True Story (The Deverells, Book One) Page 4

  If they had a reputation worth saving in the first place, which True Deverell did not.

  "Livy, you wretched thing," her stepbrother, Christopher, had exclaimed, "you cannot consider living under the same roof as a man like that for six months. What will folk think?"

  She had replied, "I must go where I am needed. Besides all his children will be there and, no doubt, many other people too. He is a busy man with a very full life." And, as she might have reminded her stepbrother in his own words, True Deverell would never look twice at a girl like her, so she ought to be safe.

  "But you are needed here," he'd argued.

  "I'm quite sure you can manage without me." After all, sometimes he didn't even know she was in the same room.

  "You are only just out of full mourning. Again. Your reputation—"

  "Considering what happens to most other men in my life," she pointed out, "Mr. Deverell has more cause to distrust my company than I do to fear his."

  On his way out to a fitting with a fashionable tailor whose services he couldn't really afford, Christopher did not stay to worry long about his thrice-widowed stepsister's reputation. "It is impossible to quarrel with such a headstrong woman. I might as soon blow into the wind. You have chosen to enter a den of iniquity, Livy. Since Chalke is aiding and abetting you in this improper, foolhardy idea, for reasons known only to him, I suppose I must tell everyone that you've gone into the country to recuperate from some illness."

  She couldn't imagine who this "everyone" might be, for she sincerely doubted she'd be much missed. Besides, she had tried the ideas and pursuits considered proper for a young lady and look what happened. Good men died.

  Now she sat alone in the large kitchen of Roscarrock Castle— the den of supposed iniquity— and realized she couldn't hear another soul anywhere in the house. So much for all those other people she'd expected to find surrounding her new employer. From the surly butler's description, it seemed as if the notorious fellow had become something of a recluse living on this island.

  She thought how desperate Mr. Deverell's wife must have been to get away, since she allowed her husband to accuse her of adultery and thereby risked the whole of grand society snubbing her for the remainder of her days. And while that lady had theoretically chewed her own elegant foot off to escape, she, Olivia Monday, had put herself voluntarily into this eccentric fellow's company.

  Mad as a March hare– she had to be, just as her stepbrother had proclaimed.

  Glancing upward to the shining rows of copper pots and fragrant bunches of dried herbs hanging overhead, she muttered wryly to herself, "I don't suppose the fashionable Lady Charlotte ever spent much time in this kitchen." Of course, as the daughter of an earl, Mr. Deverell's wife kept her title when she eloped to marry her commoner husband. Indeed, that title and her famous beauty were just about the only things she had kept when she married, since her outraged father couldn't take them away from her.

  While Olivia pondered the odd, impulsive choices women— herself included— sometimes made when selecting their future mate, a tall, untidy fellow lurched into the kitchen, holding an oil lamp in one hand and a riding crop in the other, apparently prepared to chase off intruders.

  He stopped sharply when he saw her. With eyes of a brilliant metallic shade that Olivia had never before observed on a human being, he stared fiercely across the kitchen. His big hand swung the lamp up high with what she considered reckless disregard for fire safety. "There you are then, woman," he snapped. "Talking to yourself, eh? I see you sniffed out the food already."

  Must be another servant, according to his attire and generally scruffy appearance. Ah, yes, the handyman about whom she'd been warned. She could see he must be very "handy" indeed, for the size of him almost filled the doorframe and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled back, revealing broad, strong forearms.

  "Mr. Jameson?" She got up to be polite, even though manners appeared entirely absent in that house. "Mrs. Olivia Monday. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

  He glowered at her, every bit as angry, disappointed and appalled, as if she'd just spat at him and slapped his face. Perhaps, having heard about the dead men she left in her wake, he'd expected a ravishing woman reminiscent of Nell Gwynn, complete with a magnificent bosom and cherry red lips. He wouldn't be the first man to be disappointed at the sight of her face and she had no idea what Mr. Chalke had told these people about her.

  "I was enjoying a light supper before I went up to bed," she said. "Don't mind me. I won't bother anybody. I daresay, after a little while you'll forget I'm even here. Most people do." Olivia sat to finish her meal. "As you see I don't take up much room, I only require feeding when hungry, and let me assure you the butler has already informed me that I won't be pampered here. Although why he thought that announcement necessary in light of the delightfully warm welcome I've received, I really cannot say."

  The man set his oil lamp beside hers on the table, making a wider arc of amber light over the two of them. "Delightfully warm welcome?" he repeated, the words falling like hefty lead weights. "What did you expect, woman? Trumpet fanfare? Hope you're not the precious sort who needs attention all the time. The master just got rid of the last bit o' skirt we had here, so why he wants another about the place so soon is beyond me."

  "Pardon me... bit of skirt?"

  "He doesn't keep any for long these days. The wenches soon wear out their welcome. Then he pats them smartly on the backside and sends them on their way. But they always cause trouble for the master while they're here warming his bed. I was hoping we'd have some relief for a while after the last hussy."

  Olivia felt her temperature rising, the ache in her head quickly multiplying. "I am not anybody's hussy, Mr. Jameson."

  "What other purpose could you have here? You're a woman, aren't you?"

  Oh, that was the way it would be, was it? Splendid. Apparently all Deverell's servants were strangers to simple courtesy.

  She looked up at him as he stood with that riding crop in his hands, scowling fit to scare crows from the seedbed. He needed a good dousing with soapy water, a hairbrush and a razor, she thought. Perhaps a flea dip too. He might have been half way to handsome if he bothered. Probably just as well then that he didn't. That was all the world needed, another attractive man who thought women existed for only one use.

  Do not let this get the better of you, my dear. Do not show that it matters. Whatever you are feeling now, it will pass.

  Chin up, Mrs. Ollerenshaw!

  Her job here was to keep out of trouble and write, not to let herself be distracted by her temper, or her wayward imagination with its tendency to lean on the dark and naughty side.

  With this in mind, she swallowed her anger and said as calmly as she could, "Yes, Mr. Jameson, I am indeed a woman, as you shrewdly pointed out. But oddly enough, I am not here to warm anybody's bed but my own. I hope that's not too confusing a concept for you."

  The handyman scratched his rumpled head. "I don't know what the master will make o' that. He says there's only one thing women are any use for."

  "Perhaps I'd better go to my bed now then, before I feel the urge to find your master and give him a piece of my mind. I am rather tired and unfortunately that makes me short of temper and long of tongue."

  His lips twitched, then disappeared from view as he rubbed his nose with the back of one large hand. "What piece of your dainty little mind did you think to give the master? Women don't generally have much to spare."

  There went the ability to hold back her anger. "The piece that objects to being left on the mainland as the tide comes in, to manage my own trunk across the causeway and up some steep steps. And don't be misled by my size, I'm far from dainty, but even I struggled." She paused, drew a quick breath and stole a sullen glance at his exposed forearms. "I'm sure the cumbersome burden of my trunk would have been nothing to you, but perhaps it amuses your master to see a woman almost tip off balance and into the sea."

  "If he knew you were coming, he wou
ld have sent someone out to help."

  "Oh, he knew I was coming."

  The handyman rubbed his nose again and his eyes narrowed. Olivia got the sense he was hiding a chuckle. "I don't think he knew you were coming."

  "What, pray tell, does that mean?"

  Jameson grabbed a chair and dropped heavily to the seat facing her, hands slammed down so hard on the table they made the lamps shake. "Don't get your drawers all twisted up, woman. I know who you are and why you're here. I was just rattlin' your cage."

  "If you knew that, why—"

  "You're a widow, so they tell me."

  She eyed him warily, beginning to understand how a mouse felt when trapped in the paws of a playful tomcat. "I am."

  He'd stretched his legs out under the table, so she was obliged to slide her feet away beneath her chair. The riding crop now rested on the table between them, a boundary line she was glad to observe.

  "Thought you'd be older," he snapped.

  She moved her hands into her lap, pressing the palms together.

  "You were supposed to be a great deal older," he added, scowling at her across the width of the table.

  "Oh?"

  "I pictured a stout-boned lady with white hair, spectacles and seven chins."

  Olivia's desire to remain stoic was now challenged by her sense of humor. "Well, I do have spectacles for reading and I keep my spare chins with the luggage. About the white hair there's not much I can do. However, if everything I hear of your master is true, perhaps that will be amended before my residency here is complete."

  Jameson's gaze searched her thoroughly, taking it all in. Although still now, his presence felt restless, impatient, overflowing with too much vigor. He seemed to fill the kitchen, his dark shadow a great bulk that stretched up the wall and across the ceiling, but she refused to be intimidated. He might be large, pounce about like a tiger, and have a habit of staring rudely, but if this "handyman" also meant to scare her off, he'd be just as disappointed as the butler.

  "Think you can manage the master, do you?"

  "I am certain of it."

  "I hope you're not squeamish."

  She laughed acerbically at that. "Squeamish? Mr. Jameson, I see you have a low opinion of women in general. But you may rest assured, there is nothing that frightens me, nothing to which I cannot turn my hand, and no beast too contrary for me to handle."

  This was not hollow boasting. When her last husband, William Monday, had decided to keep pigs, she had not raised a single protest, even though the task of feeding and cleaning them out soon fell solely to her— as she'd suspected it would— because he found himself much too busy, and the dirt too pungent.

  And that was not all. When a tree had to be chopped down it was Olivia who tackled it with an axe to save William's back and his coin, because the local woodcutter charged more than her husband would pay for the service which "anybody could do for themselves", and she found his inevitable need to bargain far too humiliating.

  She'd dug an entire vegetable garden without help, chased pushy tradesmen off the doorstep armed with nothing more than an apple corer, faced bill collectors without the slightest tremor— or ability to pay them, and had removed wasps nests by herself. Subsequently tending to her own stings later.

  So no, she was not squeamish.

  Jameson— poor, misguided fellow— had no inkling of what he was up against.

  His gaze now filled with little flames, reflecting the firelight and the glow of the lamps. Deep lines carved into his skin shot outward from the corner of his eyes like sunrays. "At least you're plain," he muttered. "That's one thing they got right."

  She drew her toes even further back under her chair and sat straighter. "Your master hired me to be useful, not an ornament."

  "Are you sure? Doesn't sound like him."

  "Never underestimate a plain woman, Mr. Jameson. I am at peaceful liberty to do a great deal more thinking about the world, and I never have to worry about the arrangement of my face while doing so."

  He squinted at her, scratching his chin with a rather long and disturbingly lively set of fingers. "You'd better be damned useful. I hope, for your sake, you don't disappoint the master."

  "He will have no cause to complain. I'm a hard worker, diligent and efficient."

  "But the master can be a difficult man. Hard to please. Demanding. Can fly off into rages if he doesn't get his own way. Haven't you heard the things they say about Deverell?"

  "I've heard plenty. None of it tries my courage, only my willing suspension of disbelief."

  His lips couldn't seem to decide whether they should turn up or down. "Sims was right, you are a mouthy wench."

  "Sims? Is that the butler's name? He didn't introduce himself."

  "I daresay he thought it wouldn't be worth the trouble." He leaned across the table toward her. "Decided you probably wouldn't stay long, but would turn your frilly little tail and flee as soon as the tide goes out again."

  "Mr. Jameson, there is nothing frilly about me. Have you naught else to do but sit here being tiresome?"

  Abruptly he brought his palm flat down on the table, making another loud bang that echoed through her bones and was felt in the very balls of her feet. "Come then. Let's get on with it."

  Thinking he meant to show her to her room, Olivia got up again.

  But he remained in his seat. "Did they tell you about the tradition of Roscarrock?"

  "What tradition?"

  His eyes narrowed. "A Jameson has worked here, keeping the place standing since it was built. I'm the last of the line, a lucky mascot of sorts. But I have to be kept happy or else a dreadful fate will befall the residents of the castle."

  Olivia wondered where this was heading and had the distinct feeling it wouldn't be good for her.

  "When a new woman sets foot on the island she has to give Jameson a kiss." He sighed, flexing his shoulders. "It's tradition."

  She promptly took her seat again. "Such nonsense."

  The cocksure fool grinned, his eyes gleaming wickedly. "In the olden days it was more than a kiss that got sacrificed to a Jameson to keep bad luck at bay. Good thing for you, we've moved on with the times, eh?"

  Olivia decided to finish her supper, as if he and his suggestive remarks could not be heard. Sadly that was easier thought than done.

  "Tell you what, woman, you and I will wager how long you stay, before you've had enough of this place and our odd ways and run back to Chiswick."

  "No, thank you. I don't gamble."

  His fingers flexed upon the table before her. Grit had formed in the creases of his knuckles— sand, perhaps, for she already felt how it got into and under everything here. Black hair crisscrossed his forearms, very masculine, making her wonder how it would feel to be caught in his embrace. How thick his wrist seemed, powerful. She imagined his pulse throbbing, full of vitality.

  In the olden days it was more than a kiss that got sacrificed to a Jameson to keep bad luck at bay.

  The kitchen was warm and so was she. Getting warmer by the minute, her temperature increasing with the speed of her heart's beat.

  But Olivia Westcott Ollerenshaw Pemberton Monday was not afraid of anything. Least of all a man who clearly had the wrong idea about her. Handy man, indeed!

  As if those two words had any business being put together.

  Chapter Five

  "You don't gamble, eh?" Then what was she doing there with him? True was amused and intrigued. "Think I might win?"

  "I know you won't."

  How stiffly she sat, and how clipped and sharp her voice. Weary hollows were evident under her eyes, but she didn't sag, didn't even rest her arms on the table. "Then what do you have to lose, Mrs. Monday?"

  "I told you, I do not gamble. Nor would I take money from a fellow who is, in all likelihood, in need of coin to feed his wife and children."

  He laughed. "Trying to find out if I have a wife at home?"

  Her eyes glittered with icicles of righteous anger. "I merely�
��"

  "I'll save you the trouble and tell you now. I don't have a wife."

  Her gaze skimmed his shoulders and then she stared at the table, apparently studying the wood grain. The tiny pearls hanging from her ears trembled indignantly. They were her only jewelry; the only decorative touch to her apparel. She wore no bows, frills or fancy lace. He'd never seen such a miserable gown. The color hovered in some purgatory between raincloud and ditchwater, and it looked as if the pieces of it were cut to a pattern of indifference, then stitched with resentment.

  "But don't get any ideas and start eyeing me up for yourself," he teased. "The master doesn't encourage romance between staff."

  "Nothing could be further from my intentions."

  He leaned back and burped. "Because I've had enough petticoat to last me a lifetime and I'm not looking for more."

  She winced. "Really? So many women and not one of them taught you any manners."

  "Too busy enjoying my other talents, weren't they." He winked.

  "Clearly those talents do not involve a razor and comb."

  "I don't believe in gilding the lily." He smirked, rubbing the stubble of his chin and relishing her expression of polite dismay. "Any woman who tries to keep me clean shaven and fragrant, like a dandy, must not know how to appreciate a real man."

  "And any fellow who abandons all good manners for fear it might somehow make him less of a man, must not know how to appreciate a real lady."

  "I see we're going to have friction between us, you and me."

  Her eyes widened.