True Story (The Deverells, Book One) (6 page)

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 would
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."