Page 18 of The Duke of Ruin
"No, it is I who must thank you Olive," the plain girl replied, breaking into a smile that transformed her face from tired and pinched, to radiant and beautiful. "I can't tell you how happy I am that you are reopening the house. The thought of a summer in St. Jarvis, with no-one for company, why, it was almost unbearable."
Liv longed to ask her new friend about her brother's animosity toward her, and intellectual women in general, but she sensed that now was not the time. The defeated girl who had quailed under her brother's stern disapproval had metamorphosed into a woman filled with energy and light.
"We shall have to find you some help," Jane said, striding from the library and down the hall to the kitchen, "A girl to help with the cleaning and serving at the table, and someone to cook."
"I can cook."
They were in the kitchen now, and even through the gloom - for the shutters were closed on the windows - Liv could see the surprise on Jane's face.
"No really," Olive laughed, as she walked over to the windows and wrenched open the shutters, which creaked and groaned. "I can bake bread, make stews, brew tea. There's no need to hire anyone else yet to do all that, I'm quite adept."
This was true enough, but the knowledge that she would be investing a large portion of her five-hundred pounds into the business made Liv hesitant to hire any staff who might not be needed if the business did not prosper. If the boarding-house made a tidy profit, then perhaps she might hire a cook, for kitchen work was hard, menial and involved rising before dawn.
Specks of dust danced in the light that now streamed through the window, and Liv noted with dismay that the kitchen had fared worst from the house's period of neglect. Apart from the dust, and the dirt, it was a fine big room, with a large wooden table at its centre and a sturdy looking range for cooking.
"It's perfect," she declared, then her smile faltered as a thought struck her. "Apart from the fact that my larder is bare, of course."
Her stomach rumbled loudly as she voiced this concern, and she glanced out the window noting that the sun, while still strong, was definitely preparing to set.
"You can dine at Jarvis House," Jane gamely suggested, but Liv found the idea of eating under the disapproving glare of Lord Deveraux most unappetising. Besides, she rather fancied a few moments alone to take stock of what the day had thrown at her. She was now "widowed", the proprietor of an empty boarding house, and apparently a sponsor of egalitarian thinking. It was all rather a lot to take on board, in just one day.
"Thank you Jane, but I think I shall just fetch some basic provisions for my tea, and then prepare for bed - I'm rather tired after all this excitement!"
And so the two girls walked arm and arm into the village proper, where Jane deposited Liv outside the small general shop, with a promise that when she returned home she would pen a dozen missives to the other ladies of theBas BleuSociety. Jane bought tea, milk, bread, eggs and butter from the jolly, red-faced man in the shop, who proclaimed himself delighted at the news that the boarding house would reopen, before going home to prepare a rudimentary supper. She did not allow her thoughts return to her husband, until later that night, when she was tucked up in her new bed. Try as she might, the memory of Ruan's searing kiss aboard the ship, and the beauty of his hard muscular body would not leave her head. Liv tossed and turned for hours, until finally she fell into a restless sleep, which was filled with dreams in which she was being hunted by a man, who looked awfully like Ruan.
"I recognised the crest immediately, your Grace," the owner of the pawn shop on Market Street declared, as he fawned over the signet ring that was laid out on the glass counter. "I was just about to write to your man of business, when I had word that you were in town. How fortunate."
"Indeed," Ruan replied, wondering just how much of a fortune the slippery man opposite him intended to make from the transaction.
He had been staying in Falmouth for the past two days, eagerly awaiting any news on Olive's whereabouts, as well as the whereabouts of the traitorous tar that had blown upThe Elizabeth. Cornwall was not a county he frequented often, given the terrible way he had fled five years ago after Catherine's death. Over the past two days however he had found he rather enjoyed being amongst the familiar accents and eccentricities of the local population, not to mention the local ale which tasted just as good as he remembered.
"Who sold it to you?" the Duke asked, as the shop-owner held out the ring for his inspection. Ruan took the heavy, gold piece in his hand, barely glancing at it before he slipped it back upon his index finger. He had worn it every day for a decade, he did not need to examine it minutely to know that it was the Ashford Signet.
"A young woman," the oily man coughed delicately, "She did not seem keen to share her name..."
"And so you never asked it," Ruan growled in reply. "Well, what did she look like?"
"Red hair, and a most bewitching set of green eyes."
Olive.
Ruan heaved a great sigh, and looked at the man opposite him warily. The shop keeper in turn eyed him with a most innocent expression, as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
"How much did you pay the woman for it?"
The shop keeper looked pained, as though speaking of money offended him.
"Nearly eight-hundred pounds, your Grace," he said without blinking.
Ruan resisted rolling his eyes, for he was sure that the price named was an astronomical inflation of what had actually been paid to his wife.
"I shall write to my man of business, and have him send you on what you're owed," he murmured distractedly; he had no time to quibble over money when his wife was still missing. Though at least now he had proof she was alive.
"Did the woman happen to mention anything else?" Ruan prodded, hoping that perhaps Olive had been kind enough to furnish the man with her exact travel itinerary. It would save him a great deal of time if she had.
"She did not, though she did head off in the direction of the Quays. However that's not unusual, for there's not really anywhere else to go in Falmouth."
He laughed lightly at his own joke, only stopping when he saw the dark glare that Ruan cast him. There might be nowhere else to go in Falmouth bar the Quays, but from there a person could find passage to any corner of England, or the world for that matter.
