The Punishment of Ivy Leavold (Markham Hall Book 3) Read online

  The horrified look in Ivy’s eyes as I had told her…

  But in a way, it had been such a huge relief. This sin I had carried with me, had borne alone. Silas knew that something had happened with Mrs. Harold, but gentle soul that he was, he had no idea that it hadn’t been the ordinary extramarital tryst. Even he, my oldest friend, would be aghast.

  I stood and paced the large room. How was it on the heels of my worst moments, my darkest sins, I had stumbled upon the one person I had been unconsciously searching for my entire life? The time in my life when I least deserved love and goodness, and then Ivy had appeared, wary and distant and perfect.

  I had known from the moment I held her wrist and felt the blood thrumming there, the moment I saw the pulse fluttering in her neck. I had known that there was something different in her, something that I responded to on such a deep level that it was impossible to control my reactions to it. But how could I take her, at my mercy as she was? If I despoiled my dead wife’s cousin, only a month after her death, then I would be that same monster who had fucked another woman for revenge. No—I had vowed to myself to protect her, no matter how much I wanted her. I was a better man than that.

  But I hadn’t counted on her wanting me too. And truthfully, I was not a better man than that. How could I claim to be, when I still hated the memory of Violet, when I still didn’t know if I would honestly go back and undo what I had done the night she died? When I couldn’t even truly let Ivy go, when I had promised her I would?

  She said it was okay to follow her, I reminded myself.

  Which was good. Because I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I'd been trying to draft a letter for about three hours, and so far it only read Dear Julian at the top. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, really, and even more than that, I wasn’t sure what I should say. Should I tell him that it was best if we dissolved our engagement? My aunt Esther seemed to think so, and she had spent the last day and a half reminding me. This would have been the wisest option, according to every bit of conventional wisdom I knew.

  But I couldn’t write the words. Every time I started, a wave of exhaustion and nausea would crash over me and I would lay down my pen and stare out of the window, letting melancholy thoughts chase themselves over and over again.

  But how could I write anything else? If I wrote how I really felt—how lonely and lost and empty—if I told him how I’d spent my days in London, barely eating and listlessly watching the street outside the window, then he would take that as encouragement. Confirmation. And that was unfair to him as well as me.

  A knock at the door. My new lady’s maid, Polly, came in. “A caller in the parlor, Miss Leavold.”

  “It’s for my aunt, surely,” I said, turning back to my unwritten letter.

  “It’s a gentleman. I told him you wouldn’t be able to receive him since your aunt wasn’t home, but he insisted. He said you were engaged to be married.”

  My head snapped up, adrenaline flooding through me. Julian.

  “Should I tell him to leave or…?”

  “No,” I said, standing and giving my reflection a cursory inspection. I looked pale and tired, but there was nothing to be done about it at the moment. “I’ll be right down.”

  I smoothed my dress, pinched my cheeks, and went down the stairs, swallowing back my trepidation and excitement.

  How desperately I wanted to see him. And how desperately I wanted him to go away.

  I caught my breath as I entered the parlor. He stood by the window, the light framing his tall body, catching in his too-long hair, every edge and line of him sharp and clear, as if he were somehow more real than anything else around him. It was as if I’d seen everything through a veil since I’d left Markham Hall, seen everything in the sepia tone of photographs, and he was the first truly vivid and detailed thing I’d seen in days. He turned at my entrance, his eyes drinking me in, his mouth parting slightly. His fingers twitched by his side, and I thought of all the times they’d traced circles around my breasts, slid deeply into my cunt.

  Not even thirty seconds in the same room with him and I was wet.

  He knew, somehow he knew, because he crossed over to me in a few quick strides and slanted his mouth over mine, pressing his warm lips against my hungry ones, parting them and licking into my mouth with a ferocity that made my knees weak.

  “God, wildcat,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you so much. I’ve missed the way you taste.”

  And then his lips moved down my neck, kissing the silk swell of my breast, the corseted nip of my waist, going down to his knees and sliding his hands up my legs.

  I knew what he was going to do as soon as he lifted the hem of my dress and tugged the interfering underclothes away. I should have said no. I should have said that we had to keep away from each other until we could make decisions about our future. But the tired apathy was blasted away in his intense presence, leaving only a quickening pulse and a growing hunger in its wake. So what I said instead was, “Someone will see…”

  “Let them,” he said, looking up into my eyes. I’d imagined those eyes so many times the last few days, thinking perhaps I was exaggerating how green they were, how expressive they were. But if anything, I hadn’t done them justice. They were a vibrant emerald that painters would murder for and framed by long dark lashes that fluttered now as his fingers found the sensitive skin in between my thighs.

  I couldn’t stop the moan that left my mouth.

  “Your pussy is so wet for me,” he said, his fingers running softly over my skin, stopping here and there to delve deeper or rub a little harder. “Why won’t you come home to me so I can take care of it all the time?”

  I was already so upset, so worked up, and here he was, his stubbled jaw and his haunted eyes making him look more desperately delicious than ever, and my body had been keening for him for what felt like years…

  “Oh, you’re going to come, Ivy. Let me taste it. Let me taste you.” Without waiting for my response, he raised my skirts and pressed his lips to my swollen clitoris. Just the soft kiss made me buckle and gasp, but then his tongue licked out, tasting my flesh, and I truly cried out. I laced my fingers in his hair, not caring how tightly I pulled, only needing him to stay exactly where he was, exactly where I wanted him, and then my climax erupted and I came violently on his mouth. His arms wrapped tight around me, supporting me as I rode out the waves as silently as I could, still distantly aware that we were in an open room in a house full of servants.

  After I finished, he rearranged my skirts and stood. I put my finger on his lips and then brought it to my own mouth and licked it.

  He groaned.

  I wanted more. I wanted more of him, more of us and our pleasure and our sweat. And right now, I didn’t care about anything else. All the doubts, all the questions, they could wait for just another handful of minutes. It was like I was a sleeping queen in a fairy tale, brought to life by the right man’s kiss, and I felt so very very awake right now, so very alive. What was that shadow world of doubt and worry compared to this? What queen would choose that twilight slumber alone when they could consort with the king who brought them to life?

  But of course, I wasn’t a queen.

  I was a wildcat.

  Abruptly, I put my hand on his chest and pushed him roughly back until his knees hit the sofa and he sat. He helped me free his dick from his pants, and then I was climbing on top of him, impaling myself on the iron heat of his shaft. I sank all the way down until he was completely buried in me.

  He made to speak again, but I stopped him with a hungry kiss. “No words,” I said. “Please.” And then I ground myself against him, feeling his cock sink even deeper, and began rubbing my clit against him as hard as I could. I rode him with everything I had, rode him with all the pent up emotions I found it so difficult to grapple with. I expended them all on him, I unleashed every ounce of longing and betrayal and anger. I scratched his arms, pulled at his hair, bit his neck. And he took it, his eyes hooded as he w
atched me work myself on him, wrench my pleasure from him. And I did get my pleasure, biting him on the neck one last time before I started shuddering and clenching on top of him, feeling more wild and free and clear of heart than I had since before I left.

  Only he gave this to me, I realized. This three-dimensional world, this open world, and only with him could I completely be myself. In the haze of pleasure, it was so easy to ask myself why did I run?

  Why?

  Mr. Markham held me carefully as I came down, but when I finally opened my eyes, I could read the look on his face as clearly as if he had spoken aloud.

  My turn.

  His hands found my waist, those long fingers almost meeting in the middle, and he lifted me up and slammed me back down, the force of it making me grunt. He didn’t go easy on me, as if he were punishing me in the same way I had just punished him. I surrendered myself to his impressive strength and let myself be carried away by it. By him and his brute force. By the huge cock that jabbed into me over and over again. By the waves of uncontrollable emotion that rolled through me.

  And I couldn’t help the heat pricking at my eyelids when I felt him stiffen and then start pulsing inside of me. Oh God, it felt so damn perfect. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? When we were fucking, our world was perfect. When our bodies were joined, everything but our love melted away, refined into gold by the furnace of our desire.

  But we couldn’t always be fucking. We had to live lives. We had to coexist for decades, we had to see other people, and one day we would probably have children.

  I loved him. I wanted him by my side, always. More than anything. But the things he had done, and the truths he had hidden—how could I willingly embrace all of that and carry it into a marriage?

  I didn’t know that I could.

  His hands tightened on my waist as I lifted my hand. The light, as always, caught the ring and threw glinting arcs of color around the room. There had been a time when I imagined it on my finger until the end of my days, a cool weight on my hand as I fell into my final slumber, hopefully surrounded by children and grandchildren with the Markham green eyes. What a foolish fantasy. Girls like me—poor, without connections or property—didn’t get their fairy tale endings. I wasn’t a queen. I wouldn’t even be fit to serve a queen. I had always been destined for the gray world of isolation and solitude, and it had been stupid of me to ever think anything different.

  I slowly tugged off the ring as he watched, and I put it in his inside jacket pocket. He was still inside me through it all, a deeply physical reminder of how empty I would feel without him.

  “I will always love you,” I said. “But I don’t know how to live with you. When we are together, everything feels right. But what if I wake up one day and I’m like Violet and you despise me?”

  “That will never happen,” he said fiercely.

  “And Julian—” He froze at his name, as he often did. “I…you make me want strange things. The woman that I am becoming—I am frightened by her. I don’t think I can live my life with the kind of desires I have with you.”

  He didn’t let go of my waist. “You are becoming more like yourself, Ivy. And only I can give you what you need.”

  I slid off of him, wrestling out of his grasp. I took in everything about him, drank him in for what would probably be the last time: his lanky frame, square jaw, thick eyebrows. I touched his face, laying my hand against his high cheek and feeling the stubble tickle my palm. He closed his eyes, pressing into my touch.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Markham.”

  Three weeks later...

  “So the rumors are true.”

  I blinked against the sudden wash of sunlight in the hotel room. I’d been slumped in a chair in front of the fireplace, debating the merits of having a drink this early in the morning. I wasn’t normally the type to seek solace in drunkenness, but I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit how appealing the feeling was. The feeling of forgetting.

  Silas hurled himself into the chair across from me, all charm and smiles like always. “At least you don’t smell. I was worried that I would have to come dunk you forcibly into a bath and burn your clothes.” He looked around the room. “I’m actually impressed, Markham. You are quite a tidy little hermit.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked tiredly. “How did you even get in?”

  “I told the concierge I was your brother and I was worried for your health. And then I handed him some money. You know, the usual.”

  “But why…” I trailed off, already exhausted by the exchange. What did it matter? What did anything matter? Ivy had ended our engagement, not seconds after we’d stopped shivering through our climax, and I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything else. Even the thought of leaving London for my own house seemed untenable—no matter how sundered we were practically, I couldn’t tear myself away geographically. I spent my days imagining her days. Was she walking in Hyde Park now? Visiting the British Museum? Spending time with her aunt?

  “Molly said she saw your valet running errands and so she asked around, and word was that you were holed up here brooding. And I said, ‘Our Markham brooding? How out of character for him.’”

  “Your sarcasm is duly noted.”

  Silas folded one long leg over the other, studying me for a moment. “What happened?” he finally asked. “You can tell me.”

  I wouldn’t. It was unthinkable, laying bare the pain and shame once more by speaking it all out loud. But when I opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business, the story started tumbling out. All jumbled together—Ivy breaking off the engagement, using Mrs. Harold as a weapon against Violet, the ever-present fear that I was indeed an evil man, and therefore Ivy deserved better. She deserved for me not to hunt her down. She deserved for me not to possess her. She deserved a life free from me.

  But the trouble was, I couldn’t live any kind of life without her.

  Silas listened to the whole saga, punctuated with the frequent outbursts of my despair, and even though disgust flickered briefly in his eyes when I described what I had done to Violet the night she died, it wasn’t followed with judgment. In fact, his voice was kind when he said, “Markham, my man, you’ve got to forgive yourself. Yes, you did something terrible, but we all saw how desperately unhappy you were. No one who spent any time with you and Violet could truly fault you for lashing out like that.”

  My face was in my hands at this point. “Ivy faults me.”

  He cleared his throat. “Have you seen her? You know, since she broke your heart and all?”

  “No,” I said into my fingers. “She made it very clear she doesn’t want to see me.” Then I thought a moment. “Wait, have you seen her?”

  He shrugged. “That aunt of hers is parading her through every fashionable house in London. She’s out every night.”

  My chest squeezed. She was out—laughing? Drinking? Dancing? With other people?

  With other men?

  “She seems to hate every minute of it,” Silas said softly. “In case you were torturing yourself.”

  He knew me so well.

  “I saw her at the Rochefords two nights ago. She’s lost weight, she’s got dark circles under her eyes, she barely talks. I asked around, and while it seems her aunt is hell bent on making Ivy this season’s prize, Ivy is not at all interested. She has not danced once since she’s arrived and has refused most callers.”

  How funny. I had hated the idea that she was gallivanting about town, being courted by other men. But I also hated that she was unhappy. I wanted to wrap her in blankets and make her sleep away those dark circles. I wanted to feed her from my fingertips until her flesh became supple and soft again.

  “Of course, given this new fortune she’s tied to through her aunt, and—let’s be honest here, Markham—even with the weight loss and the tired look, she is still quite beautiful, she’s become the most talked about girl in town. Who is this new gorgeous girl who is suddenly so rich? And what is the mysterious traged
y that haunts her?”

  “Why shouldn’t they talk about her?” I murmured. “She is beautiful. Captivating.”

  “Snap out of it,” Silas ordered. “You aren’t a complete martyr yet. And I have some hopeful news for you.”

  “What is that?”

  “I talked to her. I talked to her for quite a long time. And she is still hopelessly in love with you.”

  I looked up, my stomach jumping. “She is?”

  “Of course she is, you idiot. But I think she’s frightened of you.”

  “God.” My head sank into my hands again. “She should be. What kind of man am I, to do the things I do and expect her to stay devoted to me?”

  “Stop wallowing. I’m not finished.” He waited until I looked up at him. “You are pretty terrible, but I think the real problem is that she is frightened of herself. She’s frightened of who she is with you. You may be twisted, but you reveal to her that deep down, she is the same as you. And she is balking at that.”

  “She said all that?”

  Silas grinned. “Well, not in so many words.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She said the same thing to me when she ended our engagement.” I stood up, suddenly too agitated to sit still. “Nothing has changed. She still can’t bear to be with me.”

  “No,” Silas said. “She thinks that she’s not supposed to bear being with you. She’s like you, Markham, she’s scared that somehow she’s tainted inside. Evil. But you and I know that’s not the truth. It’s up to you to show her that she already is the kind of woman who can love you, that she already has those tastes and passions peculiar to you, and that nothing about that is evil.”