True Story (The Deverells, Book One) (33 page)

"Well, aren't you a cheerful one. I
suppose you know all about that with your record of dead
husbands."

"Yes, I have been unlucky. But at
least I tried to find love. In the short time we have to live, the
greatest gift we can give or receive is love."

He lowered his lips to hers, but they
barely touched— just the slightest caress as he spoke. "Even better
than a priceless pair of diamond earrings that once belonged to
Marie Antoinette, while she still had her head attached? They can
be yours, if you want them."

"What on earth would I want with
diamond earrings?"

"I'll fetch them from my vault in
London."

"Don't be foolish.
I don't want diamonds
!"

His tongue swept over her cheek. "Then
what? I can give you anything, Olivia."

"Not what I want." She shivered and
knew he would feel it, would know what he did to her. With her
breasts pushed against his chest as he pinned her to the bed post,
she was helpless, a sacrificial offering left there by the
villagers to appease their pagan beast of a god.

"Tell me what you want," he
whispered.

So he could mock her? "You
know very well. And it is not in your power to give it to me,
because it's something that cannot be bought. Not with all
your
rotten gains
."

"That's the wine talking." He kissed
his way back down the side of her neck. "No sober woman would turn
down my offer."

"If I were sober, True Deverell, I
wouldn't let you do this. I wouldn't be this weak!"

"Good god, woman, I don't believe it's
in your nature to be weak, even when my son has tried to pickle you
in his wine. If anything, it's brought out the fiery taste of you.
The real Olivia."

He kissed her again, deeply, tongue
plunging into her mouth. She felt her toes lifting off the plush
carpet, his hard body pressed to hers, his fingers holding her
wrists in that firm man-made cuff behind the bed post. Finally his
lips released her. His eyes had turned smoky and she felt a fine
mist of his heat dampening her body, under her gown.

Now was the moment to stop
him.

Instead, she said nothing as he bent
his head and kissed the little bit of lace chemisette over the
peaked nipple he had so slyly teased out of hiding.

* * * *

"No sense of urgency to
marry again, eh?" he murmured against her warm, soft, perfumed
skin. "Must not have been so very
pleasant
after all, marriage with
your kindly parson. Or the other two."

He felt her trembling as the tip of
his tongue found the taut pink bud beneath her lace undergarments.
"I won't discuss them with you," she ground out between apparently
clenched teeth.

Her words ended on a hiccup and
another gasp, as he drew her nipple between his lips.

True was close to the point when he
knew he would not be able to pull away. His body was afire with
need for this woman, but to take her now would not be fair. He
wanted her eyes open and clear, he wanted her fully aware of each
sensation he could give her, not partially numbed by that potion
Storm optimistically called "wine".

So he backed away, slowly, reluctantly
releasing her wrists. It took him every inch of self-control.
Self-control he didn't know he had until then. Certainly it was
something he'd never used to deny himself whatever he
wanted.

The supposedly innocent target of his
desire remained standing against the carved post, hands behind her
back, eyes drowsy, cheeks washed with a faint blush. The sort of
delicate tint he'd seen on antique china roses. His truculent
secretary was temptingly beautiful and very evidently aroused
tonight. That brown nipple he had teased, poked through the lace,
eager and erect. Wanting more.

As he was himself.

Her gaze tracked downward to the very
evident sign of his arousal. Her lips parted and he felt another
raw surge of need pulse through his veins. Every muscle and tendon
was tense, coiled to spring. "Come to bed with me," he said, his
voice low, charged with desire. "Not tonight. But soon."

She did not reply, but licked her
lips. He could hear her quickened breaths, his body attuned to
every nerve and pulse within hers.

He had better leave that room now,
while he still could. Slowly he walked backward, away from her.
"Good evening then, Olivia. I will leave you to ponder my
offer."

"An old pair of diamond earrings? You
can have my answer now. No thank you."

Ah, there she was, regaining her
senses. He smiled. Trust her to speak so disdainfully of the most
beautiful jewelry that had ever been made. The finest pieces in his
priceless collection. "You know all that I could give you,
Olivia."

"And I know the limits of
what you
would
give me."

He paused, one hand on the door.
"Yes."

Her lower lip vanished beneath the
upper. She nodded her head, still leaning against the carved
Tudor-bedpost, making no move to close the buttons he'd chewed
open.

With a deep breath inhaled, he walked
out and closed her door behind him. Only then did he feel his blood
calm.

It was no good. Tonight had proved he
could not let her leave. He could not give her to his son either.
Somehow he must come up with a way to make her stay. To keep
her.

He'd even let her talk him into
writing to his daughter and making a damned apology of sorts.
Madness.

Absolute madness. But he felt like a
young man again inside, where something else new was opening its
shell and shaking itself, like a damp freshly hatched
chick.

Chapter Twenty-Three

True poured her a cup of coffee. When
he set it down on the desk before her, the slight chink caused
Olivia to wince, one hand pressed to her brow. In the dreary
winter's morning light through his window her face was the color of
sour milk. No amount of pinching could put pink back in those
cheeks, he mused.

"I shall have words with my son for
giving you so much of that dreadful stuff he makes out of left over
peapods and gooseberries. It ought to be a registered
poison."

She groaned, wincing again. "Oh, it
was not your son's fault." Her voice broke on a hoarse note. "I was
perfectly aware of what I did last night. I take full
responsibility of my own actions. No one and nothing else is to
blame."

Once again she proved herself so
unlike most women he'd known. It shouldn't really surprise him
anymore.

"I won't even blame the wine," she
added. "I'm afraid it was all me. Well, mostly me. The wine
simply... assisted my tongue in its...unraveling."

Lowering to his own chair on the other
side of the desk, True laughed gently. "That's remarkably honest
for a woman, Olivia. One might even say, dangerously
honest."

"Is it?" She took a careful sip of
coffee. "Perhaps I'm still suffering the effects then."

"Perhaps." His fingers felt even more
restless today, so he knitted them together and set his hands on
the blotter, assuming his most business-like pose. Although it was
damned difficult to be solemn when he was around this woman. "You
do recall the conversation we had?"

"Yes. The earrings." Another sip of
coffee. He sincerely hoped she remembered more than earrings, but
before he could say anything, she continued, "I must turn down the
offer, sir. I cannot think when I would have the occasion to wear
something so costly and luxurious."

He frowned. "With me, of
course."

"With you?" Her cup rattled against
her saucer as she set it down again.

"I believe you know full well what I
offered you and it went beyond earrings."

"Yes, sir. I know." Her expression was
earnest, but she hid her hands from him, setting them in her lap
out of sight. "And I am cognizant of the honor. But you would be
even more costly than the earrings."

True stared. "I'm not sure whether to
be flattered by that or annoyed."

"I mean that you would cost me in
other ways, sir."

"Stop calling me
sir
like that!" He
bounced up out of his chair, abandoning his decision to be calm. "I
would not ask you for anything."

"Yes you would."

"Well..." He waved a hand through the
air impatiently and walked in a circle, "nothing more than
exclusive rights to your body whenever I needed it."

Behind him she muttered
dryly, "Now
I'm
not certain whether to be flattered or annoyed."

"Very well then, you make the rules.
You say where and when."

"That is brave of you."

True came to a stop before his window
and stared out at the windblown garden. It always amazed him how
some plants grew and survived on that rocky island, but he supposed
they were like him. Stubborn and determined, they did not require
tender nurturing. The more resistance they felt, the hardier and
tougher they became out of necessity.

"When I see something I want, Olivia,"
he warned her carefully, "I generally go after it until I get it. I
don't give in. I don't lose."

There was a pause, then
she replied, "And once you have it, the
thing
quickly loses its sense of
novelty. There is always something new you must have."

"I haven't found anything that keeps
my attention. Yet."

"You don't want to. If you did you
might have to stop moving and then you'd get old."

Oh, this again? Apparently she wanted
him in his grave already. Would probably dig it for him. He thought
for a moment, hands behind his back. Then he spun around angrily,
opened his desk drawer and took out a letter, which he tossed to
her across the desk. "Here. This came for you today."

She looked at it, a faint frown
marring her brow. "Why was it in your desk?"

"Because I didn't feel like giving it
to you," he confessed sulkily and then turned away again, listening
as she tore open the seal.

"It's only my stepbrother," she
said.

"Hmph."

* * * *

She stared at the words penned in
obvious anger across the paper.

I have heard a most
disturbing report about your situation in Cornwall and I am of a
mind to come there at once and remove you from the place. I know
now I should not have allowed you to go, had I been made fully
aware of the disgraceful terms of your employment and that you
would be living there with him quite alone...

This was a most
ill-advised enterprise and it will cause this family much shame if
you do not return home immediately...

Having read enough, she refolded the
letter. The thought of Christopher arriving there to drag her home
by the scruff of her neck— as if she was an errant child— might
have amused her if not for her sad state of health that
morning.

Besides, her stepbrother was quite
correct in imagining her descent into infamy and he only knew the
half of it.

"Well?" Deverell demanded, his back
stiffly turned to her. "What news?"

She sighed. "He thinks I am on the
road to hell."

Slowly he glanced over one shoulder.
"You cannot leave yet. You promised."

How like a boy he was, she mused. A
spoiled boy who expected to get his own way. Christopher was the
same, but things had always been given to him, he did not really
have to work for them or put in any effort. True Deverell was this
way because he'd always had to fight, always had to get what he
wanted for himself.

"Write to him," he demanded. "Tell him
you're staying. Tell him I insist."

"We'll see. Later today perhaps, when
my head stops spinning and my stomach likewise."

Relief warmed his expression as he
turned fully to face her. "You know what you need for that sour
headache, Olivia my sweet? Some fresh air."

She winced up at him.

"Trust me." He grinned. "With my
reputation, I ought to know how to handle a woman with a sore head,
don't you think?"

* * * *

"I'm not a very good rider," she
exclaimed, warily eyeing his horse.

"That's alright, because I'll be in
command. You just ride behind me. And hold on with all your might."
He was already swinging himself up, even without a
saddle.

The animal was huge, its coat black
and shiny, muscles oozing with power; hooves the size of a child's
head.

Deverell looked down at her from the
stomping, snorting beast. "I thought you said you were never
afraid?"

"It looked smaller from a
distance."

"Isn't that the case with most
objects?" He reached down one hand, fingers twitching impatiently.
"I won't go too fast. Come on! Help her up, Jameson."