Here's an excerpt -
Chapter One
The Offices of Chalke, Westcott & Chalke.
Three O'clock in the afternoon, Tuesday, March 12, 1832
"Get
out of my blasted way," the menacing, deeply disgruntled voice rumbled
above her. "What are you doing,
woman?"
On her
knees before him, head down, Olivia Westcott scrambled for the spilled papers
that cascaded around his boots when the man bumped into her.
"Some
ruse to pick my pockets, eh?" he growled. "Where's your slick-fingered
accomplice, or did you think to fleece me by yourself?"
"Sir,
I—"
"Good
God, must you wretched creatures lie in wait everywhere I turn?"
It was fortunate
for this stranger that while assisting in her father's office, Olivia had
promised to be on her best behavior. She didn't want to be sent home to
embroider yet another ugly fire screen or paint watery, depressing landscapes. So,
rather than answer as she would in a Utopia of justice and equality, she bit
her tongue, held her temper and said, "Sir, pardon me, but you're standing
on the papers."
Great Aunt
Jane, always her most indomitable critic, would have been impressed.
Still the towering
monolith did not move. His contempt bore down upon her. "Bloody women!
Always underfoot."
With one knuckle
she nudged her spectacles back up her nose and raised her improved gaze only as
far as his knees, where the tip of a riding crop tapped smartly against his
mud-splattered breeches. "I wouldn't be underfoot sir, if you hadn't
bowled into me."
"You shot
out of nowhere. If I didn't have my wits about me, I could have trampled you
into the floorboards."
The last
sheet was stuck under his heel. "Please move your foot, sir. No! The other one." "I suppose you were wandering with your
head in the clouds, daydreaming. Relying upon other folk to pay attention."
"I can
assure you I was not. Sir! Your foot!"
Anyone would think he deliberately delayed getting off her paper.
"Butter-fingers,
is that not the expression?"
"Better
that than Butter-brained." It slipped out on a sly breath before she could
restrain herself.
"Tsk,
tsk, you know what they say about women with sharp tongues."
"No.
Do tell. I am all agog to hear it." Oh dear, now more words came out that
shouldn't, linked like scarves pulled from a conjurer's mouth. "And
clearly you want to enlighten me."
He replied
coolly, "One day they find themselves surrounded by castrated men."
"A
tragedy, to be sure. For the men."
At last she
pulled the trampled paper free, although it was now decorated with a large,
dirty shoe print. Before she could get up off her knees, the man lost his
patience and, as if she was nothing more than a puddle in the street, he
stepped over her.
"Look
where you're going in future, young woman."
She recovered
from the indignity just in time to witness his head contact briskly— and most
satisfyingly— with the low lintel of the doorway.
"Did
the doorframe come out of nowhere too?" she inquired politely.
He stopped with
his back to her. "You think that was amusing."
"Well,
it does have a certain piquancy, sir." Mimicking his previous tone of
condescension, she added, "You know what they say about men who live in
glasshouses."
"Yes.
They pay a very high window tax." He half turned his head, but not far
enough to reveal more than a little cheek and some dark side-whiskers above the
tall collar of his greatcoat. No longer quite so terse and angry, his voice warmed
with a hint of self-deprecating humor. "And, as I have found, they ought
to keep their clothes on unless they have a fancy to exhibit for their
neighbors."
He didn't
turn to see her blush. In the next moment he was gone and the walls around her
seemed to exhale a collective sigh of wanton languor.
"Are
you alright, my dear?" Her father had come to find his papers.
"Was
that a client of yours?" she asked with as much nonchalance as she could muster.
"That
was... a gentleman currently embroiled in a divorce being handled by Mr. Chalke,"
he replied gravely, taking the documents from her. "Best stay out of his
path, Olivia."
"Why?"
Her heart was beating too fast, too hard.
"Must
you always question, my dear? Now where is the tea?"
She had
forgotten it. Vowing to remedy the oversight at once, Olivia waited with her
hands meekly behind her back, until her father had retreated inside his office.
Then she hurried to the window.
There he
was— Mr. Incivility—already down the stairs and emerging into the street. He
put on his hat, nodded briskly to the boy who held his horse and tossed the lad
some coins. Olivia willed him to look up, so she might see his face, but he
didn't.
Glancing at
the clock on the mantle, she noted it was just after three. It was a habit of
hers to mark the exact time at certain important moments in her life. She stored
them all in her brain like ledgers on a dusty shelf. Her stepbrother thought
that very odd and mocked her for it, as he did about most things.
But what
made this moment so important that it deserved commemoration?
As soon as
her father mentioned the man's purpose there she realized who he was. Divorce
was rare, almost unheard of, and those few who attempted it became infamous. Anyone
who read a newspaper knew his name. Consequently,
Olivia also knew why her father advised her to stay out of his path. A properly
raised young woman of good family should avoid the company of that gentleman.
In fact, many people refused to call him a gentleman at all. No one seemed to
know where he came from, although there was a general consensus as to where
he'd end up.
"Self-made,
indeed," she'd once heard Great Aunt Jane exclaim in a huff. "Gentlemen
are not made. They are born."
Olivia
considered that a rather snobbish view, especially coming from a lady who was
only a few steps away from debtor's prison for most of her adult life and
relied upon the charity of relatives to keep a roof over her head.
She thought
back to a conversation several years ago when that same lady, having remarked
upon Olivia's misfortune in losing her mother at such a young age— as if it was
a tragedy somehow due to the little girl's own carelessness—went on to
criticize her complexion, her lack of social graces and her posture.
"Straighten your spine, girl! You will develop a most unbecoming slouch if my nephew doesn't put you in a backboard immediately. Who will you ever find to marry, child, if you don't improve your posture, take up some feminine pursuits and learn to hold a sensible conversation?
What gentleman of any worth would look at such a sulky, sullen,
willful creature with a fascination for wicked pranks? You won't be fit for
polite society."
This
lecture came about because Olivia had sculpted a piece of parsnip to look like
a finger, coated the end of it in raspberry jam, and then placed it on the
pianoforte keys, to be discovered when the instrument was opened.
"You
are a horrid, unseemly child with a dark and devious imagination, Olivia
Westcott. I cannot think what will become of you."
To which she
replied, "I shall marry Mr. True Deverell, shan't I? People say he's not
fit for polite society either. But he's rich as Croesus and I hear he knows his
way under a woman's petticoats."
This bold
declaration had shocked everyone present into silence. These things — and
men—weren't meant for drawing room conversation in mixed company, and the
adults were probably wondering where she'd even heard his name. But Olivia was
not the sort of girl who listened quietly and contentedly to sweet fairy tales.
"Once upon a time" made her want to spit nails. Once upon what time? When? What on earth did that even mean, for pity's sake? How could
anyone take such a feeble, flimsy narrative seriously?
No indeed,
Olivia preferred darkly gothic yarns and bloodthirsty horror stories not meant
for the ears of little girls. Should that mean eavesdropping at keyholes to get
her entertainment, so be it. Even if she didn't fully understand what she
heard.
In any
case, on that long-ago occasion, the mention of his name had got her sent up to
bed immediately, saving her from a very dull evening. As she ascended the
stairs, she overheard the adults discussing her.
"One
must make allowances for the poor child, growing up motherless."
"Allowances?
Where would we be if we made allowances
for bad behavior? Another sliding of standards! No, no, that girl was
impertinent long before she lost her mother, who was herself a stubborn
creature with a distressingly romantic view of life and her head in the clouds.
What my nephew saw in her I'll never know. A difficult woman."
Was she?
Olivia had known her living mother for eight years and, at the time of this
conversation, been without her for two, yet already shards of memory were
breaking away and leaving her, like pieces of a shattered mirror that glittered
brightly as they spun into darkness. She tried holding on to the broken glass
even when it hurt her small hands and made her cry, but tears were something
she had to hide from her father, who never wept himself and had no patience for
those who did. He was, of course, cut from the same cloth as Great Aunt Jane, who
placed extreme importance on the immovability of one's upper lip, which should
remain as constant as one's temper and the heat of one's blood. A passionate
display of any kind was anathema in their family. Surrounded by these strong,
rather formidable characters, Olivia struggled to follow their example and keep
her real thoughts and feelings to herself. Especially those she secretly
nurtured about dangerous men.
By the age
of eighteen she thought she had those feelings fairly well under control. Fairly.
Peering down
through the window again, she watched Mr. Incivility ride away down the busy
thoroughfare. The brim of that tall hat still hid his face, but her gaze
followed him until her breath clouded the view.
So there he
went. The notorious True Deverell. He who must not be mentioned.
She really
couldn't see what all the fuss was about.
A storm in
a teacup.
Want to read more about The Deverells? Find them here....AMAZON US
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