Chapter 4

CHAPTER4

Sleep was elusive the remainder of the night. Why had Mr. Markham touched me? And why had I bitten him when he did? I knew only that it had been instinct, spurred on by the tightening knot in my belly, a knot he himself had tied by touching me so unexpectedly, so gently. I’d been around men so rarely at home—Thomas and our old gardener being the exception—but even I knew that the behaviors I exhibited around Mr. Markham were far from customary. Presumptuous.

Shocking, even.

But though I’d never been touched by a man in any meaningful way, my body had known exactly how to react.

Before the sun had completely risen, I dressed, arranged my hair, and went downstairs to the kitchens. I wanted to avoid another lonely breakfast marked by congealed food and Mrs. Brightmore’s scowls. If I went directly to the kitchens and took my food there, they’d see that I didn’t expect anybody to bow and scrape before me. At home, I’d eaten either outside or in the library anyway—just as well, since by the end, only the pottering old gardener and his daughter had remained on to help. There would have been no elaborate, multi-course dinners even if I had wanted them.

The smell of warm bread greeted me. I ducked under the low threshold, the stone walls and floor cool and damp despite the heat coming from the ovens and the fireplace. An older woman sat chopping vegetables for the day’s meals and a young child—seven or eight perhaps—tended the large ovens and the central fire, where turkeys and Cornish hens were being roasted to provide cold meat for the day’s dinner.

“Hello,” I said tentatively. “I thought I’d spare Mrs. Brightmore the trouble of serving me breakfast and come and get it myself. I was thinking about taking a walk; would it be all right if I simply took some bread and some cheese?”

The old cook creaked to her feet. She came up to me and examined me, but without any cruelty or scorn as Mrs. Brightmore had done, only with curiosity. I dredged up her name from an overheard conversation. Mrs. Wispel.

“You do look a bit like her,” the cook said at last.

“Like who?” And then I realized. Violet. She could only mean Violet.

“Different eyes and hair, of course. But the face—I can see something of her there.” She nodded. “But you’ve got a good heart, I can see it in your eyes. A good, open heart. Not like her.”

“I’m sure Violet?—”

Her expression tightened. “We don’t speak the names of the dead here. Too close to the churchyard. It will waken them, make them restless.”

This must be some sort of tradition we didn’t have in the south. “Sorry,” I said. “I mean, I’m sure she didn’t mean to give the impression of having a bad heart. I remember her as very energetic and happy.”

“She only lived for pleasure,” the cook said, crooking a finger at me, as if Violet’s epicureanism had been my fault. “And that always turns a heart rotten, like fruit left too long in the sun.”

She trundled over to the table and gestured to the boy. He pulled a fresh loaf of bread from the oven while she unwrapped a wedge of cheese. “Mind you, she was unhappy in the end. Like you, sneaking down for her meals so she wouldn’t have to eat with her husband. Claiming she was too hungry to wait for regular mealtimes. And the rows they’d have; I’d hear her cries coming from his bedroom at night, shattering glass from the parlor . . . It weren’t no surprise when the constable had to ask Mr. Markham all those questions.”

“There was an investigation into her death?” This was the first I’d heard of it. I’d been under the assumption that everybody had accepted the tragic nature of her accident.

The cook nodded, slicing off a thick hunk of cheese and setting it next to the bread. “The saddle had been ruined in some way—cut partially, so that it might tear, especially if the rider was riding at a gallop or at a canter, like she often did. Of course, the constable didn’t have much leeway—it’s difficult to accuse a man like Mr. Markham, you see. In the end, they called it an accident. But the village knows what really happened. Mr. Markham’s been such a cold person, ever since he was a young man. Cold and peculiar. When his father died, he was only seventeen, and rather than take on his duties and settle down as he should, he went off abroad. And the stories that came back . . . ”

I accepted the bundle of bread and cheese; at the last moment, she reached over and placed a shiny red apple on top. “What kind of stories?” I asked.

“Not the kind a young lady should hear.” But she glanced over at the child. I made a note that she might speak more if she were only in adult company.

“You speak rather freely of your employer,” I remarked.

She eyed me, again without animosity. “I’ve worked in this house since I was younger than that one.” She used the cheese knife to point at the child. “Any loyalty I had died with the old missus and master. And the young master knows that, just as he knows he won’t find a better cook anywhere in the county.”

“Sounds like a tenable arrangement,” I said. “Thank you for the food.”

She snorted. “It was nothing. I’m always happy to feed you, but don’t let that Brightmore woman drive you away from the table. You’re a lady and you live here now. She doesn’t know her place. Thinks just because Mr. Markham brought her in as a maid from another big house and raised her up to the level of housekeeper that she’s better than service and better than all of us here. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cherished the hope that the master will fall in love with her, like in those awful novels everybody seems to read these days.”

I was on the stairs when the cook called after me once more.

“Be careful, Miss Leavold.”

On my walk?

“What do you mean?”

“Markham Hall already has two dead young women to its name,” she said.

“Accidental deaths,” I pointed out.

But she simply shrugged and turned back to her chopping, not bothering to elaborate or explain, and I was left unsettled.

It was well past dawn outside, yet the sun stayed behind the clouds; fog filled the grounds and the space between the trees, making the world silver and strange. I walked down the path, thinking to eat by the stream again, unnerved at how quickly the world behind me was swallowed up by the mist. It swirled around my boots and skirts, clung damply to my hair and dress, and it was only the lonely sound of the stream that gave me any sense of distance at all.

I continued, walking farther than I had yesterday, stopping finally at a place where the stream widened into a glassy and shallow pool. I ate my still-warm bread and cheese, thinking of all the cook had told me. Did she really suspect Mr. Markham of murder? Or did she only say such a thing because it dovetailed nicely with her opinions of his behavior as a younger man? Had the constable really investigated him for Violet’s death?

And what about Violet? I could imagine her being unhappy in a marriage. She had been friendly—too friendly—wanting to talk to anyone who would listen to her giggle and flirt . . . which had been everyone who met her. Shut up in this dark house, so far away from London and Brighton and her other favorite places, with someone as remote and mercurial as her husband, I could easily see her suffocating.

And Violet had never kept quiet about a single iota of unhappiness in her life. Every imagined slight, every small boredom, became a pain too awful to be endured and everybody within earshot heard about it.

Yes, yes. An unhappy Violet would fight, would cry and yell and hurl all the glasses she could.

But that she would avoid her husband, sneak into the kitchens . . . that seemed so unlike her.

Could she have been genuinely afraid of her own husband? Afraid for her own life?

The water rippled, churning into one end of the pool and then spilling out the other. On impulse, even though it was not warm yet by any means, I began to take off my boots and stockings, wanting to be in the water. With a glance around the fog-draped banks to make sure I was still alone, I also took off my dress, corset, and petticoat so that my long chemise was all that remained.

I stepped into the water, cool but pleasant, feeling the smooth river rocks beneath my feet. My arms and chest erupted in goose bumps and everything seemed to tighten and contract in the cool water. I waded in until I reached the deepest spot and the water lapped against my navel. Without giving myself too much time to think, I dropped underneath the surface and swam in a small tight circle, loving the feeling of the cool water on my scalp, loving the way it filled every crease and fold of my body. It was freedom—from gravity, from noise, from breathing itself.

I emerged, gasping for air and sweeping my hair back from my face, and that’s when I saw him: Mr. Markham, once again watching me as I played in the water.

This time, I did nothing. I neither spoke nor splashed, and I waited as silently as he did, watching fog wisp across the pool, my heart pounding madly in my chest.

Without a word, he stepped into the stream, boots and breeches and all, coming towards me with long, assured strides, even in the water. The mist between us danced and eddied until it vanished, only to reassemble in his wake. We were now together in the center of the pool, completely surrounded by fog. It felt as if we were in our own small world, as if we’d been transported to Avalon and we were the only two living mortals there.

I expected him to speak and to address last night when I had bitten him, or before, when I’d splashed him with water. I expected him to chide me once more for being wild.

But normal rules didn’t apply here, not on otherworldly mornings in the middle of a forest.

He reached one arm out, and I thought he meant to take my hand, but instead, it snaked around my waist, pulling me tight against him. I could feel the warmth of him through his clothes, warmth that reminded me of how chilled I was. He pressed his forehead against mine, his eyes closed.

“You were supposed to be a charity case,” he said. “Or a houseguest. Or family. I can’t remember anymore.”

“I am happy to be anything you need,” I said. “I am grateful?—”

He continued on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I got the letter from Solicitor Wickes the day after she died. He’d addressed it to her, of course, not knowing she was dead. And the thing was that I felt by helping you, maybe I’d be helping myself. Erasing a black mark from my record. Although the Lord knows there are too many marks to ever hope to be clear of them all.”

“How can I help you then?” I said. His face, so close to mine, touching mine, made it impossible to breathe or even think normally. “Please tell me.”

Our noses brushed and my breath hitched. That knot deep within me was burning and twisting, and I wanted to press closer to him, to touch him and slide my fingers against his wet skin.

He pulled back. “You can’t help me,” he said. “You can’t be what I need. Nobody can. I’ve learned that the hard way.”

He glanced down, and to my surprise, he groaned. I looked down too, only now realizing that my chemise was completely transparent and that my erect nipples were visible under the thin fabric. For the first time, I was completely aware of how violently inappropriate this all was—me standing nearly naked, allowing myself to be embraced by a man who’d only been widowed a month. Every aspect of this moment violated the many rules my parents and Thomas had attempted to ingrain within me.

I should feel ashamed. I should feel compromised.

But I did not. I only felt that tightness low in my belly, those urges, and when he slowly bent his head and took my cold nipple in his mouth, my cry of pleasure was unsullied by any other feeling. He sucked me through the thin cotton of the chemise, and it was so warm, the only warm thing touching my body. He nibbled and teased and pulled with a fervor that was arousing in and of itself, as if this small act were the only thing he wanted to do, not just now, but for the rest of his life.

My other nipple tightened, and my core muscles clenched, and all those dirty words that Violet had taught me as a girl flashed through my mind.

Cock.

Cunt.

Fuck.

Abruptly, he stopped and straightened. The absence of his mouth on my breast was akin to physical pain; the delicate area between my legs throbbed with need.

“Please,” I whispered. “More.”

His eyes were once again shuttered, once again remote. Without another word, he climbed out of the pool and left, the fog swallowing him up before he’d even reached the path.