Miss Flaxman gave her a grateful smile before guiding Abigail up the steps and through the front doors. Abigail didn’t look back. Her small hand clutched the governess’s as she followed obediently.
Cecilia watched them disappear inside, and she exhaled, shoulders loosening for the first time all day. She turned back toward the house, brushing a leaf from her sleeve. There was still a list of things to attend to. The barley shortage in the kitchen, a household account ledger to review, and the matter of the seamstress, who had yet to arrive.
Reluctantly, she put a smile on her face, willing herself to carry on, even though everything still felt like a performance she hadn’t quite learned the steps to.
“Abigail, are you asleep?”
Valentine paused at the door, waiting to see if Abigail would respond before stepping in. His fingers rested lightly on the handle. He wasn’t certain why he’d come, only that the house had grown too still, and his thoughts had become too loud to remain in the study.
He opened the door quietly.
A single candle flickered near the hearth, casting soft shadows across the floorboards. Valentine paused at the doorway, his gaze landing on Abigail curled beneath the coverlet. Her back was to him, perfectly still.
“Are you asleep, Abigail?” he asked.
There was a pause before she shifted slightly and turned her head, revealing eyes wide open and alert.
“You didn’t come to supper, Papa,” Abigail said quietly.
“I was busy,” he replied simply, stepping into the room.
The quiet click of the door behind him echoed faintly in the stillness. He moved toward her and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. Abigail shifted, turning to face him.
“Supper was nice,” she offered after a moment, staring at the shadows cast by the bedpost. “I had it with Cecilia. She talks quite a lot, Papa.”
A soft, quiet laugh escaped Valentine’s lips on hearing her say that. His fingers brushed the edge of the coverlet, smoothing a fold that didn’t need smoothing. “What did she talk about?”
“Stories,” she answered. “They were funny. She told a story about her brother. How he once put frogs in her pinafore and blamed it on Dorothy, her other sister.”
Valentine arched a brow. “Frogs?”
Abigail gave the faintest of smiles. “She screamed so loudly, it woke up the entire house. Then she chased her brother round the garden with a broom.”
A soft chuckle escaped Valentine before he could stop it.
Valentine said nothing at first, struck by the unexpected tenderness in Abigail’s voice. He hadn’t expected her to remember the story, much less retell it, given that Abigail was fond of forgetting things. It also surprised him further that Cecilia had spoken so openly to the child, so casually, as if the walls between them weren’t still so new.
“She didn’t make me talk,” Abigail murmured, quieter now. “Unlike Miss Flaxman, who always wants me to say something. She just…talked, and let me listen.”
“Did that help?” he asked. “Listening to her talk. Did it make you feel fond of her?”
Abigail hesitated. “It didn’t feel so lonely.”
Valentine shifted slightly, adjusting his position on the edge of the bed so he could face her properly. Abigail sat cross-legged under the coverlet, her nightgown wrinkled and her hair falling loose over her shoulders.
“You don’t always have to talk,” he said after a pause, watching her expression carefully. “But you mustn’t be unkind to those who’ve done you no harm.”
Abigail’s shoulders stiffened slightly. She didn’t look at him.
“I’m speaking of what happened in the garden the other day,” he continued. “You shoved her, Abigail. That is unlike you.”
Still, she said nothing.
“There is no reason to push someone like that, especially not when that someone is trying to befriend you.”
“But she didn’t complain, Papa,” she argued.
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt her.”
