True Story (The Deverells, Book One)
Page 2
"Think of you?" He finally looked down at her. Was she blushing? Hard to tell in the dim light of one oil lamp, but the odds were against it. A bashful woman wouldn't come knocking on his door, and one attired in frilly garters beneath layers of costly lace and silk petticoat, meant for them to be seen and appreciated. He'd only seen women dressed this way in Parisian bordellos.
"Being engaged...and yet sneaking into your room. Like this." She ran a fingernail down his bared chest, and trailed it through the dark curls of hair. "I don't know what came over me."
A few years ago he wouldn't have cared that she had a fiancé, anymore than he would care if she had a husband. If a woman grew bored and came seeking him out for a stolen interlude, why disappoint her? Women were created for sport. They existed for man's pleasure.
Except for his own daughter, of course, he thought sharply. Damn.
And there lay the crux of the matter— the reason for these unsettled thoughts.
He was the father of a fifteen year-old girl and constantly reminded of this discomforting fact: where once he was the fox, now he was the farmer.
He suffered a painful pinch in his gut, followed by a rapid deflating. Again he looked down at Miss Pridemore, who must have a father somewhere and who he really shouldn't have let into his room.
It was no good; he had completely lost the desire to proceed.
Abruptly he rolled off the bed and pulled up his breeches. "I'm afraid I must say good evening, madam. It was a mistake to let you into my room tonight. Forgive me, but I'm much too tired and won't be able to entertain you after all."
The pink ribbon of her mouth unraveled downward at the corners. Her eyes looked puzzled. "I...I suppose I ought to call off my engagement now."
"Whatever you think best," he muttered, bemused. "I am the last man in the world to ask about marriage and commitment." Searching in the dim light for his shirt, which had previously been tossed to the carpet, he added, "But since you came after me like a bitch in heat tonight, I'd advise you to carefully consider your motives in marrying. Before you ruin a few innocent lives."
He really thought he was being helpful.
Apparently not.
The silk slipper, hurled at the back of his head, narrowly missed as he ducked at the same moment to retrieve his shirt.
"A bitch in heat?" she exclaimed. "How dare you?!"
"In what other way might your behavior be described?" He saw no insult in it. Dogs, in his opinion, were an improvement on the human race. They knew what they needed to survive and went after it without excuses, procrastination and guilt. Dogs didn't lie.
"As if you did not encourage me!"
"Encourage you? Madam, when you arrived at my door with such clear intentions I thought it only polite to let you in."
Like most women he'd known, however briefly, she preferred another view of the circumstances that got her to his bed. God forbid, she take any responsibility on her own shoulders. "You are a wicked seducer! I don't know how you can look at yourself in the mirror."
He began to wonder if she was an actress. She was certainly performing now.
And then she added, "Attempting to deflower your own son's fiancée!"
"I beg your pardon?"
More rain blew in at his window, but he made no move to close it.
She snatched her slipper from his hand. "That's right, Mr. Deverell. Your own son. What do you suppose Ransom will have to say when I tell him about this?"
Ah. He might have known. History repeating itself — or rather, reversing itself, since it was he who once seduced his own father's fiancée.
This was unfortunate. He wasn't on the best of terms with his eldest, legitimate son and this would certainly put another cat among the pigeons. Ransom was a hot-head, always looking for an excuse to side with his mama, despite the fact that she'd never been the maternal type and used her children as nothing more than weapons and leverage against her former husband at every opportunity.
He cursed under his breath— didn't approve of his offspring at these parties, but some were old enough now to do as they pleased. And they did, taking after him in more ways than he cared to admit.
Ransom, he thought crossly, needed something to make use of his time and intelligence. Both were clearly being wasted. Better amend that at once.
"I didn't see my son downstairs tonight."
"That's the trouble, Mr. Deverell." Her laughter scratched at the air. "He says you never do see him."
"Nor did I hear about any engagement."
"He didn't want to tell you until tomorrow, after the other guests left. For some reason he's afraid of you and had to get up the gumption. So now what are you going to do?" The woman was triumphant, eyes agleam. "What would my silence be worth to you?"
"Silence about what? You came to my door begging to be let in. Fortunately, I retrieved my senses before anything really happened."
"That's my word against yours," she replied, lashes flapping. "Who do you think he'll believe? I'm sure you have some way to ensure my discretion. A pair of diamond earrings, perhaps. Like those they say once belonged to Marie Antoinette— that you demanded back from your wife when she left you. I'd happily take those as your wedding gift to a future daughter-in-law. Or some equal payment."
He watched her calmly as another flare of white lightning ripped across the angry sky and lit her smug face. "I'm not going to pay you a penny, Miss Pridemore. I wouldn't want you to feel like a blackmailing whore."
She squinted very slightly, her lips ruffled with a quick intake of breath.
"It matters not to me, whatever you tell my son," he added, shrugging into his waistcoat. "Firstly, at only nineteen he's too young to marry and, secondly, I'm aware my sons will attract women who want them for all the wrong reasons. My cubs have yet to learn that money is the motivating force for most females. You will, no doubt, be a harsh but necessary lesson for him."
"You really are a rotten bastard!"
"Precisely." He buttoned his waistcoat. "But despite my best efforts to go to my grave a selfish old rake, I still care about my ungrateful litter. Alas, I can't help myself. So if you don't tell him, perhaps I should."
"I doubt he would thank you for the lesson."
He sighed. "I have found fatherhood, on the whole, to be a thankless task."
"Fatherhood?" she spat. "From what he tells me, you don't know the meaning of the word."
"As well as you know the definition of fiancée."
The thwarted Miss Pridemore left in a flurry of perfumed lace and silk, flushed livid and muttering under her breath.
He kicked the door shut after her.
Well, that was no great loss. His son would recover. Deverells were resilient. They had to be.
Foolish woman. Had she simply asked him for money and explained honestly why she needed it, he would have given her some. But if there was one thing he couldn't abide it was vicious deceit, especially when it would hurt one of his litter.
Another rumble of thunder echoed overhead and he smiled, the tension in his shoulders relaxing.
He loved a good thunderstorm. It was said that an old gypsy woman had found him as a babe washed up on a Cornish beach after a shipwreck, during a particularly brutal tempest, so perhaps that was why it affected him. When Nature took its temper out on the land, bending trees with the power of its wrath and cracking a silver whip across the sky, True Deverell felt his blood surge with energy as if he was one with the storm, his body rejuvenated by it, reborn.
Once, at a very grand party he'd attended without an invitation, a gossiping old hag had exclaimed, "You, sir, will go back to hell the same way you came out of it. And the sooner the better."
Yes, many folk liked to tell him how they thought his end would come— if the hangman's noose or a vengeful victim of his astute card playing didn't get him first. True rather enjoyed the idea of meeting his end during a roll of thunder or a sizzling flare of lightening. In a storm like this one tonight, for instance.
"There is every chance you're right, madam," he'd replied. "I'm quite sure that as I came into this life between a woman's thighs, there is every chance I'll leave the same way. I certainly hope so."
Remembering that harpy's shocked, indignant face, his smile broadened. How satisfying it was to get the last word over her sort.
Funny how the upper classes felt they had a right to say anything they wanted to him, while he was supposed to mind his manners, just because he was a foundling. But despite Deverell's harsh beginnings, he was now a man of wealth and power. Society couldn't keep him out. They couldn't ignore him, because he had something they wanted— and yet he didn't need anything from them in return, and that troubled the upper classes. He wasn't one of their "sort" and never would be, but he had a damn good time making his presence felt among them. A stray dog worrying the sheep.
He straightened his cravat, smoothed a hand over his dark hair, and checked his reflection in the tall mirror as another blast of lightning lit the room. Wind filled the drapes behind his image so that they swelled and lifted, a backdrop of luxurious silken sails.
You are a wicked seducer! I don't know how you can look at yourself in the mirror. Attempting to deflower your own son's fiancée!
Deflower, indeed! He very much doubted there were any petals left to be plucked on that particular bloom.
He laughed and gave his twin in the mirror a cheery wink, which was, of course reciprocated.
That's how I look at myself, young lady, he mused. A man could always be sure of an understanding ally when he looked in the glass. No other soul would ever know him so well, would they?
Unless...perhaps one day, if he wrote his memoirs.
Not that he owed anyone an explanation, but really he ought to tell the whole story. His side. One day, once he felt he'd done all the living, he'd write a book about it. Then finally his children might understand—
Suddenly the door swung open and Ransom stood there with a pistol in one hand, pointed in a manner that left no question of his intent, despite the slightly weaving motion of that tall, lean body.
Thunder bounced and banged across the sky.
"Just couldn't keep it in your breeches could you, father?" Ransom slurred as he stumbled forward and his shoulder hit the doorframe.
There was a flash, a loud crack, and True Deverell had only one thought.
Damn. Should have started his memoirs sooner.
Chapter Three
The Coast of Cornwall
Half past seven in the evening, (an approximation due to circumstances of travel), Wednesday, August 31st, 1842.
The jagged cliff edge appeared to crumble away beneath them, and it was a mystery how the horses found their footing. Venturing to look out through the carriage window was not for the faint of heart, but while her traveling companions avoided the thrilling view on the left side of the vessel, Olivia admired it bravely, longing for a gulp of that fresh sea air. The interior of the coach was crowded, stale, and she was crushed so far into a corner that if the door should suddenly fly open she would undoubtedly tumble to her death.
It was not a prospect that worried her unduly.
Certainly there was little left for her on this side of the divide and if her end came about by catapulting out of a speeding carriage, the event would have a satisfyingly dramatic flourish. She pictured the curiously shaped dent her corpse would make in the wet sand below. Some mischievous person might carve a commemorative line into the cliff side.
In this place Olivia Westcott Ollerenshaw Pemberton Monday finally left a good impression.
A figure suddenly passed into view— a man on horseback galloping through the rippling waves of the pretty bay below, scattering a flock of gulls up against the strawberry sunset. The rider drew level with the coach and then, in a wild, frothy spray, pulled ahead with ease, leaving a mess of hoof marks across the formerly pristine sand.
Of course, any time there was a peaceful scene a man could be counted upon to spoil it.
While a woman riding alone in such a fashion would be subject to censure, that handsome creature was free to race with the wind and the tide, foam and seaweed flying up his riding boots and sticking to his breeches. He wore no coat, just the white sleeves of his shirt, curving like the sails of a racing frigate. He was hatless, his hair on the longer side, flowing defiantly free in the wind.
Shocking! As prickly old Great Aunt Jane was fond of exclaiming, Another example of standards slipping. Where shall we all be in twenty years when such liberties are taken with propriety?
Today Olivia agreed with her. Was the man on such an urgent mission that this state of undress was really necessary? Did he think he was a character in a gothic romance?
She shook her head, tut-tutting softly under her breath. Good thing she didn't have to do his laundry, whoever he was.
Despite his wild pace, she was forced to admit that he sat well in the saddle, managing the power of that horse with a firm hand and skilled thighs. Not that she ought to be looking at his thighs or even thinking of their bulging existence. That sort of thing had got her into trouble before, with her first husband— delightfully naughty Captain Ollerenshaw. Poor Freddy. Some would say she should have learned her lesson with Freddy.
"She's doing it again," she could hear her stepbrother exclaim in the distant corridors of her twisted mind. "Someone ought to stop her."
While Olivia was still thinking about not looking at the man on the horse, he lifted slightly from the saddle, showing a glimpse of taut, tidy buttock.
She must have sighed out loud then– or made some sound— for several faces turned to stare at her, their curiosity burning holes through her widow's veil.
Slowly she sank into the corner again, giving up her splendid view. When a heavy-breathing, red-faced gentleman seated opposite continued to stare at her while running a thick tongue over his sparse front teeth, she closed her eyes, escaped into darkness and willed the wheels to spin faster, the horses' hooves to sprout wings.
At last the coach turned right. Crackling and creaking like an old lung, it pulled into the yard of a noisy inn and came to a groaning, depressed halt. To Olivia's intense relief, all the remaining passengers emptied out, leaving the interior to her alone. No one else, it seemed, cared to venture farther along the rocky coastline today, and most of them looked back at her as if she was mad to try it.
But now she had the coach to herself. Heaven! So for those last few miles, back on the cliff road and winding downhill, she made an attempt, finally, at a real nap, only to be bounced savagely awake by a violent jolt just as she found a semi-comfortable spot for her head.
Tipping forward, her bottom almost sliding off the seat, she heard the coachman curse loudly—having no care for the ears of a lady— and then he yelled, "Can't get no further up yon lane. Mrs. be trottin' rest o' way to the Devil's 'Ell on her own hoofs before the tide comes in."
The Cornish accent was thick, but she caught enough of it to understand that this is where she was to be dumped out of the coach and left to her own fate. And yes, she was familiar by now with the name the locals had given to Roscarrock Castle— Devil's Hell. A charming alias full of wholesome, welcoming warmth.
The sunset had turned a sinister shade of blood and ochre, and the sound of the sea— once a distant, lazy sizzle over sand —was now closer, a rhythmic, disgruntled slapping against rock. The tide was coming in and before too long the rocky outcrop on which her destination crouched menacingly would be cut off from the mainland until tomorrow. If she didn't make haste to beat the sea's advance, she could be swept into the water and drowned.
Really, she thought in some bemusement, a man could not get much farther from civilization, or discourage it from visiting quite so effectively.
But Olivia was not afraid of the darkening sky, the encroaching tide, or of walking alone. Or of much at all, s
he liked to think. If she were, she wouldn't be there now, would she? Certainly enough people had warned her not to go, citing the dangerous reputation of the man who had— by letter and, as far as he knew, entirely sight unseen— engaged her as his secretary.
She opened the carriage door, took her hatbox from under the seat and climbed out while the grumbling coachman untied her trunk.
The remaining stretch of causeway shone damply ahead of her, seawater already pooling on the stone. It was a treacherous path of lumps and bumps leading to the steps that would take her up the side of a craggy island to the grim silhouette of the house.
At least the coachman had got her as far as he could. Olivia thanked him and counted some coins from her purse, laying each one carefully in the palm of his outstretched hand, while she felt his eyes staring at her, hard and disapproving.
"You sure now, Mrs.? T'aint much of a place for a frail bit o' woman like yerself. If yer mind be changed, I can take yer back with me to the town."
Frail bit of woman? Olivia wanted to laugh. She was eight and twenty, had survived three husbands, a jilting fiancé and five wet winters in the same pair of walking-boots so shamefully full of holes that she never dared change in or out of them in the company of others. She may not possess great beauty or a heavy purse, but having never known circumstances that were anything other than reduced, she was adaptable, capable and never balked at a challenge. "No. Thank you. I shall be quite alright."
He looked at her again as if he thought her unhinged. "You do know about yon feller and his wicked ways, since backalong eh?"
"I do indeed." She'd even met him once, ten years ago—well she'd met his large stubborn feet anyway— when he stepped over her in her father's office.
"It ain't put you off?"
"Not at all. I am not afraid of my employer."
"Employer?" The coachman's scowl deepened another few notches. It was not considered genteel and certainly it was rare for a lady of "good" family to earn a living, but Olivia considered this attitude remarkably cavalier, since it assumed that all such ladies would find a man willing to keep them fed and warm— and in fine shoes— until the end of their days. What if she never found a man? Or what if she found several and they kept dying tragically and in near poverty, until she was finally left with nothing but some books, walking boots full of holes and the very small portion left to her by her father? A portion, by the way, that could barely cover the cost of an annual coal supply for a small house. Then, that unfortunate widow would become a burden to relatives, or at the mercy of the parish and sent to the workhouse.