“Miss Ivy, the carriage—” Gareth’s voice was sunny as he came into the room, but he froze as he took in the two of us, only two feet apart, hatred heating the air. He quickly recovered. “Um, the carriage is ready. Mr. Markham took the liberty of packing you a trunk last night and it is already loaded, but I’ll be happy to carry anything else out that you need.”
Brightmore glared at him, but Gareth refused to leave. He stood resolutely inside the room until she finally swept away, leaving only her dark words and the scratches behind the vanity to fester in my mind. I stared at the scratches a moment more, then made to push the table back against the wall. Gareth came over to help me, then straightened as he saw the words.
“What is that?” he asked, his voice strange. “Did you…?”
I shook my head. “Brightmore said it was Violet. She caught her doing it.”
Gareth’s knuckles were white around the edges of the table, and I remembered the rumors. Poor Gareth. I shouldn’t feel sympathy for the man who’d been entangled in my cousin’s adultery—especially since I was about to wed the husband who’d been hurt by it. But I did, because in that moment, I saw a thousand seas of grief pooling in Gareth’s eyes.
“I didn’t know she was that unhappy,” he said, pushing the vanity back and then going back to the door. He kept his face from me.
“I thought it was common knowledge that she was unhappy with Mr. Markham.”
“I think maybe this was about something else,” Gareth said, but he offered no explanation for his cryptic analysis and refused to talk any more as he ushered me down to the courtyard.
Mr. Markham had indeed arranged for a small trunk to be packed with enough effects to last me for a few days, and also procured refreshments for the hours-long journey, and then we were off. The minute the wheels left the paving stones of the drive and hit the smooth dirt track to Stokeleigh, Mr. Markham drew the shades and beckoned me over.
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.
“My housekeeper?”
“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 fucked Brightmore? 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.”
