Storm (10 page)

"In what way am I different to the women here?"

Olivia considered a moment and then replied cryptically, "I think it's best if I let you see for yourself at the Spring fete."

When the lady had left, Kate checked on the progress of her rhubarb pie baking in the range. It didn't look too bad. Perhaps she was finally mastering the great cast iron beast. Perhaps there was hope.

Slowly she lowered her seat to a chair, her hands in her lap, nervous fingers knitted together. Her mind was racing over the events of the morning and it couldn't seem to settle. As her gaze danced around the room it settled on the various pots and pans set out to catch leaks when it rained. What must Olivia have thought of the mess?

"You ought to say sorry to Mr. Deverell," said Flynn suddenly. "It weren't his fault."

The curse of having a precocious six year old to read her moods and prick at her conscience!

Chapter Eight

Storm swung the mallet hard and the fence post sank another few inches into the dirt. Clack!Then another and another. Clack, clack. He heard nothing else, saw nothing else but the tip of that wooden post, which was, at that moment, the unhappy focus of his stifled temper.

Despite a chill breeze he was sweating under his shirt, the linen sticking across his shoulders, but he had a good length of fence to mend for the new flock so he'd been hard at it without pause for half an hour at least. This was the perfect job for when he had pent up frustrations to safely and practically expel. In the past he would have gone looking for a fight— there was usually one somewhere— but these days he found more useful purpose for that energy.

He was so caught up in it that he didn't hear the dog cart until it drew level with his line of sight as he swung the mallet again.

"Olivia!" He stopped, clutching the mallet to his damp shirt. "What are you doing out here today?"

"I was just paying a visit to your new neighbor. Don't worry, I shan't trouble you by coming in, but I have a favor to ask of you."

"Aye?" He wiped a forearm across his brow.

"Would you escort Mrs. Kelly to the fete in the cove next week. She has agreed to come, but only if you will take her."

A rush of surprise almost knocked him over. But just as swiftly it was followed by suspicion. Through narrowed eyes he surveyed the pert little woman in the cart. "Forgive me if I find that hard to believe, Olivia."

"Would I lie about such a thing?" Supremely composed and unblinking, she met his frowning gaze. Olivia Monday could probably get away with murder, he'd often thought. She would certainly be a very good card player if she ever took up the pastime.

"Mrs. Kelly," he said slowly, "has no desire to go anywhere in my company."

"Then why would she say such a thing to me?"

"If she wants to go to the fete, she can find someone else to take her. I'm sure there's plenty who would be keen. Plenty."

Now she blinked, finally. "Has she offended your terrible pride in some way?"

"
My
pride?" He laughed.

Another woman had just appeared over the slight hill from the road. A curvaceous figure on foot, wearing a straw bonnet with a large red poppy on the side. Even from a distance the abundant shape and that leisurely, swaying movement was distinctive.

"Sally White?" Olivia exclaimed under her breath. "
Sally White
? I thought you were done with her."

Inwardly he groaned. Whenever Sally "dropped in" she always got in the way of his work and he was in no mood to listen to her gossip today. She must have taken the mail coach as far as the crossroads and jumped off.

"Sally's just a friend these days," he assured Olivia.

"I don't like that girl. She's smug and sly."

"Sly?" He snorted. "At least she wouldn't go behind my back to snatch up a property that she knows I want."

"You don't really believe Mrs. Kelly did that with malice. That's just Joss Restarick talking. I didn't think you paid his chatter that much credence. Besides, I hear he's changed his tune lately in regard to the young lady."

Storm sighed, picking up the next fence post and walking on.

"You're making a mistake to let this fester. I suppose Joss got you all rattled against her and now he'll step in having cleared the field of competition." Olivia called after him, "And you know I'm the voice of reason. That's what your father calls me."

He stopped, holding the fence post over his shoulder. "Why would I take her anywhere? She's got a temper and a sarcastic tongue that can wound a man at twenty paces."

"She's a little tightly laced, perhaps—"

"That's one description for it."

"But she must be used to gentlemen with different manners in London. It will take her a while to get accustomed to your ways."

"Ought to go back to what she knows then," he muttered. "The sooner the better."

Olivia picked up her reins. "If you won't take her to the Spring fete, I daresay Joss Restarick will. Or some other man with gumption." With that she was off, clearly not wanting to encounter Sally White who now waved to him with great sweeps of her arm, in case he hadn't seen her coming.

* * * *

"What yer doin', Ma?"

She hastily slipped the handheld mirror back in the dresser drawer. "Just looking for...something."

"Are you going to apologize to Mr. Deverell?"

"I suppose so."

"You ought to put a red ribbon in your hair, Ma. Then he might forget to be mad."

"Foolish boy, where do you get these ideas?"

"Red is my favorite color, and Mr. Deverell likes it too."

"How do you know?"

"He told me he likes your red hair."

She scowled. "It's not red! It's
auburn
."

Silk hair ribbons! Of all the foolish ideas. She didn't have any red ribbons, did she? And if she did she wouldn't wear them.

She was going to apologize sensibly and offer him an arrangement, like a woman of business, not to flirt like a hussy.

"Tie your bootlaces and comb your hair," she briskly instructed her son. "You will come with me, but you're not to say a word. I will do all the talking."

"Yes, Ma...
Mama
." He grinned up at her. "I shall be on my bestest behavior."

Although how long that would last was anybody's guess.

* * * *

"I didn't know who else to ask," Sally murmured, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and sniffing loudly. "I'm in a right bit o' trouble, Storm."

"You told me you'd given it up," he exclaimed, looking around desperately for something she could use to dry her tears.

"I had," she wailed. "But then Tom Lott said he had a certainty at the Exeter races."

"So you put all your wages on it?"

"Not all." She whimpered. "But a fair bit...and that pearl necklace my aunt left me."

Storm groaned, scraping fingers through his hair. "And the certainty wasn't so certain after all."

"Aye. It came in last. Poor nag."

How like Sally to feel sorry for the horse, he mused. "Well now you've lost your aunt's pearls, I hope you finally learned a lesson. I can give you a bit of money for the rent, but you must promise—"

"Oh, but that's not the end of it."

He slowly exhaled and then sat. "Out with it. What else?"

Sally tangled her finger in a limp yellow ringlet. "I had to get the pearls back, didn't I? So I borrowed money from Joe Dowty."

"
Joseph Dowty
? That crook? Why would you go to him, of all people?"

She swallowed another sob. "He came in The Fisherman's Rest one night and were throwin' his money around, so I thought...why not? He's got plenty."

"But you know Joe Dowty, Sally! You know to steer well clear of him." Any sensible person knew Dowty was bad news. He was a shadowy creature, a rotten letch with a hand in many crooked schemes. Every so often he returned to their part of Cornwall to keep his head down after spending several weeks in London, Bath, Brighton and any other place where large gatherings of society folk made for easy pickings. "Why didn't you come to me?"

"I thought I'd bothered you too much in the past and...well...Joe were right there, with the coin in his hand." She turned her palm up toward him across the table, eyes shining with fat tears. "And I had a few cups of cider that night," she added guiltily. "He seemed friendly and helpful. I were took in."

Storm sighed heavily and tipped back on the rear legs of his chair. "So he lent you money to get your pearls back and now you owe him."

She licked her lips. "I borrowed a bit extra, you see. And now he's callin' in the debt. With interest."

Joseph Dowty was notorious for encouraging his female "clients" to over-extend their spending and then abruptly calling in their loans. When they couldn't pay, they found themselves indebted to him and put to work in any shady business for which he decided they were suitable. With a network of similarly unprincipled comrades running gin shops, gambling dens and brothels up and down the coast, Dowty was the cunning spider behind a cobweb of sin and crime. But he was a spider that would never be caught sitting in the center of his web. He was too wily for that, and kept himself on the move.

"I don't know what to do, Storm. It's cured me of bettin' on the nags, to be sure."

Hmm. He doubted that. Sally never could pass up the chance of a win, however slight. She got those stars in her eyes, like a drunkard, and then she was lost to good sense.

"I'll give you some money, Sally, but I want you to leave and get far enough away from him. At least for a few months. He'll be gone again by then." He would see to it, he thought grimly. It was time someone acted and put a stop to that villain.

Her eyes were big and round. "But what about the debt? He won't give up until he's paid in full."

"You let me worry about that. All you need to do is get on that next mail coach at the crossroads and don't get out again until you’re far enough away from here. Don't even go back to your lodgings."

"I've some family in Wales. I could visit them."

He nodded. "It would be for the best. In a month or two it will be safe for you to come back."

She smiled rather forlornly. "You're a good man, Storm Deverell. I could...I could stay the night here before I leave." The sentence ended on a hopeful note of "come-hither", but her eyes were dry of tears already now that he was counting out some money for her. It reminded him of the reason why he'd stopped bedding her some time since. Sally could change her mood in a flash, go from a loving embrace to scratching claws in an instant when she didn't get her own way. There was always something more she wanted from him. Something more he wasn't willing to give.

"I'm meant for better than this," she'd yelled at him once when he bought her a stout pair of walking boots instead of the silk dancing slippers she'd wanted. "I abandoned my reputation when I took up with a Deverell who won't marry me, and for what?" Swiftly hurling the gift through a window, she'd screamed. "For an old pair o' boots?"

Calmly he'd tried to explain that he thought they were more practical for her as winter was coming, but she was too enraged to hear.

"There's men who'd buy me dancin' slippers and I gave them up to go with you."

Finally he'd told her she may as well go back to the other men, because the day he wasted his hard-earned money on frivolous silk slippers that wouldn't outlast more than a handful of rigorous dances would be the day they carted him off to Bedlam.

So that was the end of their affair. They'd remained friends, however. Sally White was another of those needy strays that Storm couldn't abandon to its fate.

"I can stay, my love. If you want me to."

He smiled. "That's not necessary. I'm giving you money because you're a friend and I don't want it repaid. Not every man wants something in exchange, Sally." It seemed to Storm as if he was constantly defending his generosity these days.

She pouted. After a short silence she leaned over the table to examine the money he was giving her. "I'll need a bit extra, for food and such on the journey. And I'll need clothes when I get there, since I can't go back to my lodgings."

Yes, he thought dourly, Sally always needed a "bit extra". He suspected she always would.

* * * *

Approaching the open door of his farmhouse, rhubarb pie held carefully in both hands, Kate was busy thinking of what she would say to him. Mostly she hoped he might be out, in which case she could leave the pie and a quick note. Then there would be no need for a face-to-face apology.

That's cowardly, Missy Proud-foot
, her conscience chided her.

But if he was out in the field somewhere— which seemed likely— she would have no other choice. So there.

And then she heard a woman's voice, softly cajoling, "You know Sally can take away your aches and pains..."

Kate froze, the pie wobbling precariously in her hands.

"For old time's sake, before I go..."

Through the open door she saw him passing money to a fair-haired woman with a plump bosom and a very large, scarlet poppy on her bonnet.

This is why people shouldn't keep their front doors wide open.

She gave Flynn a stern look to keep him from following, and then carried her pie to the window ledge. Having set it there carefully, she turned and tiptoed back across the yard. It would have been a clean escape, had his dog "Jack" not come trotting out of the barn and, spotting Flynn, barked excitedly. She cringed as she heard Storm calling out her name in surprise.

Gripping her son's hand she hurried him away from Deverell's farmhouse for the second time that day.

* * * *

He was too late to save the pie. Jack got there first, knocking the plate off his window ledge with one swipe of two determined front paws, and then gobbling up the shattered remains before any other farmyard resident could get a look in.

Storm saw her disappearing over the ridge beyond his half finished fence.

"Why did she bring you a pie?" Sally demanded, standing in his doorway with both hands on her waist. "I thought you didn't like her much."

Apparently that was the rumor.