True Story (The Deverells, Book One) (40 page)

"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 shock 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."