True Story (The Deverells, Book One)

by Jayne Fresina

  "May I kiss you?"

  She swallowed, considering his lips for a moment. "Very well."

  So he did, lingering gently and deeply, as she'd never been kissed before. And as she never would be kissed again, until she cast her foolish rules aside.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The next day she was back before him as if nothing had happened, her hair bound in that braid and knotted at the nape of her neck, her frock was another grey monstrosity. But he didn't see it anymore. He saw the woman within it. The woman who had bound him in silk ropes and tormented his nipples.

  She must have seen his face change when he looked at her. As much as he tried to hide his thoughts the way she did, it was impossible.

  "I do hope we can get on with our work," she said sharply. "Now that...other... distraction has been removed."

  Removed? She made their lovemaking sound like an inconvenient extra limb that had to be amputated.

  Lovemaking.

  Never in his forty odd years had he ever called it that. Why the hell was he starting with that nonsense now?

  He rubbed his lower lip and examined her small, prim face. There was definitely a twinkle in her eye that had not been there before. She sat quickly, all business. But he knew she had written again to her stepbrother— faithful Sims had informed him of a letter. He supposed he'd have to wait to find out what was in it and whether she'd told the impertinent fellow that she meant to stay longer than six months.

  True reached into his desk drawer and took out the two halves of a blue silk ribbon. "I believe these are yours." He set them on the blotter, laying each one out carefully in a straight line.

  She licked her lips. "Ah, yes." But as she moved to snatch them up, he laid his own hand over the ribbons. "I very much enjoyed our...distraction."

  "I'm glad."

  "Did you?"

  Looking down, she hid her eyes. "Yes."

  "It was nice, was it?"

  With a heavy sigh, she exclaimed, "Perhaps you forgot the third rule."

  He huffed, raised his hand and allowed her to reclaim the ribbons.

  "Now, may we get on?"

  * * * *

  Of course, she'd known he wouldn't make it easy for her. But Olivia had not been prepared for the onslaught that came from within, joining in his effort to leave her a shattered wreck.

  It must be faced; a taste of him had not been enough to quell her appetite.

  Having experienced the comfort of drifting off in his arms just once, she could no longer get a full night's contented sleep in her own bed. The pores of her skin awoke when he was near, even if she merely heard his voice approaching, or the sound of his whistling— the Sailor's Hornpipe, of all unlikely things.

  Despite this, she kept to her rule. There was nothing else to be done with a man who claimed he could not love.

  If the other staff noticed a shift in the air, they made no mention of it. With the young Deverells all due home soon there was not much time to waste, in any case, and Olivia was pleased to help prepare the other bedrooms, glad to absorb herself in practical matters when she was not needed in his library.

  But always he was in the back of her mind, galloping through it without a care for the mess he left behind.

  She had cause before to suspect he entered her room occasionally without informing her— for instance the time he returned the money to her reticule. But she soon knew it for sure when she came back from a chilly walk along the sand and found a new pair of boots waiting for her by the fire in her bed chamber. There was no note of explanation, just the boots.

  Naturally he wouldn't leave a note, she mused. As Storm had told her, the master of the house didn't think it necessary to explain himself.

  In return, the next time she went to Truro with his son, she used the money her employer had slipped into her purse to purchase the stubborn fellow the one thing she knew he didn't have. An umbrella.

  She left it in his room while he was out one morning, and she couldn't resist tying a blue ribbon around the leather handle.

  That evening, as they worked together on his memoirs, True was clearly not concentrating. He paced the room, poked the fire, rearranged his desk, opened and closed the window...until finally she suggested gently, "Perhaps we should come back to this tomorrow?"

  He rounded on her at once. "Why did you buy me that umbrella?"

  Taken aback by his cross tone, she sat for a moment in silence.

  "What is the meaning of it?" he demanded, jaw thrust out, arms folded.

  "It was a gift," Olivia replied eventually, fingers clasping the pleats of her skirt. "It is customary to exchange gifts in the Yuletide season."

  "A gift? Why? What for?" He looked at her hands.

  She squinted, not certain if he was teasing. He did not seem to be. "Has no one ever given you a gift before?"

  He squared his shoulders. "Not that I can recall."

  Olivia got up and moved toward him. "You bought me a gift and I wanted to return the gesture, by finding something for you ...something you would never think to get for yourself. That's all." Her heartbeat slowed. Perhaps the addition of the blue ribbon had confused him. She should not have done that. "It is the season to exchange gifts, after all," she added with a spurt of enthusiasm.

  True still eyed her with suspicion. "Is it usual for a woman to buy a gift for a man? In your world?"

  "If ...she...if he...if there is...some..." Olivia could not finish. Torn between wishing she'd never thought of buying him an umbrella, and then feeling sadness for him that he did not know how to receive a gift because no one had ever given him anything before, she was moved beyond speech.

  Turning swiftly she went back to her seat. Let him make of that gift whatever he would. There was too much in her heart right then to look at him, let alone defend her actions.

  Very slowly he walked up to her chair. "Olivia."

  Her eyes were too heavy to lift and she very much feared there might be tears, which would never do.

  Chin up, Mrs. Ollerenshaw!

  But today she could not do it. She was lost.

  * * * *

  Since she would not raise her eyes to his, True got down on his knees before her. When he placed his hand on her knee, she finally lifted her lashes. Her eyes were huge tonight and now there was nothing to obscure his admiration of their rich color.

  "Every night, when you go to your bed in that drafty wing, and I go to mine at the other end of the house, I think about you. The taste of you. The softness of your skin under my hands. The scent of lavender in your hair. The sound of that little purr in the back of your throat when you're aroused—"

  "Stop it. You shouldn't talk like that. It was a rule, remember?"

  "Do you think of me, Olivia? Tell me honestly." He raised his hand to cup her cheek and then stroked a finger across to touch her lashes. "At night, alone in your bed? Or am I the only one who suffers?"

  She blinked, her lashes fluttering like feathery soft moth wings against his fingertips. "I suffer too. In ways you could never imagine, despite your talent for tall tales."

  "Tell me then. Tell me what you think about, Olivia."

  Her lips rolled inward and he thought she would not answer. He expected to be reminded that they were at work and she should be writing. But instead she said, "I think of your eyes— the way they look at me and melt my skin. The way you smile when you think you've just got away with a saucy comment. Your hands...holding me so firmly...as if they would never let me go. Your thighs...."

  Apparently she couldn't go on, shaking her head.

  "Olivia! I am intrigued!" he exclaimed huskily. "My thighs? What about my thighs?"

  She turned her face away.

  He clasped her hands tightly. "Tell me! Don't leave me to wonder what naughtiness you're thinking about my thighs."

  "We're not supposed to talk of it. We agreed!"

  "I didn't agree," he exclaimed. "And if you really wanted me to forget, my darling Olivia, you would not leave a
gift in my room with a blue silk ribbon attached to remind me."

  He was right, she thought, chagrinned.

  A sudden sharp tap on the door startled them both.

  "Sir," Sims called through the door, "Masters Rush and Bryn have just arrived."

  The chaos of his youngest sons racing through the corridors, dragging their trunks and wrestling with each other, could already be heard echoing around the house, shaking the foundations. Even Bryn— a mute— managed to make plenty of noise without the use of his voice.

  Olivia jerked her hands away and stood, turning her back to where he knelt. True wanted to laugh loudly, picturing how it would have looked if Sims opened the door just then. But there was no time to talk further. The young Deverells had descended upon their private idyll.

  * * * *

  The boys were full of energy, just like their father, busy from the moment they fell out of bed, until they moment they fell back into it at the end of the day. For Olivia it was tiring, yet at least she was more accustomed by then to the odd hours and the boisterous activity. Thank goodness she'd had some practice with their father prior to their arrival.

  Rush — despite Storm's suspicions about his parental origins— was a miniature version of True, a jester who did not usually look where he was going. Bryn, the adopted boy, was calmer, steadier. Being a mute, he communicated with gestures that the other boy understood much faster than anyone else. Bryn had a kind face, Olivia thought, and he looked up to True as his savior, a man who could do no wrong, but a distant, awe-inspiring figure.

  "Bryn is a little fearful of you," she said to True one morning.

  "Me?"

  "You have suggested that you would prefer to be feared than loved. Is that the case with your children too?"

  He did not have a ready answer for that and grew thoughtful. But she dare not think she was finally getting through his stubborn defenses. Not yet.

  "When Mrs. Monday and I are at work in my library," he warned the boys, "we must not be bothered and you will make no noise outside the room. Am I clear?"

  "Yes, sir," the little soldiers chorused.

  "And if Mrs. Monday asks you to do something for her, you will obey at once. Am I clear?"

  "Yes, sir!"

  But it was not all commands and salutes. Olivia watched him on the sands one morning with the boys, exploring rock pools for treasure, hunting mussels and cockles, the three of them darting about and foraging like curlews. It was cold, but they did not come in for hours.

  Damon arrived a few days later, bringing a letter from his brother, Justify, who was still at sea and would not be home until the spring. The eldest legitimate son, Ransom, was to remain in London at the club and True had promised to visit him in the new year.

  "You are fortunate that not all my sons are home at once," he whispered in her ear as he poured her a glass of wine at dinner. "You would be quite outnumbered."

  She was not the only female guest for long however.

  On Christmas Eve, in the midst of a glistening snowfall, his daughter Raven arrived at Roscarrock. But she did not arrive quite as they'd expected.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  "Get off me, you filthy wretch!" She shoved the other bundled figure away from her as they entered the house. A whirl of snowflakes followed them into the hall, before Sims had the chance to close the door against the brutal wind.

  "Raven!" True strode to greet her, recognizing the voice, if not the shapeless, windblown mass from which it emerged. "Why did you not send word? I would have arranged—"

  "The damnable mail coach lost a wheel," she hissed, tugging off the hood of her scarlet cape. Ah, there she was.

  "And the brat would have spent the night in a ditch," the other figure muttered, "if not for me. Not that I got any thanks."

  True raised his lamp and recognized the other cold, wet face. Particularly those angry eyes. "Josiah Restarick, isn't it? What are you doing with my daughter?"

  "I happened by just after the accident. Yon lass was the only passenger left and the coachman had disappeared. Stubborn missy would have frozen her arse off out there."

  "I would have managed perfectly well," she shouted, struggling out of her hastily assembled layers. "I took clothes from my trunk to put them on. I was in no danger from the cold."

  "Then I should have left you there, ungrateful—" He caught True's eye and swallowed whatever he meant to say.

  Trying to make sense of all this, True put his hands around his daughter's face to warm her cheeks. She resisted, but only to make a show of it. He could see in her eyes that she had been afraid and now she was relieved to be in the warm again. Not that she would admit it, naturally. "You traveled alone from Edinburgh? What of your fiancé?"

  "He didn't want to come," she spat. "Lost his gumption when we got to Bath and decided he would visit his pompous uncle for the Yuletide season instead. We quarreled and I came on alone in the mail coach."

  It was nothing unexpected for his daughter, although he knew such independent behavior would be frowned upon in general. He was furious, however, with the fiancé who left her to make her own way into the West Country. Already he didn't like the fellow. Good thing he wasn't there. "Well, fortunately you got here in one piece."

  "I told the coachman to go for help on one of the horses. The blithering idiot didn't know what to do. I've never encountered such a slack-jawed, incompetent fool the entire course of my life."

  Joss Restarick snorted. "He was wise enough not to come back again and left you there to shift for yourself. As I should have done."

  "Are you still talking, you horrid person? You haven't shut up the whole way here. I wish you had left me there too. The ditch was quieter."

  It became evident that young Restarick had practically dragged her onto his boat and across to the island. The stubborn girl would have stayed in the ditch all night, unless someone she deemed more "worthy" came along and rescued her.

  "Well, I'm very glad he didn't leave you there," said True. "You should thank him, Raven, remember your manners."

  She glowered fiercely. "Why would I waste good manners on a filthy rotten Restarick? You always say there's not a good one among them. Horse-thieves and cheats, you said."

  His daughter had a point, he supposed.

  Joss saved him from further argument by spitting at her feet, growling, "Jumped up hussy," and then walking out, pushing Sims aside and ignoring True's suggestion that he stay for a glass of brandy.

  "I had to leave the rest of my things behind," Raven complained with a yawn. "Jameson can go back and fetch them tomorrow."

  "Can he, indeed? Must I remind you that I am the master of this house and I give the commands? That much has not changed since you left, daughter dear."

  She wrinkled her nose. "I'm not staying long. I only came because you sent me a letter, which you have never done in the entire course of my life."

  He rolled his eyes. "You're seventeen, Raven. The course of your life has not been that long. And if you careen through life without a care for your personal safety, or who you insult, it probably won't continue very much longer."

  "If I was a boy you wouldn't say that."

  "No. If you were a boy I would have cuffed you round the ear."

  * * * *

  Everything about her was lush, extravagant, as if True Deverell's overindulgent nature had taken on human form in the shape of his daughter. From her long, languid eyelashes to her wide, bee-stung lips, she was the definition of excess. She moved with an unhurried pace that was accidentally graceful, like that of a sailboat cast adrift without a captain and crew, boldly continuing on its way.

  "You came here to help him write his memoirs?" she demanded of Olivia in a slow drawl. "How awful."

  "Awful?"

  "That you have to earn money. I intend to marry for it."

  "I see."

  "Are you shocked that I admit it?"

  No, she mused, having lived with your father all these months nothing can sh
ock me. "I think it is rather sad, but no I am not shocked by that. You are honest, at least, about your motives." She must have got that disturbingly forthright trait from her father.

  "Why is it sad? I shall be rich and happy."

  "Rich does not always follow happy, Miss Deverell. I wish you well, and hope you find everything you want in one place, but it is never certain. We never know how life will turn out."

  True had been eavesdropping, for he came over to where the two women sat and said, "You should pay heed to Mrs. Monday, Raven. She can tell you about love— something she believes in still. I, of course, am not equipped to give you those lessons, but she will. She knows all about it." Smug, he walked away.

  Raven stared at her as if she might be unhinged. "Do you really believe in love?"

  "Of course. Someone must."

  She blinked slowly, heaved a bosomy sigh and fell back into the corner of the settee. "Mother told me that love makes people stupid. She told me not to waste my time looking for love."

  Olivia smiled. "I was told that too, once. Well, not in so many words, but with a look— an expression on my father's face."

  "I suppose because you're so dowdy and plain."

  "I suppose so." Glancing across the drawing room she caught True's eye just as he sipped his brandy. He was amused and... something else. She quickly changed the subject. "Your fiancé means to stay in Bath until you return?"

  "Oh good lord, yes. He's too terrified of papa to come here. I must say, traveling across the country with a fellow certainly opens one's eyes to their failings."

  "I'm sure it does."

  "I didn't realize he was such a plum pudding. I have never, in the course of my life, known a man who changes his breeches so many times in one day." Then Raven added suddenly, "My father never wanted to celebrate Christmas before. Is that your doing?"

  At that moment Damon, who declared himself bored, entreated her to play for them at the pianoforte and so she had an excuse to get up. "I really couldn't say, Miss Deverell, although I would like to think I had a positive influence on your father while I was here."