Chapter Three

 

Mr. Markham had indeed arranged for a small trunk to be packed with enough effects to last me for a few days, and also procured refreshments for the hours-long journey, and then we were off. The minute the wheels left the paving stones of the drive and hit the smooth dirt track to Stokeleigh, Mr. Markham drew the shades and beckoned me over.

I moved to the seat next to him, keeping us at a distance for the time being. Just sitting next to him revived the need he’d so carefully stoked this morning, and I needed my head to clear for a few moments at least.

“May I ask you something?”

“Anything, pet,” he said fondly.

“How close are you to your housekeeper?” I tried to hide the jealousy in my tone and failed.

He blinked and I could see that my question had been the last thing in the world he’d expected to hear.

“My housekeeper?”

“Mrs. Brightmore.”

“Yes, I know who my housekeeper is. But you are asking…what are you asking?”

I opened my mouth and then shut it. It wasn’t done to ask these kind of things, surely, and I wasn’t as naive as everybody thought I was. I knew what men did with their servants, and I knew that most men didn’t think it was the place of women to question what they did behind closed doors.

But I also couldn’t stomach the not knowing, and etiquette be damned, if I was to marry this man, I didn’t want him sharing anything with that dragon. “Are you friends? Do you share your problems with her? Have you fucked her?”

His laugh rumbled through the carriage. “Have I fucked Brightmore? God, no.” He laughed again. “You cannot be jealous of her, Ivy. Honestly. I would never—no. Just no.”

“She said that only she could take care of you,” I said, a bit stubbornly, not ready to give up.

“Only you take care of me.” He took my hand and pressed it to his erection. “See?”

I removed my hand. “But she’s known you so much longer than I have.”

He sighed. “What does that signify? I’ve spent more time with you in the last week than I’ve spent with her in the last ten years.”

“But you hand-selected her from another house…”

Another sigh. “To be honest, I felt responsible for her fate. She had worked in Arabella’s home before Arabella married me. Arabella’s parents—the Whitefields—died not long after, leaving no heirs. They eventually found a seventh or eighth cousin to inherit the estate, but he sold off the house and the lands and all the servants were dismissed. When I saw Brightmore working as a maid while I was a guest at another house, I felt it was my duty to give her a better situation. In a way, she had been part of my family and my duty, for however brief a time.”

“Oh.” That was understandable. Admirable even. I had witnessed firsthand what happened to servants after the family dissolved. After Thomas had died and my house was auctioned off, the old gardener and his daughter—the only servants who had stayed until the end—were summarily evicted without notice. And I had been powerless to help.

“Don’t listen to her, wildcat. I don’t. She didn’t want me to hire Gareth, even though he had excellent references and has since been the best valet I’ve ever had. I ignored her then, as you should now.”

I shook my head, anxious to get my final worry out of my head and into the open air. “But you listened once. She said that she helped you with Violet. That she helped you take care of your ‘wayward wife.’ Mr. Markham, what did she mean by that?”

His face had frozen mid-smile, mid-word, and I could see the way his pupils contracted ever so slightly, as if he were withdrawing into himself. When he finally spoke, his jaw was tight. “I’ve never taken my housekeeper into my confidence. If you are worried that she and I are close confidantes, then please stop. I haven’t shared a single detail of my personal life with her since I hired her. But housekeepers know things, Ivy. They can’t not know things. And she knew the state of my marriage with Violet. So yes, there was a time when she approached me with her advice, and to my deep regret, I admit that I took it.”

I couldn’t suppress the fears hovering at the edges of my mind, but he read me, as he always did, and he leaned forward to peer into my eyes. “Precious wildcat,” he whispered. “Quiet your jealousy, quiet your fear. You are safe with me. You are loved with me.”

And then he effortlessly moved me on top of his lap, hitching up my skirts until my waist was surrounded by silk and my bare sex was flat against his trousers. Despite everything—the words and Brightmore and his admission that he had once heeded her directions regarding his marriage—despite all that, heat flared in my core. He buried his face in my neck, nipping and sucking at every available inch of skin, his teeth a delicate torture along my collarbone.

Once again, I couldn’t help myself; I started grinding against him, feeling his stiff length under the fabric.

He looked down. “I wish you could see what I see,” he said in a low voice. “Your pussy moving against me, so desperate. So needy.”

I rubbed harder and faster, feeling the tension building inside me, twining and twining until I thought every muscle and nerve would snap. I threw my head back, feeling it surging—only to have Mr. Markham grab me by the hips and hold me up. Empty air rushed between him and me, cool and unforgiving, and I writhed in his grasp, trying to force myself down.

“Let me come,” I pleaded, our conversation now completely gone from my mind.

He grinned. “Absolutely not.”

“Please!”

He held me there, mercilessly, cruelly, until several minutes had passed and my body began to unwind. But my cunt pulsed more than ever, heavy between my legs, and my nipples beaded painfully under my corset.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Terrible,” I told him bluntly.

He laughed.

“It’s not funny,” I said, a little miffed and more than a little agonized. “I don’t think this game is fun at all.”

His face turned serious. “This isn’t a game, Ivy. It’s supposed to be more than fun.”

“I thought—”

“You and me, we are more than playmates,” he said, one hand letting go of me. He unfastened his trousers, exposing his erection. My body pulsed in response, every cell straining to touch him. He took himself in his hand and began rubbing the head of his cock against my sex. I gasped at the feel. He was like steel sheathed in satin—silky maleness, hard and wide.

I began to wriggle against him, urgent to impale myself on that sublime organ, and to my surprise, he let me. He let me notch the head of his cock into my pussy and he held himself upright as I slid down, crying out with bliss as I did. I finally sank to the root, my clit pressed against him, but again his hands were on my hips, buried in the silk skirts, keeping me from moving.

But a muscle in his jaw ticked, and I could see that it took an enormous amount of restraint on his part to keep me from riding him.

“We are more than playmates,” he repeated. “What do you feel when I’m inside you?”

“Like I want you to fuck me until I’m beyond my senses.”

A faint smile. “Think harder than that. Probe your feelings further.”

I wanted to weep with the need to move. He stretched me, filled me, and my whole body sang for him, but it wasn’t enough. “I feel…full. Complete. But I want more. More of you, like no matter what we do, we’ll never be close enough.”

His voice was husky. “Keep going.”

I could barely catch my breath, my need for friction was so strong. “I feel like you and I are one person, one soul split into two bodies, and when we’re joined like this, it almost feels like that spirit is whole again.”

“Yes,” he told me. “We were meant to be together. You were born to be Ivy Markham. I was born to love you. When I’m deep inside you, I feel my heart beat in tandem with yours. Can you feel it?”

I could. I could feel my body keening for him, canting toward him, as if he were the only warmth in a frozen land. The only music in a soundless void. And when our bodies were connected—

“Yes,” I breathed. “I feel it.”

“So when I tease you, when I deprive you, all I’m doing is reminding your body—your soul—that it needs mine. And as you yearn, you will know that I am being reminded too. That even when we are not joined, we still are, on a deeper level.” His mouth softened, warmth suffusing the lines of his face. “Do you understand now?”

I nodded, my throat suddenly tight. I blinked and a single tear traced down my cheek. He leaned forward—shifting himself deliciously inside me—and kissed it.

“Is this a tear of joy?” he asked quietly.

“It is,” I said, more tears falling fast now. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” He reached for something in his jacket pocket and extracted it. It glittered in the faint light of the carriage.

A ring.

“I was so eager to claim you last night that I forgot the most important thing.” He slid the ring onto my finger. “There. Now everybody will know that you’re mine.”

I examined the ring closely, feeling more tears swell as I did. A rose gold band sprouted into two delicate leaves, which held a sizable diamond in place. It winked and shimmered and added a heady weight to my hand. “It’s beautiful,” I managed.

He looked at me closely. “It was my mother’s. Do you like it? We can buy you a new one—”

“No,” I interrupted. “It’s perfect.” And it was. It could have been a band of iron and I still would have loved it, because it came from him. Because someone loved me enough to marry me, despite my poverty, despite my fallen family. After my brother’s death, I had given up all hope of ever making a decent match. And here I was, marrying into a family more wealthy and ancient than even my parents would have ever hoped for me.

“Good,” he said. “You need to like it. I expect it on your finger at all times—especially when we are in public.” He moved again, and I was reminded of our position, of him sunk to the hilt, of me desperate for more. I rocked into him, the engagement ring sending prisms of light cascading around us, yellows and blues and greens darting around our moving bodies.

“Let’s marry now,” I said. “Today.” My voice was tight—I was so close to coming—

He lifted me off himself, groaning as he did, and then I was put on my knees. “Believe me, wildcat, I would like nothing more. But you deserve the best. And the best takes time.” He wove his hands through my hair. “Now lick me until I come.”

He didn’t let me orgasm during our ride, but I was able to bear it better, knowing that this exercise between us was something deeper than the parlor games his friends played. I felt it in my marrow, our connection, as we jostled and rolled our way to York, and I knew that I would never see my hunger for him in the same way. This all-consuming passion we felt for each other was almost spiritual, almost holy, and it went far beyond the mechanical needs and rote fumblings of other men and women. Over and over again, he told me how much he loved me, how much his mind craved my mind, how he loved to hear me talk and how he loved to watch me roam outside like a forest sprite. He made me spread my legs and knelt before me, kissing me with fluttering, light kisses until I squirmed in torture, and told me he couldn’t live without me, that we would never spend a night apart so long as we both lived.

I was panting and flushed as the medieval buildings of York began to cut crepuscular shadows through the windows, and by the time we reached our hotel, I was grateful for the oncoming night, which hid my tousled hair and shallow breathing.

The porter brought in our trunks while Mr. Markham arranged for our rooms and for a girl to attend to me, which I protested, but he insisted. “My future wife would have a lady’s maid. And truthfully, I should have seen to it the moment you arrived at Markham Hall. I’m not used to thinking about other people’s needs. But I will take special care to tend to yours.”

And then he flashed a grin, wide and wolfish, and I realized he was very much referencing the need that raged low in my belly.

I put my hand on his arm, feeling shaky and desperate. “How long until we are in our rooms?” I asked. “I can’t be in public like this.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Because—” My voice was carelessly loud and the porter glanced over at me. “Because,” I said again, much lower, “all I can think about is coming. And I’m beginning not to care how or where that happens. I could right now, do you understand? Right here in this hotel lobby.”

He smiled again, but this time he bit his lip in a way that made even more heat surge within me, like he was trying to stop himself from taking me right there and then.

“Julian?”

I turned, seeing a tall man with a striking face and even more striking blue eyes. Carved cheekbones, curved lips, smile lines etched around his eyes and mouth. He’d cut his dark hair short in the week since I’d seen him and he was in expensive evening wear rather than the more casual clothes I’d seen on him before, but I’d still recognize Silas Cecil-Coke anywhere.

“Silas,” Mr. Markham said, extending a hand, stepping out of our intense exchange as smoothly as a person steps from a hansom cab. Silas ignored the proffered hand and gave Mr. Markham a back-clapping hug instead. I saw Mr. Markham tense a little—he was not the kind of personality that invited such brotherly embraces—but his expression was easy enough as the man pulled back. “I thought you were in London with the others.”

Silas gave a one-shouldered shrug. “My elder brother managed to produce another one of those squishy pink things to add to the pile already at Coke Manor. I came up to give a day of the requisite oohs and ahs to the latest usurper standing between me and the bulk of my inheritance.” And then the inevitable grin emerged, bright and sunny. “Damned cute usurper, if I may say so. A little man this time. They named him Silas, after me.” I could tell, despite his deprecation, that he was actually quite the adoring uncle.

“But enough about me. What are you doing in York, you devil? We couldn’t pry you out of Markham Hall last week and now here you are gallivanting about town without us.”

Mr. Markham took my hand. The gesture wasn’t about power or teaching or anything other than the simple desire to show someone close to him that we were linked, together. “I’ve made an offer of marriage to Ivy and she’s accepted. We’ve come to make some further arrangements.”

Silas turned toward me, and I knew the signs of our ride here were as apparent as if they’d been written on my face. My rumpled hair and clothes, my parted and swollen lips, my dilated pupils. I was almost frantic with the need to relieve the hours of pent-up tension, and my mind was beginning to stray to shameful places, and I couldn’t help myself from taking in Silas’s physique—more slender than Mr. Markham’s, but still robust enough in the shoulders and arms to suggest an active lifestyle—and then to imagine him fucking me. Him and Mr. Markham fucking me at the same time.

Oh God.I had to get upstairs.

Silas took my hand and brushed his lips against the back of my hand, and even this small amount of contact was enough to make my eyes flutter closed. His grip tightened on my fingers. “Miss Leavold,” he said, his voice sonorous and smooth. “Let me offer my congratulations.”

“Thank you,” I said, barely able to utter the words. My mind was slowly shutting down, it seemed, shedding one layer of civilization and etiquette after another.

“We have only just arrived after our journey,” Mr. Markham said, watching Silas’s fingers wrapped around my own.

Silas let go—reluctantly it seemed—and straightened his jacket. Then he smiled, his mouth curving into an upside-down triangle of mirth. “So Julian Markham is taking the yoke once again. You’ll have your hands full with Julian, let me tell you. Coke Manor was only a few miles away from Markham Hall, and the things we got up to as boys, and then at Eton and at Oxford…”

“I’m sure I’ve already seen the worst of him,” I said, mustering a glare at my fiancé. “I’m confident the future can’t contain any worse.”

And then there was a lull, where a flash of clear-thinking sent the boxes in the back of my mind singing and shouting again, where perhaps all three of us were remembering what had actually been claimed of Julian Markham’s worst behavior.

“Let’s dine together,” Silas suggested, smoothing over the pause. “This hotel has a fine restaurant, and their wine cellar is excellent.”

I shot a look at Mr. Markham. No, we could not accept a dinner invitation, not when he had promised me relief tonight, and it was already late—

“Well, we only just arrived and need to change,” Mr. Markham said.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Mr. Markham met my eyes. “But we’d be happy to join you.”

“Marvelous! I shall procure us a table and a good bottle.”

“Then we shall see you shortly.”

No!I watched this arrangement with horror, and I opened my mouth to register my protests, but I was already being swept past Silas and up the stairs. “You seem agitated,” Mr. Markham murmured in my ear. “Now why could that be?”

We were up the stairs now, and the porter was holding open the door to a room, as a large woman swathed in black silk came at us from the end of the corridor. “Miss Leavold, your room is here,” she informed me. She gave Mr. Markham’s hand, wrapped securely around my waist, a look that told me she knew exactly the kind of intimacies we shared and that she saw things like this often and was too jaded to care.

Mr. Markham kissed my cheek and said into my ear, “I’ll be with you in just a moment. And again—I’ll know if you touch yourself while I’m gone.”

With that warning, I was herded into the room by the hotel matron, who ensured that everything was to my satisfaction and then left. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand still, so I paced, praying that Mr. Markham would end my suffering before we went down to dinner.

The door opened after a minute or two, and he came in.

I was on him at once. “Please,” I begged. “Please.”

He slid his arms around my waist. “I’m tempted,” he said. “But to see you so undone at supper…that’s a temptation too.”

“But Silas…” I said, and then I shivered, because I felt his fingers working on my dress buttons.

He walked around me, untying my skirt and bustle, and then the dress fell away. “But that is even more tempting,” he said. “I want Silas to see how beautiful you are like this. I want him to want you and then know that you are indelibly mine.”

He walked over to my trunk, opening it and pulling out a fresh frock, this one a wine-colored silk with a low neckline and large bustle.

“Julian, no,” I said, seeing that he was about to dress me, not about to fuck me. “No, no, no—”

The dress whispered over my head, Mr. Markham deftly affixing it closed, and then attending to the bustle and the sprays of black lace that frothed at the neckline and at the cap sleeves. I felt a surge of anger then—real anger, limb-shaking anger—and I slapped him hard across the cheek, a crack that resounded through the room.

He growled and crushed his lips to mine, and the press of his body against my own left no doubt what state my rebellion had brought him to. My body responded immediately, the anger fueling my lust, and I seized onto him, digging my fingers into his dinner jacket, grinding my pelvis against his erection, determined to end this torture right now.

And then his hand was on my neck, the pads of his fingers just barely denting the yielding skin and tendons. “Kneel, Ivy.”

“No,” I said, and it was more like a cat’s hiss than speech, and his nostrils flared.

“For that, you don’t get to touch me,” he said. “And the next time I have to ask, I’m taking you over my knee.”

He must have seen the thought that crossed my mind at this, because he added, “And I won’t let you come. In fact, I won’t let you climax until tomorrow night. And believe me, I’ll be watching you like a hawk through all the long hours of your denial.”

It was that threat that punctured my little insurrection. I felt the fight leave my body, my poor, neglected body, and I sank to the floor.

“Let me touch you at least,” I pleaded.

“No,” and his face was almost cruel as he pulled himself out. “No, you may not touch me. Put your hands behind your back.”

I was starting to cry again. I felt raw, flayed open with desire, and I hated it. Except I didn’t. Part of me trusted Mr. Markham, trusted that this was something that would feel all the more stunning for the work it took to get there. Part of me lapped up the suffering and the misery, because it was the man I loved giving it to me, and because I knew it was torment for him too, to not to make love to me, to not to give me what I wanted.

And I had asked for all of this, after all.

He fisted his cock and began to rub himself. It was hard and fast—not the leisurely way he’d done it this morning. It was as if this truly were a punishment for me, something to be doled out, not something to be enjoyed. “When we go downstairs to dine,” he said, his face and voice betraying nothing of his activity, “I expect you to be completely obedient. No matter what I ask you to do. Understood?”

I nodded, mute with want, unable to tear my eyes away from the erotic sight of Mr. Markham pleasuring himself, of the way his longer fingers circled the thick, veined shaft, almost vicious-looking and brutal in their grip.

“If you trust me, if you behave, then our lesson in needing can end and I will reward you.” He saw which way my gaze tended. “Is this what you want, Ivy?” he jerked his head toward his erection. “Is this what you want inside of you?”

“God, yes,” I cried. “I don’t care if you want to fuck me in front of all the guests at this hotel, just take me already!”

His mouth twitched, and his dick pulsed, and then he grabbed the skirt of my dress, finishing with four or five long pulls, his seed jetting onto the claret silk.

Another dress ruined, I thought, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about the fabric just then. I only cared that I had been marked once again, claimed, and that while the draped folds of the skirt would mostly hide the stain, I would still know it was there for anyone to see if they wanted.

“I’ll be in you later tonight,” he promised. “And it won’t be quick.” He calmly readjusted himself and his clothing, and like that, it was as if nothing had happened. “Fix your hair,” he said. “We’re already late.”

Ten minutes later, and we were walking arm in arm down the main staircase. Right before we had left my room, he had me spread my legs and brace my hands on the vanity table. My skirt and petticoat were hiked up to my waist, and then he was kneeling behind me, parting my folds with his tongue.

“Just to make sure you’re still ready for the final part of our lesson,” he’d said, and then he’d stoked me to further flame, sucking and licking, his strong hands parting the cheeks of my ass to give him better access. He’d stopped at the very moment of no return, as if he knew my body better than I did, and stood.

“Skirts down, Miss Leavold. It’s time for supper.”

And what else could I do? I lowered the silks, feeling like his whore, and hating how much I loved it. As we walked, I could still feel the memory of his tongue between my legs. It was agony.

“I’ve no doubt that Silas would like to play with you tonight,” Mr. Markham said as we walked down. “He could barely tear his eyes away from you in the lobby.”

“Oh,” I said, and it was an oh of yes please, please, please, and another memory pushed through my mind, the feeling of Silas’s erection in my hands, of how long and hot and stiff it had been.

Mr. Markham stopped before we reached the dining room and took a stray tendril of my hair between his fingers. “He is invited to help me please you. But,” and here he stopped and faced me entirely, “you have the final say on Silas. I want him to touch you and sample you because it gets me hard knowing how much you arouse other men and that they’ll never be able to fuck you as I do. I think he would make you feel good—he is very skilled. But you are my own, my own wildcat, and if you only want me to touch you, I understand.”

I flushed with the small thread of shame that strung through me, but I was almost beyond shame at this point, and so I admitted, “I would like him to touch me.” A shuddering breath, and then, “Julian, right now I want everyone to touch me. The things I’m thinking about right now—”

“I know, wildcat. And it delights me to know that I have made you like this. And,” he gave me a sudden kiss, his tongue moving against mine, stroking deep into my mouth, “whenever you call me Julian, I get hard. Feel.”

I did, the briefest of movements, since we were, after all, in a busy hotel in one of the largest cities in England. He was indeed hard again, hard as steel. “Ah,” he hissed as my hand brushed by him. “Squeeze it. Squeeze it like you hate me.”

I did, loving how powerful I felt at that moment, making him as inflamed as I was. He sucked in a breath.

“I love you,” he said and then he took me roughly by the elbow and guided me into the dining room, where Silas—and I hoped my release—awaited.