True Story (The Deverells, Book One) (20 page)

"Against
you
. Not me."

He squinted and she felt his fingers
finally loosen their grip on her throbbing wrists. "What do you
mean by that, woman?"

As he rolled onto his
side, she sat up, briskly brushing at the front of her gown. "You
don't want me here because
you're
afraid."

"Of what?" he scoffed, resting on one
elbow.

"Of a woman who is not impressed by
you. I will neither fall at your feet in breathless adoration nor
be shocked into running away. So you don't know what to do with
me."

"You may be unusual, Olivia..." His
eyes gleamed with a sultry light, unearthly and terribly magnetic.
"But I suppose you're all the same once the clothes come
off."

"That's something you'll never find
out, isn't it?"

"Do I hear a wager in your voice,
woman?"

"I've told you before, I don't gamble.
Do pay attention. And if you think those kisses did anything to me,
you are mistaken." Carefully she got to her feet. "I should go to
my bed, sir. My eyes are strained. I am tired. It is very late. I
can be of no more use to you tonight." With that halting series of
excuses Olivia turned to leave the library, but then paused and
glanced back at him again. "You ought to write to your daughter,
sir, if you are concerned about her marrying in error. Tell her you
will meet this man she's chosen. You may not believe in love
because you've never known it, but perhaps she has found something
you did not."

"She's still a bloody
child."

"Precisely, sir. And you're the adult.
Well...", she swept his sprawling form with a haughty gaze, "you
are meant to be."

With that, having said much more than
she should yet again, Olivia left him to finish the supper
alone.

Fortunately a lit oil lamp sat on the
hall table and she used that to guide her steps to bed.

She paused on the stairs to glance up
at his eerie, faceless portrait.

I, like any red-blooded
man, require the company of a lover from time to time.

Present tense, she noted. And at his
age too— supposed age. Hadn't he done enough damage?

* * * *

She tasted better even than Mrs.
Blewett's pork pie. Just as well she took herself off, claiming eye
strain, or he might have gone back for another taste.

Eye strain.

She was a mere eight and twenty, for
pity's sake. How much eye strain could she have? And he knew,
already, that she wore those spectacles just to hide behind, make
herself less accessible. Perhaps she even thought they made her
invisible. It reminded him a little of a child, who thought that if
they hid behind a fence post then you couldn't find
them.

True tipped onto his back across the
carpet and stretched, crossing his arms behind his head. His body
was far too aroused, aching with desire. He knew he'd best stay
there a while, because if he got up he would be tempted to chase
her down. This, he thought, is what becomes of a man who survives
too long without a feminine playmate— he begins to fantasize about
seducing the most unlikely woman he can find. Setting himself a
challenge.

When he touched her that night he felt
the need churning through her like a ferocious waterfall. It was
almost enough to sweep him away. He imagined taking her roughly— in
a field somewhere, under the wide-open sky, the fresh, sweet scent
of blossom filling the air. Green stains from the newly mown grass
brightening her dull gown.

In a fight she would probably give as
good as she got, he mused.

Yes, she was a scrapper alright, and
she was so bloody polite about it, he couldn't help laughing out
loud suddenly.

* * * *

The boy stood very still
in the water and waited. He knew the fish would come; he just had
to be patient. He'd learned that the hard way, of course, suffering
many hungry days with no fish caught because he was too
clumsy.

But if he waited, those
slippery bodies would come close enough. Then he could scoop them
up and toss them onto the grassy bank behind him. He had to be
quick. And he was now.

He counted in his head,
memorizing the twisting pattern of their dance in the stream,
knowing when another would be within reach. To any casual observer
the fish moved about in a random manner, but he had studied them
long enough to find a rhythm. There was a rhythm to most things in
life.

And he had time. Nothing
but time and hunger.

One day, he promised
himself, he would no longer feel hunger. And time would be
something that troubled other men. They would wait for him, while
he did as he pleased.

Sunlight dappled the
surface of the water, dazzled his eyes, forced him to squint. The
water was warm around his knees, lapping gently. The fragrance of
summer swept and soared around him. The earth was alive and
singing.

A wasp landed on his arm,
but he kept his still pose. The insect crawled along, tickling his
skin. If he moved now to swat it away, the fish would know he was
there.

Here came his prey now,
slithering through the water, tail flicking, mouth gulping. Sun
flashed along its silvery body, beautiful and sleek. His mouth
watered.

Chapter Fifteen

Morning sun trickled lazily into her
chamber like rich, sweet honey from a spoon. For a long moment she
lay there, letting the light squeeze under her slowly
upward-drifting eyelashes, finding it hard to believe she'd ever
managed to fall asleep after the strange events of the previous
evening. But she had. Slept well too. Deeply. As if she had nothing
to trouble her conscience. As if she had not let that man — her
employer, for pity's sake—kiss her and nibble on her skin. She
touched her neck, ran her fingertips over the place where his teeth
had skimmed her flesh.

Olivia could see she'd have to lay
down some rules now, even if her employer had an aversion to
them.

Finally dressed, her hair braided in
its usual knot, she went downstairs and found the house quiet
again. His library was empty, no fire yet lit in the hearth, her
writing materials left exactly where she'd discarded them last
night. Even the supper tray and the remnants of their "picnic"
remained on the ottoman. Her gaze drifted over the carpet and found
the torn green stalk of a strawberry discarded there next to a wine
stain.

She licked her lips, tasting again his
kiss.

He needn't think she was a woman to be
taken in and played with like all the others, to be abandoned as
the mood took him. He was restless, needed too much of everything,
all the time. Could probably never be sated. Must be exhausting
company for the women in his life.

Outside the tall windows, sunlight
danced on the water and gulls floated dreamily above, ready to
swoop down and claim fish for their breakfast. The sea was placid
today, the air calm, and the surprising mildness of the weather
soon lured her outside. Surely even William couldn't forbid a walk
for pleasure on such a morning. God's beauty should be appreciated,
should it not?

In her mind, William had opened his
mouth to issue a warning about her boots, but really he should
trust her by now to know where she was going. Olivia was
responsible for her own decisions and standing on her own two feet.
He ought to approve.

She quickly tied on her bonnet and
strolled out to explore the island farther than she had yet gone.
Shielding her eyes from the sun's glare with one gloved hand, she
took in the wild beauty of her surroundings— all very different to
the orderly rose gardens and sculpted privet hedges of
Chiswick.

The far mainland was a stretch of
steep granite cliff side with dewy green above and a tawny strip of
beach below. There was not a solitary human figure in sight, only
the birds out to feed, picking among the seaweed for shattered crab
shells. The island of Roscarrock itself was rocky, a terrain
littered with treacherous lumps and sudden sheer dips. But Olivia
ventured to the very edge, taking a great bold breath of fresh sea
air.

A warm, gentle breeze carried the
pleasing scent of rosemary to her nose and she looked around to
find the source. It must grow somewhere in a rocky nook of the
house wall. There she recognized catmint, a cloud of silvery leaves
and lavender blue flowers peeping out of the stone. Hardy verbena
and merrily nodding daisies had a presence in the rocky garden too,
finding any spot to blossom. Bordering the edge of a downward
tracking path, she found thick, strappy leaves of a plant she did
not recognize and clumps of rosa rugosa, its blossoms now shed to
let plump, ruby rose hips flourish with the new season.

Although it was all very wild and
unruly compared to her usual surroundings, it was undeniably
beautiful. Raw, but breathtaking in a way her last husband would
not have approved. William always took steady breaths, was a firm
believer in one's bad intentions being directly aligned with the
amount of air one's lungs used, and considered activity that broke
his usual rhythm to be anything from a mild nuisance to utterly
hazardous to his health. Whenever he caught a glimpse of Olivia's
boots— clear evidence of over-stimulation and an excessive use of
breath— his eyes were heavy with sadness and
disappointment.

As she stood on the tip of the island
and surveyed the glimmering sea, her eyes suddenly found a dark
blot among the waves. Without her spectacles she had to squint,
trying to give the blob a shape, but it moved and changed as she
watched. Finally she realized it was someone swimming in the sea. A
man.

In the next instant she knew who it
must be. Who else would go out so far in water that must be chilly,
despite the sun? The current was surely strong out there, but he
swam easily and then disappeared beneath the surface.

Olivia waited anxiously for his safe
reappearance, but when it came he was much closer to the island.
Her pulse thumped recklessly. His broad shoulders were touched by
sunlight as he flexed them, bringing his hands up over his head.
Then he dived forward again. With a jolt she realized Deverell was
naked. Utterly and completely naked as the day he was
born.

He was... splendidly beautiful. There,
would that be a strong enough adjective for the dratted man? Surely
he would like that.

"
She's doing it again. Someone ought to stop her."

The rocks under her feet shifted. A
few pebbles rolled away and dropped, bouncing and rattling until,
with a splat, they landed in the water below. Olivia hastily backed
away up the path, her heart pounding.

She sincerely hoped he wouldn't see
her watching.

The solution, naturally, would be to
stop looking.

There he was again. For a man of his
size he was graceful in the water.

Perhaps his mother really was a
mermaid, she mused. How long he held his breath beneath the
surface! Olivia had never swum in her life. Although she'd heard of
ladies occasionally entering the sea with the aid of discreet
bathing machines rolled into the water from the sand, it was
nothing she'd ever had a fancy to try.

She was very warm, she realized,
removing her glove and raising one hand to her brow.

There was Deverell again, diving in
and out, quite at home in the water.

Suddenly he flicked his head around
and raised his hand to wave.

Olivia hastily turned and reached to
pluck some catmint, as if she hadn't been looking at him at all.
Then she embarked upon a hurried scramble back toward the house,
but she moved so fast that she slipped on more loose pebbles, got
one inside her boot, and wrenched her ankle. Her boots were in such
a poor state that they gave her no stability and they were not well
equipped for this terrain. She should have known better, should
have listened to William whispering in her head. Her last husband
was always so wise.

Apart from his insistence on crossing
that rickety old bridge every morning on his way to church, just to
save himself a few steps around the lake...that was not so wise,
was it? Not on the last day of his life.

Although it was unfair of her to think
that— she shook her head irritably as she scrambled back up the
hill. How could he have known what would happen? Poor William. That
narrow path around the lake could add as much as half an hour to
the distance from the parsonage, especially on a morning when the
ground was muddy, and William sensibly preferred to keep his
footwear and garments clean. While Olivia would have chosen the
walk around the lake and even, when she was alone, stopped to feed
the ducks, William always wanted to get to his church and pray as
soon as possible, not to be out "rambling and wasting breath". So
he used the ancient bridge to take a short cut across the
lake.

Stumbling and limping through the wild
garden, angry at the world in general and with that stone grinding
against her big toe inside her boot, Olivia thought back over the
events of William's last day. It was not a memory she liked to
visit often, but she needed something to take her mind off the
naked man in the water somewhere behind her. What better way to
keep herself from the temptation of looking out there
again?