Page 35 of The Awakening of Ivy Leavold
We lay there, his body heavy on mine, his face buried in my neck. I ran my fingers through his thick hair, feeling a happiness that I had never felt before. I had often felt the untamed peace of swimming and climbing, and the gratification of a good book and a quiet room. But this feeling—it was fragile and floating, unmoored from all practicality, all the things that I knew to be true about men and men with money. Unmoored from my fierce desire for independence and liberty. I loved Mr. Markham, and now he was here, in my arms, and I could easily let myself believe that was enough.
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 going to his washing table and wetting 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, I remembered from that long ago conversation with Gareth by the dry stone wall, it was the horse that had killed Violet.
“How could you let 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 strike something or throw something or 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 that servants loved to 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 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 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 knew the dynamic of my relationship to Mr. Markham; 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 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, back 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.
