“As you said, peace of mind, I suppose. They know what happened afterward. I never have.”
“If they meant to come forward, they would have by now. Years ago, in fact.”
“I thought so, yes. I listened wherever I went, hoping to hear something as much as I dreaded the same. I could never learn what had become of Rawlings, but then I might have mistaken his name. I was too afraid to return, so I kept going. I believe what you said about defending myself…most of the time. It is what I did when I was confronted by the intruder in my room. It was as if Rawlings was given a second chance and I…” She fell silent, shaking her head. “There is guilt, though, that I left Rawlings to others and fled, and fear of what is still unknown.”
Griffin understood her vulnerability. “How were you called when you were employed at the inn?”
“Livvy. Livvy Cole.”
“Would they have learned it that night?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you never think of taking another name? That you opposed the idea when I suggested it seems to fly in the face of common sense.”
Olivia touched her fingers to her temple and pushed back a wayward strand of hair. “I suppose we see it differently.”
“But when you were at the inn, weren’t you hiding from your father?”
“In hiding? No. What a peculiar notion. It is truer that throughout my life he hid me away.”
“How?”
“At school, of course. There are such things for girls, you know, if one’s parents aren’t inclined to employ a governess. As you have mentioned, my father likes to take a position on the moral high ground, so it should not surprise you that confession and repentance figured largely in my education.”
Griffin’s eyes narrowed as he considered what he knew about the schools available to young girls. If Sir Hadrien was determined to put his daughter away, then the school would be isolated and have little in the way of interference from the outside. “A convent school,” he said, looking to Olivia for confirmation. “Confession and repentance. I’m right, aren’t I? You were educated in a convent school.”
“You are rather too proud for coming to it on your own when you only had to ask. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
He could imagine that she had been required to learn and recite a great many proverbs. “How old were you when you were sent away?”
“Six.”
He owed it to her, he thought, not to let pity creep into his expression. “And when you left?”
“Twelve.”
Griffin nodded slowly. He knew what to make of the half dozen years between her sixth year and her twelfth. Only the most depraved mind could reconcile what she’d learned at the school as part and parcel of a young girl’s education.
“You are thinking the whole of it must have been terrible,” she said quietly. This time it was Olivia who slid her hand across the table and beckoned him with an open palm. He fit it in hers and her fingers closed around his. “It wasn’t. Or if it was, I choose to remember it differently. There were kindnesses. I was well educated, sheltered, and fed. There were games. Giggling. Silly gossip. We had books and instruments. Some girls played; others sang. We had prayers, of course. You will not be shocked that there was an extraordinary amount of praying. Also lessons in deportment. In drawing and sewing and conversation. French and Italian were spoken. Latin, also. History. Geography. Penmanship. Poetry. There were riding and dancing lessons. We learned such things as to make us comfortable companions. There was no hardship in that, save for my own lack of interest in all but the books and conversation.”
Her brief account was not so different from his own experiences at Hambrick Hall, but he would not have described the purpose of such things as to make him a comfortable companion. Had she realized even at so early an age that she was being prepared for something that was perhaps beyond the pale? He decided not to turn the conversation in that direction but asked instead, “What sort of student were you?”
“Can you not guess? A diligent one. Most desirous of pleasing. In the beginning it was to please my teachers, but in the end it was to please me. There was no way to avoid all punishment, but I was not called forward as frequently as others. A palm lashing was common. Canings were relatively rare. The punishment chair was the most feared.”
“Punishment chair? What is that?”
“It was not used at your school?”
“Until you tell me what it is, I have no idea.”
“It’s simply a chair with the center of the seat removed. There were several of different heights so that as a girl grew taller there was always a chair sufficiently high enough to cause her feet to dangle just above the floor.”
Griffin began to have a picture of it in his mind. “Her legs would have become numb,” he said. “Swollen as well, I imagine.”
“Yes, if she had to sit in it long.”
“I should think twenty minutes would be long enough to get the desired effect. How long were girls required to sit?”
