Chapter 20
Ivy
We can’t stop laughing as we put ourselves back together—rather, as Xavier puts us both back together. It’s the relief of those orgasms, I think, but it’s probably also the high of realising just how fucking reckless that was and just how fully we’ve got away with our little stunt.
What the hell were we thinking? This place is literally all glass.
He kissed me long and hard after he came, his cum dripping off my boobs and trickling down my stomach. Now he’s casting around for something to wipe me clean with.
‘My tank top?’ I point at it, entangled with my bra on the flagstones a few feet away.
‘We can do better than that. No need to sacrifice your top.’ He smirks as he toes off his loafers and shoves his jeans and boxer briefs all the way off.
His shirttails mean I don’t get a full look at him, but I like what I can see: the toned bulk of his thighs; athletic calves; the still-tanned skin with its fine dusting of dark hair.
I imagine that hair covering his pecs, too, and tapering down over his stomach.
I need to get this guy fully naked at the next possible opportunity—this much is clear.
Next thing I know, he’s cleaning me up with a pair of soft black Calvins, amusement written all over his face as he swipes at my boobs. ‘Fuck, there’s a lot. Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ I tell him, arching backwards as he swipes cum from my belly. ‘You owed me from last time, after all.’
His smile turns sheepish as he glances up at me from under his dark eyelashes. ‘I’ve been getting myself off so often to those memories that you’d think I’d wanked myself dry.’
I press my lips together, but I can’t hide my smile.
With guys like this, you never quite know.
There’s a level of entitlement among posh blokes that can make them very wham, bam, thank you, ma’am in their approach.
They’re buggering off as soon as they’ve shot their load.
So his little admission is reassuring, especially coming post-climax rather than in the moment.
When we’re dressed and looking less like we’ve both just enjoyed the mother of all orgasms, he gestures around awkwardly.
‘So, um, this is the orangery.’
‘Yeah. I gathered. Pretty.’
‘It is. Dates back to the Georgian period. Walter left it alone, thank God.’
‘Good solid stone ledges.’ I wring my hands, and he shoots me a devilish grin.
‘Very good. Very fit for purpose.’
‘And it’s nice and warm.’
‘Indeed. The marvels of Victorian engineering. We can thank Walter for installing that system. The air comes up through those grates. Helpful for growing lemons and getting beautiful young women naked.’
I smirk at him. Dear God, the way he’s looking at me is astounding. He’s supposed to look at me like that before he gets his rocks off, not after.
‘Anyway.’ He clears his throat. ‘We should probably get you all set up for some painting. Establish your alibi for the afternoon and whatnot.’
‘Shit. Yeah. Good point. Though we were pretty efficient with our time, I’d say.’
‘Far too efficient.’ He casts a dark look my way as he strides to open the door for me. ‘Something I plan to rectify later.’
I’m not proud of what I do next, nor am I sure it’s completely my fault.
Xavier takes my hand as he leads me away from the orangery and back towards the main house.
It’s unnecessarily chivalrous, as if I’m some fragile Victorian flower and not modern-day Ivy Cooper of the Harrow Road, tough enough that he hired me to teach his sister the way of the world, but it’s also seriously lovely, especially after I let him get me naked and make me come.
I’m feeling a bit raw, you see. A bit vulnerable.
At Alchemy, I’ve always been able to handle myself.
It was all transactional. This couldn’t have been more different, and it happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to put my armour on and become Alchemy Ivy.
I was just Ivy, naked and moaning as a swoony almost-duke ate me in the grounds of his magical almost-palace.
And then he takes my hand and starts talking about ‘later’, all of which makes me seriously discombobulated, and all of which has me fantasising, as I hold his hand and we wander back in the direction of the lake and the main house, that this isn’t a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime gift of a moment but instead—and this is the embarrassing bit—real life.
Imagine it, my evil little brain whispers.
I’ve always been wildly creative, but there are times that it’s downright unhelpful, and this is definitely one of them.
You’re strolling around the grounds of your majestic home, where around every corner lies a view so beautiful it makes your heart ache.
And holding your hand is a duke so handsome he belongs in a fairytale, and he keeps looking over at you as if you’re so beautiful you make his heart ache.
You’ll head back to the lake, where he’ll set you up with an easel and paints and canvases, because the light is perfect, and he knows this is where you’re happiest. Besides, you’ve nowhere else to be.
Nothing else to do but paint, and bathe in the beauty of your estate that goes on in every direction as far as the eye can see, and know that later there’ll be a lovely dinner, and maybe a tryst in the conservatory on the pretext of looking at ferns together, and then bed with your adoring duke, where neither of you sleep for a very long time, because why the hell would you?
And you’ll wake up and do the exact same thing tomorrow.
It’s dangerous, this train of thought. Dangerous because every part of my chimp brain is clinging to its addictive fantasies.
Dangerous because I pride myself on my resilience, and the absolute biggest threat to resilience is false hope.
The quality of your existence doesn’t come down to what life throws at you but your ability to roll with the punches and get back up on your feet.
I don’t have much, but I do have my ability to do that, and some days that’s all that stands between me and total defeat.
I have a very sick stepmother and two young, sweet, and totally fucking useless half-sisters, bless them.
I need to keep my feet on the ground and my head out of the clouds.
That means enjoying this lovely weekend, with its eye porn and orgasms and general indulgence, for what it is.
Because come Sunday afternoon, real life starts again, and it will take no prisoners.
It turns out even my fantasy of what it would feel like to sit by the lake and paint with a mug of tea and a KitKat was pathetic, utterly crap, compared to the reality of it.
When we get back around to the far side of the lake, the side that faces the gorgeous front of the house, I see that someone has set up two folding chairs complete with fluffy blankets, a huge, freestanding white parasol with dangly fringing, and a small pair of trestle legs as well as my easel.
The old toolbox of Dad’s that I use to transport my oils and palette knives is there too, as are my canvases.
Within moments of us rocking up, a butler emerges from the house and makes his way across the lawn carrying a huge silver tea tray that he sets on the trestle legs.
No KitKats in sight; instead a silver tea service complete with an actual strainer and a little silver cake stand with an indecent amount of tiny cakes and biscuits.
I actually feel like Marie Antoinette, and while it’s the least helpful thing for helping me root myself back in reality, it’s all so bloody pretty and decorative and over the top that I swoon despite myself.
‘Fancy some company while you set up?’ Xavier asks. He’s dismissed the butler and is busying himself with the tea, opening the lid of the teapot to check the strength before laying the strainer over one of the cups and pouring. I notice there are two cups.
‘Is that your way of saying you quite fancy some of those cakes?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then yes please, if you don’t have anywhere else to be.’
He stretches, and I can’t help but enjoy the obvious strength of his body, his muscles flexing under his shirt as he does. Blokes are always so unselfconscious when they stretch, aren’t they?
‘There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, let’s put it that way. Say when.’ He pours milk into my cup from an adorable little silver jug.
‘When. Thanks.’
His lack of pretence is astounding. Every time I’ve met him up until now, including that first night at his party, he’s been so awkward.
So obviously horrified by the challenge of what to say and how to act.
Fast forward past one—very abundant—pearl necklace, and he’s open.
Holding my hand. Saying he doesn’t want to be anywhere else.
It’s lovely, and it’s confusing, and it makes my whole throat and chest area feel all warm and gooey.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe he’s still in his post-orgasmic haze and he’s into me because he knows he’ll get more later.
After all, while this entire weekend is a fantasy come to life on every level for me, I’m just an easy little distraction from his nearly perfect reality.
‘This view is so beautiful,’ I say as he collapses into the chair beside mine. ‘I’ve wanted to paint it since the moment I saw it.’
‘Not sure if you’re aware’—he crosses one ankle over its opposite knee and swipes a tiny lemon tart from the cake stand—‘that that’s what the house is named for.
The name Belvedere comes from the Italian—bel, for beauty, and vedere, to look.
To look upon beauty, I suppose. Obviously, the line of sight from here is stunning, but the current house was expressly designed and positioned to optimise the view running due west across the lake, especially in the afternoon.
That yellow drawing room upstairs, where I now know my brother hid you lot ahead of the party, has the best views. ’
‘Ohh.’ It makes sense. I recall the sunlight streaming through that room, the astonishing view across golden water and backlit oaks when I gazed out of the windows. ‘Was it called Belvedere before this one was built?’
‘It was. Long story short, the Earls of Oxford have been on this land in some form since the twelfth century. The title died out in the early seventeenth century, although the female bloodline continued. The de Veres were staunch supporters of Charles II, so he not only reinstated the entire thing but made one of my ancestors a duke during the Restoration, and we’ve flourished from there.
I believe the estate has been known as Belvedere since we were earls, but Walter had a strong opinion that the new house should earn its name and then some. ’
‘Walter was a busy bee,’ I observe as I take a lovely plump cookie from the plate. I wish I could dunk it into my tea, but even I’m not crass enough to do that here, in front of a guy like Xavier.
He laughs. ‘He was. Not sure where he got his energy from. He was definitely a man with a fire in his belly, you know? He had such a clear vision, and it propelled him relentlessly forward. But I’m grateful, because it’s given us all this.’
‘Yeah.’ I sit back and survey the house.
The sun is getting lower in the sky, and it’s like a blowtorch, setting fire to the entire thing.
The windows shine like mirrors; the stone glows golden.
It makes me itch to take out a pencil. Not sure I’ll get much actual painting done this afternoon, but I can start to block out the composition.
‘I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I can’t stop staring at it.’
‘I know how you feel,’ Xavier says from beside me. His tone sounds casual, but when I turn my head to look at him, he’s staring straight at me. My lips part, and he blinks, looking hurriedly down at my biscuit. ‘You should definitely dunk that. They’re so good when they’ve softened.’