True Story (The Deverells, Book One)

by Jayne Fresina

  "They are still."

  "You're waving them about all over the place." He used this as an excuse to grab her left hand, and Olivia felt her pulse quicken. His grip was very strong, crushing her fingers.

  She tried— she really tried. But it was no good. Unable to bear his scrutiny, which felt twice as fierce as Inspector O'Grady's, she pulled her fingers away from his grip and put both hands behind her back.

  "Mrs. Monday, you are being truculent again."

  "I am not, sir," she exclaimed breathlessly. "I gave you long enough to study them. They are quite innocent and capable."

  "Hmm. The former, I have yet to ascertain. The latter I will agree with, although what exactly they are capable of remains to be seen." He grinned in that lopsided way. "I confess I can't wait to discover it for myself."

  He was testing her, she sensed. Trying his boundaries.

  "You had better behave, sir, or you just might find out."

  She knew she should never have said it, but there it was. He drew out the worst in her, it seemed.

  Rather than be put off by this remark, his eyes gleamed polished silver. "Shall I be spanked and sent to a corner?"

  "If that's necessary, sir."

  "You'd have to catch me first. I'm very fast."

  Olivia arched an eyebrow. Perhaps, despite his love of tales, he'd never heard the fable of the tortoise and the hare.

  "But only when I don't want to be caught," he added slyly.

  "I'll bear that in mind then, sir."

  He fell back into his chair, making it creak loudly. "Shakespeare's Olivia, if I recall correctly, declares herself in mourning for seven years— until she falls stupidly in love with Cesario, simply because he has a habit of saying exactly what he thinks, not coating his words with honey for the lady."

  "Oh?"

  "But it turns out that Cesario is a woman living in disguise as a man. So there is a lesson for you, Mrs. Monday."

  "Never to fall in love with a woman dressed as a man?"

  He laughed. "Or...first impressions can be misleading. People are not always what they appear to be, or... what they want you to believe."

  Olivia suddenly felt as if he had somehow stripped her naked with the sharp edge of his steel-grey gaze.

  It was, by no means, as unpleasant a sensation as it should be, but every pore on her body felt the wicked caress of that blade, whispering over the surface of her skin.

  Chapter Eight

  There were few things worse than an itch one couldn't scratch. This particular itch was moving around his limbs like an adventurous flea, but he sensed it was not caused by a tiny insect. He was fine, not a disturbance anywhere on his person, before she came in.

  He eyed Mrs. Monday cautiously, wondering what part of her might be causing this reaction. She wore another day gown of dreary grey. It could be the same as she wore yesterday, for there was nothing distinctive about this one; it was equally dismal, a shade only slightly lighter than wet mud.

  He imagined how she would look in blue. It would bring out the rich brown of her eyes, which were actually quite pretty, he supposed. When they weren't being scornful.

  This morning she remained a mystery, gripping her secrets with determined fingers, but he would trick them out of her hands somehow.

  Still young enough to remarry and not completely unattractive in daylight— well, it would help if she unpursed her lips and loosened her poor hair from its tightly-wound, unforgiving knot— she'd severely endangered her reputation by agreeing to live under his roof for half a year. That would lessen her chances of finding another suitor. Did she understand the consequences? She must; she clearly was not stupid.

  Yes, now that he was over the shock of finding her in his kitchen last night— a woman quite different to what he had expected— he could admit she was not so very plain.

  Damn that drunken sot, Abraham Chalke, for sending such an unsuitable woman. Fellow must once again be downing four bottles of Madeira daily.

  Since Mrs. Monday had enjoyed a full night's sleep, he ought to send her packing and put her on the next coach back to civilization for her own good. She may as well go safely back inland with his son today. He could give her the money he'd promised, even slip a little extra into her trunk for the inconvenience. When she wasn't looking, of course, because she was clearly the self-suffering, dignified sort who wouldn't take charity, and then he—

  "I'll need paper," she said suddenly.

  "Paper?"

  "To write. As your secretary. The position for which you hired me, sir."

  Apparently she thought she was staying and saw no issue with this chafing of their personalities. Now would be the time to tell her to pack her trunk, but instead he said, "Paper? Really?"

  "To write."

  "Ah."

  "And ink."

  "Ink? Good lord."

  She exhaled a soft sigh. "And a pen, sir."

  "Did you not bring these strange, otherworldly materials with you, Mrs. Monday?"

  "No. I assumed—"

  "This is why women should not venture into employment outside the home. They're not thinkers. I suppose you packed your frilly petticoats and hair brushes, but entirely forgot the tools of the trade for which you were hired."

  The woman unclenched her lips to exclaim, "I have some personal writing materials, which might be used until you can provide me with others."

  "Sakes no, Mrs. Monday! I would not purloin your personal things for my own use."

  "Then what do you suggest—?"

  He pointed with his riding crop, and she looked over her shoulder to the small painted bureau by the wall. "I believe you'll find everything you need within it."

  She glared at him, her slender brows drawn together like two pulled stitches. "Would it not have been simpler to tell me that from the start?"

  "But not nearly so much fun."

  Sims appeared in the open doorway, looking annoyed. "Breakfast is finally served, sir."

  True leapt to his feet. "Aha! Very good. I'm famished. What about you, Mrs. Monday? Of course, you stayed under the covers enjoying my hospitality like a lazy slug-a-bed this morning, until long after the lark had gone about his business. You have had no chance to work up an appetite yet, I suppose."

  She hesitated, half way between his desk and the bureau, her countenance trying to stay vexed with him, but the lure of food on the horizon apparently caused her quite a challenge. The creature certainly looked in need of a good meal before he sent her back to Chiswick. If he told her now that her services weren't required she'd probably go off — alone and in a prim huff —to the mainland, looking for the next mail coach. Who knew when she'd have the opportunity to eat well again? No, he wouldn't let her run off unescorted or unfed. Or unpaid.

  With winter coming the woman needed a new pair of walking boots. No doubt, many more things besides.

  He directed the point of his riding crop toward the door. "Let us make haste before my greedy calf devours it all. He must be ravenous since we delayed breakfast to wait for you."

  "For me?"

  "Of course. While you lay snoring snugly abed, the inhabitants of the house tip-toed about for fear of waking you. Sims was instructed to hold breakfast until you finally came down, and as you can see it has made him most irritated. So, to the dining room, if you please."

  With those "innocent and capable" fingers she clung to the pleats of her dull skirt. "But I should eat in the kitchen...surely."

  "Why? Do you have some dreadful habit you don't want me to see? Wooden teeth to take out before you eat?"

  "I meant that I am a member of the staff, Mr. Deverell. Not family."

  "I do not stand on ceremony here at Roscarrock. This is my kingdom, and we live by my rules." He smirked. "Or lack of them."

  Again she hesitated, fingers restlessly rearranging and smoothing down the world's ugliest frock.

  Too hungry himself to wait any longer, he said, "Remember, Mrs. Monday, there is no room for contention on t
his island. When I make a command it must be followed. Should I steer you onward with the crop?" He swung his arm toward the door again. "Cush, cush, as they call to herd the cows. Did I just hear your dignified insides let out a rumble, madam?"

  Her eyes flared. She took a deep, noisy breath and, with her head held high, she followed Sims out of the room.

  * * * *

  Damon Deverell was already seated at the table and he looked only faintly surprised to see her there. He did, however, stand when she came in, which showed he had acquired some manners from somewhere.

  "Fog's lifting, father," the boy muttered, dropping back to his seat and stuffing another slice of ham into his mouth. A slice which slid down so speedily it did not impede his speech at all. "So the coach shouldn't be held up. You'll be rid of me before noon."

  "Excellent. You can take—" His father caught Olivia's eye and after a short pause continued, "some of Mrs. B's seed cake back with you. She told me yesterday that she was making one for you, spoiling you as usual."

  The two men were soon involved in a conversation as if she was not there. Apparently Damon had damaged a curricle belonging to one of the masters at his school. His father, rather than reprimand the boy, muttered, "I'll send you back with some money to recompense the fellow. Enough so he can cease his whining and buy himself a half-dozen blasted curricles."

  After that, they spoke of horses and the sport of racing, soon completely losing Olivia in that jargon.

  She slyly perused his son's face and marked all the similarities between the two men. Both were dark in coloring— apart from the very slight advance of silver visible at the father's temples. Both had sharp features that gave them a very distinctive profile. Theirs were the sort of faces one saw at museum exhibits— tough, merciless, awe-inspiring Roman Generals carved for posterity in marble. They were both loud, and had a habit of speaking before the other had finished a sentence. She suspected that neither really listened to the other, each too determined to get their own point across.

  Damon is the younger of my two sons by a mistress, Emma Gibson.

  What must it be like, she wondered, to grow up knowing one was illegitimate? Not only that, but to be raised in such a family where one's father — who was occasionally shot at—made a fortune from gambling, and where a scandalous divorce was procured at great cost, played out in all the papers. It could not have felt very stable and secure for the boy. Olivia knew, from her own experiences, that everyone needed stability, every soul searched for that elusive somewhere to belong.

  "Why did you take this post, Mrs. Monday?" the young man abruptly demanded.

  She hastily dragged her mind back to the present. "It was recommended to me by a gentleman who worked with my father. In a solicitor's office."

  "It is unusual for a woman of your class to take employment, is it not? What happened to your husband?"

  It would be futile, no doubt, to wait for his father's intervention. Deverell had already made some attempt himself to dig out her reasons for being there, so he would hardly prevent his son's bold interrogation. Olivia set her coffee cup down. "My last husband died over a year ago. Once I was out of full mourning I did not wish to continue being a burden on my relatives and when this opportunity arose, I took it."

  "Your last husband? There was more than one?"

  Inside Olivia a small groan erupted and was quenched. "Yes. I have been married three times."

  "And all are dead?"

  Still his father made no attempt to halt the questioning. In fact, he looked at her with even keener curiosity than his son.

  "Yes."

  "Were they very old?"

  "Not particularly. The deaths were all accidental."

  "Forgive me, Mrs. Monday, but you do not act in the manner expected of a grieving widow," Inspector O'Grady of the London Metropolitan Police had remarked when he found her cleaning mashed potato from the hall tiles.

  "I was not aware I had an expectation to fulfill. Do tell me how I am supposed to act and I shall, of course, try to comply." And she scrubbed harder at those tiles, grinding her teeth.

  "I have not seen you shed a tear, madam."

  "If you knew me, Inspector, you would know I'm not the kind of woman to melt in a paroxysm of tears unless I'm chopping onions."

  Her father had never cried. It was not the done thing in her family. One simply took the blows and carried on.

  "Crikey," young Damon exclaimed, finally pausing his greedy consumption of ham.

  She picked up her coffee again, ignoring the sickness that suddenly twisted inside at the memory of William Monday's puffy, ashen face staring up from the murky green water of the lake into which he'd fallen when the old wooden footbridge broke under him. The Coroner's theory was that the weeds became tangled around his vestments and dragged his body under. At such an early hour no one else had been passing, no one heard his cries for help.

  Inspector O'Grady of the London Metropolitan Police— as he always introduced himself, no matter how many times he paid a visit—could not believe it happened that way, and neither could Lord Frost, the local magistrate, who had called O'Grady in to investigate the death. They both seemed convinced that Olivia had some part in her husband's demise.

  "A young woman with three husbands buried," O'Grady had muttered, "seems more than a coincidence, don't you think, madam?"

  To which she had replied, "Perhaps, when I married them, I should have asked for a guarantee of life expectancy. Men just don't last the way they used to."

  Inspector O'Grady of the London Metropolitan Police was not amused.

  Neither man at the breakfast table said how sorry they were or gave Olivia any of the usual platitudes. She found it something of a relief.

  "How long were you married?" her youthful interrogator continued.

  "Twelve days the first time. Three months the second. Almost five years the last time."

  "And you have no children?"

  "No. None."

  "How did you manage that? Didn't you want any?"

  At last his father intervened. "That's enough, Damon!"

  "I was merely trying to understand why a respectable woman would risk her reputation by coming here to work for you and wondering why there was no one with the sense to stop her, not even a child to keep her at home and out of your way."

  "Well, don't be such a damnably nosy brat. It's none of your business. Now, apologize to Mrs. Monday for distressing her. She's a proper lady. I know you haven't had much experience of those, Damon— none of us have— but now she's here this is your chance to learn how not to make a fool of yourself. She knows it's too late for me, but your clay isn't dry yet."

  The boy's face flushed scarlet and he snapped out a sullen, "I am sorry, madam. Do forgive me."

  Olivia nodded. "That's quite alright."

  "No, it isn't. Don't let him off that easily! It's not his place to ask you impertinent, personal questions." Deverell gave her a sly grin. "Those are for me to ask."

  Tense silence fell over the table. She watched the young man buttering his toast with vicious slashes of a knife blade.

  Clearing her throat she said, "As a matter of fact, I would have liked children, Master Damon. But God did not see fit to bless me with any."

  The boy's gaze flashed across at her with something like surprise and gratitude. He fidgeted in his seat and stole a sideways glance at his father. "Hmph. Odd, isn't it, how some people who want children can't have any, while others have a surfeit that they didn't want and don't know what to do with."

  Her employer opened his lips to speak, but Olivia beat him to it. "God works in mysterious ways. He knows what is better for us, even if we don't know it for ourselves. Perhaps God saw that Mr. Deverell needed so many children."

  "For what purpose?" the boy exclaimed.

  "Oh, to keep him busy and teach him patience, perhaps. Make him look where he's going."

  The man at the end of the table exclaimed, "And you needed no lesson in the eyes of the
almighty, eh, Mrs. Monday? No such occupation to keep you out of trouble?"

  "Certainly not. I've always been perfect. Never put a foot wrong."

  She caught True Deverell's eye and saw an odd flicker of something she'd never seen in anyone's regard when they looked at her. Whatever it was, it kept him from replying and he quickly hid his lips behind the rim of a coffee cup.

  It left her feeling slightly breathless.

  * * * *

  God works in mysterious ways, eh? He'd heard that before. Did that account for what happened to her three husbands too? How did she explain those deaths being the providential work of her benevolent, all-knowing god? Now, perhaps, was not a good time to ask. She seemed in a better mood this morning and he'd prefer to keep her that way. Let his son ask the questions and take the blame.

  She was certainly entertaining Damon. It was a while since they'd had a woman about the place, as Jameson had observed.

  He scowled, pushing a piece of ham around his plate. What was he going to do with this woman who was so unlike the one he'd asked for? Sending Mrs. Monday back to Chiswick would mean having to find another secretary willing to put up with him, and it took Chalke over a year to find this one. Irksome.

  His thoughts were soon torn away from that dilemma, however, by the arrival of a letter. Sims carried it to him on a silver tray, announcing solemnly, "Mrs. Blewett brought this over with her this morning, sir, from the farm."

  It was unusual for important letters not to be carried across by his first-born illegitimate son, Storm, who managed the mainland farm belonging to Roscarrock Castle. Unless the letter contained something that Storm knew would put his father in a rage, then he wisely avoided handling the missive himself and sent it over via the cook, who divided her time between farm and castle— and who couldn't read a word, so she was blissfully ignorant of anything such a note might contain.

  A sense of unease immediately settled over True as he reached for the sealed letter. When he recognized his former wife's handwriting the sick feeling in his gut multiplied. Storm would have recognized it too, and a letter from that woman could only ever contain bad news.