True Story (The Deverells, Book One)

by Jayne Fresina

  "This, Sally, is Mrs. Olivia Monday. My secretary. Olivia, this is Miss Sally White."

  "Secretary?"

  Olivia stretched her fingers out, letting the napkin fall to her lap. "How do you do, Miss White."

  Sally merely twitched her small nose and looked back at Deverell. "Well, you know where to find me, when those cold winter nights set in. Ol' Sally will warm you up again."

  "Yes." True smiled. "I know."

  The inn-keeper called for her and slowly she walked away, collecting empty tankards from another table and stopping to chat with a group of laughing, ruddy-faced men by the ale taps.

  Olivia picked up her pasty and ate, filling her mouth before she might feel the urge to say anything. All that needed to be said in that regard had come out last night and she would gladly move on, away from the subject of his previous female attachments. She looked out of the window to watch horses being prepared for a fine carriage.

  "No comment?" her companion asked gruffly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  She widened her eyes. "About what?"

  "Women I've had? Women I've tumbled? I suppose you want to know if Sally's one of 'em."

  "Why would it concern me?"

  "It was one night I spent with her a few years back. With her and her sisters. Can't remember all their names. Four or five hearty lasses."

  A piece of pastry went down the wrong way and made her cough.

  He was so brutally honest, it was painful. But better that, she supposed, than have him try to deceive her. "I know all about the way you lead your life. You've made it clear to me."

  It was also evident to her now that he would not change for anybody. Would she want him to? He was the same all the way through and one would always know what to expect. Born wild, making his own rules. Not only had he survived against the odds that way, but thrived. Why should he change? Especially when he thought it would make him weaker and vulnerable if he opened his heart to one woman.

  She understood. They all had their own way of getting on with life, overcoming obstacles and who was to say that her method was better than his?

  The awkwardness, the immoral propositions, the naughty sense of humor, his brusque, eccentric ways were all a part of what made him. And made him strangely attractive to her. Olivia wouldn't want the man to be anybody but who he truly was. She must simply decide where she fit in his life, whether she had a purpose there that went beyond the post she'd accepted.

  Perhaps she was not only meant to help write his story, but to be a part of it too.

  But before she could say any of that, Miss Sally White was back, this time with a message from someone who waited behind the paneled walls of the private dining room.

  "One of the guests wants to see you, Mr. Deverell. If you can spare the time, she says."

  "She?" He scowled.

  "Aye." She glanced at Olivia and smirked. "Very fine lady. The one they say was once your lady wife."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Her name, he learned, was Lady Charlotte Rothsey. She reminded him of a porcelain statue, all frail, cool, smooth edges. And she walked in on the arm of Lord Henry Duquesne. A man whose face and name True had never forgotten. It was the man that interested him more than the woman. Why wouldn't it be thus, since this was supposedly his father?

  Duquesne; a man with a bad temper, so it was said. A violent, cold-hearted man, spoiled and arrogant.

  There was always a chance that he was not responsible for the feral boy who once ran wild on his own father's estate, but it was just as likely that he was. No one would ever know. Not even Henry Duquesne, who had probably fathered many bastards and cared what became of none.

  He studied the man's face and saw how bloated it was, over-filled with pride and self-contentment. Duquesne paraded his fiancée about as if she was the prize-winning sow at a country fair and she, unknowing and uncaring, bathed in the attention, her lips ever wide in a silly, empty smile. But yes, she was a handsome woman, a thoroughbred— elegant and fashionable. She was the kind of woman other men fought after.

  True made up his mind that he would have her. Just to get his vengeance on the Duquesne's. Let them raise a child of his without knowing.

  Yet, in the end, he found that he could not let his own cub be left to their mercy. He was not as heartless as he thought he should be.

  He was not his father's son, after all, but capable of deep feelings for a being not yet born. And he was fraught with doubts about his abilities to be a father. He did not know what to do with this emotion. Like any beast of the farmyard, what he did not know or understand cast suspicion in his mind and so he kept his distance from it.

  * * * *

  "What the hell are you doing here, Charlotte?"

  Her bitter gaze— always looking for some reason to claim she'd been misused or slighted— traveled greedily over him as he walked up to her corner table. She was the only customer in the private room, sitting there like an empress, dining in solitary splendor. A sneer curled her lip lazily upward. "Since you refuse to answer my letters, I was on my way to pay you a visit. Imagine my surprise when I heard you were here, in the public salon. To my relief I shan't have to take the barbarous trip out onto that island in this foul weather. I can handle my business here and now."

  "I'm busy, Charlotte. If you have any matter to discuss regarding the children, you know how to—"

  "I didn't realize I'd be intruding on a pleasant tete a tete, but I'm sure your companion can wait a half hour. She has nowhere else to go, does she?"

  His shock at suddenly seeing her again was now joined by a fast rising temper, and considerable suspicion. Perhaps it would be a good thing to deal with her now, rather than have her come out to Roscarrock.

  "What could possibly be so important that you came all this way?" He knew she hated Cornwall and would avoid the place unless she saw some opportunity to twist a knife in his gut.

  Now she invited him to sit at her table, but he refused.

  "Just get on with it," he snapped, impatient for pleasanter company.

  "Very well. My father will pay for Raven's wedding and I suggest you don't interfere. He wants to hold it in Edinburgh and Raven is in agreement."

  True suddenly had a toothache. He pressed on the troubled spot with the tip of his tongue.

  "And Raven doesn't want you at the wedding. You're an embarrassment to her."

  Her words were like a punch to his stomach, forcing him back into a chair on the opposite side of her round table.

  Charlotte continued without even looking at him, helping herself to broth from the china tureen on the table before her. "You will, no doubt, be tiresome about it, but I've told my father to proceed with the plan as he sees fit. We would like a spring wedding. I thought I'd better come in person and tell you. It is, apparently, beyond your capabilities to write a civil letter and I realize you may not even bother reading anything I send."

  He realized how shrill she was. Surely he'd noticed it before, but somehow tonight it was worse than he remembered it. Now, of course, he was accustomed to a gentler voice at his table— someone with a warmer, richer timbre, and, more often than not, a hint of wry amusement in her tone. Charlotte had no sense of humor. When she laughed it was because she had succeeded in making someone uncomfortable. It was generally amusing to no one else.

  True had been rubbing his knuckles on his thigh so hard he feared he might wear a hole in the corduroy riding breeches. He had to find something to do with his hands because whenever she dangled his children about like bait, his fingers always wanted to squeeze around her neck.

  "If my daughter is to marry, I will pay for it," he muttered. "It is my responsibility. Nothing to do with Lord Rothsey." He would never agree to a wedding in Scotland, so far away. On Rothsey's turf.

  "But plans are already underway." She waved a hand carelessly, making the candle flames dance like yellow butterflies.

  "Then you'd better stop them, hadn't you?"

  She scowled h
ard. "Raven wants to marry in Edinburgh."

  "When I see her at Christmas, she can tell me that herself."

  "Christmas?"

  "I have written to invite my daughter and her young man to Roscarrock for the Yuletide season."

  His former wife sputtered in shock. "You don't even celebrate."

  "This year, I shall."

  "Raven won't come here."

  "That's up to her."

  Charlotte's cheeks looked very thin tonight, and there were new lines at the corner of her mouth. When she forgot herself and allowed her brow to wrinkle, the creases were deeper than he recalled. No doubt he had a few more lines on his face too. Olivia would be sure to point them out for him, he mused. "I can't think what you plan to achieve by inviting them here," Charlotte grumbled. "If you mean to try dissuading her against marriage—"

  "I don't mean to dissuade her against anything."

  "Then why?" she exclaimed. "What good will it do if she comes here?"

  "Whatever she decides about this marriage, I would like to make peace with my daughter."

  "Make. Peace? Make. Peace?" She howled with laughter, tipping her head back. "You? You wouldn't know how. You settle quarrels with your fists or your money. I doubt that's changed."

  "You haven't known me for a long time. In fact never. Not properly. We weren't interested in learning about each other."

  "Just as you never bothered to learn anything about Raven. Never had time for her. She's just another irritating woman in your eyes. And she knows not to trust you. I've given her good warning not to."

  He pressed his tongue against the toothache again, and made it worse. Good. "I'm sure you have. And I've allowed that folly to continue because of my own bull-headed stupidity."

  "I don't follow."

  "You are right, Charlotte, when you say I know little about my own daughter. As I promised her in my letter, I will amend that when she comes back. Fortunately it's not too late for me to grow up and be an adult. A proper father."

  She swallowed, fingers to the pearl choker around her slender throat, almost as if she could feel his hands there, squeezing. "Raven won't come here," she repeated flatly.

  "We'll see. By the way, you're not invited for Christmas." He would get that clear immediately.

  "Heavens I wouldn't want to be. I have plans in London. I'm on my way there now."

  He nodded briskly, glad of it.

  Now she tapped her fork to her plate, watching him with a thoughtful gleam in her eye. "So ... that funny-looking girl in the ugly grey dress...where did you find her?"

  "Her name is Olivia Monday."

  "She looks very young."

  "She's not as young as she looks."

  "And dour."

  He said nothing to that.

  "What's she doing here? Surely you're not sleeping with her. She's not your sort."

  "That's none of your business. And since when have you known anything about my sort?"

  "No need to be defensive," she sneered. "I was merely trying to make conversation."

  True considered her powdered, rouged face and those stiff curls placed artfully against her brow. Conversation? Highly unlikely. "If that's all..." He got up, eager to leave the room and that stale air tainted by her presence.

  But she stopped him. "Wait."

  Ah, his former wife hadn't come so far out of her way just to rub his face in the Earl's plans for Raven.

  Did she want money again? Likely. But she didn't usually take this long to ask for it.

  "These memoirs you're writing," she said. "You had better not slander me in them, or I'll sue."

  So that was it. "Who told you?" He didn't think any of her children knew about his memoirs and Chalke was sworn to secrecy. Damon, Justify and Storm would have nothing to do with her, of course.

  If a python could smile, it would look just like that, he thought. "I'm warning you. Say one bad word about me in this True Story of yours and I'll take you for every last penny."

  "You've already tried that, Charlotte."

  "Yes, but you keep getting richer, while I get poorer."

  "Then I suggest you curb your expensive habits. Or find a way to earn money yourself. Stop waiting for it to fall into your lap."

  "A lady doesn't work for money," she exclaimed.

  "And you father cannot support you?"

  "My father does his best."

  He was amused to hear that. The Earl of Rothsey was notoriously tight-fisted with his coin and Charlotte had always complained about her father's failure to spoil her. It was probably one of the reasons why she ran after True all those years ago— mud in the eye for the pompous skinflint earl, and also, of course, she had stuck her claws into an abundant vein of riches. A very generous vein.

  "It's getting late," he muttered. "You must excuse me. I need to get back to Roscarrock." She dabbed her napkin against those perfectly bowed, poisonous lips. "There is one more thing before you go."

  He sighed. "What?"

  She tittered in a girlish manner that had always made him cringe, even when she was a girl. "You don't know anything about that woman, do you? Has she pulled the wool over your eyes too?"

  "If you refer to Olivia Monday, yes I do. I know she is nothing like you. Thankfully."

  That only partially curbed her foolish noises. "But you don't know the truth about her." She slithered upward from her chair. "Three times a widow, I'm told. And yet she's only young. Don't you wonder whether it was misfortune, carelessness... or something else?"

  "What the hell do you —"

  "And she's desperately in love with her own stepbrother. Has moped after him for years, since she was sixteen. That's why she came here to heal her broken heart, because he's about to marry another woman and she cannot bear to see it. Has she told you that?"

  Somehow he kept his temper and his countenance.

  Charlotte moved closer, laughing. "Do be careful with her. You might not escape another attempt on your life. Even cats have a limit, and she's proven herself adept in the art of snuffing out inconvenient men. Just thought I should warn you. For old time's sake."

  "Then let me return the favor, Charlotte, and warn you likewise. Stay away from her, and from me and from Roscarrock."

  His former wife had sat to resume her dinner, but could not resist adding, "I received an interesting letter all about your mysterious new secretary, from her stepbrother who is most concerned about what might be going on between you."

  True felt his fury mounting. "If he is worried for his stepsister, perhaps he should express his fears to me directly."

  She laughed. "I'm not sure that she is the one for whom he fears."

  * * * *

  Olivia waited in her seat, as instructed by her employer. She would have preferred to wait outside in the fresh air, but rain was falling harder now and, of course, she had no umbrella. No, she would stay and be composed, as if her heart was not racing. As if it did not matter that he was with his former wife in the private dining room of the inn. His former wife. To Olivia it didn't feel very "former" at that moment.

  It must be some matter regarding their children, she thought. That would always be the one thing that they shared. As True had said, the children were her link to his money, even now. It was also the one way his former wife knew how to get his attention, because of his affection for those children. They were his one weakness, and it was more than an instinctual bond, whether he wanted to believe it or not.

  He had married the most glamorous woman of the season twenty-three years ago— or thereabouts. True Deverell had seen her, wanted her and stolen her away from her fiancé, who may or may not have been his own father. He got what he wanted on that occasion, just as he boasted he always did. But it had bitten him in the behind when he found out that beauty was only skin deep.

  Far from the first man to learn that lesson, she thought glumly.

  She dreaded and yet yearned for a sight of Lady Charlotte— morbidly curious to know if she was as beautiful as
rumor had it.

  A terrible, hollow ache had started in her chest.

  Half of her pasty sat untouched on the plate for she had no appetite now.

  As she looked out of the window again and watched windblown lines of gray rain streaking across the inn yard, a woman passed her view, moving swiftly from the door of the building toward that fancy carriage. A young man in livery escorted her with his head bent against the rain.

  Olivia stared, quite sure it must be the lady herself. Who else would be so well dressed in that place? There could not be two fine ladies dining at The Fisherman's Rest on this bumpy road so far from civilization. It had to be Lady Charlotte.

  The woman was tall, slender, her hands sunk into a huge fox-fur muff, her hair topped by an extravagant bonnet trimmed in the same reddish-brown fur. She was every bit as stunning to look at as Olivia had imagined, every inch as beautiful as a "diamond of the first water" should be. It was easy to see how she was once the debutante of the season, with a half dozen suitors trailing after her.

  Lady Charlotte was laughing and through the warped glass of the very old, crooked window her face was grotesquely distorted for a moment. It sent chills down Olivia's spine.

  A bitter frost seemed suddenly to cling to everything in the place, as if the fire had gone out and all the lamps too. Where before it had been warm and cheerful in that busy room— sanctuary from the dismal weather— it was now gloomy, menacing, unwelcoming. Olivia thought she could even hear ice crystals cracking over the wallpaper and freezing the wicks inside the oil lamps.

  Where was Deverell? What kept him?

  Perhaps he'd forgotten about her, she mused darkly. It was easily done, of course.