Page 16 of The Duke of Ruin
"Do you know him?" Liv asked with surprise, for her new companion did not have the look of someone who mixed with the gentry.
"Oh yes," the woman nodded so earnestly, that her glasses fell down her nose. She propped them back up with her finger, and when she took her hand away her nose was black with ink. "His Cornish estate lies not fifty miles away from my family's. He was close with my brother when they were young, and is a great supporter of a charity I am involved in, which educates young girls."
Liv smiled faintly at this; she had not pegged Ruan as a charitable sort of man.
"Are you visiting with family in St. Jarvis?" the girl asked, changing the subject away from the missing Duchess. "If you are I might know them, I know everyone in the village!"
"Not exactly," Liv replied, trying to sound honest despite the fact she was lying through her teeth. "My husband died, a short time ago, drowned at sea. I am seeking to make a new life, and St. Jarvis was suggested to me as a safe place for a woman alone to live."
This was made-up balderdash of course, but Jane beamed at her praise of the village.
"Oh it is," Miss Devereaux nodded sincerely, "It has always been a haven for young women, ever since the novelist Mrs Baker opened her boarding house. Such a pity she has passed, for in the summer months it was filled with women of an intellectual temperament and guest speakers giving lectures."
"And is the boarding house now closed?" Liv asked curiously, for she recalled having heard of Mrs Baker, one of the original, trailblazing Bluestockings of the previous century. Liv had not known that she had retired to Cornwall, but then she did not run with the intellectual set. She didn't run with any set at all.
"Yes," Jane responded sadly, "My brother fears he will never let it out, and the village misses the boarders, for they brought a lot of money to the local shops."
She sighed, and looked out the window, overcome by melancholy at the loss of Mrs Baker. Liv, on the other hand, smiled at this little nugget of information. She had five-hundred pounds in her purse, but needed a job as it wouldn't last forever. Running a boarding house was bound to be hard work, but Liv was undaunted.
"Do you think your brother would be interested in letting the property to me? I should like to carry on with Mrs Baker's mission, for I was a most ardent admirer of her work." She spoke slowly, hoping that her expression did not betray how much she wanted Jane to say yes, whilst also praying that Jane would not wish to discuss any of Mrs Baker's novels. Liv's reading preferences tended toward the Gothic, which though not very high-brow, were most entertaining.
Her companion blinked happily at her question, and bounced up and down on her seat with excitement.
"Oh, oh, oh," Jane gasped, clapping her hands with glee. "Oh, that's just the most perfect idea. We shall ask Julian the second we arrive. He couldn't possibly say no. Although..."
Jane trailed off uncomfortably, her cheeks flushing.
"What's wrong?" Liv reached out and took the other woman's hand in her own, for she looked most flustered at the mention of her brother.
"It's just, my brother detests bluestockings, he thinks my mixing with Mrs Baker is the reason that I remain unwed - despite my enormous dowry." she confided, "And if he thought that you were going to carry on housing them in St. Jarvis, I'm afraid he might say no."
"Then we shall lie," Liv said firmly, what was another fib on top of the ones she had already told? Jane broke out into another grin at this news, and Liv had the definite feeling that she and the young Miss Deveraux were going to become as thick as thieves.
"How wonderful Mrs - oh, I'm sorry I never caught your name."
"It's Olive," Liv replied automatically, without thinking. She cringed inwardly, why had she not prepared for this part of her tale? If she was going to start a new life, she would obviously have to adopt a new moniker, to go with her assumed identity.
"Olive Black," she finished lamely, for Jane had been waiting for her to speak her surname, and that was the only one that would form on her panicked tongue.
"That's so funny," Jane said distractedly, and Olive waited for her to make a joke about the fruit, but instead she reached for the newspaper that she had cast aside. "The missing wife of the Duke of Everleigh was called Olive Greene, what a coincidence!"
Liv gave a nervous laugh so high pitched she thought that it might summon a pack of dogs.
"How strange," she agreed with her new friend Jane, "But unlike the poor Duchess of Everleigh, I was not lost at sea."
I was found there instead, she thought with a triumphant smile.
Julian Deveraux, Viscount Jarvis, was not what Liv had expected from his sister's description of him. In her mind's eye, she had pictured him as a fussy, older gentleman, but the young man who greeted her was handsome, and no more than thirty years.
Jane had insisted that she visit with Julian straight away, in their home on the edge of the quaint village of St. Jarvis. It was only as the two women were walking up the sweeping drive to the imposing house, that Liv had realised that Jane Deveraux's family were aristocrats. Judging by the size of the Palladian fronted mansion, they were very well to do aristocrats.
Liv had felt a moment of panic when she was introduced to the Viscount, what if Lord Deveraux recognised her from her season in town? But she needn't have worried, for it soon became apparent that they young blood thought of little bar himself. A shy, wallflower like Olive, would not have caught his attention in Almack's - if he ever deigned to attend. For, Lord Deveraux did not have the look of a man who would willingly attend the stuffy assembly. He had the look of a Rake.
"This is my good friend Mrs Black."
Jane made the introduction, beaming at Olive, while her handsome brother regarded her with a surly expression.
"Mrs Black is most interested in opening up the vacant boarding house," Jane continued, her face flushing somewhat. She was not a good liar, Liv deduced, for her expression betrayed her nerves.
