Page 9 of The Education of Ivy Leavold
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.
“Myhousekeeper?”
“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 fuckedBrightmore? 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.
