But then, there was much that he didn’t notice, Olivia reflected glumly, although what he could or would do if he understood what went on between his daughter and her stepmother, she didn’t know.
“I was intending to ride out, madam, but a messenger arrived from Edinburgh with news of my half brother’s death.” Cato sat in the carved elbow chair at the head of the table and took up the tankard of ale that had appeared as if by magic at his elbow. He drank, forked sirloin onto his plate, and spread golden butter thickly onto a slice of barley bread.
Olivia felt a shiver of anticipation and she broke her customary defensive silence in a little rush of words. “Is that P-Portia’s father, sir?”
“If you would breathe deeply, my dear Olivia, as I have told you so many times, I am sure you could control that unfortunate defect,” Diana said with one of her sweet smiles. “You will find it hard to catch a husband if you cannot converse clearly.” She patted Olivia’s hand.
Olivia removed her hand abruptly and tucked it in her lap. She compressed her lips and lowered her eyes to her plate, the urge to speak demolished.
“It was of Portia that my brother wrote,” Cato said.
Olivia’s eyes lifted from her plate; it was impossible to pretend indifference. Cato continued calmly, “His deathbed wish is that I take the child into my household.”
“You have no family responsibility to provide for a bastard, my lord,” Diana pointed out with a gentle smile.
“My brother acknowledged that. But in all conscience, I cannot abandon the girl. She is my niece in blood.”
Diana would ruin this wondrous possibility, given half a chance. Desperation and excitement catapulted Olivia into speech. “I would like her to c-come,” she gasped, her usually pale cheeks flushed.
Diana’s eyebrows disappeared beneath the artful froth of curls clustered on her white forehead. “My dear Olivia, she can be no fit companion for you… that dreadful man for a father.” She shuddered with delicate distaste. “Forgive me, my lord, for speaking so frankly of your half brother, but… well, you know what I mean.”
Cato nodded grimly. “I do indeed.”
“I would very much like P-Portia to c-come!” Olivia repeated, her stammer more pronounced than usual under the pressure of emotion.
Diana snapped open her fan. “It’s not for you to say, my dear,” she chided, her eyes shooting darts of fire at Olivia from behind the fan.
Cato didn’t appear to hear his wife’s comment. “I was forgetting that you met her the once, at the wedding, Olivia. Did you take to her so strongly then?”
Olivia nodded, but didn’t risk further speech.
“You could perhaps teach her our ways,” Cato mused. The idea of a companion for his daughter had been much on his mind. He had once or twice proposed that Diana’s younger sister Phoebe should pay them an extended visit, but whenever he had brought up the subject, Diana had always produced some reason against it. Cato knew that she didn’t really care for her sister, whom she found clumsy and exasperating, so he hadn’t pressed the subject.
“How old is the child?” Diana realized she was frowning again and hastily altered her expression, smoothing out any residue of lines with her forefinger.
Cato shook his head. “I don’t really know. Older than Olivia, 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 to concern 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 have a task for you, Giles. I don’t know anyone else I can send.”
“I’m your man, m’lord. You know that.”
“Aye, but this is a task you may not take to.” Cato frowned. “A nursemaid’s task, you might call it. And it comes at the devil’s own time. I can’t easily spare you.”