“It wasn’t a tribe of gypsies,” Phoebe protested. “It was just two… two very little ones. And they didn’t have anything to do with the war.”
“Maybe so,” Cato was obliged to concede. “But little ones grow.”
Phoebe considered this, then said with a sunny smile, “Well, when they’re grown up a little, they can earn their keep and they won’t be quite such a charge upon you, will they?”
Before Cato could find an adequate response to this insouciant impertinence, Phoebe was saying, “I’ll fetch the sack for you, my lord, if you’d like. I’ll bring it to the library.”
It was the first time she’d assumed the domestic duties of a wife in his household, and he was so surprised he could manage no more than a faint “Thank you.”
“Bisset, will you tell Lady Olivia that we’ll be taking supper a little later?” Phoebe asked the butler as she went past him towards the kitchen regions. “She’s in the parlor abovestairs.”
Bisset looked as surprised as his master at this assertive tone, but he went with measured tread to the stairs.
Cato threw his damp cloak onto the bench beside the door and went into the library. He bent to rub his hands at the fire, then turned to warm his backside.
Phoebe came hurrying in carrying a silver tankard. “I hope it’s to your liking, sir.” She handed it to him with a small curtsy.
“Did you prepare it yourself?” He took the tankard and sipped appreciatively.
“Well, not exactly,” Phoebe confessed. “I don’t have quite the right touch with the poker. But I watched Mistress Bisset.”
“I see.” Cato sipped again. “I expect you’ll be adept at it the next time.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Phoebe said frankly. “You have to be so careful that the poker doesn’t touch the side of the tankard, and you have to stir the liquid just so, to get the heat all the way through the sack. I expect I’ll have to practice.”
Cato agreed solemnly, his eyes flickering over her. There was something touching about her candor, something altogether appealing about her at the moment. She had an air almost of suppressed excitement. Her eyes were even brighter than usual, and her cheeks had a soft glow.
Phoebe moved around the room, adjusting things that didn’t appear to need adjusting. Straightening perfectly straight papers, rearranging a jug of dried leaves, trimming the wick of a steadily burning candle.
“Was it an ambush, then, my lord?”
“Aye. We were on our way back from headquarters and a party of yeoman jumped us.”
“Why didn’t you take an escort?” she demanded.
“It wasn’t necessary,” he responded crisply.
“Oh, but it was! If you’d had an escort, you wouldn’t have been in danger… or at least not so much.”
“There’s danger abroad every minute of every day in wartime,” he told her.
“When will it be over, do you think?” Phoebe asked wistfully. It seemed to her that her entire adult life had been spent in the disjointed troubled times of civil war. She had never known the ordinary carefree pleasures of a prewar girlhood, any more than had Olivia.
Cato shook his head in a gesture of regret. “I wish I could say for sure. But even when it’s over, it’ll be many a moon before the country is truly at peace.”
“But the king won’t win?” She looked at him, her gaze intent.
Again Cato shook his head. “No,” he said. “But the question is, will Parliament?” He drank deeply.
Phoebe frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“It will be a Pyrrhic victory at best,” he said with a sigh.
Phoebe hesitated. The conversation seemed to make him gloomy and that was not the mood she wanted for this evening.
“Well, I’m glad you managed to get home,” she said, swiftly changing the subject. “When I saw the snow, I wasn’t sure whether you’d be able to.” She swooped suddenly on the fire and, seizing the poker, began to stab at the logs with businesslike ardor.
“Be careful. You don’t want sparks flying onto that ten-guinea gown,” Cato observed.
“Do you like it… the gown, I mean?” Phoebe dropped the poker with a clatter in the hearth and straightened, facing him.
Cato considered her with a quizzical eye. “Why is it so creased? It wasn’t this morning.”
“Oh.” Chagrined, Phoebe looked down at her dark red skirts and saw how the silk was crumpled. “I expect it’s because I was sitting cross-legged all afternoon.” The explanation was so helplessly resigned that Cato smiled. What a ragged robin she was. And what an amazingly intense blue were her eyes. Quite magnificent with their thick fair lashes.
“Should I ask why?”
“I was writing my pageant. I can’t seem to write at a table like ordinary people. I don’t get inspiration that way.”
Cato regarded her over the lip of his tankard. “So, what’s the subject of this pageant?”
Phoebe’s cheeks took on a deeper pink. Could he be mocking her? He’d never expressed any interest before.
“It’s about Gloriana,” she said cautiously. “Queen Elizabeth, you know.”
“Yes, I do know. That’s a big subject.”
“Oh, it’s huge,” Phoebe agreed, unable to hide her enthusiasm now, her eyes star-bright.
“You must be very ambitious,” Cato observed.
“Well, I think I am,” Phoebe confided. She glanced up at him from beneath lowered lids. “I was hoping you would take a part, my lord.”
Cato laughed. “As if I have time for such playacting, my dear girl.”
“No,” Phoebe said, “I don’t suppose you do. I’ll go and tell Olivia to come for supper.”
The clock on the mantel struck nine. Phoebe stopped her restless pacing around the bedchamber. When would he come? It seemed an eternity since they’d left the supper table. The maid had removed the warming pan and turned down the coverlet. The fire was banked; only the candles on the mantel remained lit. The chamber was prepared for the night. It wanted only the master.
Phoebe repositioned the fireside chair for the fifth time, moving it so that its back was more fully turned to the window. She was going to conceal herself behind the heavy velvet curtains. Cato would not go near them when he came to bed. The night was dark as pitch, snow still falling heavily; he’d have nothing to see if he looked out of the window.
She went to the bed again and checked that the bed-curtains were completely drawn, not a chink showing. He never touched them until he came to bed, after he’d snuffed the candles. But supposing tonight he did. Supposing tonight he looked behind them for some reason when he first entered the chamber. The fact that he’d never done it before didn’t mean he would never change his routine.
In a panic, Phoebe flew behind the bedcurtains. She shoved the bolster into the bed, pulling the cover up over it. It didn’t look in the least like a person, but it would be dark and the mound would surely satisfy him. He would be expecting to see a shape and that’s what he would see.
But when would he come? Most nights it was soon after nine o’clock. Phoebe grimaced. She guessed that he came up early out of consideration for her. Their coupling was a perfunctory enough business without waking her up for it. So he got it over with before she went to sleep. Quite often, afterwards, he would get up again and go to work in his study. And most mornings he was awake and out of the house before she stirred. Indeed, one could hardly tell that they shared a bed at all.
But that was about to change.
She went to the door and opened it a crack. The corridor was dimly lit by the candles sconced at either end. She could hear nothing. The household rose at first light and went to bed as soon as the supper dishes were cleared away.
Phoebe tiptoed into the corridor and crept soundlessly to the stairs. The hall was lit only by the fire. Then she heard a door open. The study door. She caught the flicker of a carrying candle.