Cato glanced at the cloak on the mantel. It was a quarter past noon. “Damn his impertinence!” Cato muttered, stripping off his disordered clothing. Giles always found a way to make his point.
“I don’t think I can get up,” Phoebe murmured, stretching languidly. “I seem to be dissolved.”
Cato looked down at her as she lay in an abandoned sprawl on the bed, her skirts pushed up, exposing the sweet white plumpness of her thighs and the small curve of her belly. The dark bush at the base of her belly glistened with the juices of their loving. Clearly her responses the previous night had been no artful pretense.
“Where did it come from?” he muttered.
“Where did what come from?” Unconsciously Phoebe passed her hands in a long caress over her body.
“Your wantonness,” he said, tapping his mouth reflectively with his fingertips. “I’ve never come across it before in a woman of your breeding.”
There was a note in his voice that made Phoebe sit up, pushing down her skirts. “Is it wrong, then?”
Cato hesitated for a minute too long before he shook his head. “No… no, of course not.” He gave a half laugh that didn’t sound particularly mirthful and went to the armoire for his leather riding britches and woolen jerkin.
Phoebe dragged herself off the bed. Why had he hesitated?
Cato dressed swiftly, saying as he strode from the room, “Hurry, Phoebe, I don’t relish any more of Giles’s veiled impertinence.”
Phoebe dipped the washcloth into the basin and wrung it out. He’d been as eager for that passionate lust as she had. So why did she feel this unease? Thoughtfully she tidied herself and hurried down to the dining parlor.
Everyone was already at table when she came in. Giles Crampton cast her a knowing sidelong glance which infuriatingly made her blush. She took her seat with a somewhat incoherent apology for having kept them waiting and hastily reached for her wine goblet.
“Have you decided to play Gloriana, Phoebe?” Olivia inquired, helping herself to roast mutton and onion sauce. She studiously ignored Brian Morse, who sat opposite her.
“I’m thinking about it.” Relieved at this ordinary turn of conversation, Phoebe looked over at Cato, “Do you think, sir, that some of your soldiers would be willing to take part? I’m writing the scene where Elizabeth addresses the troops and says those things about having the heart of a man in the weak body of a woman, and it would make a better spectacle if there were some real troops for her to address.”
Giles snorted. “Over my dead body, m’lady! They’re soldiers, not play actors.”
Phoebe was too used to Giles to take offense, but she could mount her own spirited defense. “I thought a midsummer pageant might cheer people up,” she said. “Life’s so gloomy and hard for everyone with the war, and it’s been going on for so long. Raising morale is an honorable enough task for a soldier, I would have thought.”
“You’re writing a play, Lady Granville?” Brian sounded amused.
“A pageant,” she corrected.
“Oh, I do trust you’ll find a part for me,” he said in the same tone.
“Surely you won’t still b-be here at midsummer?” Olivia said in undisguised horror, looking at him for the first time since the meal began. “That’s months away!”
Phoebe broke in as she saw Cato’s expression. “I’m sure I can find a part for you, Mr. Morse, if you’re still here. But what about the soldiers, my lord? Real ones would be much more effective than villagers dressed up, don’t you think?”
“Undoubtedly,” he agreed, quelling Olivia with a glare. “But I have to agree with Giles that the men have better things to do than play at amateur dramatics, however worthy the motive.”
“So, you’re an amateur playwright?” Brian pressed, before Phoebe could respond to Cato’s careless dismissal of her enterprise. “It was always quite a popular activity at court before the war. But not too many ladies indulged in the pursuit, as I recall.” He offered a humoring smile and sipped his wine.
“Phoebe is a very accomplished poet,” Olivia declared. “I dare swear no c-court poet would be ashamed to acknowledge her writing.”
“Indeed.” Brian’s eyebrows rose. “I hadn’t realized you had frequented court circles.”
“Phoebe has and she told me about the empty-headed courtiers,” Olivia said.
Brian ignored this. “Maybe you would show me some of your work, Lady Granville. I have, after all, some experience of what’s considered good poetry at court. And, of course, you must please the court if you are to succeed.”
“I write to please myself, sir,” Phoebe said with unconscious hauteur. “I have no particular desire to shine at court, if indeed the court is ever reinstated. Indeed, as Olivia said, my few visits there at the beginning of the war gave me a great dislike for its posturing and pretensions.”
Brian recognized a snub when he heard one. Strangely, instead of infuriating him, it piqued his interest. Little sister had nothing at all in common with big sister, it seemed. He regarded her over the lip of his glass. Her hair was rumbling from its pins; the upstanding collar of the blue gown was rather limp. In fact, it almost looked as if she’d slept in it. It hadn’t looked quite so bad earlier that morning before the trip to church. He wondered what on earth she could have been doing in it.
“Perhaps you didn’t meet James Shirley,” he suggested. “A man of little or no pretension.”
“Oh, yes, I most particularly admire Mr. Shirley’s dramas,” Phoebe interrupted, forgetting her moment of irritation. “He has no pretension at all.”
“You’ll need music for your pageant, Phoebe,” Olivia said, refusing to be shut out of the conversation by Brian. “Have you thought about it?”
“Not really. I wish I could find a composer like Henry Lawes.” Phoebe passed Olivia a dish of buttered salsify.
“Ah, the incomparable Mr. Lawes,” Brian murmured. “I saw him at a performance of Comus once with John Milton.”
“Oh… you’ve met John Milton?” Phoebe’s fork hung neglected halfway to her mouth.
“The gentleman has a great conceit of himself,” Cato observed.
“Well, he’s a very fine poet,” Phoebe’s fork continued its journey. “That must be some excuse.”
“But I hardly think you’re aspiring to such exalted literary circles,” Cato commented with a slight smile.
“I might be,” Phoebe muttered.
Cato raised his eyebrows incredulously. “I confess my interest in this pageant grows apace. Perhaps I could persuade Henry Lawes to cast a glance over it with an eye to composing the music.”
“Do you know him, sir?” Phoebe regarded him across the table with a distinctly martial gleam in her eye. She had heard the sardonic note.
“Actually, quite well,” Cato said. “Before the war, I met him many times at court. I also have some acquaintance with Mr. Milton these days. He is now staunchly for Parliament.”
“Well, you may rest assured, my lord, that I have no inflated sense of my own poetic abilities,” Phoebe stated, taking up her glass and drinking deeply.
Cato contented himself with a nod. He tossed his napkin to the table and pushed back his chair. Giles with clear relief followed suit. Talk of poets and composers was way outside his sphere of interest.
“We should be on our way, Brian. It’s an hour’s ride,” Cato said.
“Yes, of course.” Brian bowed his head in agreement. Things were moving swiftly but he was under no illusion that Cato trusted his change of heart. He would be interrogated this afternoon, but he had every confidence that he would convince his interrogators.
It was close to two o’clock that afternoon when Phoebe and Olivia left the house. The sky was heavy, a black-edged gray that looked as if it held more snow. Phoebe, mindful of the morning’s accident, had changed into one of her old woolen gowns and armed herself with a stout stick with which to test out snowdrifts. They took the road into the village. It was longer than across the fields, but the fields were impassable.