Chapter 9

CHAPTER9

Mercifully, the game began before Silas could flirt with me anymore. Various scenarios and words were written onto pieces of paper and then tousled together in a large bowl. Silas volunteered himself as the first from our team to play. He read the paper, a smile twitching on his lips, and then slid it into his pocket. I let the others shout out their guesses as he began to walk unsteadily around, shoulders hunched and face scowled, as if on a ship in rough weather. Then he mimed a bird flying above, then a gun, then the bird’s death.

I opened my mouth, then closed it as the others kept calling out guesses around me. Silas saw me and nodded encouragingly.

“Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” I said.

Silas pulled out the slip of paper for the other team to verify and then bowed, winking at me as he slid back into his seat. One tally mark for us.

I watched Mr. Markham as his team whispered about who should go first—Molly, it was decided—and then I watched as she gave him a playful squeeze on his thigh as she stood. His face remained still, giving no acknowledgement of her touch, but envy flared through me, hot and quick. I looked down at my hands as she drew her slip of paper, trying to regulate the sudden wash of resentment I felt.

Up in front, Molly made no reaction as she read her challenge, only gave the others a slight nod to show that she was ready to begin. Her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing picked up, speeding into quick pants and sudden, sharp intakes of air, as if her breathing was interrupted by some other sensation that only she could feel. Her head lolled back and her hand reached up to fan her face.

“This is too easy,” Silas said disgustedly.

“Shh!” came from the opposing team.

She continued fanning her face as her fingers traced a trail from her neck to her breasts. She let out a low moan. In front of me, I saw Ned shift in his chair and cross his legs.

“The dog days of summer,” Mr. Markham called out.

The charade abruptly stopped and Molly grinned. “A tally for us, I think. And Silas, we don’t all have minds as depraved as yours.”

“You’ve never complained about my depravity before, Mary Margaret, and I know you won’t be complaining tonight.”

There were laughs, but there were also knowing looks, and Silas’s was the most knowing of all. Once again, I felt at sea, out of my depth with these sophisticated people. In a way, I wanted to be like them—familiar with pleasure to the point of dismissiveness. But in another, much stronger way, I still wanted to be outside, away from their sidelong looks and veiled references that I only barely understood.

The game continued in the same vein for another hour—each charade, though perfectly innocent on paper, inevitably turned into something with sexual overtones. As the game wore on, the suggestion of sex became less of a suggestion. Ned pulled Hugh up and kissed him long on the lips to demonstrate the story of Jonathan and David. Mercy unlaced her dress to give herself the bedraggled appearance of a shipwreck survivor. On and on it went, my face flushing warmer and warmer, and not from embarrassment, until Molly and Silas claimed exhaustion and stopped the game while it was tied. Laughter and conversation bubbled up and drinks were called for; I used the friendly chaos as a screen to escape quietly from the room.

The hallway was much cooler than the parlor, and I continued down it until I reached the low door that led out to the gardens, grateful to feel the open air on my face and to be on my own once again.

“Am I interrupting you?” Mr. Markham asked from behind me.

“Not at all.” I slowed my steps so that he could catch up, and together we walked in the moonlight, the light breeze and chirruping of insects the only noise aside from our footsteps on the path.

“Did you enjoy yourself this evening?” he asked.

“Your friends are more worldly than me. I’m afraid I’m a social liability.” I meant it lightly, but he stopped and gazed at me with fierceness that surprised me.

“You are not at all a liability. Quite the opposite. They are all very taken with you.”

“I hope I’ve made a good impression. Silas is very friendly.”

This, apparently, was not at all what Mr. Markham wanted to hear. “Silas is dangerous.”

“He seems the very spirit of good humor.”

“I meant dangerous to young women and their virtue.”

“As dangerous as you?” I asked.

His eyes glittered in the dark—more silver than green in the moonlight. “I am much, much more dangerous.” He stepped closer, so that the rustling silk of my gown brushed against his legs. “And now that I’ve felt what it’s like inside you, now that I’ve tasted you,” he said quietly, “I’m hungrier for you now more than ever.”

Our faces were very close now, and I vividly recalled the warmth of his lips, the soft dancing of his tongue. On impulse, I pressed the palm of my hand against the front of his breeches, feeling the thick hardness underneath.

He sucked in a breath.

I moved my hand up and down, rubbing him through the expensive fabric, and his eyes slowly closed.

“The others called me your pet,” I whispered to him. “Would you like me to be?”

He gently pulled my hand away. “That’s what I’m trying to save you from.”

And then he bowed and walked away, the gravel crunching under his shoes as he went.

* * *

I didn’t returnto the others. Instead—new dress be damned—I left the grounds and entered the forest, luminously lit by the full moon and the glut of stars overhead. I paced and walked and fretted, imagining conversations and kisses, creating scenarios that ended in passionate embraces. It wasn’t until I found myself at the pool where Mr. Markham had so unexpectedly claimed my breasts that I came to a decision, a decision that had been brewing the entire week but that I hadn’t yet articulated to myself.

I wanted Mr. Markham. I wanted him in all the carnal ways that he wanted me, and I didn’t give a damn about the consequences. I had no money and no connections and my claim to the title of a gentleman’s daughter was now completely laughable. I would never make a good marriage, if I ever made one at all. Perhaps being a mistress was the best I could hope for. Certainly, being one to Mr. Markham would be no hardship. He was handsome and darkly unpredictable, intelligent and generous with his pleasure. He haunted my thoughts day and night, every hour, every minute, and I thirsted for his company like a forest for rain. I was obsessed, I knew, obsessed in a way that spoke almost more of love than of lust.

Mr. Markham had told me that he was a man of needs. But wasn’t I also a woman of needs? Roaming wildly, drinking whenever I liked, swimming and running and reading late into the night? For the last seven years, I’d followed my impulses wherever they led me, and it was too late to stop now.

No, I wanted him and I wanted him tonight. I would find him and tell him, and if he insisted on restraining himself, well, then I would do everything in my power to shatter that restraint.

I picked up my skirts and hurried back to the house. I must have been gone longer than I’d thought because the windows on the ground floor were quite dark, though the upstairs windows held flickering lights, indicating that the guests had retired to their rooms. I entered the house as silently as a ghost, not wanting to disturb people preparing for sleep, and crept through the rooms to make my way to the staircase, wondering how I would find Mr. Markham now. I didn’t even know where he kept his rooms, much less if he would be in them at the moment.

But my search ended when I heard the unmistakable sound of kissing coming from the drawing room. I froze, not wanting to be caught, listening to the heavy breaths, the soft noise of lips meeting and parting.

“Oh, Jules. You need to be put out of your misery.” It was Molly O’Flaherty’s voice.

“Please,” a voice groaned. A rough voice. Mr. Markham.

There was more rustling. “Are you sure?” Molly said, her voice teasing. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

I didn’t stay to hear what he said in response. I hurried upstairs as quietly as I could, tears burning in my eyes as I shut the door and sank to the floor by my bed.

* * *

I barely slept.What sleep I managed to steal featured vivid dreams of Mr. Markham and Molly together, twining and writhing together, and whenever I awoke from such a vision, a twisting pain in my chest made it impossible to fall back asleep.

My jealousy had been warranted. There was something between Molly and Mr. Markham, not just sex, but a history of sex. Of course, Mr. Markham had been with other women—nothing he or his friends had said would have led me to believe otherwise—but that he could be so physical with me, claim to want me so badly, and then share his body with Molly so soon afterwards—it stung. No, it was worse than stinging, it was a wound, packed with the venom of jealousy and insecurity and doubt.

By dawn, I was out of the house, possessed of a basket of food from Wispel’s kitchen. I was determined not to torment myself by watching Markham and Molly together at the breakfast table, and I was determined not to mope indoors. I walked farther afield than I ever had, past the boundaries of Stokeleigh and into the slowly tumbling fields beyond the forest. By noon, I found the exercise had numbed me somewhat, anesthetizing my mind from the memory of Mr. Markham’s rough voice, of Molly’s purr, of the way he had begged please.

I had chosen a narrow lane to take back to the house, debating about staying outside for the remainder of the day, when I had to stop to make way for a small phaeton that was passing by. But the phaeton halted and none other than the rector’s wife, the gossiping Mrs. Harold, held the reins. It seemed precisely my luck.

“Oh my, Miss Leavold! How can you be out and about in all this heat?”

I searched for an answer that had nothing to do with Mr. Markham or his guests. “I find walking to be quite enjoyable,” I hedged.

“Are you walking back to Markham Hall now? Please, let me give you a ride!” She scooted over and tucked her skirts back, and feeling as if I had no choice, I climbed in beside her.

“Thank you,” I said.

“It’s nothing at all. Is that a new dress, Miss Leavold? You are done up quite well today.”

Something told me she was mentally comparing today’s frock to the dress I’d been wearing when we first met in the village. Comparing, and mentally ticking away each yard of silk and lace. She had to know that Mr. Markham had furnished me with something like this; there was no way I could have afforded it myself.

Mrs. Harold took my silence for confirmation. “Now, please,” she said, snapping the reins. “You must tell me all about the party up at the hall. We saw those coaches rolling through the village yesterday, and the rumor is that Mr. Markham is hosting almost twenty-five guests.”

“Thirteen,” I corrected.

Her eyes glinted at this fact. “And do you know all of their names?”

I allowed that I did.

“And where are they all from?”

I told her that they had come from London and had been friends of Mr. Markham’s when he had traveled abroad, but that I had gone to bed early last night, and so my knowledge was still very limited. She nodded at this, filing away the little tidbits I’d given her, no doubt already expanding and speculating on them, readying them to be shared amongst her flock of village women.

“Is it true that Mary O’Flaherty is there?”

“You know her?”

“Of course not. She’s Irish, did you know, by way of Liverpool?” She didn’t give me time to answer, not that I would have volunteered one anyway. “But everyone knows about her. Her father owned one of the largest shipping companies in Liverpool. He died a few years ago, and instead of passing on the business to a male relative, she decided to run it herself.” She shook her head, as if Molly had decided to parade naked through the streets instead of follow in her father’s footsteps.

“So she’s wealthy,” I said. Another thread of pain laced itself in my heart. Lovely and rich. I would never be able to compete with that.

Mrs. Harold didn’t notice my change in tone. “Oh yes. She has as much money as an aristocrat. They say she has quite the head for business, which shouldn’t be a woman’s purview, but one does hear that her kind are a…baser sort.”

Loath as I was to think kindly of Molly after last night, I felt a flash of ire on her behalf. I’d heard whispers about my mother’s Welsh heritage all my life, and I felt a sort of Celtic kinship with Molly right now.

“And what is her kind, exactly?” I asked. If Mrs. Harold wanted to stoop to that level, I would make her do it transparently. I would make her speak the actual words.

The rector’s wife slid her gaze sideways to me and then back to the road, clearly deciding not to answer that particular question.

She changed the subject instead. “Anyway, Mr. Markham hasn’t had any guests—other than you—since his wife died. One might think it’s a little, well, not done, to have such a party when his wife is barely cold in her grave.”

“One might think, Mrs. Harold? Or you might think?”

She turned her head to look at me, giving me the look of someone who’s just realized that they’ve underestimated an adversary. “What do you know about Violet Markham’s death?” She dropped the friendly tone and switched into something much more businesslike. “As her cousin, surely you must be interested.”

“I must admit I don’t know much.”

“Let me tell you something then. Mr. Markham is dangerous. There isn’t a villager in Stokeleigh who doesn’t think he murdered Violet, and his first wife too.”

“His first wife died of consumption.”

Mrs. Harold waved a hand dismissively. “That’s what killed her, yes, but that was just the method—he meant for her to die as soon as he married her. He never wanted to marry, you know. He traveled after his father died and the stories you’d hear about the things he got up to. But then the family lawyers convinced him to come back and to wed, to have a son because there are no longer any living relatives to be listed as inheritors. They practically picked a wife for him—Arabella Whitefield—and you couldn’t have found a richer, more pedigreed girl anywhere. But she was frail—everyone knew that—she’d always been frail. Then he took her to Venice—hot, wet, crowded—for their honeymoon and she was so weakened by the travel and the weather that she immediately took sick.”

“I think that sounds more like a tragic circumstance than intentional murder.”

“You really think that a man in love, who knew his wife was sickly and weak, would subject her to such a journey? Would take her into such a warm, unhealthy climate? No. He wanted her to get sick. And don’t even get me started on Violet. They fought from the moment she moved into Markham Hall.” Her eyes were far down the path, and something in her voice hinted at more substance than speculation. “And then she took up with Gareth the servant—who used to be such a nice boy—just to spite her husband. No wonder he snapped and decided to kill her.”

“I’m not sure that qualifies as a certain evidence of homicide,” I said, but inside I wondered . . . could Violet have really carried on an affair with Gareth? There was a possessiveness to Mr. Markham; perhaps he would be very angry indeed if he discovered his wife had been unfaithful. And our childhood curate had always said that sexual immorality bred other types of sin—perhaps a man so rife with the vice of lust would be rife with others . . .

“Certain evidence?” Mrs. Harold said. “How about this? The night before she died, they had a dinner party, and of course, my husband and I were invited. They were in rare form that night, fighting from the moment the meal started until the guests started leaving late that night. At one point, he pulled her out of the room, but we could still hear them quite clearly. He told her he’d have no shame divorcing her, and then she told him that she would never submit to a divorce and that he’d have to kill her if he wanted free. The next morning, she was cold in the field. And do you know what Mr. Markham did when he found her body? He laughed. He threw his head back and laughed.”

This last comment gave me pause. The thought of him laughing next to Violet’s corpse, shrouded in the fog, her neck at an unnatural angle—it made me deeply uncomfortable. It made me doubt whatever surety I’d felt about Mr. Markham’s innocence. Who could laugh next to the body of his dead wife?

“How do you know?” I asked. “That he laughed?”

She pursed her lips, and a quick glance told me that I had struck upon something unexpected—information that Mrs. Harold was reluctant to share. “I spent the night at Markham Hall that night,” she said. “I had taken ill shortly after dinner, and Mr. Markham extended his hospitality until I was recovered enough to journey home. That morning, I heard the servants talking about it.”

“So the servants saw him in the field with Violet’s body?”

“Yes,” was the hesitant, cagey answer.

She was lying about something, or at least omitting part of the truth.

But why?

We rolled up on Markham Hall, shaded and stony even in the bright sunlight, and I was surprised to see Mr. Markham striding towards us before Mrs. Harold had stopped the carriage. In the speckled light that drifted into the courtyard, I could see the faint highlights of gold hidden in his dark hair. He came up beside the carriage and, without a word, slid his hands around my waist and lifted me from the phaeton. He deposited me on the ground, keeping one arm firmly around me.

“Thank you for returning our Miss Leavold,” he said, his voice clipped. “I’m much in your debt.”

“Of course, Mr. Markham. Although she seemed to have wandered from the fold quite willingly.” I couldn’t quite decipher her tone—half teasing, half challenging, and laced through with something else.

Bitterness?

I looked at her as she squirmed under Mr. Markham’s piercing gaze. It was the town gossip confronted with one of her subjects, the gossip feeling both shame and judgment, I decided. Of course, he wouldn’t be unaware of the things she said about him.

Mr. Markham’s arm tightened around me. “I’ll have to keep a better eye on her in the future. Thank you again.”

I knew the polite thing would be to invite Mrs. Harold inside for refreshments, but that didn’t seem to be on Mr. Markham’s agenda. He gave Mrs. Harold a short bow and then turned away, taking me with him and leaving her to drive herself home alone.