ashamed of me.

The door opened and Gareth stood outside. “Sir, I hate to bother you this late, but—” His eyes lit on me, wrapped in the dressing gown, my hair tousled and my face undoubtedly flushed. Something moved under his expression—jealousy? judgment?—but whatever it was had vanished before I could properly assess it.

“There’s a problem,” he continued, studiously avoiding me. “One of the horses has escaped from the stables.”

“What do you mean, escaped?” Mr. Markham demanded. “Which horse was it?”

“Yours, sir. Raven.” Gareth sounded genuinely regretful. Horses were expensive, and beyond that, I knew that Mr. Markham treasured Raven and rode him whenever he had the chance. And, as I remembered from that long-ago conversation with Gareth by the dry stone wall, it was the horse that had killed Violet.

“How did such a thing happen?” The man who had so tenderly washed me was gone, replaced by the furious landowner I now saw. The muscles in his back and shoulders tensed, and for a moment, I thought he was going to shout, but his hands balled at his sides and he mastered his anger. “I’ll come at once.”

He didn’t look at me as he grabbed his shirt and jacket, and he didn’t say a word in farewell as he left.

I was completely alone.

For several moments, I sat utterly still, letting the events of the past hour soak into me, unable to process how everything had happened so fast, how I’d awoken a virgin and now found myself naked and alone in Mr. Markham’s rooms. It all seemed so hazy and unreal, like a dream half-forgotten upon waking, but the raw ache between my legs testified how actual tonight had been. I’d done it, done the only thing I’d wanted to do since I’d met Mr. Markham—and the one thing an unwed lady should never do.

But, of course, that bothered me very little. I had no potential marriage to throw away. In fact, since my sole means of survival were currently in the hands of Mr. Markham, perhaps giving him myself was the best thing I could do for my future. I stood, a smile playing on the edges of my lips as I allowed myself to fantasize about a future with Mr. Markham. The two of us, spending our days entwined here at Markham Hall, seeing and feeling and tasting nothing but each other.

Mr. Markham’s rooms were quite large, in the traditional medieval way. A sitting room with a massive fireplace adjoined the bedchamber itself, where the rumpled blankets and sheets told the story of what had happened there tonight. My pulse raced when I saw the small splotches of blood on the snowy linen . . . Would Mrs. Brightmore guess?

She won’t have to, I told myself. Gareth had seen me, and if anything was certain in this life, it was gossip. Soon the entire household would know that I’d let Mr. Markham have me, and while I didn’t necessarily feel ashamed, I did bristle at the thought that they might now consider me weak-willed.

I found myself pacing, my euphoria now dampened, and as if one nervous thought spawned another, I found myself also wondering at Mr. Markham’s departure. I knew he had to find his horse, obviously, but without even a word of goodbye?

A memory of a book floated to the surface of my mind, a novel about a woman who failed in her chastity and ultimately died of consumption. I remembered the main character leaving her lover’s rooms quietly after every assignation because it wasn’t seemly for such women to presume upon a man’s time. They had one purpose, one task, and once that was fulfilled, they only stayed at the explicit request of their paramour.

I pulled the dressing gown tighter around myself, suddenly wondering if I’d made an error, a gaffe that displayed my total ignorance of society. Should I have left immediately? Was Mr. Markham disgusted with me, bored with me, annoyed that I had lingered after the act?

Surely not. He had carried me from the bed, cleaned me, and dressed me. These were idle frets . . . yet they seemed reluctant to wither away, the roots of them already finding purchase in my mind.

Besides, I had gone into this with my eyes open. I knew exactly what kind of arrangement this was. If I found myself being treated like a prostitute, well . . . what else could I have expected?

A picture on the mantle caught my eye. I stepped closer, taking it in my hands. It was a small oil painting of Mr. Markham in profile, very cunningly done and by someone with a lot of talent and training. I bit my lip when I saw the name at the corner—spiky and unmistakable.

Molly O’Flaherty.

She had painted this and given it to him. And he had displayed it prominently in his room. A swell of jealousy and the horrible recollection of hearing the two of them kissing—the knowledge that those had not been their first kisses, not even close—and all of a sudden, the giant room seemed too small, the velvet curtains too dark and the fire too hot. I went to the door and ran down the hallway to the stairs, consumed with a single thought: outside.

I pushed past doors and through rooms, and then I found myself in the garden outside, the stars glittering in the clear sky above. The moon was still high—it was not that late, despite the feeling that I had lived an entire lifetime since supper. If the houseguests had been here, the night’s revelries would have only just begun. I had no shoes and only the dressing gown separating my skin from the night air, but I didn’t care, and I knew the darkness would shroud me from the gazes of anyone who could watch.

I went down to the stream, trying not to think of Molly and her bright eyes, her shipping fortune, her wild history with Mr. Markham, and failing wildly. He had held her at a distance, he claimed he only wanted me, but then he had that picture in his room. She was so much better suited to him—already part of his circle and wealthy—not to mention that her charisma and vitality enchanted even me when she wished it to. Again, who was I to be jealous of her? I had no claim on him. It was illogical to feel possessive just because I’d been foolish enough to fall in love.

But, I argued with myself, he sometimes seemed as infatuated with me as I was with him. I knew I wasn’t imagining that. He’d said so himself.

But then again, it wasn’t a matter of interest or attraction. Molly herself had told me that. It was a matter of duration. How long until Mr. Markham grew tired of me and moved on—or worse, returned to Molly? Would he allow me to continue living at his home? More importantly, would I be able to go on after losing him?

When I finally reached the water, I was near tears—tears that had so many causes and influences that I couldn’t push them down or away—but I wasn’t prone to crying, and so they remained on the edge of spilling over, burning my eyes and tightening my throat. I sat on a stone, my breathing erratic and forced, remembering all the other things that should have warned me away from the tortured man who had accepted responsibility for my life. Wispel’s words, Mrs. Harold’s words, Gareth’s words. Even his own words.

They said he murdered Violet. That he possibly murdered his first wife.

Was I in danger of more than having my heart broken?

* * *

The night brought no answers,no comforts, except that my restlessness and confusion had enough space to breathe. I paced the moonlit path by the stream; I swam; I tried to rest in the grass, but peace was elusive. I couldn’t go back to the house—not now. I couldn’t face his empty bed—or mine. Instead, I listened to the owls and bats flapping through the dark, to badgers and foxes rustling through the woods, to the water spilling its eternally cheerful spill.

Perhaps these doubts were galvanizing. They were all pointing to something—that either my heart or my life was in danger, and that perhaps I should leave. But where? I would have to search for employment, and at that, I balked. Being a governess was the most respectable thing I could think of, but to be shackled to the caprices of a wealthy family, my time no longer my own . . .

And I didn’t want to leave Mr. Markham and his dark, somber house. No matter how bad he was for me, I couldn’t truly fathom extricating myself from him. I craved him too much.

The sky darkened and lightened, finally blushing slightly at the edges of the horizon, and I decided that I should go back up to the house. I was cold and stiff and weary, and there were no answers out here. Only more doubts.

As I took to the path once again, I heard footsteps. I froze, my mind flashing to old stories of highwaymen and ghosts, but it was Mr. Markham who emerged out of the gloom, breathless as if he’d been running.

“Oh thank God,” he said hoarsely, coming to me and drawing me fiercely into his arms. “I thought you’d left. Oh God, I thought you’d left.”

There was ragged desperation in his voice, and its intensity both thrilled and frightened me. “Where would I go?” I asked honestly. “This is the only home I have.”

“Even so, I thought maybe I had driven you off, pushed you away by fucking you.”

And before I could answer, he crushed his lips to mine, parting my mouth with his own, as if he was trying to claim my body once again with a kiss. His hand reached inside the dressing gown and he was palming my breast, my nipples growing hard against his touch, and then he was ripping the gown off of me, pushing me to the ground. He unfastened his trousers with one hand, lowering them just enough to free his member, which was already hard and ready.

I saw his face, saw the hunger in his eyes, and I knew that this was the darkness he had referred to, the possessive and unmerciful darkness that had disturbed Violet, and I knew that this time would not be gentle or tender. I should have been wary, scared even, but instead heat blossomed below my navel and my pulse raced. I wanted this—him, all of him, rough and hard. I wanted him to own my body and own me; I wanted him to claim it, and I had never wanted anything more.

He unceremoniously spread my legs and I felt the heat of him pressing against my pussy.

“Oh, please,” I murmured, and that was all he needed. He pushed his way in, and despite the soreness, despite my unreadiness, my body responded, rising up to meet him. He pulled out to the tip and then thrust in again, hard, and I moaned.

“You are mine,” he said as he began driving in faster. “You are completely mine. Only mine. Your cunt and your lips and your heart—they belong to me.” The possession in his words was underscored by something anguished, something desolate.

He drove into me, harder and harder, as if urgently trying to reassure himself that I was really here, that I was really his. Over and over again he buried himself, hitting that place inside that stoked such wild delight within me, and then he reached down to brush against my bud. It took mere seconds, and then I was seizing around him, crying out, the pain making the orgasm stronger and deeper, longer even, and I was still riding the choppy waves of it when he pulled out.

“I thought you had left,” he whispered. His cock glistened in the dim light, and it only took one stroke of his hand before he spilled himself, long spurts lacing my skin as he ejaculated onto my belly and onto my wet cunt.

We breathed there for a moment, breathing with the trees and the water and the coming dawn. The lust didn’t bank in his eyes as he gazed at me, naked with leaves in my hair, his seed marking my skin. Indeed, his cock stayed mostly erect as he picked me up and carried me into the stream, where he washed me once more, and then fucked me in the summer-warmed water until my cries stirred the forest leaves.