Victoria Fox - Glittering Fortunes

‘I’m not sure Cato wears any pants.’

‘Have you seen?’

‘No,’ Olivia lifted an eyebrow, ‘just an instinct. And anyway, I don’t know if Cato being there is a bonus. He and Charlie seem to really hate each other.’

‘Ooh; Beth teased, ‘it’s “Charlie”, is it?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Is he still all tortured and moody?’

Olivia regarded her quizzically. ‘Huh?’

‘You remember—at Towerfield?’

Something faint glimmered at the edges of her memory. Before the Lomax boys were bundled off to Harrow they had attended the local prep. Cato had been way older, she couldn’t recall him, but another boy in Addy’s year, yes, possibly: shirt untucked, messy hair, the big polished car that used to drop him off at the gates …

‘Silly question.’ Beth’s expression was wry. ‘You wouldn’t remember because you were so obsessed with Addy that you never even noticed anyone else.’

‘I was not.’

‘You were, too.’

‘He didn’t hang out with Addy. I’d have noticed if he had.’

‘That’s ‘cause he didn’t like Addy.’

‘How would you know?’

‘It might be an impossible concept for you to grasp,’ Beth sighed, ‘but not everyone does. It’s just you who’s got this massive blind spot.’

‘All right, all right!’ Olivia bristled. ‘Anyway you should have seen him with Cato. They were at each other’s throats, standing there yelling at each other. No,’ she frowned, ‘not yelling, it was more restrained than that—and kind of more intense for it. At one point I thought they were going to strangle each other!’

‘Sexy!’

‘Hmm.’

‘Is it any wonder, though?’ Beth resumed grooming her horse, taking the brush in long slow strokes across the animal’s flank. ‘Of course they can’t stand to be in the same room, what with Cato shooting off the second their parents disappeared. Poor Charlie ,’ she grinned, ‘got left behind to look after everything.’

‘I suppose.’

‘What age was he back then, thirteen?’

Olivia shrugged, trying to work it out in her head. Charlie would have left Towerfield at twelve, when the boys had gone into senior school. He would have been at Harrow a year before his parents vanished, and she guessed that the housekeeper had taken care of him after that. He definitely hadn’t been at Towerfield when it happened because if he had then Addy would have talked about it; and she would remember Addy talking about it, if nothing else.

‘It would have been bad for Cato, too,’ Olivia argued. ‘I expect running away was easier, maybe he just couldn’t face things here.’ Cato had been far nicer to her in their brief acquaintance, and she felt the need to defend him.

‘Maybe.’

Olivia narrowed her eyes.

‘Between you and me,’ she confided, ‘I can’t help feeling the animosity’s about more than the parents dying. Something else, something deeper …’

Beth leaned against the stable door. ‘Here’s an idea, Oli,’ she suggested. ‘How about you take this job for what it’s worth—just like I and every other girl at Lustell Cove would—and not get in way over your head like you always do?’

‘I have my head perfectly above water, thank you very much.’

Beth giggled. ‘Only you could get run over by Cato Lomax in your first week back.’

‘It was an accident! Besides he was lovely to me, very apologetic.’

‘For fear you’d sue his arse—sorry, ass —all the way back to America?’

Olivia nudged her. ‘Cynic.’

‘Oh, great.’ Beth groaned. ‘Look who it is.’

With sinking hearts they spotted the Feeny twins making their way across the courtyard. Thomasina and Lavender had been in their form at Taverick Manor, and had stayed at the cove ever since, living off Daddy’s pocket money. They were snotty, spoiled little madams, with upturned noses like piglets. One was riding a black stallion; the other a white mare, like a pair of evil chess queens.

‘Hell-air!’ called Thomasina, easing her beast to a stop. Olivia could tell it was Thomasina because her nose was slightly more piggy than Lavender’s.

‘Hey.’ Olivia gave them the benefit of the doubt: perhaps they’d changed.

‘Good to see you settling back into your old life,’ commented Thomasina, peering snootily down at Olivia as if she were something growing mould in a petri dish. ‘There must be terrible competition in London to look thin.’

They hadn’t changed.

‘Though I’d imagine Cato Lomax being back in town would be diet incentive enough for anyone,’ she finished. Next to her, Lavender tittered.

‘What do you want, Thomasina?’

‘Ooh, well excuse us !’ Lavender had the annoying habit of emphasising the final word in every single sentence she said. ‘Is this conversation private ?’

‘Not any more.’

‘What’s it about,’ she whined, ‘ boys ?’

‘You must be finished, then,’ put in Thomasina, thinking herself extremely clever. ‘There can’t be a great deal to talk about!’

The Feenys were insufferable—grade-? picture-perfect sorority bitches who nipped miserably at sticks of celery and slagged off anyone over a size 6. Ever since Olivia’s very first day at Taverick they had treated her no better than the offerings their rat-like pooches occasionally left in the bottoms of their Aspinal tote bags. According to the Feenys, Olivia was the scruffball who didn’t live in a proper house, who probably didn’t wash and who came with un-brushed hair into a school her mother couldn’t afford to send her to (she had got in on a scholarship).

Like most of the girls at Taverick Manor, Thomasina and Lavender took everything for granted: the Pacific island they jetted to on holiday, the yacht Daddy bought to moor off the Napoli coast, the wardrobe of designer labels they’d get bored with after a week. Olivia and Beth were always going to be outcasts. Beth’s family were working class and had only afforded her education because a distant Merrill cousin had died and left them a wad of cash—something Beth felt permanently guilty about: last year her father’s business had gone down the pan, and nowadays her parents had barely two pennies to rub together—while Olivia’s scholarship was, according to the Feeny brigade, a heinously unfair pass into a life of privilege which she had neither the faculties nor the finesse to appreciate.

‘Actually, Olivia’s working with the Lomaxes this summer,’ Beth chipped in, giving her a jab with her elbow. ‘Isn’t that right, Oli?’

The twins were stricken.

‘What do you mean?’ panicked Thomasina.

Olivia put her hands in her pockets. ‘Charlie Lomax hired me.’

Thomasina burst out laughing, a high-pitched, taunting sound she’d used to inflict on a blubbing Clarabel Maynard whenever she forgot her gym knickers, pushing her to the floor and triggering one of Clarabel’s nose bleeds. Once Olivia had hauled Thomasina off and slammed her into the changing-room lockers. She’d earned detention for a week and Clarabel still hadn’t spoken to her in the lunch queue.

‘You expect us to believe that?’ Thomasina carped. ‘With Cato back at the house? Come on . At least think up something semi -realistic, Chopped Liver.’

Chopped Liver had been her school nickname. Olivia had the sudden sensation of never having left Lustell Cove at all, the past year of city life, new friends and new horizons, evaporated in a single toxic gust of Feeny breath.

‘She’s gardening for them,’ elaborated Beth. ‘Charlie offered it on the spot. She’s already met Cato and Susanna.’

‘He hired you ?’ quailed Lavender. Her horse performed a prissy circle, swishing its tail as if it too could scarcely grasp the outrageousness of this suggestion.