certainly.”
“Yes, she is,” Olivia ventured with a spark of defiance in her eyes. She knew that if she backed out of the conversation completely as Diana intended, Portia would not come. Diana’s husband would give in to his wife with his usual dismissive shrug because he had too many more important things toconcern him. Everything, it seemed to Olivia, was more important to her father than herself.
Olivia surreptitiously clasped the little silver locket at her neck. Inside was the braided ring of hair. The memory of those wonderful moments of friendship that had filled the decaying boathouse on that May afternoon gave her courage.
“Too old surely to learn new ways?” Diana suggested with another of her insidious smiles.
It was Cato’s turn to frown. “Are you really against this, madam? I feel most strongly that I must honor my brother’s dying request.”
“Of course you must,” Diana said hastily. “I wouldn’t suggest otherwise, but I wonder if, perhaps, the girl wouldn’t be happier lodging with some suitable family … a good bourgeois family where she could learn a trade, or find a husband of the right class. If you dowered her, perhaps …” She opened her palms in an indulgent gesture.
Olivia saw that her father had taken Diana’s point. He was about to give in. She said in a voice so soft and pleading it surprised her,
“P-please
, sir.”
The tone surprised Cato as much as it did Olivia. He looked at her with an arrested expression, suddenly remembering the warm, outgoing, bright little girl she had once been. Then had come the winter when the stammer had appeared and she had become so withdrawn. He couldn’t remember when she had last asked him for something.
“Very well,” he said.
Diana’s fan snapped shut, the delicate ivory sticks clicking in the moment of silence.
Olivia’s face glowed, the shadows in her eyes vanished, and her smile transformed the gravity of her expression.
Cato turned to his wife. “I’m sure Portia will learn to adapt to our ways, Diana. With your help.”
“As you command, sir.” Diana inclined her head dutifully. “And perhaps she can be of some use. In the nursery, maybe, with some of the lighter tasks. She’ll wish to show her gratitude for your generosity, I’m sure.”
Cato pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Playing with the babies, acting as companion to Olivia, of course.That would be very suitable, and I leave the details in your more than capable hands, my dear.” He bowed and left the dining room.
Diana’s sweet expression vanished. “If you have finished your breakfast, Olivia, you may go and practice your deportment. You’re developing a veritable hunchback with all the reading you do. Come.” She rose from the table, graceful and stately, not the slightest curve to her back or shoulders.
But then, no one could accuse Lady Granville of ever having her head in a book, Olivia thought, as she reluctantly pushed back her chair and followed her stepmother to her bedchamber, where Diana would strap the dreaded backboard to her stepdaughter’s frail shoulders.
Cato, ignorant of his daughter’s daily torture, strode out of the castle and onto the parade ground, where the militia continued to drill. He
stood to
one side, watching the maneuvers. Giles Crampton, the sergeant at arms, was a past master at turning a bunch of red-handed, big-footed farmhands and laborers into a disciplined unit.
Disciplined enough for Parliament’s army. In fact, they would be a credit to it. And Giles Crampton had just that end in view. He alone was party to Lord Granville’s change of allegiance, and Giles Crampton was absolutely behind his lord.
The sergeant, aware of his lordship’s presence on the field, gestured to his second to take over the drill and marched smartly across to Lord Granville, his booted feet cracking the frozen ground with each long stride.
“Mornin, m’lord.”
Cato gestured that he should walk with him. “I
Elizabeth Amelia Barrington