True Story (The Deverells, Book One) (4 page)

"You sure now, Mrs.? T'aint much of a
place for a frail bit o' woman like yerself. If yer mind be
changed, I can take yer back with me to the town."

Frail bit of
woman
? Olivia wanted to laugh. She was
eight and twenty, had survived three husbands, a jilting fiancé and
five wet winters in the same pair of walking-boots so shamefully
full of holes that she never dared change in or out of them in the
company of others. She may not possess great beauty or a heavy
purse, but having never known circumstances that were anything
other than reduced, she was adaptable, capable and never balked at
a challenge. "No. Thank you. I shall be quite alright."

He looked at her again as if he
thought her unhinged. "You do know about yon feller and his wicked
ways, since backalong eh?"

"I do indeed." She'd even met him
once, ten years ago—well she'd met his large stubborn feet anyway—
when he stepped over her in her father's office.

"It ain't put you off?"

"Not at all. I am not afraid of my
employer."

"Employer?" The coachman's scowl
deepened another few notches. It was not considered genteel and
certainly it was rare for a lady of "good" family to earn a living,
but Olivia considered this attitude remarkably cavalier, since it
assumed that all such ladies would find a man willing to keep them
fed and warm— and in fine shoes— until the end of their days. What
if she never found a man? Or what if she found several and they
kept dying tragically and in near poverty, until she was finally
left with nothing but some books, walking boots full of holes and
the very small portion left to her by her father? A portion, by the
way, that could barely cover the cost of an annual coal supply for
a small house. Then, that unfortunate widow would become a burden
to relatives, or at the mercy of the parish and sent to the
workhouse.

The shadow of miserable Great Aunt
Jane Westcott loomed over her in warning, every time she thought of
how she might end up if she sat back and let fate take its
course.

No, Olivia would make her own future,
take her opportunities as they came, and stand on her own two feet.
They were not large and they were invariably cold, due to
circumstances already mentioned, but they were competent. Like the
rest of her.

"You see, I have an advantage over Mr.
Deverell," she told the coachman.

"What advantage could you 'ave over
that feller, missy?" the old fellow muttered dolefully.

"While I know all about
Mr. Deverell's wicked ways," she smiled, folding her widow's veil
back over her bonnet, "I'm sure nobody has warned him about
mine
."

Even as she said it, she thought what
a good thing it was that Sergeant O'Grady of the London
Metropolitan Police wasn't nearby to hear. That fellow already had
some dreadful suspicions about her and he quite lacked a sense of
humor.

Oops, not Sergeant any
longer, she corrected herself; he had recently been promoted
to
Inspector
O'Grady, since the formation of the new detective division.
He had taken pains to inform her of his advancement.

But despite the title, as her
stepbrother pointed out, he was still the same "ill-mannered
vulture in cheaply tailored clothes."

Poor Inspector O'Grady. She would miss
their little chats.

* * * *

"We weren't expecting you today," the
sour-faced butler objected, as if Olivia's windblown arrival was a
great inconvenience.

"But the arrangement was for me to
come today, was it not?" she said with as much politesse as she
could manage after dragging her trunk and hatbox across a wet,
slippery causeway, then up a flight of no fewer than ten stone
steps.

"No one ever gets here as planned,
madam. Not with these roads. They usually get held up at least a
day, sometimes a week." His thick, grey-tipped brows lowered and
drew close, forming a shape not unlike the wings of a hawk about to
swoop down and seize its prey. "Often they never arrive at all. The
master has been known to make wagers on whether or not an expected
guest will get here in one piece. He finds it most
amusing."

There was a time when she would have
appreciated the entertainment value of such a sport, it must be
said, but Olivia had formed a distaste for gambling since her first
husband's demise. "Well, I suppose one must fill the time however
one can in such a place as this, but your master will lose if he
bets against me. When I say I am going to be somewhere on a certain
day, at a certain time, you can rest assured I'll be there in my
best hat and coat."

The butler cast a cold, disdainful eye
over her damp and sandy bonnet, before his gaze slid downward to
the saltwater stain around the hem of her coat.

"The tide came in faster than I could
drag my trunk along," she explained.

As she first began climbing the steps
to the house, Olivia had paused to wonder whether she truly needed
any of the items in that trunk. The temptation to let it fall into
the sea was all too powerful as her temper mounted and her arms
grew tired. But she'd recovered her determination and managed
eventually, with no help from anyone, to mount those steps and haul
her luggage along behind her.

Well, at least it wasn't raining, she
thought.

She used to love the rain— the sound
and smell of it in the morning, and the birds singing afterward,
but lately the rain seemed crueler, angrier. It was more of a
nuisance than it used to be. Probably because she was getting
older.

"The master of the house did receive
the messages I sent along my route, did he not?""Yes, madam, he did
receive your messages."

"Then he knew—"

"He wondered why you thought he might
care, madam."

She stared.

"You weren't any use to
him until you got here," the butler added. "
If
you got here. So he really wasn't
interested in your messages en route. The odds, he said, were
against you."

Olivia wanted to laugh suddenly. To
fall to her knees and laugh hysterically until they took her away
to Bedlam. Perhaps it was tiredness after her journey, but
everything about this venture now seemed so ridiculous she didn't
think she could go on. It was, however, only a moment of doubt—
like that pause on the steps when she feared the weight of her
trunk was too much. Somehow she composed herself.

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.
Worthy
advice from her second husband, elderly Sir Allardyce Pemberton, a
firm advocate of keeping up appearances— a fact to which his
extensive and colorful wig collection could attest, before it was
confiscated by the bailiffs, along with everything else he'd
owned.

"But I am here now, aren't I? Despite
the odds."

The butler's eyebrows
writhed and his lips reluctantly cracked apart. "Apparently. Madam.
And in your
best
hat."

She ignored his tone and prompted
gently, "So Mr. Deverell might want to know I've
arrived."

"Now?" he drew back,
looking horrified. "He won't want to see
you
yet. These days, he says, women
upset his indigestion after sunset."

Olivia suspected he was trying to
frighten her off just like everybody else. Wearily she replied,
"Yes, that is when we ladies are at our most dangerous. That, and
when we haven't eaten for an extended period. As indeed, I have
not."

She waited, but no offer issued forth
from those tight lips.

"You do have a bed for me?" she
added.

"There's plenty of beds," he snapped.
"But none aired."

Having waited again to see if he might
come up with a solution, she finally suggested, "Perhaps while I
have something to eat, a bed could be warmed?"

"Dinner was cleared an hour ago at
least."

"But there is food in the kitchen?
Anything will do. I can cook for myself. I've had nothing all day
and although it may not be ladylike to admit it, I'm fair
famished."

His lips parted in a tense murmur, as
if he feared the words might cost him coin. "Yes.
Madam."

Removing her gloves, Olivia looked
around at the dark paneling and the shifting shadows of the
medieval hall.

Suddenly she realized there was a man
standing on the stairs. He'd been there listening all along? Her
heartbeat scrambled for balance, like a cat on a rolling barrel.
But when the butler raised his oil lamp to point her in the
direction of the kitchen, she saw tongues of light lick not only at
the tall, still figure, but at a large, gilt frame surrounding
it.

Her pulse slowed to a steadier pace.
Good heavens, it was only a portrait. Life-size.

As the glow of the butler's oil lamp
arched over the picture, it revealed a large gash in the canvas and
a dark, blood-red stain, obscuring more than two thirds of the
man's face.

"Is that Mr. Deverell?"

"It is," the butler muttered, adding
stiffly, "Handiwork of the former mistress of the
house."

"She was an artist?"

He sniffed. "No, madam. I refer to the
wine stain. And the hole."

"Ah." Something heavy and sharp had
gouged the canvas quite severely in the spot where his face should
be. "Must have been very satisfying for the lady. I wonder why she
didn't take aim at the real Mr. Deverell. She wouldn't be the
first, would she?"

The butler cast her another frown.
"You'd be wise to keep such remarks and opinions to yourself in
this house, madam."

"Yes, I daresay." It was the case in
every house in which she'd ever stayed, of course."The master has
been greatly maligned by uninformed gossip."

"I'm sure. You must excuse me. When
I'm hungry and weary my tongue does tend to run on untended." She
could also blame it on the excitement of her journey, for she was a
long way from home now, a good distance from anything
familiar.

The butler's brows had twisted into a
knot midway down his forehead and his nostrils flared so wide she
heard wind rushing through them.

Olivia blinked innocently. "I have no
doubt Mr. Deverell is the most upright and benevolent of gentlemen.
A victim of malicious rumor. A veritable saint."

He eyed her warily in the lamp's
glow.

"I won't believe a word said against
him," she added. "I too have suffered from vile rumors and unkind
speculation, so you may rest assured your master has an ally in me.
I only meant that his wife must have been relieved to dispel her
pent up anxieties and frustrations on a portrait. We women suffer
terrible hysteria at times and for little reason, as you must know.
We are flighty, temperamental creatures, are we not? That is why
they call us the weaker sex. It's fortunate we have men and corsets
to keep us in our place or we might explode into little pieces."
She smiled brightly. "Do lead the way to the kitchens,
sir."

As she followed the butler, Olivia
thought again of the coachman's shocked expression and his concern
for her body and soul while in the company of the reprobate Mr.
Deverell.

Frail bit of a
woman
, indeed. A quick snort of laughter
shot out of her and ended up speared on the end of the butler's
long nose, when he twisted his head around and glared over his
shoulder.

"Are you quite well?" he
demanded.

"Me? I am riddled with good health.
It's the men around me who don't fare so well."

"
Chin up, m'dear
," she heard her
first husband Freddy exclaim in his booming voice.
"
Always walk with your head high and don't
you look down. Don't ever look down
."

That was how he had walked too, with
his chest thrust out, a merry smile on his face for everyone he
met. And if, as often happened, he stepped in horse dung because he
didn't look where he was going, he'd shout, "Muck means luck, Mrs.
Ollerenshaw! See, we're coming into a bit of fortune soon, mark my
words."

They never did, of course. No matter
how much horse manure he gladly stepped in.

But his irrepressible high spirits had
not had enough time— during that brief, twelve-day marriage— to
wear out their welcome on her nerves, and since Olivia had never
seen Captain Freddy Ollerenshaw downcast, she followed his example,
keeping her own insignificant chin well raised.

Chapter Four

"The
secretary
has arrived, sir," Sims
intoned with somber apology.

The deep emphasis placed on
"secretary" had not escaped True's notice every time it was
uttered, but he had no intention of rising to the inquisitive
butler's bait. He made it a rule never to explain himself, nor did
he feel it necessary to defend his actions.

Besides, if Sims suspected this woman
came to Roscarrock for some other, more pleasurable purpose, the
butler ought to realize by now — having seen her with his own two
eyes— that this was not the case.