Read Online True Story (The Deverells, Book One) by Jayne Fresina - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jayne Fresina
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learn how to do all those "little things" for his new bride
himself. Alas, Olivia could quite imagine the pretty couple slowly
starving as they lay in bed waiting for someone to feed them. Like
baby birds in a nest with their beaks wide open.
"That young man is dreadfully
spoiled," William used to say. "It seems his mama did him no
service while she was alive, adoring and coddling him as she did.
And now you are in danger of doing the same because of this
partiality which allows you to willingly overlook his faults. He is
not your responsibility, my dear, and one day he must stand on his
own two feet."
Yes, standing on one's own two feet
was very important.
She gave the glass of William's
silhouette a quick huff and rubbed it with a corner of her shawl.
Perfect, not a smear! Rising from her knees she went to the mantle,
wiped a spot clean in the dust, and placed him there with
reverence. Now he could watch over her in his calm, steady, knowing
way.
Beside him she placed the painting her
stepbrother gave her several years ago. Well, he didn't exactly
give it to her. She'd found him throwing it out, so when she said
she liked it he told her she could keep it.
"You never did have any refined
taste," he'd said with a sigh.
Christopher had been raised to
appreciate the finer things in life, even though he couldn't afford
them. He liked nothing until he'd been assured it was fashionable
or expensive. Olivia's more impulsive, instinctual, mostly
unfashionable tastes irritated him.
When their parents married, Olivia was
sixteen, her new stepbrother a year older. Christopher was very
close to his mama, but she died within a year of the wedding, and
then Olivia took on the role of listening, sympathetic ear. She
spent much of her time looking after Christopher. Most often,
however, she was of no more importance to her handsome stepbrother
than a chair against which he was accustomed to stubbing his toe.
An old, out-dated piece of furniture in need of restoration, but
reliable when there was a shortage of seating.
Once, as her father and Christopher
played chess and Olivia read a book nearby, she heard her
stepbrother exhale a sharp expletive of disgust at losing. When her
father reprimanded the young man for using such a word in the
presence of a lady, he'd looked over, smiled pleasantly, and said,
"Well, goodness, it's only Livy. I thought you meant someone else
had come in." Then he turned back to the game.
She had, several times, overheard him
lamenting that she would, one day, become his "burden" —even
calculating how many years she might live, how much she would cost
him in food and board. "One doesn't like to be morbid, but one must
think of these things," he had said to her father. "It is not
likely she will marry, is it?"
Why not? Because, in addition to her
lack of dowry, dark sense of humor, unfashionable features, refusal
to dance, and reticence to speak much in company, Olivia had once
committed the greatest social faux pas anyone within fifty miles
had ever heard about.
Sent against her will to be "looked
at" as a potential governess for the daughters of Lady Arabella
Frost, and finding herself surrounded by a cluster of haughty
society ladies who were plainly trying not to laugh at her old,
ill-fitting frock, Olivia took the last rout cake from a
three-tiered china serving platter and calmly stuffed her face with
it, much to the silent but very obvious indignation of those
present.
As she had said to her father,
"Someone was going to eat it. Why shouldn't it be me?"
Needless to say, she was not engaged
as a governess. One might think the incident too small and
insignificant to make many ripples for long, but in the close-knit
circle of that society they apparently had little else to talk
about. The incident was never forgotten, nor forgiven. Wherever she
went, she was The Girl Who Ate The Last Cake.
But then Olivia met boisterous and
lusty Captain Frederick Ollerenshaw, who accidentally stumbled into
her at
himself. Alas, Olivia could quite imagine the pretty couple slowly
starving as they lay in bed waiting for someone to feed them. Like
baby birds in a nest with their beaks wide open.
"That young man is dreadfully
spoiled," William used to say. "It seems his mama did him no
service while she was alive, adoring and coddling him as she did.
And now you are in danger of doing the same because of this
partiality which allows you to willingly overlook his faults. He is
not your responsibility, my dear, and one day he must stand on his
own two feet."
Yes, standing on one's own two feet
was very important.
She gave the glass of William's
silhouette a quick huff and rubbed it with a corner of her shawl.
Perfect, not a smear! Rising from her knees she went to the mantle,
wiped a spot clean in the dust, and placed him there with
reverence. Now he could watch over her in his calm, steady, knowing
way.
Beside him she placed the painting her
stepbrother gave her several years ago. Well, he didn't exactly
give it to her. She'd found him throwing it out, so when she said
she liked it he told her she could keep it.
"You never did have any refined
taste," he'd said with a sigh.
Christopher had been raised to
appreciate the finer things in life, even though he couldn't afford
them. He liked nothing until he'd been assured it was fashionable
or expensive. Olivia's more impulsive, instinctual, mostly
unfashionable tastes irritated him.
When their parents married, Olivia was
sixteen, her new stepbrother a year older. Christopher was very
close to his mama, but she died within a year of the wedding, and
then Olivia took on the role of listening, sympathetic ear. She
spent much of her time looking after Christopher. Most often,
however, she was of no more importance to her handsome stepbrother
than a chair against which he was accustomed to stubbing his toe.
An old, out-dated piece of furniture in need of restoration, but
reliable when there was a shortage of seating.
Once, as her father and Christopher
played chess and Olivia read a book nearby, she heard her
stepbrother exhale a sharp expletive of disgust at losing. When her
father reprimanded the young man for using such a word in the
presence of a lady, he'd looked over, smiled pleasantly, and said,
"Well, goodness, it's only Livy. I thought you meant someone else
had come in." Then he turned back to the game.
She had, several times, overheard him
lamenting that she would, one day, become his "burden" —even
calculating how many years she might live, how much she would cost
him in food and board. "One doesn't like to be morbid, but one must
think of these things," he had said to her father. "It is not
likely she will marry, is it?"
Why not? Because, in addition to her
lack of dowry, dark sense of humor, unfashionable features, refusal
to dance, and reticence to speak much in company, Olivia had once
committed the greatest social faux pas anyone within fifty miles
had ever heard about.
Sent against her will to be "looked
at" as a potential governess for the daughters of Lady Arabella
Frost, and finding herself surrounded by a cluster of haughty
society ladies who were plainly trying not to laugh at her old,
ill-fitting frock, Olivia took the last rout cake from a
three-tiered china serving platter and calmly stuffed her face with
it, much to the silent but very obvious indignation of those
present.
As she had said to her father,
"Someone was going to eat it. Why shouldn't it be me?"
Needless to say, she was not engaged
as a governess. One might think the incident too small and
insignificant to make many ripples for long, but in the close-knit
circle of that society they apparently had little else to talk
about. The incident was never forgotten, nor forgiven. Wherever she
went, she was The Girl Who Ate The Last Cake.
But then Olivia met boisterous and
lusty Captain Frederick Ollerenshaw, who accidentally stumbled into
her at
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