Page 22 of The Education of Ivy Leavold
I worried at my lower lip while I thought, trying to ignore the voice that whisperedor you could run. But the voice grew louder and louder, until I jumped to my feet and started pacing, my feet digging into the plush rug as I walked.
Run.
Run.
Run.
You don’t need to pry the truth from him, the voice said.You only need to protect yourself.I could leave, now, perhaps apply to Solicitor Wickes in London to help me find a position someplace...
But I didn’twantto. I wanted to stay here, in this haunted medieval manor, with the equally haunted owner. I wanted to be his wife. I wanted to behis.
Run, the voice said, brooking no argument, and exhausted from the war between my two selves—the one that belonged to Mr. Markham and the one that listened to reason—I ran.
It took only a moment to dress, to pull on my old boots and find my purse. I had no plan—not even a direction—but somehow I knew I needed to leave. Not forever and maybe not even for the entire day, but for a few hours at least. I couldn’t think clearly while I was here, couldn’t order my thoughts before a thousand memories had them spinning off into frantic circles again. Had it only been three months that I’d been resident here? And yet how pregnant with recollection was every corner, every tread in the staircase, every chair that had once held the sprawling, powerful form of Mr. Markham.
I told myself I wasn’t leaving for good, but I dressed in one of my old dresses and left any and all trinkets in my room—including Julian’s ring, my engagement ring—which felt heavy and wrong on my slender fingers, knowing I wouldn’t be able to decide anything while I was so materially connected to him. I put no thought to money, no thought to travel, only to fleeing, for however long it took for me to think.
Guilt flashed through me as I shut the bedroom door, hiding the gleaming ring from sight. What if Mr. Markham came back and found me gone? What if I hurt him even more?
No, I thought in response to the thought.He doesn’t have that right.Why should I be the one to stay, when he’d already left? Why should I be the one to bridge the gap, to hold fast to our promises, when he hadn’t shown any inclination to do it himself?
And why should any reasonable person want to woo a suspected murderer back into her bed?
I passed no one on my way to the front door, and the front courtyard was empty of horses and people, nothing but wet flagstones and a weather that was somewhere between drizzle and mist. I plunged into the fog, grateful to be swallowed up and grateful to see that Markham Hall had been swallowed up behind me. But the tightness in my chest didn’t ease and my mind didn’t clear. I could only think ahead to my next footfall, to my next breath.
Run, that voice urged.Run until you can’t any longer.
I walked still, finding it impossible to gauge distance or time in the fog, worried I’d missed the fork in the road that went to the village and had instead taken the road deeper into the forest.
Hooves pounded the road behind me, and I whirled around, seeing nothing but fog and grasping tree branches. Then the gray mist parted to reveal Mr. Markham and Raven, the former with a loosely knotted cravat and tousled hair.
Run!the voice screamed.Run while you can!
And I did step warily back as Mr. Markham dismounted his horse and walked toward me, slowly, his hands out as if he were approaching a wild animal. “Where are you going?” he asked, and there was palpable pain in his words. “Are you leaving here? Leaving me?”
His eyes dropped down to my hand—my now naked hand—and something inside of him seemed to shred itself apart, flay itself open. He met my eyes again and that look was enough to make me weep. “Youareleaving,” he whispered.
I half shook my head, but I took another step back as I did. “I don’t know,” I answered, also in a whisper. Our voices hung in the air like the mist: too light to fall, too heavy to float.
Resolve steeled in his eyes and in a handful of steps, he crossed to me, too fast for me to evade. One arm was around me and then the other between us, his hand gripping my jaw and forcing me to look up at him.
“I just came from the house. I searched every room for you. And you know what I found?”
I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer.
“You slept in my bed last night,” he breathed. “Tell me, Ivy, were you naked when you slept in my bed? Did you touch yourself? Did you make yourself come?”
Almost against my will, I nodded. I couldn’t resist the pull of those viciously hungry eyes.
He groaned at my response. “Tell me,” he said, shoving his hips against mine. “Tell me what you did.”
“I could smell you,” I said. “I could smell you on the bed. I couldn’t stop myself, I had to come. I rubbed myself thinking of you.”
“Thinking of my cock? Or my tongue? Or my fingers?”
“Yes. All of it. All of you.”
He buried his face in my neck and breathed me in, his arm tightening around me. “Why are you trying to leave?” he asked, words muffled. “What can I do to make you stay?”
