Читать книгу The Phoenix Of Love - Susan Schonberg - Страница 10

Olivia sat before the solicitor, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her black bombazine dress trimmed with the faintest smattering of lace, more appropriate on a widow of advanced years than on a young miss still very much in the schoolroom, loudly proclaimed to all and sundry her state of mourning.

It wasn’t that she was pretentious, thought the middle-aged gentleman sitting across his desk from her. Olivia just genuinely seemed to have preferred that particular style of gown above all others. He should know: his wife had helped her choose it. Still she looked neat and tidy. He studied her openly from his vantage point.

Olivia was a beautiful child, of that there could be no doubt. But her beauty lacked something. Mr. Potts’s frown deepened as he tried to ponder what that missing element might be. Then he had it. She lacked fire. Olivia was simply not a spirited child. Oh, no. And she was not your typical twelve-year-old, either.

Mr. Potts continued his analysis of the girl, careful to keep his scrutiny away from his visitor’s eyes. Olivia’s icy blue eyes unnerved her solicitor. Whatever thoughts she might have had on the matter at hand were carefully locked away behind those cool eyes. They absorbed everything around them and gave absolutely nothing back.

The rest of her face, while equally noncommittal, was much less disturbing to him. He studied her finely chiseled features and then frowned. She might as well have been a wall for all the information her attitude gave away to him.

Nervously Mr. Potts cleared his throat. He had thought this interview would be rather simple, really. Just give the chit the get-go and be done with it. Faced with her impenetrable silence, however, he wasn’t sure the task would be as easy as he had first imagined. He cleared his throat again, loosening his cravat with one finger. No, this wasn’t going to be easy. If only she wouldn’t stare at him so!

Thankfully, Olivia was getting rather impatient with her lawyer. She decided to have pity on him, if only to get the conversation moving. “You found a place for me to go.” Her voice, although still childish in pitch, sounded strangely grown-up. She didn’t phrase the sentence as a question. She simply stated what she knew to be true.

Mr. Potts jumped for the olive branch with startling quickness. “Yes!” he said in a relieved voice. Belatedly regaining some of his composure, he sat back in his chair pretending an ease he didn’t feel. “Yes,” he repeated more calmly.

In his element now that the topic had been broached, the solicitor pushed his spectacles to the bridge of his nose and looked condescendingly down at the girl before him. In the space of a few heartbeats, he managed to go from his impersonation of a nervous Nellie to that of a schoolmarm.

“As you know, my dear,” began the man somewhat fatuously, “it has been well over a month now since your poor father died.” Here he took the time to give Olivia a sympathetic look. “And you have borne your bereavement well. Nay! Better than well. You have been exemplary in your conduct.”

He paused and glanced at her meaningfully.

If Mr. Potts had expected Olivia to be flattered by his words, he was sadly disappointed. In truth, she thought him a pompous old windbag and an insufferable bore. But rather than voice these opinions out loud, she kept silent. Her expression gave away none of her thoughts.

Again Mr. Potts cleared his throat, trying to regain his earlier equanimity. After glancing briefly at Olivia over the top of his spectacles, he continued his speech. “But now the time has come for you to leave your humble abode and go on with your life. Yes.” He nodded like a silly ass. “That’s it exactly.”

Olivia’s heart skipped a beat at his words. Oh, she knew that the inevitable must happen, but did it have to happen right now? Stoically she kept her external appearance of composure, though on the inside she was seething.

This conversation could only be taking place if her solicitor had found someone willing to act as her guardian. Who was this person and what did they want with her? Didn’t she do a good job of taking care of the manor? Maddie had died, it was true, but she got along just fine, thank you. Besides, she preferred to be alone. Olivia longed to say the words, but she knew they were futile.

Instead she inquired, “Where am I to go?”

Mr. Potts, relieved that Olivia appeared to be taking all of this so well, gave an audible sigh of relief. “Your grandmother, Lady Raleigh, the Dowager Duchess of Stonebridge, has kindly offered to have mercy on you. Even though she disowned your mother some twenty years ago, it appears as though now she is willing to forgive past grievances and take you in. You are sensible of the honor she does you, I am sure.”

The silence stretched on. Outside, the falling snow deadened all of the street noises, leaving the solicitor no hope of a distraction. He waited in vain for Olivia to agree with him. Then he took a deep breath and sighed. He should have known, he grumbled to himself, pushing his spectacles upright once more. Olivia could never be expected to do what she was supposed to. She was a very strange child.

“Lady Raleigh is waiting for you at the Three Crowns even as we speak.” As Olivia’s eyes widened slightly at the pronouncement, Mr. Potts gave a humorless smile. Finally he had gotten some kind of reaction out of her. With relish he continued. “Yes, it was all somewhat of a surprise, actually. One minute Mrs. Potts and I were quietly having our dinner, and the next minute there she was, pounding on our front door.” He muttered almost to himself, “Never thought for a moment she’d answer the letter in person.”

Olivia’s brain had almost ceased to function upon mention of her grandmother’s name. Surely she could not be going with her? It was beyond all thought!

And yet, who else did Olivia have? All of her immediate family was deceased, and all of her father’s family, as well. That just left her mother’s relatives.

But Lady Raleigh! Olivia’s father had never been able to mention the Duke and Duchess of Stonebridge without turning purple. He had been enraged at the way they had treated him and his poor darling wife. Why on earth did they want Olivia now?

Her eyes came back into focus and met with the solicitor’s. With anger she noted that he was pleased by her discomfort. She chastised herself severely. She hadn’t hidden her feelings well enough again, and now he was gloating—gloating just as her father had done every time she let her guard slip. Well, it wouldn’t happen again. She had had enough derision. She had vowed to take charge of her life, and she was going to do it. She’d never be at anyone else’s mercy again. No one would ever be able to use her emotions against her again. She wouldn’t let them.

Like a slate being wiped clean, Olivia’s face lost all trace of visible expression. She had her composure firmly in hand once again. Neutrally she repeated Mr. Potts’s earlier declaration, “She is waiting for me now?”

Disconcerted with her abruptness, Mr. Potts replied a little harshly, “Yes, at the Three Crowns, as I said.” He relented a little as he reminded himself Olivia was only a child. This whole experience was probably a great shock to her. He paused before adding more kindly, “Shall I escort you there?”

The child-woman speared him with her icicle eyes. Was he trying to manipulate her again? But no, that thought was too uncharitable. Mr. Potts was a fool, it was true, but he was not unnecessarily cruel. Still she would keep him on a short rein. Expressionlessly Olivia made her reply. “Thank you, Mr. Potts.”

After accepting his offer as escort, Olivia and Mr. Potts arrived at the Three Crowns some half an hour later. The snow on the ground crunched beneath their feet as they walked toward the door. Stopping a few feet away from the entrance, Olivia turned around and faced her solicitor. With a dignity unusual for one so young, she offered him her hand.

“Thank you so much for escorting me, Mr. Potts. You have been a tremendous help.”

Astonished, Mr. Potts stared at the young girl before him. He couldn’t quite comprehend that he was actually being dismissed by a chit half his size. Before he could make a suitable reply, however, Olivia reached down, grabbed his hand with her own, pumped it up and down a few times, and turned and walked through the door.

Somewhat uncertainly, Mr. Potts stared at the door that had closed with a solid thud behind Olivia’s retreating back. Finally, as if doubting the whole encounter, he shrugged his shoulders and began walking back to the carriage. He collected that this was one meeting where Olivia preferred not to have an observer. For once in his life, his assumption where Olivia was concerned was correct.

Once inside the establishment, the innkeeper’s wife immediately spied Olivia and rushed over to her. She was a big woman, and her sheer girth was enough to intimidate the young girl, although Olivia was careful not to show it.

“Well, little lovey!” she exclaimed, beaming. “You must be the little girl who must meet her granny!” She squeezed both of the girl’s shoulders in a friendly way, emphasizing her own excitement at the occasion.

Olivia thought this had to be the worst misinterpretation of the situation she had ever heard, but she wisely kept that opinion to herself.

Momentarily confused, the woman looked about them, still firmly grasping Olivia. “But where’s the little whatnot, deary?” she asked in her great booming voice. “Blimey if he didn’t tell me directly that you were both coming and that I should be preparing some refreshment. I don’t be understanding it at all. He shoulda come with you!”

Olivia stepped back a pace, inadvertently taking the large woman with her as her grasp on Olivia’s person held firm. “Mr. Potts was unavoidably detained,” she responded with quiet authority. “I have come here by myself.”

“Gone for a nip to stoke the fires, has he?” The innkeeper’s wife gave Olivia a searching glance. After a moment, she shrugged. “Well, it ain’t no never mind. The old lady’s been waiting for you.” She indicated somewhere behind her with the flick of her massive head. Then she maneuvered herself behind Olivia, taking hold of her shoulders from behind. “Just ‘round here, love,” she directed from the back, pushing Olivia toward the door of a private parlor.

The giantess nudged the door open with her shoulder. Inside, the room was surprisingly warm and cozy. A cheerful fire burned brightly in the grate, and the room was well lit with tapers.

In the center of the room sat Lady Raleigh. Her back was inches from the carved wood of an elegant Hepplewhite chair that she had no doubt brought with her, and her spine was as straight as a ramrod. Next to her elbow rested an untouched glass of water on an otherwise empty side table. Adorning the room was a comfortable-looking sofa, several armchairs and a pier table of cherry wood. But Olivia had eyes only for her grandmother.

She was even more striking in person than Olivia had imagined. Lady Raleigh, her back to the fireplace, stared across the room at her only remaining grandchild with eyes almost as pale as Olivia’s. Her gray velvet dress, capped with a gathering of lace high at the throat, only seemed to emphasize the unusual color of her eyes. Added to that, Lady Raleigh’s white hair and pale skin, combined with the profusion of pearls she wore about her arms and neck, made her look almost colorless.

She had a birdlike quality, thought Olivia. If she had any weight on her bones at all, she could have been a pigeon. As it was, however, her thinness undermined the comparison. For all her stern expression, she really looked to be a thin, frail old woman. That thought was oddly comforting to the girl.

Olivia had been so mesmerized by her grandmother’s appearance, she was somewhat startled when the apparition before her actually spoke.

“Leave us,” she commanded the woman behind Olivia in an imperious voice that only trembled slightly with old age.

The innkeeper’s wife abruptly let go of Olivia and bowed her way out the door, taking Olivia’s cape with her. Olivia thought it rather mean of her to leave a child all alone with the strange lady before her. But she managed to hold her ground anyway.

A few seconds brought about Lady Raleigh’s next words to her grandchild. In a surprisingly gentle voice, she asked, “Are you going to stand there all day, child, or are you going to come over here where I can get a better look at you?”

Obediently Olivia went to stand before her grandmother. Lady Raleigh took her time in examining Olivia. She reached out a hand and firmly grasped one of Olivia’s own, pulling the girl toward her. Squinting slightly, she studied Olivia from head to toe. Finally she spoke again.

“Who dressed you, child.” she asked with a genuine expression of mystification, “that you look older than I?”

Olivia thought this remark so highly amusing that she bestowed on her grandmother a smile. Or at least she thought it was a smile. In reality her eyes grew only a little warmer, and the corners of her mouth curled upward hardly at all.

She answered the question frankly. “I chose it.”

Lady Raleigh nodded thoughtfully. “I see.”

In point of fact, she did not see, but she had no immediate concerns about that now. Given time, she and Olivia would get on quite famously, she was sure of that, despite the fact she had known the child for only a few minutes. The girl held her shoulders back proudly, and she did not wince or whine like other little girls. That was a good sign. Lady Raleigh didn’t like whiners.

The old woman beckoned the girl to sit down in a chair across from her. Waiting until Olivia had seated herself, she began her quizzing. “What have you heard about me?” she demanded.

Olivia looked at her elder with candor. “Not much.”

“What exactly does that mean…not much?”

Again her lips hinted at a smile. “Not much good.”

Lady Raleigh leaned forward in her seat, trying to get a good look at Olivia. As if she thought she could startle a confession out of her, she barked, “What do you think of me?”

Olivia’s expression turned ever so slightly wary. But her eyes were still cool. “I’m not sure.”

“Well,” replied her grandmother, leaning back a little in her chair after she had completed her own examination, “I shall be honest with you. You are not what I expected.”

Lady Raleigh waited for a reaction. She didn’t get one. Nonplussed, she continued. “No, whatever monstrosity I had expected Edgar to raise, you certainly are not it.” Her look was approving. “You act very poised, Olivia, just like a young lady. You impress me.”

Olivia couldn’t break her gaze from her grandmother’s. Her eyes were positively mesmerizing. Was this what it was like to be on the other side of her stare? Unsure, she replied, “Thank you.”

At that moment, a knock on the door announced the arrival of a visitor. The innkeeper’s wife, having.regained her earlier blustery manner, came into the room like a ship under full sail. Setting the refreshments out, she kept up a constant stream of chatter, not once noticing that her conversation was completely one-sided.

For Olivia, the interruption was an opportunity to reflect on her own impressions. She decided that Lady Raleigh was not what she had expected, either. From her father’s countless tirades, she had expected her grandmother to be a veritable dragoness. Oh, she had a bark… Olivia could see that, but she doubted the frail body before her had much of a bite. She narrowed her eyes a little as her thoughts steamed onward, but it was the only change in expression she allowed herself. At least until she got a good look at the spread laid out by the landlady.

With the woman gone and the food before them, Lady Raleigh was about to continue her conversation when she noticed Olivia’s expression. The child was not as good at hiding her feelings as she thought she was, Lady Raleigh noticed. The stare Olivia was giving the hot, buttered scones was practically burning a hole in the table.

In truth, Olivia was very smitten with the idea of biting into one of the scones. It had been so long since she had had anything like them. Looking hungrily at the treats before her, Olivia had to use all of her willpower not to reach out and snatch one.

Lady Raleigh’s words broke into her thoughts. “Go ahead, girl,” she offered kindly. “Take one while they are still hot.”

Olivia started to reach for a scone and then abruptly remembered her manners. “Wouldn’t you care for a scone, Grandmama?” she asked with all of the graciousness of a grown hostess.

Lady Raleigh, pleased at both her granddaughter’s polite behavior and her new name, shook her head. “I believe I’ll wait,” she replied.

While Olivia finished her scone and sat eyeing another one, Lady Raleigh continued their discussion. “Do you miss your father, Olivia?” she asked in a clipped voice.

Unsure of how to answer such a question, Olivia took a moment to think about it as she finished chewing her food. She regarded her grandmother seriously. “I accept my loss.”

“That’s a rather grown-up attitude for someone as young as you,” the lady replied.

Olivia shrugged her shoulders delicately. Her grandmother had meant no offense by the comment and none was taken. Still she wasn’t sure how to respond to her. For the moment, she decided not to try.

Lady Raleigh continued. “I do not pretend to have had any affection for Edgar, Olivia. He stole my daughter away from me and her rightful heritage and I cannot forgive him for that.” She added almost as an afterthought. “I can’t forgive her, either.”

Olivia regarded her grandparent gravely. In a quiet voice, she told her, “Papa blamed you for Mama’s death.”

Instead of snorting in disgust as Olivia was sure her relative would do, Lady Raleigh sat still, as if stunned by this bit of information. But after a moment she regained some of her composure and replied with an indication of uneasiness, “I do not doubt that my daughter and I caused each other grief during our respective lifetimes, but I can hardly be held accountable for her death. Your father never did want to see anything for what it really was. That’s one reason, although it is hardly the only one, my husband and I disapproved of the match.”

Olivia’s eyebrows quirked together in puzzlement. “One reason?”

“Yes.” Lady Raleigh’s own eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Olivia—your mother, that is—was engaged to an earl when she ran off with your father. The wedding papers were all but signed. We had no choice but to cut her.” She gazed at Olivia with brutal frankness. “She was a fool and she should have known better.”

Olivia took her time thinking this over. Up until now she had only her father’s version of the story. It was interesting to hear another version of an event that had caused so many people bitterness and pain. Still she felt somewhat unaffected by the whole affair—as if the story were an entertaining bit of gossip about someone else’s family.

Without warning, Lady Raleigh changed the topic. “You will be coming to London to live with me.” Her voice brooked no argument. “My husband died some years ago, leaving me a widow. The estate in Sussex went to my nephew, a pompous young man whom I detest, but he was kind enough to let me live in the dowager house, if I so chose. I detest the country, however, and live year-round in London instead. I have a house on Wimpole Street. It’s not overly large, you understand, but more than adequate for the pair of us.” She looked at Olivia expectantly.

Not wishing to offend her grandmother, she replied, “I’m sure it is quite nice.”

Lady Raleigh gave her a brisk, decisive nod. “Very well. We will leave in three days’ time. Although I doubt you have much to pack, I’ll need to stay at least that long to make sure all of Edgar’s affairs are in order. God knows, there are probably a hundred debts to pay off.

“I shall stay here at the inn until we leave for town. I won’t stay at your father’s house—you understand I cannot. Edgar would turn over in his grave if I did, and my husband would rise from his in outrage. You may come and visit me here as often as you like in the meantime.

“Mrs. Potts has graciously offered to oversee your packing for me. I’m sure she is already waiting for you at the house even as we speak. My coachman will drive you back.”

As she seemed dismissed, Olivia got up uncertainly from her seat. Subdued, she walked across the parlor to the door. Before she opened it, however, she turned around to face her grandmother. Politely she waited to be acknowledged.

“Well?” queried the lady, her imperial bearing once again very much in evidence.

“Do you…” began Olivia hesitantly. She searched for the right words. If she asked this question, then she would be opening herself up to attack. This strange woman before her would know her vulnerable spot. She’d know how to wound her in the future.

And yet how could she not ask it? She couldn’t very well leave Isis behind. An argument over the Siamese would be a terrible way to start her new relationship with her grandmother.

She almost bit back the words. But, no, she had to ask. Finally she opened her mouth again. Her eyes grew unconsciously wistful as she phrased the question. Such an awful lot of her future depended on the answer she would receive. “Do you…like cats?” She waited silently, building up her defenses against the rejection that was sure to come.

Again Lady Raleigh spied the little girl hiding behind the grown-up facade. With a conviction that would have surprised many of her cronies back in London, she declared soundly, “I adore them.”