The servant from last night knelt near the dry stone wall, several cracked stones around his feet. I’d planned on a quiet morning with only myself and the trees, but I found I wanted to know more about this place that was to be my home, and so far, he’d been the only kind face I’d seen. Mr. Markham had been fascinating—magnetic even—but kind?
No. Nothing about that stern face and lean frame belied kindness.
“Hello,” I said as I approached the servant.
He wiped his forehead. “Hello, miss.”
“I don’t think I caught your name last night. I’m Ivy Leavold, Mr. Markham’s cousin by marriage.”
“I’m Gareth,” he said with a smile. He had an open face, blue-eyed and friendly, and when he extended his hand, I shook it. “I’m Mr. Markham’s valet.”
“Are valets here normally in the habit of repairing walls?”
He laughed. “Well-spotted. I was hired on as a valet three years ago, but as Mr. Markham is rarely at home—and these days prefers to travel without a servant—I’ve been applied to other tasks. But I shoulder my duties as best I can. It is much better than working on a farm or in a mill like my brothers.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.” I sat on an intact portion of the wall, staring at the verdant, rustling forest around me. At home, on a day like this, I would have run barefoot across the field or shouted until my voice grew hoarse. A wild energy then threatened to spill over into me, out of me. I wanted to feel the grass on my feet and the wind on my face and read in the sun with a bottle of Madeira nearby.
Like I would have at home.
Home.
“…careful,” Gareth was telling me.
I brought myself back to the present. “My apologies,” I said. “What were you saying?”
Gareth pulled some hearting stones out of a nearby pail. “I said the locals think Markham Hall is cursed. Or rather, that Mr. Markham himself is cursed. It was so awful what happened to Violet, killed only a month after they married.” He spoke her name with a softness that bordered on reverence.
“Yes,” I murmured, my mind drifting from this valet’s familiarity with my cousin to her untimely death. “And she was such a talented horsewoman.”
“It was Mr. Markham’s horse,” he said, and there was real pain in his voice. “She wasn’t used to riding him.”
Even as a girl, she’d loved riding, insisting on it every day, even in the rain. And most of all she’d loved the unpredictable horses—the stallions and the angry mares. Perhaps her death was not that shocking after all, if she still rode animals like that.
“What happened to Mr. Markham’s first wife?”
Gareth shrugged. “It was before I came here. Mr. Markham was a very young man when he first married, and I believe his bride was young too. She was taken with consumption, or so the stories go. Bedridden not long into their honeymoon, and died before it ended. Her grave is next to the other Mrs. Markham’s, in the village churchyard.”
The turrets of the tower cragged darkly over the trees. I tried to imagine the churchyard beyond the hall, no doubt as ancient and stately as the house itself. “Hard to believe such a beautiful place could see so much sadness.”
“It’s more beautiful on the outside than on the inside.” There was a darkness to his voice, a bitter wariness, but when I glanced over at him, the source was unapparent. And I got the distinct feeling that I wouldn’t learn any more from Mr. Markham’s valet today.
I slid off the wall, brushing crumbled lichen off my dress. “Goodbye, Gareth.”
He touched his forehead and turned back to his work.
The path continued into the woods, trees swallowing up the pasture and the memory of Gareth as if they’d been nothing more than fairy dreams. The further I ventured in, the more fluid time felt. I could have been in Sherwood Forest during the time of King Richard or about to stumble onto a Druid rite. Only the crenellated tower through the trees reminded me of where I was, of whom I was, of my circumstances and the strange man I owed my new livelihood too.
Mr. Markham. Last night had been so unaccountable, so different from anything I’d ever experienced. He had none of the stiffness and decorum I’d experienced in wealthy gentleman, but he was hardly friendly; there was something forbidding about him that held informality at bay. Even I, lacking social graces as I did, recognized that about him. His strength came not from his station in life or his wealth, but from something else. His physicality? His self-assurance?
Whatever it was, it was impossibly alluring. Captivating. When he had held my wrist, when he had deftly unbuttoned my sleeve…I touched the smooth underside of my wrist, imagining the firelight on his face as he had talked of prisons and pleasure.
A stream bubbled nearby, purling and gurgling its way down the slope, and I stepped through a blanket of bluebells to get to the water. The water looked cool and inviting, pure and happy, and on this uncommonly warm May day, I wouldn’t deny myself the pleasure of dabbling my toes in the brook. I sat and unlaced my boots, pulled off my stockings and then stood. Holding my skirts aloft, I stepped in the stream.
It was delicious.
I closed my eyes, letting the rushing water and playful breeze carry me away, far from missing Thomas, far from the dark tower of Markham Hall.
A stick snapped. My eyes flew open and I saw Mr. Markham watching me from the bank of the stream. He said nothing, eyes flicking from my bare feet under the clear water to my face, his posture anything but casual or accessible.
