One by one she rediscovered her old gowns from inside the trunk, shook them out and laid them in a thin, neat pile on the bed. Fortunately, she'd never been able to afford servants, so she'd sewn all her garments in a way that meant she could dress and undress herself. That would be useful now, since there was no maid at Roscarrock Castle either. Olivia's gowns possessed no troublesome out-of-reach hooks, so she was entirely self-sufficient. As for her hair, she'd never been one to try new styles. A simple braided bun was quite enough for her, could be managed easily with her own pair of hands and didn't even require any heart-breaking consultation with a mirror.
Reaching further into her trunk she recovered the small, framed silhouette of her last husband, where it was nestled protectively in the soft, worn velvet of her best evening gown. The need to keep his picture safe from damage was the only reason why she packed that particular gown, for she certainly didn't expect to wear it here. But poor, dear William deserved to be kept safe in the folds of her best gown. Theirs might not have been a passionate love match— his greatest devotion was to his faith— but it was a practical union that saved them both from loneliness and helped steer Olivia onto a better path, away from the wayward direction in which her bad temper and sinful imagination might otherwise take her.
After a first brief marriage embarked upon in lust, and a second short union initiated by her pride and wrath, a penitent life with William Monday had probably saved her soul. Or, at least, it was on its way to saving her, until sudden death took him too from her side, and then Olivia was forced to find another purpose. She certainly couldn't risk getting married again.
What would William make of her coming here and taking this position?
Why, he would say she must go where she could be most useful, of course! That was her kindly William, always so wise and never a thought for his own comfort.
On the other hand..."If you take that position so far away in Cornwall you won't be here for my wedding," her stepbrother had protested. "Who will make certain everything is done correctly and on time? Lucinda has no mother to look after all those little things, and we were relying upon you to sort it out." That was her stepbrother Christopher— full of his own immediate needs and never able to understand hers. Always hard-done-by in his own mind.
It would surely do her stepbrother good to learn how to do all those "little things" for his new bride himself. Alas, Olivia could quite imagine the pretty couple slowly starving as they lay in bed waiting for someone to feed them. Like baby birds in a nest with their beaks wide open.
"That young man is dreadfully spoiled," William used to say. "It seems his mama did him no service while she was alive, adoring and coddling him as she did. And now you are in danger of doing the same because of this partiality which allows you to willingly overlook his faults. He is not your responsibility, my dear, and one day he must stand on his own two feet."
Yes, standing on one's own two feet was very important.
She gave the glass of William's silhouette a quick huff and rubbed it with a corner of her shawl. Perfect, not a smear! Rising from her knees she went to the mantle, wiped a spot clean in the dust, and placed him there with reverence. Now he could watch over her in his calm, steady, knowing way.
Beside him she placed the painting her stepbrother gave her several years ago. Well, he didn't exactly give it to her. She'd found him throwing it out, so when she said she liked it he told her she could keep it.
"You never did have any refined taste," he'd said with a sigh.
Christopher had been raised to appreciate the finer things in life, even though he couldn't afford them. He liked nothing until he'd been assured it was fashionable or expensive. Olivia's more impulsive, instinctual, mostly unfashionable tastes irritated him.
When their parents married, Olivia was sixteen, her new stepbrother a year older. Christopher was very close to his mama, but she died within a year of the wedding, and then Olivia took on the role of listening, sympathetic ear. She spent much of her time looking after Christopher. Most often, however, she was of no more importance to her handsome stepbrother than a chair against which he was accustomed to stubbing his toe. An old, out-dated piece of furniture in need of restoration, but reliable when there was a shortage of seating.
Once, as her father and Christopher played chess and Olivia read a book nearby, she heard her stepbrother exhale a sharp expletive of disgust at losing. When her father reprimanded the young man for using such a word in the presence of a lady, he'd looked over, smiled pleasantly, and said, "Well, goodness, it's only Livy. I thought you meant someone else had come in." Then he turned back to the game.
She had, several times, overheard him lamenting that she would, one day, become his "burden" —even calculating how many years she might live, how much she would cost him in food and board. "One doesn't like to be morbid, but one must think of these things," he had said to her father. "It is not likely she will marry, is it?"
Why not? Because, in addition to her lack of dowry, dark sense of humor, unfashionable features, refusal to dance, and reticence to speak much in company, Olivia had once committed the greatest social faux pas anyone within fifty miles had ever heard about.
Sent against her will to be "looked at" as a potential governess for the daughters of Lady Arabella Frost, and finding herself surrounded by a cluster of haughty society ladies who were plainly trying not to laugh at her old, ill-fitting frock, Olivia took the last rout cake from a three-tiered china serving platter and calmly stuffed her face with it, much to the silent but very obvious indignation of those present.
As she had said to her father, "Someone was going to eat it. Why shouldn't it be me?"
Needless to say, she was not engaged as a governess. One might think the incident too small and insignificant to make many ripples for long, but in the close-knit circle of that society they apparently had little else to talk about. The incident was never forgotten, nor forgiven. Wherever she went, she was The Girl Who Ate The Last Cake.
But then Olivia met boisterous and lusty Captain Frederick Ollerenshaw, who accidentally stumbled into her at a ball and lost half the contents of his stomach on her gown. Her sensible, helpful composure in these circumstances won fun-loving Freddy's blurry-eyed gratitude, and she impulsively seized the chance of making herself indispensable to someone new.
Her father was markedly relieved he'd found someone to take her off his hands, and although he did not much care for the Captain, when Olivia convinced him she'd be happy he did not stand in her way.
"Are you in the position to provide for a wife, yet?" her father had inquired of Freddy— a fellow notorious for more open-hearted generosity than acumen. "How will you support my daughter?"
"With a little light pressure under the elbow while crossing the street, I suppose," replied Freddy, punctuating his answer with a genial gust of laughter.
For the few days of their marriage, Freddy was very enjoyable company, wonderfully uplifting for a girl's spirits. Unfortunately, Freddy was also uplifting to many other young ladies’ spirits too. That was the trouble with attractive, merry gentlemen like Captain Ollerenshaw. They never could stop being so generous with their merriment.
When Freddy was killed, while foolishly racing an unstable phaeton for a wager of fifty pounds, Christopher immediately sprung up at her side to say, "Perhaps you have got that out of your veins now, Livy, and you see the error of an impulsive choice."
But she missed Freddy, despite his faults and the little time they'd had together. At night it was very hard to go to one's bed alone after enjoying the pleasures to which he'd introduced her. Admitting this to her stepbrother, of course, was out of the question.
Next came her engagement to Arthur Pemberton, an earnest young man whose palms were always damp with sweat and who never seemed capable of looking her in the eye. It was a shock to Olivia that he ever got around to proposing, but somehow he did. She thought this marriage would at least last longer than a few days and that her husba
nd's anxious, timid eye would not feel compelled to follow every pretty girl that passed.
Sadly, Arthur's nervous disposition prevented him from making it to the altar. He left his aging bachelor uncle, Sir Allardyce Pemberton, to make his apologies on the very day of the intended nuptials, and before the flowers could droop, Olivia was married to Allardyce instead. Looking back on her mood that day she realized her temper and pride had got the better of her. She could not bear to go home defeated again, to hear once more Christopher's snide remarks. Rather than let herself be gossiped about as a woman humiliated and jilted at the altar, and feeling rather mutinous that day, she'd rashly accepted another offer. After all, the last thing she wanted was anybody's pity.
Christopher had sneered, "If you're going to make a habit of this, you should at least marry for money. Old Allardyce hasn't a bean, you know."
"There is more to life than money," she'd replied, at which her stepbrother shook his head, lips grimly pursed.
Within six months she was widowed again, when Allardyce choked on a fishbone in his pie at the local tavern.
Now a woman considered unlucky and, as Christopher said, "used goods", she might have sunk under a lace cap and retired into a corner. Fortunately, however, William Monday, the reserved, contemplative parson who often came to Sunday dinner at her father's house, saved Olivia from this dolorous end by quietly stepping in and proposing a marriage arrangement.
"She's doing it again," Christopher complained loudly. "Someone ought to stop her."
But this union was different. There was no physical attraction, as there had been with Freddy, and there was no pride to be saved, as in the case of her marriage to Allardyce. William Monday was a steady man, extremely frugal and patient, keen to help her find a purpose in life. His good example would help cleanse Olivia of those wicked impulses that did her absolutely no good in the past.
If she served William with humility and became a good wife, she thought, it might break this string of bad fortune. So, as William Monday's companion, she managed the small, damp parsonage, visited his parishioners, darned his bed socks and made his tea. That marriage also allowed her to stay close enough to her father that she could still help him with his work as needed. It was a comfortable solution.
But only for a little less than five years.
Now both her papa and William were gone and it was time to take a step into the unknown. If she stayed in Chiswick there appeared to be only one choice and she could not bear it.
"As soon as Lucinda and I are settled," Christopher had said to her, "you can have a room in my house. We'll find somewhere to put you, and Lucinda will need assistance with our children as they come along. You will be of great help to her. Old Aunt Livy our children shall call you. They'll keep you so busy that you'll never miss not having any of your own."
My house. Ha! Christopher lived in the house that her father had left to them both equally, but despite William's advice Olivia had not asked her stepbrother to buy her out. It felt too awkward and unnecessary. She knew that if Christopher ever sold the house, then she would get her half of the profits. There was no hurry yet, was there? She really did not think he would cheat her out of her share, whatever William had said.
But when it came to the idea of living there as unofficial nanny to her stepbrother's anticipated offspring...that was a prospect too dire to be considered. Instead, she had grasped at the first alternative to come her way.
Working for the notorious True Deverell would provide her with enough funds that relying on relatives— or finding another husband— for a roof over her head would not be necessary. No, she would not become another Great Aunt Jane, taken in by family out of pity but never really welcomed, and always causing her hosts to roll their eyes behind her back.
Deverell's generosity would be her way out of all that, and he could certainly spare a few coins. He was the richest self-made man in England, so rumor had it. She'd read that he once won a hundred thousand pounds in a single, twenty four-hour game of hazard.
One hundred thousand pounds.
The possession of so much money must lead a person into all manner of mischief, so it was a jolly good thing it would never be hers to worry about. Olivia certainly didn't need any more temptation.
She'd heard a rumor that her employer was American, although she had detected no accent of any kind.
At last, after all these years of speculation, she knew what he looked like.
A wolf. A steely-eyed wild beast. With manners and scruples to match.
Olivia wrapped her shawl tighter around her body and gave dear William's picture a hasty nod and a smile. With his reassuring presence looking over her from the mantle she felt better already. Even the stifling curls of fog against her window did not bother her unduly now. So what if she could not go walking outside? Adventurous walks over rocky terrain were not very ladylike in any case. As William would remind her, such rambles—whenever she'd indulged in one without due caution— made her hair become unruly and brought too much livid color to her cheeks, as well as a disturbing spark to her eyes, something perilously close to suggesting an utter lapse of decorum was at hand.
"It is no surprise your boots are in disrepair, my dear," he would say.
Dear William was quite right, of course. She must make certain the rest of her did not end up in the same state as her boots. Thanks to him, she was no longer the Girl Who Ate The Last Cake. She was composed, efficient, held her temper — under some very trying circumstances of late—and had impeccable manners.
Most importantly, she had finally learned to keep her thoughts and feelings on the inside, safely hidden.
True Deverell's wicked ways would not lure them out of her.
Chapter Seven
"But my brother Justify was allowed to join the Naval Academy when he was only fourteen. Nobody stopped him when he went off to Portsmouth. I am two years older than that now and what have I done with my life, but slave over books and listen to dreary lectures?"
"Justify never possessed your capacity for study. The Navy was a good choice for him, and he has done well with it. Your talents are different. I do not see the Navy in your future, Damon."
The young man would not sit still but got up again and paced around the chair. Watching his son, True thought how time flew. It seemed like only yesterday when Damon, at two years of age, sat on his knee and sobbed over the death of his mama.
Never one to keep his children in the dark when it came to life's ups and downs, True had told both Damon and his elder brother of their mother's passing as soon as it happened. He did not use flowery words, but told them straight and then all he could do was offer his arms while they cried. Mercifully her illness was short and she had not suffered too much. True saw to it that his mistress had the best doctor and medicines available. Right to the end, he'd stayed by her sickbed, despite the animosity it caused with his wife.
"We did everything we could for your mama," he'd told the two boys, "but it was her time to go. As it is time for us all eventually."
"Has she gone to heaven, papa?" Justify, then three years old, had said.
That was the only time he lied to them, for he did not know if he believed in heaven and hell, but what did one say to boys so young? The responsibility of children had taught him that one could not always say the first thing that came to mind. So he replied, "Yes. Your mama has gone to heaven."
"Then we'll see her again."
"As long as you behave. There are good odds that you will."
The idea of heaven had its uses, of course. It had served as a warning and a threat for thousands of years, so why shouldn't he use it too?
Unfortunately, all True's sons were too old for that now. They were not fearful of much with which he could threaten them.
Damon had just arrived at his most rebellious stage, questioning everything about life and his place in it. Having been through this already with three elder boys and a daughter— who was, in many ways, a greater challenge
than his sons— True was not terribly troubled. All children, so he'd learned, tried their boundaries occasionally, even the quiet ones. Even those who used to sit on his knee and cling to him with sticky fingers as if he was their savior.
"Perhaps I'll go without your permission," Damon exclaimed, jaw pushed out, eyes fierce, those once sticky fingers tapping the chair back upon which they hovered with all the flighty tension of sparrow’s feet. "I could. I could do that."
But he knew his son was too clever to make such an impulsive mistake. Damon would think it through and this idea of the Navy would pass. Aware that the quickest way to get his stubborn son to that point of reason was to let him find his own way to it, he said, "Of course you could. You must do as you see fit and suffer the outcome later, as we all do when we make mistakes. Maturity is not only about being free to make your own choices, but to face the consequences too. No one else can face them for you, so they should not make the decisions for you either."
His son's frown deepened. He had wanted a fight, no doubt. "Then, if I refuse to go back to school, you'll do nothing?"
"What would you like me to do, Damon? Should I wrestle you to the ground, bind you in ropes and keep you in the attic until this fancy passes?" He smiled, hoping to hide his impatience with this conversation. "Then you can blame me. Then you have another excuse to be angry at me. If you'd like that, it can be arranged. I believe there is room up there among all the other lost souls in rattling chains, held prisoner by my foul temper. Or else you'll just have to make your own decision and then have only yourself to blame for how it all turns out."
His son's eyes narrowed, his jaw jutted out.
"If I were you," True added, "I'd return to Eton and finish my education." His son had no idea how much he would have given for such an opportunity himself as a boy, but everything he learned was self-taught. Well, almost everything. Alas, while he wanted all these chances for his offspring, they did not appreciate it. "In another year, if you are still averse to Oxford or Cambridge—"
True Story (The Deverells, Book One) Page 6
