True Story (The Deverells, Book One) (19 page)

Then
she
came along with that steady
gaze, heart-shaped face, and brave, uplifted, little
chin.

He'd always had a soft spot for the
scrappers. An affinity, he supposed.

He quickly turned his head away from
the surprisingly strong pull of her gaze and continued his
story.

"For the first year of marriage we
tried to make the best of it. Charlotte did become pregnant after
all, and I was busy at Deverell's. We both had much to distract us.
There was no need to spend a vast amount of time together. Her
father may not have approved her choice and threatened to disown
her, but once the first child was on its way he had to give his
blessing, finally."

The woman beside him was still,
listening without interruption, but now eyeing the plate of plump,
late strawberries from the home farm greenhouse.

"Of course, it was a union made out of
deception, Mrs. Monday, and we both suffered for it. I soon saw
through my wife's physical beauty to the ugliness within, and she
found my lifestyle distasteful, decidedly unromantic. Not what
she'd expected. Somehow, despite my warnings, Charlotte had thought
to change me. But eventually she realized that I was, in fact, just
as I'd told her, an untrainable stray. She found me rough and
coarse." He paused, glancing slyly again at his secretary. "In bed
and out of it."

She didn't take her gaze from the
plate of strawberries.

"But by then she could not go back to
her father and admit she was wrong. For my money and her pride, she
stayed."

Mrs. Monday finally moved her focus
from the strawberries to his face. "You both made that choice, sir.
You both stayed."

"As I told you, I married her because
she claimed to be carrying my child. A falsehood, as it turned
out."

"And yet there were other children to
follow. Several."

"It is the natural result of fucking,
madam. Your god made it that way."

Her lips parted and closed
again.

"What else should I do with the woman
who is my wife? Go on, Mrs. Monday, tell me. I insist! Why else
would a couple wed but to create children?"

A frown line appeared between her
brows, and two hot poppies of color blossomed high on her cheeks.
"You did not have to indulge. It is possible to have a marriage
without...that."

"I disagree. When a man and woman are
thrust together by vows, and they both have urges, what else should
they do?"

Her cheeks reddened further. "Practice
restraint, sir."

"Restraint?" he sputtered.

"Read a book. Take up chess or...or
bird-watching."

He chuckled. "Is that what your
husbands did, madam? Perhaps you encouraged those other hobbies to
keep them out of your bed. I've heard some women have a distaste
for it. Even when it’s gentle and tender."

"Once again, sir, we are not supposed
to be discussing my life."

"Humor me." He swayed
closer to her, wondering how far he could venture with his
curiosity. Of course, he knew she needed the fee he was paying her.
And True loved chancing his luck when the odds were against him; it
kept his soul fed. "I've been told I'm too forward, too direct in
my approach when I meet a woman I want. But I never had anyone to
teach me manners, so you must forgive my candid curiosity. I've
always wondered how the well-bred manage it. For example, how does
a
kindly
parson
approach relations with his dutiful young wife, without shocking
her? Does he ask politely, or wait for her to put her embroidery
down and give him a sign? Did you plan by rote, once a month?
Surely it was at least once a month. Or did he forfeit his rights
entirely out of
kindness
."

"Sir! This conversation is
improper."

"You began this, Olivia."

"Indeed I did not!" Oh, indeed she
did. Just a single flicker of her lashes brought out the mischief
in him and once he began he couldn't stop.

"Madam, you suggested I should not
have bedded my own wife as often as I did. When I was completely
within my marital rights to do so."

She bit her lip and looked again at
the plate of strawberries on the tray.

"Tell me, woman. How would your parson
approach the matter of fucking when he was in the mood? I must
know! I demand that you tell me."

"Sir, I know this way of teasing me
amuses you, but I will not —"

He took a strawberry from the tray and
offered it to her. She wanted it in her own hand, but he, holding
the stalk, pressed the other end toward her lips. "Honesty, Mrs.
Monday, if you please. I am telling you my life story. The least
you could do is answer my questions about your own. There is no one
here but you and I. How did the kindly parson tell his wife that he
wanted—"

"Well, what would
you
say?" she exclaimed
crossly.

"I would say..." he paused and ran the
strawberry across her lower lip, "Come to bed with me,
Olivia."

Her eyes darkened as the pupils
enlarged. How long and thick her lashes were. He hadn't noticed
until he got this close.

He cleared his throat. "No doubt you
were a maiden the first time you married."

"Of course." Her voice was very soft
and low, barely above a whisper.

"Did you enjoy relations with your
first husband? Honesty!"

Although he thought she would not
answer, apparently she was still intent on proving herself
fearless. Up went the chin as her eyes flashed boldly. "I
did."

"It was
nice
, was
it?"

She rolled her lips together, held
them tight a moment and then they snapped apart to exclaim, "Yes, I
suppose so."

Her mouth looked very pink and full
suddenly. Enticing. Had she just wet her lips with the tip of her
tongue, anticipating the taste of the sweet fruit?

"These strawberries were harvested
from a surprising late crop in the greenhouses," he muttered, his
voice hoarse. "There won't be any more this—"

Suddenly, he saw a flash of little
white teeth and then the strawberry was gone. All that remained was
the green stalk. He was surprised she left his fingers
intact.

She chewed slowly, a small bulge in
one cheek, eyes gleaming with salty amusement.

Suddenly it occurred to him that she
might have been sent there by one of his many enemies. He'd felt
instantly that she was not what she pretended to be. This grey-clad
widow with three dead men to her name already could be a Trojan
horse. It wouldn't be the first time a bitter enemy tried to send
him to his maker. Death by Olivia Monday, however, was a novel
approach.

"Now it is my turn to ask you a
question, sir."

"Is it?" Who made that rule, he
wondered. But, being mesmerized by her lips at that moment, he let
her get away with it.

"So although you had no love for your
wife," she said quietly, firmly, "indeed, you say you are not
equipped to love... you still took advantage of her, as if she was
your property?"

Frustrated, he exclaimed, "I, like any
red-blooded man, require the company of a lover from time to time.
If I have one who has bound herself to me by vows and laws, why
would I not take my ease? The need to mate is just as instinctive
as the need to defend and feed one's cubs. If I no longer felt such
a need, I would know I was dead."

"And according to you, this was done
with no tender or fond feelings for your wife, no softness in your
heart? It was mechanical?"

"She expected to be serviced. If I
didn't, I would not be keeping to our marital vows."

"Gracious! And you dare
make sport of me for calling my husband
kind
?"

"So we have both endured marriages
that were incomplete, unfulfilling. At least I only made the
mistake once."

"I think, sir, we have—"

Unable to resist a moment longer, he
grabbed her chin, held her face firm, and kissed her on those
berry-stained lips.

Chapter Fourteen

It must be the fault of her dreadful
curiosity, which refused to sit in a corner and be quiet. Instead
it wanted to go wandering, even in worn boots, over this rocky,
unpredictable terrain known as True Deverell.

His lips were so savage, so
determined. His long fingers held her face and he deepened the
kiss, leaning into her, his tongue tangling with hers.

The kiss— she called it that, even
though it was like no other kiss she'd ever experienced— lasted too
long, and then, somehow, she found the strength to pull
away.

He breathed heavily, his eyes dark,
his hair and his cravat now in even greater disarray she noted.
Surely she had not done that with her own hands? She looked down at
them now, checking for signs of misbehavior. Her fingers were
curled into fists, hiding from her. Guilty.

"Forgive me," he muttered. "I should
not have done that."

Something twisted painfully inside
her. "No."

But his supposed penitence was brief.
He moved close again, pushing the tray aside, spilling their supper
to the floor. She saw it coming, had plenty of time to escape, but
she did nothing.

The second kiss lingered even longer.
His fingers pillaged more pins from her hair, while his lips took
possession of her mouth as if they had some primal right. He was
forceful, wicked. Everything people said of him. True Deverell, the
legendary lover with dark, dangerous passions— a man that
well-raised women only dare whisper about— was kissing her, his
hands exploring, his strength overpowering.

She fell back to the carpet and he
followed her down, his body covering hers. His firm, determined
lips caressed her chin, her throat. Olivia thought she might pass
out, but not with helpless fear. With the sheer desire for
more.

His hand stole its way upward from her
waist, over her bodice, touching her through her gown and not in a
gentle caress. Demanding, forceful, devoid of gentlemanly
restraint. His teeth nipped the side of her neck. She thought it
was by accident until it happened again.

He had led her off down a rocky path
and the descent was steep, treacherous. Her heart raced with
exhilaration.

She exclaimed in a rush of breath,
"This is no way to write your memoirs."

Husky laughter blew warm against the
side of her neck and he held her wrists tightly, drawing them up
over her head. "I'll write them on you. Inside you."

"We can't." She did not care to be
another of his conquests and he had told her plainly what he
thought of women.

But he kissed her again and she let
him devour her as if she had no choice. As if she was a passive
woman without a brain. As if she'd been waiting ten years for this.
Ten years at least.

In his hands she became a creature of
lust. It raced through her veins, melted parts of her body, stole
her anxious breath and replaced it with something that sparkled and
sang and laughed. As if she had been frozen, stuck, and now her
river flowed again.

Yes, she wanted him to feast upon her.
Yes. At last.

And then, suddenly, he
stopped. He still lay over her, his lips barely an inch from hers,
his fingers gripping her wrists firmly. "Now describe that," he
murmured. "Was that
nice
? Can the pert little widow
think of a better adjective now? Perhaps I've inspired
her."

She stared up at him, trying to get
air back in her lungs with his weight over her, crushing her to the
carpet. "I ought to knee you in the unmentionables,
sir."

"Oh, do. I dare you." He chuckled and
she felt it moving through his chest. And elsewhere too, his
manhood hard and moving against her thigh. When she writhed and
struggled under him it grew further. His voice turned husky, his
eyes at the point where heat turns to smoke. "But we both know
that's not what you really want to do."

She tasted the residue of wine and
strawberries on her lips. But she also tasted him. Mostly him. Too
much of him. Yet also not enough.

"I daresay you'll pack your trunk and
leave now, eh?" he muttered.

"Are you trying to frighten me away
again?"

"Perhaps." But his hands still held
her wrists tightly, not about to let her go anywhere.

"If you truly have a wager against me
staying, you may as well concede defeat, sir. Your methods won't
work on me." As she'd told him, she did not go back on her word and
she did not give in. She also needed the money, not that she would
ever admit that.

She lay still now, growing accustomed
to his weight upon her, his warmth.

When she looked up into his eyes they
were molten steel. "What if I cannot guarantee this will never
happen again? As I said to you, I am not dead, madam. I have urges,
needs. The odds are —"