“That is not your mama?” Tabby asked, gesturing to the woman named Clara, who was chatting happily with one of the kitchen maids as they shelled peas.
“Nay, my mama is in heaven. That’s only Clara,” said Violet, who’d transferred her attention to a fuzzy orange and black caterpillar. “Soft!”
“Aye, but do not touch him very hard,” Tabby warned as a pudgy little finger came out inquisitively. “Else you might squash him. ”
“Oh,” Violet said, retracting her hand immediately. “But could you not fix him then?”
“I? Oh, I could not do that. ”
“But Sir Nevril says you can fix any creature,” Violet told her, now fixing her guileless blue eyes on her.
A sudden warmth blossomed through Tabby’s chest, then waned into emptiness. “Only God can fix any creature. I can merely help them. Sometimes. If they are not too sick. ”
“My poppy says I had to come from Warwick to stay away from the sick cows,” Violet informed her, once again looking at the flowers. “He didn’t want me to get their sickness. ”
“I see,” Tabatha replied. But her thoughts were elsewhere, stuck suddenly on the realization that the little girl’s papa might be off fighting a war…but it was her mama who’d died and left her alone. Not her papa. “Does your papa miss your mama? Is he sad, now that she is with the angels?”
Violet paused from her examination of the calendula and turned to look at Tabby. “I miss my mama. But I have Clara. And my poppy is not sad except when the cows die. ”
Tabby drew in a deep breath and might have responded, but a heavy footstep behind her made her turn. She looked up into Nevril’s familiar, bearded, scarred face, and all at once a rush of heat and shivers washed over her. Her cheeks went hot and her knees felt weak.
And all at once, she realized what a fool she’d been.
But Nevril wasn’t looking at her; his attention was fixed on Violet. “Come now, little one. Do you not be underfoot here. The mistress is working. ”
“But I must get a flower for Poppy,” said Violet, her lower lip coming out mutinously. “He said one every day. And I must find one for him before he comes from Warwick. ”
“Now, Violet,” Nevril began.
“My name is Lady Vio—” But her words were cut off as Nevril swooped her up into his arms, then the girl was overcome by a gust of laughter following by shrieking giggles.
Tabby felt a quiver of something in the back of her mind and looked up at Nevril. He seemed unusually tense, even as he bounced the child in his arms. “Clara!” he bellowed, stalking away without a word to Tabby.
Tabatha rose to her feet, watching them…and listening. At the sound of her name, Clara looked over from the earnest conversation with some of her friends. Her eyes widened and she scrambled to her feet, coming toward Nevril and Violet.
When Tabby heard something that sounded like “Lord Malcolm,” she frowned. Nevril glanced over his shoulder at her, and both he and Clara had guilty looks on their faces. Then they seemed to be arguing—or at the least discussing something very vehemently.
By now Tabby had approached, and she was close enough to hear, “He will be furious when—” before Nevril stopped himself. He thrust the giggling Violet at a frightened-looking Clara, then turned.
“Mistress Tabatha,” he said. “Is aught amiss?”
She looked from him to Violet to Clara and then, that quivering growing stronger in the back of her mind, she said, “Sir Nevril. If you might walk with me a moment?”
He hesitated, causing an icy hand to grip her insides and then squeeze, but then he said reluctantly, “Aye. ”
Tabby was aware that her palms had gone damp and her mouth dry. What was she to say? How could she tell him…what she wasn’t quite certain of?
Nevril walked with such lead feet that she was nearly moved to set him free. But instead she continued until they were in a quiet place in the garden, beneath a shadowy rose arbor.
“I hope the girl didn’t bother you,” he said stiffly. He stood apart from her, his hands on his hips, looking just over her shoulder. His cheeks were ruddy and his expression emotionless.
“Who is that girl?” Tabatha asked, seizing on the topic at hand. Though it wasn’t the reason she wanted to speak with him, it would do to begin, while she worked up her courage. “She is from Warwick. Is she your daughter?”
“Nay!” Nevril replied, startled, his attention coming back to her. “I have never been wed. ”
Tabby looked at him, and then all at once comprehension dawned. Lady Violet. There was only one lady at Warwick, aside from Judith. “She is Lord Malcolm’s child, isn’t she?”
Nevril’s jaw tightened and his lips curled into each other. “Mistress Tabatha, you need have no worry about the girl. She won’t bother you again. ”