True Story (The Deverells, Book One)

by Jayne Fresina

  "Well, this engagement may not last, father. These things often come to a natural end," Storm said placidly. "Raven may be wild, but she's not a fool. She's probably gone into this engagement just to get your attention again."

  True shook his head. He knew that this was his former wife wielding influence over their daughter by constantly rubbing on the fact that they were the only two women in a family of men. And both supposedly injured by True.

  If he did not give Raven his permission to marry it would push her a further step closer to her mother and away from him. It would be another tug of war, with no victor except Charlotte.

  "Don't you see the injustice though, father?" his son teased gently now. "You want me wed and the sooner the better, but you'd hang on to Raven until she was gray rather than lose her to a husband."

  "Girls are different," True replied gloomily.

  "That is certainly what I've found," Storm sputtered into his cider. "It's not hard to spot the differences. And I'm grateful for 'em. As, I believe, you are too, father. At least, in the past you have been, although it's a while since I've heard of you keeping female company up at Roscarrock. You ought to have a woman up there to keep you in a better mood."

  Reminded of his new employee, True looked thoughtfully at his son. "Come over and dine with me soon."

  "The harvest will keep me busy, father. But I'll come over when I can."

  "Good. I'll look forward to seeing you. Oh..." he cast a quick eye over Storm's tattered clothing, "..and neaten yourself up a bit."

  "What the devil for? Not entertaining royalty are you, father?" Storm laughed, blue eyes shining. He got those eyes from his mother, True thought, remembering sweet Louisa the gamekeeper's daughter who once, so long ago, initiated him into the pleasures of "tupping" as she called it, on a warm haystack. Smiling Lusty Lou. Gone a few years now, but not forgotten.

  "Just...dress tidy, son. I've let things slide a bit of late. Ought to make an effort once in a while at dinner, or I'll get out of practice, shan't I?"

  Storm looked quizzical, but shrugged again and poured them both another tankard of cider.

  * * * *

  When Deverell still had not returned by early evening, Olivia decided to wash her hair. This was a sizeable undertaking, because her hair was very long and thick, and took hours to dry, but surely there was time. It seemed unlikely her employer would return for dinner— Mrs. Blewett informed her that the master often stayed overnight at the farm if they were busy with harvest—so she heated some water by the kitchen fire and carried it into the scullery, to wash her hair in private. After that, Olivia planned to sit by the hearth in her room and read a book.

  However, while waiting for her hair to dry, her thoughts returned constantly to the master of the house. She finally gave up trying to read when her eyes had tracked five times over the same sentence, and then she closed her book and stared into the sputtering flames.

  It occurred to her now that the man she saw riding along the beach from her carriage window yesterday was, in fact, True Deverell. How strong and powerful he had looked, wild and free, but also in control. Olivia could only imagine the state her hair and clothes would be in if she rode like that.

  Deverell, of course, had no one waiting at home to disapprove. He did as he pleased without deference to a single soul.

  From everything she knew about him before she arrived at Roscarrock, she was prepared to find a man who was irritating, frustrating, arrogant and not very pleasant. In truth, he was a little of all those things, but so much more beyond. She couldn't quite get him straight in her mind.

  Without his energy the house felt...empty. The skeleton staff waited for his return, of course. But even the walls and floorboards seemed to sigh with impatience to feel him there again. Olivia was not accustomed to men with a great deal of vitality. Well, not since Freddy, whose energy was mostly misdirected and came in sudden spurts between long periods of sleep. Rather like the damp fireworks display she once saw over the river in Chiswick.

  What Deverell had, she supposed, some would call "charisma".

  A sudden shiver stroked her skin, like the swift brush of a goose feather quill. Must be a draft from somewhere, although the fire was crackling cheerily, the flames sturdy and tall.

  With a brisk huff she reopened her book and made a sixth attempt to start the next Chapter, but her mind simply could not concentrate. True Deverell crept back into her thoughts. In fact, he galloped across her page on his horse, splashing through the printed letters and knocking them asunder.

  She should not think of him in any terms beyond the professional. He was her employer. He was also deliberately naughty, very aware of all that he did, and quite bereft of good manners. Not to mention the divorced father of seven children—not all of them legitimate— and owner of the most notorious gaming den in London.

  Despite all that, the one thing bothering her most about him was that he had the gall to accuse her of being afraid of steam engines. As if she was ever afraid of anything! The railway was simply a passing caprice for men like him, who always had to be in a hurry to get anywhere and thought that because something was new and fashionable it must be better. She was quite sure rail travel was a trend that would never catch on.

  A loud rap at her door dragged Olivia abruptly out of her thoughts.

  "Yes? What is it?"

  Sims shouted crossly through the wood panels, "Mr. Deverell desires your presence at once. In his library."

  She scrambled to her feet. "But I...my hair is wet."

  "I'm sure he won't care, madam."

  Whatever time was it? She'd heard nothing to suggest the master of the house had returned. It was black as pitch outside.

  Blood rushed through her veins so fast it made her dizzy. She stopped, drew a deep breath and steadied herself.

  Chin up, Mrs. Ollerenshaw!

  As long as one was in control of one's emotions and nerves, one was in control of life.

  If she pretended everything was quite normal, it would be.

  Charisma. Pah! William Monday certainly would not approve of charisma. Neither would Great Aunt Jane.

  Chapter Ten

  True waited by the fire in his library. Hoping to clear his head of all but sensible ideas, he'd taken a ride along the sands before coming back to the island. He wasn't sure yet whether it had worked— whether the sunset exercise had helped make his decision about sending her home, or letting her stay.

  When she entered the room he turned to look at her, and in that moment he knew his answer. "Mrs. Monday. I hope I did not disturb you?"

  "Disturb me?" She swallowed, one hand to the throat of her ugly grey gown. "Of course not."

  "Good." He nodded. "I have decided to begin my memoirs now."

  There went his chance to send her away. It was done. She was staying.

  "Oh." He could almost hear her mind exclaiming, At this hour? She blinked, tried to resettle her expression. Alas for her, he'd caught the split second when she let down her blank guard.

  He'd seen other things too, before that.

  "What have you done to your hair?" he asked, as if he didn't already know and hadn't, quite by chance, spied upon her in the scullery.

  "I washed it, sir." She raised a hand to the oddly tilting mess and made an attempt to hoist it further upright. "I thought...I was not expecting you back this evening."

  He stared at her for a moment, picturing how she had looked earlier with all that hair down. If he was a gentleman he'd feel guilty about spying on her, but since he was True Deverell he felt fortunate. Very fortunate.

  Arriving back at the house he had meant to enter through the scullery, as he usually did when his riding boots were full of wet sand. But through the crooked diamonds of the leaded window he had unexpectedly found his new secretary, in the dusky light, and aided by one flickering candle flame, washing her long hair.

  Her back was to him, her arms bare, and he'd quickly realized she must have lowered the bodice of her g
own to save it from the soapy water. Beneath she wore a corset over a sleeveless linen and lace chemise.

  His quickened breath tickled the ivy that climbed the stone wall. His eyes greedily devoured every detail. The slender neck and fine slope of her ivory shoulders, the gently curved arms reaching up like angel's wings, the seemingly endless lengths of dark hair falling in a slow, luxurious tumble. The swaying line of her corseted torso, down to the narrow waist. The dip between her shoulders, just below the nape of her neck, where a drop of water trickled down, a slivery tear that he wanted to—

  "Sir?" she said.

  He snapped back to the present, remembering why she was there. "You had better come here by the fire, Mrs. Monday. I can't afford to have my secretary becoming ill with a cold before we've even started, can I?"

  Slowly, cautiously she approached his roaring fire.

  "Sit," he demanded, pointing at the hearthrug.

  Her eyes glistened in the firelight. "Pardon me, Mr. Deverell, but I am not a dog."

  "I meant for you to be close to the fire." When he moved aside, she looked relieved at the sight of a small table and writing box set out for her before an old settee. "May we begin, Mrs. Monday? Haven't you delayed me long enough?"

  Moving swiftly forward now, lips pursed, she sat where he pointed and cast her eyes over the writing materials he'd set there. She tidied them with quick hands, arranging the goose quills in a neat row beside the pot of ink. As she swept by him, True had caught a fragrant wave of rose water. It tempted him to touch her damp hair, to coil the loose strand around his finger. But he resisted, turned his back and strode to the other side of the fireplace, where he moved a velvet-covered ottoman close to the fender with one booted foot and lowered himself to the seat.

  Well, he had called her down to his library at this hour. Better get on with job at hand.

  Stop thinking of her shoulders. Of her neck. Of her bare arms.

  All he could see of those angelic wings now were her hands and slender wrists. Good. He ought to be able to concentrate if she didn't distract him too much.

  He watched her preparing the sheets of paper and then the nib of a goose quill in the ink. Her movements were very precise, very neat.

  "You must stop me," he muttered. "If I go to fast."

  "I'm sure I'll manage." She had just hooked a pair of spectacles over her small ears. Now, eyes down, she waited.

  True cleared his throat. "I was born," he began, and then stopped.

  She looked up.

  "I was found," he corrected, "on the sand near Truro in the midst of a violent storm."

  "Found?"

  "Yes. I was left there by a mermaid."

  The scratching of her pen paused.

  "You doubt me, Mrs. Monday?"

  A slight frown creased her brow. "I'm surprised it wasn't the pixies. Are there not many of them in Cornwall?"

  He stared at her lips, but she kept them firm, no hint of a smirk. "It was a mermaid," he assured her sternly. "Which explains my fondness for the sea and my affinity with the creatures in it."

  "I see. And what year was this?"

  "How would I know?"

  "You do not know when you were born?"

  "You sound incredulous, Mrs. Monday. But how could I know?"

  "Someone, surely, must know."

  "No one who cares to admit it."

  She shuttered her expression behind a sweep of lashes and looked down at the paper again. "Well...What is your first memory, sir?"

  "Running amid the sheep."

  "Running? You must have a memory before that."

  So he told her about the hands that found him on the sands. They were big, rough fingers with yellowed nails. The beachcomber must have been hunting for washed-up treasure on that bleak night of violent wind and rain. He recalled how she smelled of damp earth and wood smoke, and how she sang to herself. How dark and stuffy the sack was in which she put him. What she meant to do with a baby, who knew? The others, when they found him, forced her to leave him behind, because they didn't need another mouth to feed.

  He told his secretary about the fields that became his hunting ground after that, of the food and clothing he stole, and of the farmer he watched warily from a distance — a man who tried, in vain, to capture him.

  "I thought he would try to train me as he did the other dogs, so I kept my distance for a long time." He watched as she tapped her goose nib on the inkpot. "The farmer eventually gave up chasing me off his land and put me to work instead. He taught me how to wield a hammer and nails when I was barely big enough to hold them."

  "So he took you in?"

  "Not exactly. My place on his farm was like that of a stray cat, kept around to chase mice out of the barn. As long as I made myself useful I was welcome to the scraps they threw out, but I wasn't a pet. I wasn't domesticated. I learned not to get underfoot."

  "Did you try to find your family? Your father?"

  He stood and paced to the window, opening it for some cool air. "I didn't need anyone. I looked after myself."

  "Yes, but he might have—"

  "I learned early on that I must take what I wanted or starve. Rules and laws were for men who knew when their next meal would come, not for me. I lived with the animals of the farm. I belonged there, raised among them and by them."

  When he glanced back at her again, she sat with her head bent over the little table, her hand moving steadily between inkpot and page, his words forming neat lines across the paper. A wet strand of hair had fallen loose down the side of her face, but she did not pause to fix it. The only thing she adjusted —her spectacles— were swiftly nudged back up to the bridge of her nose by one knuckle. He noted the bent wire that didn't quite fit and caused them to keep slipping forward. No one had bothered to fix them for her, but he, surely, was not the first person to notice the problem.

  "Has my beginning as an unwanted stray softened your impression of me, Mrs. Monday?"

  "I was thinking how little you've changed. Still a boy who refuses to follow rules."

  "I am not the only one with a mutinous soul, am I?"

  "Your meaning, sir?"

  "Surely, for you, taking this post is an act of rebellion against your very proper upbringing. You decided to break some rules yourself."

  She shook her head and another damp lock drooped against her cheek, reminding him of the candlelit scene in his scullery. A woman's bared neck and shoulders had never seemed so naughty, so forbidden to his eyes.

  "Or perhaps you came here, simply so you might put me to rights, tell me how wicked I am, and get your long overdue apology for once being stepped over."

  She stared, eyes wide through the round lenses of her spectacles.

  "Or were you looking for adventure, Mrs. Monday? Were you bored with the oh-so polite gentlemen of Chiswick and decided to throw in your lot with an uncivilized beast, just for the thrill?"

  Now her face was tense. "I needed employment. To be busy and useful. One should go where one is needed. Find a purpose."

  Naturally she would not mention the money. It wouldn't be proper. Yesterday she was affronted when he dared suggest her in need of funds. Did she imagine he wouldn't notice her tired old boots and that dreadfully depressed, out-dated bonnet? Well, he was considerably more observant than the other men in her life must have been, for he knew she was hiding something. More than a very fine set of shoulders.

  "Shall we proceed?" she asked calmly, pen poised over the paper.

  Feeling overheated, he removed his jacket and tossed it over the back of the small settee. Another thing he shouldn't do in the presence of a lady, but True never listened to "shouldn't" and he wasn't about to start just for this strange creature.

  He continued, "One day I was caught poaching on the squire's estate. He wanted me swinging from a gibbet and out of his sight for good. The very knowledge of my presence was galling to him."

  "Why?"

  True paused. "There were rumors." He took a breath. She was watching him
intently, waiting with patience. "Some suggested that I was not the orphan of a shipwreck, but that the squire's son had fathered me and abandoned my young, unwed mother, causing her to leave me on the sands that night. Of course, the squire could not bear that idea. Me— the feral boy who could barely speak in any recognizable language? He did not want that shameful blot on the family escutcheon."

  "I see."

  He lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "I never believed it any more than he did, but despite his son's denial, he wanted rid of me and of the rumors. It was said his son had violently forced himself on one of the very young dairy maids. None of it could be proven. The girl— if she existed—had run off, too afraid to come forward and accuse him. That left only my presence to point a finger. Better, therefore, if I be dead."

  After a pause, she said, "You must have been afraid to be friendless and all alone in the world."

  "No. Not fearful. Angry. Yes, I remember fury as a driving force in my youth, spurring me on."

  She nodded. "And it drove you to success."

  "Against the odds." He walked around her chair, breathing in more of her fragrance. It was subtle, but pleasing. "Do you think, in common with most, that because I was base born I should have stayed down in life?"

  "Not at all, sir. Some great men in history were lowborn. Cardinal Wolsey was a butcher's son and Thomas Cromwell the child of a blacksmith, to name only the first two that come to mind."

  "You flatter me." He laughed, tugging on one ear. "My achievements are not so great as theirs. I am not a man of books and no king will ever consult with me."