“We have only just arrived after our journey,” Mr. Markham said, watching Silas’s fingers wrapped around my own.
Silas let go—reluctantly it seemed—and straightened his jacket. Then he smiled, his mouth curving into an upside-down triangle of mirth. “So Julian Markham is taking the yoke once again. You’ll have your hands full with Julian, let me tell you. Coke Manor was only a few miles away from Markham Hall, and the things we got up to as boys, and then at Eton and at Oxford…”
“I’m sure I’ve already seen the worst of him,” I said, mustering a glare at my fiancé. “I’m confident the future can’t contain any worse.”
And then there was a lull, where a flash of clear-thinking sent the boxes in the back of my mind singing and shouting again, where perhaps all three of us were remembering what had actually been claimed of Julian Markham’s worst behavior.
“Let’s dine together,” Silas suggested, smoothing over the pause. “This hotel has a fine restaurant, and their wine cellar is excellent.”
I shot a look at Mr. Markham. No, we could not accept a dinner invitation, not when he had promised me relief tonight, and it was already late—
“Well, we only just arrived and need to change,” Mr. Markham said.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Mr. Markham met my eyes. “But we’d be happy to join you.”
“Marvelous! I shall procure us a table and a good bottle.”
“Then we shall see you shortly.”
No! I watched this arrangement with horror, and I opened my mouth to register my protests, but I was already being swept past Silas and up the stairs. “You seem agitated,” Mr. Markham murmured in my ear. “Now why could that be?”
We were up the stairs now, and the porter was holding open the door to a room, as a large woman swathed in black silk came at us from the end of the corridor. “Miss Leavold, your room is here,” she informed me. She gave Mr. Markham’s hand, wrapped securely around my waist, a look that told me she knew exactly the kind of intimacies we shared and that she saw things like this often and was too jaded to care.
Mr. Markham kissed my cheek and said into my ear, “I’ll be with you in just a moment. And again—I’ll know if you touch yourself while I’m gone.”
With that warning, I was herded into the room by the hotel matron, who ensured that everything was to my satisfaction and then left. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand still, so I paced, praying that Mr. Markham would end my suffering before we went down to dinner.
The door opened after a minute or two, and he came in.
I was on him at once. “Please,” I begged. “Please.”
He slid his arms around my waist. “I’m tempted,” he said. “But to see you so undone at supper…that’s a temptation too.”
“But Silas…” I said, and then I shivered, because I felt his fingers working on my dress buttons.
He walked around me, untying my skirt and bustle, and then the dress fell away. “But that is even more tempting,” he said. “I want Silas to see how beautiful you are like this. I want him to want you and then know that you are indelibly mine.”
He walked over to my trunk, opening it and pulling out a fresh frock, this one a wine-colored silk with a low neckline and large bustle.
“Julian, no,” I said, seeing that he was about to dress me, not about to fuck me. “No, no, no—”
The dress whispered over my head, Mr. Markham deftly affixing it closed, and then attending to the bustle and the sprays of black lace that frothed at the neckline and at the cap sleeves. I felt a surge of anger then—real anger, limb-shaking anger—and I slapped him hard across the cheek, a crack that resounded through the room.
He growled and crushed his lips to mine, and the press of his body against my own left no doubt what state my rebellion had brought him to. My body responded immediately, the anger fueling my lust, and I seized onto him, digging my fingers into his dinner jacket, grinding my pelvis against his erection, determined to end this torture right now.
And then his hand was on my neck, the pads of his fingers just barely denting the yielding skin and tendons. “Kneel, Ivy.”
“No,” I said, and it was more like a cat’s hiss than speech, and his nostrils flared.
“For that, you don’t get to touch me,” he said. “And the next time I have to ask, I’m taking you over my knee.”
He must have seen the thought that crossed my mind at this, because he added, “And I won’t let you come. In fact, I won’t let you climax until tomorrow night. And believe me, I’ll be watching you like a hawk through all the long hours of your denial.”
It was that threat that punctured my little insurrection. I felt the fight leave my body, my poor, neglected body, and I sank to the floor.
“Let me touch you at least,” I pleaded.
