So why did I continue to pine for him? My body craved him, yes, but it was my mind and my soul that ached and thrashed the most without him. I hated myself for hurting him, for making him leave, yet I hated him too for leaving, for giving me no other choice, no other way. If only he’d confided in me from the beginning, I wished vehemently, then stopped. It didn’t do any good now. He’d done everything he could to keep Violet’s death shrouded in mystery and that was why we were here now.
Alone.
Apart.
Furious with each other.
As I walked, my anger gained greater and greater strength. How dare he act as if he is the victim? As if I am the one acting egregiously? He was the one suspected of murder, the one keeping secrets. How could he expect me to stand by and absorb his darkness without reacting to it?
He wanted me to be like Arabella. But I couldn’t. I could only be Ivy.
I wandered through the woods until the rain started, a drizzle that brought with it an early dusk, and by the time I made it to the house, my dress was wet and muddy and my hair was plastered to my head in tangled strands. It didn’t signify; there was no one waiting up indoors, not even a servant. They’d all retired early, I supposed, not one of them thinking to save a supper for me…or to even come looking for me.
I barely existed here. I was a ghost before I was even dead.
I peeled off my dress in my room, not bothering to change into anything else, and went to Mr. Markham’s chambers. I knew he wasn’t there—from the moment I’d stepped in the house, I’d recognized that empty stillness that was characteristic of his absence—but my chest still ached when I saw the empty room, bedspread pulled taut as if the rumples and wrinkles from our morning lovemaking had never happened.
There was no fire, and a chill was seeping in through the windows and walls, so I slid under the covers of his bed, tears burning anew at the scent of the soap he had sent up from London. That smell, more than anything else, reawakened the heavy pulsing in my sex, a pulsing made all the worse for the tangled emotions surrounding it.
I knew it was no substitute, but it was mindless need more than anything that drove my hand in between my legs. I ran my fingertips over the soft folds, imagining it was Julian doing it with hungry eyes and an even hungrier mouth. I breathed in the fresh male scent that clung to the sheets and began circling my clit, hard and fast, thinking of him thrusting into me in this very bed. Thinking of the way his cufflinks had gleamed in the restaurant as he fucked my cunt with his fingers. Of the way he’d owned me today in the field, of the arresting way he took control of my body and used it against me.
I buried my face in the pillow as I came, crying out from the all-too-brief flash of pleasure and also from the concurrent ache of emptiness that came with it. It didn’t matter how roughly I touched myself or how many orgasms I created—it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t him.
And what if it never was again?
I slept late. Deep and late, with no dreams, but the keen awareness of loss welcomed me the moment that the opiate of sleep wore off. I was alone in my future husband’s bed, with no way of knowing if he would still consent to be my husband. I had been afraid that he was going to kill me, but the morning brought an even clearer realization—I was afraid of losing him more than I was afraid of him hurting me. Perfect love casts out all fear, I recalled my childhood curate saying—and my love was far from perfect. But it was still trying valiantly, a bird beating the air with broken wings.
I wasn’t hungry and I didn’t want to dress. Instead, I left the bed to curl up on an armchair near the window so I could watch the wet world outside and think.
I wanted Julian. I wanted to fuck him and fight him, and I wanted to nestle by his side at night. I wanted more nights like two nights ago—where he’d woken me by whispering poetry in my ear, chanting Keats and Shelley and Blake as he wrenched climax after climax out of my body. I wanted more days like our last day in York, where we had held hands in the street and argued over which restaurant to eat at for supper.
But I couldn’t have Julian the way I wanted with Violet’s grave between us. One way or another, I would have to find out the truth. No more shoving the worrisome suspicions to the back of my mind, no more avoiding the topic as if her name alone would burn our lips. I would have to either torture him or coax him into telling me about whatever happened that night that tormented him so, and if it was that he had killed his wife in a moment of heat and violent rage…then I would face that problem once I got to it. For now, I needed to focus on how to extract the truth to begin with.
But how? Mr. Markham was impenetrable, a fastness of determination and silence. There was no way I could tug the truth loose from him, not if all the policemen and dark whispers in the county couldn’t.
I worried at my lower lip while I thought, trying to ignore the voice that whispered or 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’t want to. I wanted to stay here, in this haunted medieval manor, with the equally haunted owner. I wanted to be his wife. I wanted to be his.
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 m
y 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?
