“He’ll trample the footmen and eat the kitchen cat, yes. I’ve read the reports,” Augusta cut in. “Very well, we shall see Pippin at luncheon, provided you apply yourself in the schoolroom this morning.”
Hudson did not speak up. He remained perfectly still behind the paper.
“Can we start with the lessons now?” Cassie’s voice was bright, and Augusta nodded with a half-smile. “Lead the way.”
The schoolroom was at the top of the first staircase. Cassie claimed the first desk, flinging herself into the seat with the sigh of a martyr.
Augusta took her time surveying the room before she walked to the far end and found, as she had hoped, a globe on a wooden stand, its surface worn thin at the equator from years of spinning fingers.
She rolled it to Cassie’s desk and set it between them.
“We’ll begin with geography,” she said, taking a seat beside her. “But not from the book.”
Cassie eyed the globe with suspicion. “Do we have to draw maps?”
“Not unless you wish to. I want you to spin the globe and stop it with one finger. Wherever your finger lands, that’s where we’ll start.”
Cassie looked at her as if she’d just been invited to climb onto the roof. “Really?”
“Really.” Augusta nodded. “But you only get one spin, so make it count.”
For the next hour, they charted a course from England to the Caribbean, detouring only for a lively debate about whether narwhals counted as unicorns and whether it was possible to survive on nothing but oranges and ship’s biscuits.
By the time Mrs. Beale arrived with a tray of cocoa and biscuits, Cassie was entirely engrossed in drawing a fleet of imaginary pirate ships, each one labelled with the names of her enemies. Augusta sipped her cocoa, feeling the rare satisfaction of a plan gone better than expected.
She glanced out the window and saw, far below in the garden, Hudson standing beside a gardener, pointing out something along the hedge. He looked up, as if sensing her gaze, and for one charged instant, their eyes met across the frosted distance.
Augusta held his gaze for a count of three, then returned her attention to Cassie, who had just declared war on the French navy with a colored pencil.
By the time the clock in the hall struck twelve, Augusta was prepared to declare the morning a triumph. Not only had Cassie completed her arithmetic exercises without once threatening to run away to sea, but she had also produced a watercolor rendering of Admiral Nelson as a merman and recited the first ten lines of Ovid in a passable translation.
When Augusta finally announced that it was time to go outside, a grin broke out across Cassie’s face.
They had hardly made it outside before Pippin ran toward them, his immense black body a blur of fur and enthusiasm. Cassie shrieked with delight and launched herself at him. Pippin slid to a stop and, in a feat of canine precision, caught her in his front paws and licked her face until she collapsed in a heap of giggles.
“He missed you,” Augusta observed as Pippin rolled over for a belly rub and nearly bowled Cassie into the shrubbery.
“I missed him more,” Cassie said, breathless. “You’re the only one who understands me, aren’t you, Pippin? Miss Norton, did you know he once saved me from drowning in the pond?”
“I did not,” Augusta said. “Was that before or after you attempted to teach him to swim?”
Cassie looked up, caught off guard. “You’re not cross?”
“Why should I be?”
Cassie considered. “Because everyone else always is. The last governess fainted when she saw me on the roof. And my brother—” She broke off, glancing at the house. “He’s very particular about safety. And about clothing. And about never being within twenty yards of the pond unless I’m accompanied by three adults and a rope.”
“He sounds like a very responsible brother,” Augusta said, with exactly the right note of gravity. “But you’re with me, and I am excellent with ropes.”
That earned her a conspiratorial grin.
Cassie threw herself onto the grass beside Pippin, who promptly flopped his massive head into her lap and closed his eyes in ecstasy.
Augusta found a dry spot beneath a leafless elm and watched them for a moment, content. Cassie’s laughter echoed off the brick walls, Pippin’s tail thumping like a drum.
Augusta closed her eyes, letting the weak sun warm her face, and thought of Olivia, who was somewhere out there, perhaps enjoying the soft rays of the day.
When she opened her eyes again, Cassie was attempting to climb the elm tree, Pippin watching with canine interest from below. The girl’s boots scrabbled for purchase on the bark, and for a moment, Augusta was seized by the urge to scold her, to call her down, to reach for the invisible leash all adults seemed to carry.
