The Awakening of Ivy Leavold

by Sierra Simone

  “Oh thank God,” he said hoarsely, coming to me and drawing me fiercely into his arms. “I thought you’d left. Oh God, I thought you’d left.”

  There was ragged desperation in his voice, and its intensity both thrilled and frightened me. “Where would I go?” I asked honestly. “This is the only home I have.”

  “Even so, I thought maybe I had driven you off, pushed you away by fucking you.”

  And before I could answer, he crushed his lips to mine, parting my mouth with his own, as if he was trying to claim my body once again with a kiss. His hand reached inside the dressing gown and he was palming my breast, my nipples growing hard against his touch, and then he was ripping the gown off of me, pushing me to the ground. He unfastened his trousers with one hand, lowering them just enough to free his member, which was already hard and ready.

  I saw his face, saw the hunger in his eyes, and I knew that this was the darkness he had referred to, the possessive and unmerciful darkness that had disturbed Violet, and I knew that this time would not be gentle or tender. I should have been wary, scared even, but instead heat blossomed below my navel and my pulse raced. I wanted this—him, all of him, rough and hard. I wanted him to own my body and own me; I wanted him to claim it, and I had never wanted anything more.

  He unceremoniously spread my legs and I felt the heat of him pressing against my pussy.

  “Oh, please,” I murmured, and that was all he needed. He pushed his way in, and despite the soreness, despite my unreadiness, my body responded, rising up to meet him. He pulled out to the tip and then thrust in again, hard, and I moaned.

  “You are mine,” he said as he began driving in faster. “You are completely mine. Only mine. Your cunt and your lips and your heart—they belong to me.” The darkness in his words was underscored by something anguished, something desolate.

  He drove into me, harder and harder, as if urgently trying to reassure himself that I was really here, that I was really his. Over and over again he buried himself, hitting that place inside that stoked such wild delight within me, and then he reached down to brush against my bud. It took mere seconds, and then I was seizing around him, crying out, the pain making the orgasm stronger and deeper, longer even, and I was still riding the choppy waves of it when he pulled out.

  “I thought you had left,” he whispered. His cock glistened in the dim light, and it only took one stroke of his hand before he spilled himself, long spurts lacing my skin as he ejaculated onto my belly and onto my wet cunt.

  We breathed there for a moment, breathing with the trees and the water and the coming dawn. The lust didn’t bank in his eyes as he gazed at me, naked with leaves in my hair, his seed marking my skin. Indeed, his cock stayed mostly erect as he picked me up and carried me into the stream, where he washed me once more, and then fucked me in the summer-warmed water until my cries stirred the forest leaves.

  I slept most of the day, in my own bed, since Mr. Markham had to attend to a problem on a tenant’s farm. When I emerged, the late afternoon sun was beginning to sink and the smells of dinner wafted through the halls. I dressed—one of my old ones, since I felt strange donning one of the new ones if I was to be alone for dinner—and walked downstairs, passing Mrs. Brightmore carrying a hamper.

  It was full of the sheets from Mr. Markham’s room. I flushed and looked down, hoping that we would continue in our habit of not addressing one another, but I heard a muttered word as I passed.

  “Slut.”

  Now I flushed for a different reason, anger pulling at every part of me. “What your master does in the privacy of his own room is none of your business.”

  She turned to me, harsh lines around her mouth. “You are not the first, you know. And you won’t be the last. He was wild before he married Arabella and he’s been wild ever since. You are nothing to him but a way to pass the time.”

  The fury that rolled through me was all the stronger for the fear that birthed it. “I wouldn’t expect you to know anything of how he feels.”

  “You think so?” She stepped closer to me, and once again I realized how young she was, younger than her bearing and plain clothes made her appear. “I’ve worked in this house for years. He handpicked me from another house because he was so impressed with me. You think that you—a charity case—can do any better than his late wives, both beautiful and wealthy? And even they could not capture his heart. He is destined for someone better. I’ve always known it. Better than that whore, Violet Leavold, and better than you.”

  It was in the way that she said it, the way that her shoulders straightened and her chin lifted, that I realized the truth. “You’re in love with him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. The heart of her spite had been laid bare, and we both knew it. I turned away from her and walked away, wanting to rage at her, to scorn her, to strike her, and knowing that none of these things would be helpful to me or Mr. Markham. And I couldn’t scorn her.

  How could I, when I wasn’t entirely sure my own love wasn’t as hopelessly misplaced as hers?

  “You’ll be gone soon enough,” she called after me. “Just like the late Mrs. Markham!”

  I went to the library.

  I went outside.

  I wandered through the garden.

  But still agitation stabbed through me, relentless slices of doubt and worry and suspicion. Would it always be like this, loving Mr. Markham? Passion and fear, laced together, one chasing the other until it was impossible to tell where one started and the other began?

  I couldn’t articulate to myself why Mrs. Brightmore’s words ate away at me, after the pleasure of last night and after the genuine need for me I’d seen in him this morning. After I had told myself that I trusted him, that I didn’t care about the strange circumstances around Violet’s death. That I would throw away that tiny chance at a future away from Markham Hall to live however long I could in Mr. Markham’s bed.

  But eat away at me they did. Maybe it was the certainty in her tone. Or the blazing conviction in her eyes. She felt so sure that I’d be tossed aside like so much rubbish.

  Or was she sure that I would be dead?

  Despite the warmth in the garden, I felt chilled to the core. I couldn’t endure this any longer, the way Violet’s death hung around Markham Hall like a poisonous fog. I had to find out the truth. Had to.

  My wanderings had taken me to the front gate of the property, where I stood looking out onto the road to Stokeleigh, and a faint idea substantiated itself. Without giving myself time to thoroughly canvass the wisdom of my plan, I set off for the village, hoping that the policeman who’d investigated Violet’s death would be readily found.

  It only took fifteen minutes for me to reach the village, by which time moisture had dampened my brow and my hair grown a little disheveled from the summer wind. I stood at the head of the high street, wondering where I should go and whom I should talk to, when—inevitably—I was approached by Mrs. Harold.

  “Miss Leavold! What a surprise!”

  I squinted at her in the sunlight. She only had one of her retinue trailing behind her, and her arms were full of flowers.

  “I was picking flowers for the altar,” she explained. “Would you walk with me there? It’s only a short way.”

  Of course, I didn’t want to. The rector’s wife irritated me beyond measure…but. A single thought prevented my instinctive refusal of her offer: she was the most well-informed person I’d met thus far, well-informed and willing to share her hoarded information. If I wanted to find the policeman who’d carried out the murder inquiry, Mrs. Harold would know his name, location, family history, and current medical ailments.

  “I’d love to walk with you,” I said and I meant it.

  Three hours later and I was outside the North Riding of Yorkshire police building in Scarborough. I had walked the ten miles by myself rather than taking a horse or asking Gareth to hook up the phaeton for me. I didn’t want anyone
to know about this errand—especially not anyone who might feel duty-bound to report it to Mr. Markham. But as I pushed my way across the busy sea-scented street, I felt a tug of uncertainty. Would it be inappropriate for me to show up unannounced? I was hardly familiar with how these things worked—perhaps most people wrote letters to inquire about these sort of things rather than visit in person. Or they had a solicitor or agent inquire for them.

  But, I reflected as I smoothed my hair and dress, I was Violet’s only living family. I had the right to ask around, the right to know what happened. Surely, my familial connection to the victim would cover over any irregularities in my approach?

  The building was nondescript, a small brick affair, and I was met with an industrious—if gloomy—interior. A man was crossing the foyer when I entered, a hat tucked under his arm.

  “May I be of service?” he asked, seeming to want to be anything but.

  “I’m looking for Officer Mayhew,” I said.

  The man blew out a breath then gestured for me to follow him further into the murk. Far-spaced windows weakly illuminated several desks, all covered in papers, and corridors leading down even darker halls. Tobacco smoke overwhelmed me, making my eyes sting, and I didn’t realize that the man had stopped until I very nearly ran into him.

  “A lady for you, Mayhew,” he said and then departed without any further pleasantries.

  Mayhew grunted but didn’t look up for a moment, his hand jotting notations as he peered at barely legible list—a shop inventory it looked like.

  I sat without being invited to, and he finally looked up, surprised. I don’t think the man’s introduction had even registered with him. He was handsome, much younger than I expected, perhaps the age Thomas would be if he were still alive. Reddish hair and grayish eyes, a strong and determined mouth.

  “I apologize, Miss—”

  “Leavold,” I supplied.

  “—Leavold,” he said slowly, memory filtering in through his eyes. “I didn’t notice you. How may I help today?”

  I didn’t see any point in dancing around the subject. “My cousin died two months ago, Mr. Mayhew. I would like to know more about the circumstances surrounding her death. Her name was Violet Markham—nee Leavold—and she was married to Julian Markham of Markham Hall.”

  He looked at me a long moment, a look of consideration and calculation, and finally he released a long sigh. “I’ll be back in just a moment,” he said, standing and leaving his desk. True to his word, he was only gone for a few minutes, returning with a thin sheaf of papers bound with twine.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much,” he said, slicing the twine cleanly with a small knife. “Because I learned very little in my investigation. And if the investigation were not closed, I would not be able to divulge even that much. But since it is finished and since you are the only kin of hers that has come forward to inquire…” As he talked, he disseminated his bundle in small, precise piles around his desk. The papers now appeared group by content—or by date. It was difficult to decipher the handwritten words upside down. He looked me once more in the eye. “What do you already know?”

  “That she was killed in the early hours of the morning. Thrown from her horse. That Mr. Markham was purported to be the first to find her, but that there were other footprints in the frost…”

  A thick piece of paper was presented to me as I said this. It took me a moment and several rotations of the paper to make out what I was looking at. “It’s the sketch of a footprint,” I said.

  “Yes. April can be, for all its chilly nights, quite mild during the day. A servant had come from Markham Hall very early to tell us that Mrs. Markham was missing. By the time the police had come, she was dead, obviously, and the frost had mostly melted off the grass. Mr. Markham told us of the tracks, that he was certain another party had found his wife before he did. We found nothing until an officer, working to find the horse’s prints, found a spot of half-fading frost under a nearby bush. There we found a vague footprint along with other marks that suggested someone had knelt there before they stood.”

  I tilted the paper again. “It looks quite large,” I said. “It must be a man’s.”

  “I agree. It is nearly the same length as my own feet. But do you see how pointed it is at the top? How distinct that point is! Mr. Markham owned no shoes with such a point, although that in and of itself isn’t such solid evidence. He would have had plenty of time to hide or even burn a pair of shoes if he wanted, before the police arrived.”

  It didn’t fit with my image of Mr. Markham at all, a hunched man furtively feeding a pair of shoes into the fire. And I had seen his eyes and his face, had heard his voice when he told me about finding Violet that fateful morning. No. I believed Mr. Markham on this point at least. The print belonged to someone else.

  Another sketch was passed to me, this time of the saddle. I studied it for a moment. “Yes,” I murmured. “It does look as if someone cut it.”

  “They cut a little more than halfway through the cinch itself. And they would have known Mrs. Markham to be quite a vigorous horsewoman—everyone knew it. She had only crossed half the field behind the stables before the saddle failed and she was thrown.”

  I set the sketch down, banishing the image of her body tumbling from the horse, trying to unimagine the sound of a scream cut short. “Mr. Mayhew, do you have any reason to believe that Mr. Markham killed my cousin? That seems to be the popular opinion in Stokeleigh and beyond, yet he wasn’t charged with the murder, so how complete can his guilt truly be?” I sounded like I was trying to convince myself, not ask a genuine question. I cleared my throat. “I would like to know, for Violet’s sake.”

  Mr. Mayhew plucked at the corners of the paper stack in front of him. “That’s not an easy question to answer, Miss Leavold. They were heard fighting viciously the night before her death—”

  “By the rector’s wife?”

  “—by an entire dinner party of people. Her relative unhappiness seemed to be well-known. And…” he seemed reluctant to speak whatever he was thinking out loud, handing me another paper instead.

  I scanned through it. It took me a moment to realize it was the coroner’s description of Violet—or of her dead body. Clinical descriptions of her twisted neck, of her skin otherwise unmarred, of her early state of—

  I gasped.

  I reread.

  No, it was impossible even on a second inspection. It could not be true.

  My heart pounded. “Was he—is he—the coroner, I mean, is he quite certain?”

  Mr. Mayhew slid the paper out of my trembling fingers. “I do not want to trouble you with the particulars of his often gruesome vocation, but yes—he was entirely sure. His best estimates put the age of the fetus at somewhere between two to three months—closer to three, he felt.”

  Nausea coiled in my stomach and I was suddenly very glad that Mr. Mayhew didn’t allow me to read further, to flip over to the penciled drawings on the back.

  “You must compare the dates of the pregnancy with her marriage to Mr. Markham,” he said, neatly stacking the papers. “The child was clearly conceived before the wedding ceremony. Not as unusual as people often suppose, perhaps, save for that Violet Markham was known in London for—pardon my boldness here—being at times too fond of the company of the opposite sex. Even though she and Mr. Markham were engaged to be married, he may have had reason to believe the child was not his own. I’ve seen one or two men driven to passionate violence at the discovery of ordinary infidelity. But I have seen many, many more fly into a fury when they realize their wife carries another’s child.

  “So,” he continued, his voice almost bland with professionalism, “do I believe Mr. Markham killed his wife and the fetus inside of her? Personally, I do.”

  Dread nestled against the nausea. I didn’t speak, trying to master my thoughts, which presently fled from any semblance of order.

  “However, there was not enough evidence to lay the charge at his feet. The fighting
, the pregnancy, his placement at the scene of her death—to me it speaks of certain guilt. But where is the knife that cut the saddle? Where is the witness to him doing it? And what of this lone footprint that seems to corroborate his version of events? He is a powerful man in this county, Miss Leavold, and the person who accused him of murder would have to have more than instincts to call to his aid in a courtroom. Would you like a glass of water? You look pale.”

  I knew I must be pale; it felt as if all of the blood in my body was pouring out of my heart and on to the floor. A baby. There had been a baby. That was heartbreak enough. And then to hear Mr. Mayhew’s calm, experienced voice laying out his interpretation of the facts so precisely…

  It’s only his interpretation, I told myself. He doesn’t know Mr. Markham like you do—he hasn’t seen how lonely he is, how tender he can be. But I couldn’t find it in myself to give those words the credence they needed to ring true. I didn’t know what to believe about Violet’s death or what to believe about Mr. Markham.

  And yet I was still in love with him.

  When I got back to Markham Hall, I took a small dinner of soup and bread in the parlor, and then retired to the library, too restless to sleep and too agitated to lie still. I tried to read, tried to focus my mind on anything other than Mr. Markham and the suspicions that surrounded him, but it was useless. Instead, I found myself staring at the small portrait of Arabella Markham. What sort of girl had she been? Quiet and shy? Or dainty and demanding? Had she known that she loved a future murderer? If gossip was to be believed, her own future murderer?

  And if Mr. Markham had killed Violet, which Mr. Mayhew seemed certain of, had he known about the pregnancy? Was that his motivation or was it something else? Was the child his?

  Without meaning to, I pressed my hands against my own stomach. Would I carry his child one day? Could I be right now, at this very moment? And why, oh why, did that idea thrill me as much as it scared me?