“Does he help his father with the fishing?” Cato inquired.
“Off an‘ on. But mostly ’e hires ‘imself out as an extra hand on the big fishin’ boats that go out from Ventnor.” She moved towards the door. Her guests were ready to leave and she had her own work to do.
Cato walked back out into the farmyard and Olivia followed. The boy was still playing with his ship in the duck pond. Olivia climbed back into the trap as Cato mounted his horse. “Thank you again for all your kindness, goodwife.”
“ ‘Twas nothin’, miss.” The goodwife didn’t smile and her eyes darted to where her son was playing.
“It’s all right,” Olivia said quietly. “No one has anything to fear from me.”
The goodwife looked as if she was about to say something, but then Cato was offering his own renewed thanks and she was obliged to turn to the marquis.
They left the farm and very little was said on the return to Chale. Olivia responded to her father’s occasional remarks, but her own thoughts absorbed her.
So Wind Dancer had an anchorage in a chine. There would be no path from the clifftop down to the chine. It was how they were kept hidden. Olivia knew that much about the island. The chines drove in from the sea, and the clifftop, while it might be eroding in part-hence her own fall-would offer no direct access to the gash in the cliff at sea level.
And she knew how to get a message to Anthony.
“Did Phoebe talk to you about attending the king at the castle this evening?” Cato inquired as he helped her out of the trap at the front door. “I would like you to be presented. It can be done another time, of course, if you’re too tired. But we need not stay for long.”
“Phoebe mentioned it. Of course I will accompany you both.” She smiled. It was an effort but it seemed to satisfy Cato. “I understand you’ve promised her a poet, sir.”
“I fear he has not her talent,” Cato said. “But he’s about all that’s available at present.”
“Phoebe will take any poet on offer,” Olivia said with perfect truth.
Cato laughed and turned to Giles with a question. Olivia went into the house.
So she knew how to contact the master of Wind Dancer. Had she wanted to know that? Had she tried to discover it?
Of course she hadn’t. The man she’d last seen, the man who’d bidden her such a coldly indifferent farewell, who’d refused to hear her hesitant and inarticulate apology, was not a man she would wish to see again, and he’d made it clear he had no wish to see her again. She simply possessed a piece of useless information. Its only satisfaction lay in the knowledge that the master of Wind Dancer would not wish her to possess it.
Chapter Eight
“That gown suits you so wonderfully well,” Phoebe observed when Olivia came into the parlor that evening in a gown of orange silk edged in black lace that set off her dark hair and pale coloring to perfection. Phoebe was always slightly envious of Olivia’s unerring dress sense. Olivia never seemed to give her clothes or appearance any thought, but she always knew exactly what suited her. Phoebe, whose own taste was somewhat haphazard, relied heavily on her friend’s advice in such matters.
Olivia managed a wan smile at the compliment. The gown had been a present from her father on her seventeenth birthday, but she’d had little opportunity to wear it in the intervening eighteen months. A soiree at Carisbrooke Castle and an audience with the king, prisoner though he was, seemed a suitable occasion.
“Are you sure you wish to go out tonight?” Cato asked. She didn’t look at all well to him. “An early night might be a better idea.”
“No, sir. I’m looking forward to meeting the king,” Olivia assured him. It was hardly the truth but she couldn’t bear to spend an evening alone with her melancholy.
“Diversion is good medicine, my lord,” Phoebe said. She’d tried herself earlier to persuade Olivia to stay at home but without success. “We need not stay above an hour, need we?”
He shook his head. “No. Let us go, then.”
A team of fast horses was harnessed to the light coach that Cato kept for Phoebe’s use. His wife was not a comfortable horsewoman. Fortunately the roads were dry enough for coach travel in the summer months, and distances around the island short enough to make coach travel a perfectly reasonable alternative to horseback.
It was a seven-mile drive to Carisbrooke and, with the swift team, took them little more than an hour. Olivia felt the first stirrings of interest as they drove up the ramp and under the gatehouse. She had not seen the inside of the castle in the months they’d been on the island, although its great curtain walls high on the hill outside Newport were visible from many of the hilly downs where she and Phoebe walked.
They descended from the carriage under the arched gatehouse and were escorted into the main courtyard. The governor’s residence was an Elizabethan country house set in the middle of a fortress. The castle keep rose up on a great mound behind it, and there were soldiers everywhere, but it bore little resemblance to her father’s castle in Yorkshire, Olivia thought. This was much softer in feel, even though its bulwarks and curtain walls made it impregnable and its site dominated the island.
They crossed the courtyard to the door to the great hall, and Colonel Hammond came immediately to greet them. Behind him hurried a lady in a gown of an unfortunately bright yellow that seemed to give a greenish tinge to her sallow complexion. She had an angular face and a very pointed nose, and her thin smile revealed a near toothless mouth.
Cato introduced his wife and daughter to the governor and his lady. Mistress Hammond’s scrutiny was sharp and not particularly benign.
“We are so glad to welcome you, Lady Granville. Your husband is much in our company, but we have missed yours.” There was no mistaking the reproof.
Phoebe bridled immediately. “I have been very busy with my work and my children, madam.”
“Ah, a devoted mother. How nice.” The lady turned her attention to Olivia. “Lady Olivia, I trust we can find you some amusing companionship this evening. You must find it very tedious, isolated in that house in… in Chale, is it? So far from our little society here.”
“On the c-contrary, madam.” Olivia smiled. “I spend most of my time in the society of the great philosophers. I find nothing else can quite match their stimulation.”
Cato’s sigh was inaudible. His wife and his daughter would make short work of Mistress Hammond if given half a chance. Phoebe was already readying herself for a return to the offensive.
“I would present Lady Granville and Lady Olivia to His Majesty, Mistress Hammond,” he said smoothly. “Would you be good enough…?” He bowed to the lady, ignoring Phoebe’s indignant stare at being handed over in such cavalier fashion.
“But of course.” Lady Hammond’s attitude visibly improved at this request for patronage. “Come this way, Lady Granville… Lady Olivia. I will see if the king will receive you.” She sailed away through the crowd, waving people from her path with a flourish of her fan.
“Self-important, toothless old bat,” Phoebe muttered. “She’ll trip over her own self-consequence one of these days.”
Olivia grinned. She was beginning to feel better.
King Charles was seated before the fireplace, where despite the warmth of the summer evening a fire had been kindled. His head rested on the high carved back of his chair and he held a chalice of wine in his hands as he listened with the appearance of patient good humor to the man who was addressing him.
The alacrity with which he acknowledged Mistress Hammond, however, was telling.
“Ah, madam, such pleasant company we’re enjoying.” He turned his heavy-lidded gaze on the two young women with the governor’s lady. “May I have the pleasure…?”
Mistress Hammond made the introductions. Olivia and Phoebe made their curtsies. The king looked tired but his smile was exceptionally sweet.