He gave a curt nod. At least the creature had come up with a sensible solution.
“We can’t wait too long,” Nana said.
“We won’t,” Viola said in a soothing voice. “It will happen soon enough. And now you will have some tea, and some biscuits, and then I will read to you from our favourite novel. What do you say, Nana? Is that a good plan?”
Nana’s face brightened.
Viola turned to him. “I didn’t know you’d be here, so I brought only two teacups.” She waved an ink-stained hand. It also appeared red, as if it had blisters. From the nettles, no doubt. He shifted in his seat. “You may pour anyhow,” she was saying. “Since you are closer to the tray. And pass me the plate with the biscuits. No, not those. The other one with the chocolate-covered ones.”
She certainly knew her way about commanding him around. Bastian refrained from commenting anything at all as he silently passed her a teacup and the plate with biscuits.
His brother, he decided for the tenth time, must have lost his mind. There was no other explanation.
“I also brought you some blackberries.” Viola chatted away happily. “They’re growing by the ruins. They’re wonderfully sweet. Here, try one.” She held the bowl with blackberries to Nana, who devoted herself to happily devouring them.
Viola herself bit into a biscuit and promptly left a trail of crumbs down her front, in addition to getting crumbs stuck all over her lips and between her teeth. Not to mention the chocolate stain in the left corner of her mouth. Really, any child had neater eating habits.
“You have an, err...” His finger wandered to the corner of his own lips, then he shrugged and dropped his hands in defeat.
She bent forward, reaching into the sugar pot to fish out a lump of rock sugar. There were dainty little silver tongs specifically for this purpose lying on the tray next to her, but she appeared to find her fingers more suitable to accomplish this task. But instead of popping the sugar lump into her tea, she popped it straight into her mouth and sucked on it.
Only afterwards did she lift her teacup to drink.
“What?” She raised her eyebrow at him.
“It’s just that one commonly puts the sugar into the tea, stirs, and waits until it is dissolved.” He gestured with his hand,showing the motion of stirring. “And then one drinks it. That is how it is done. Normally.”
“Yes. As I am certain you have ascertained, I am anything but normal.”
That, Sebastian concluded, was the understatement of the century.
“You should try it yourself. The tea tastes better if the sugar is already in the mouth, as opposed to being dissolved in the tea.” She reached for another lump of sugar and held it out to him. “It’s an entirely different phenomenon.”
He stared at the cracked fingernail of her index finger, which, to boot, was covered by an ink stain. “Try it.”
He shook his head.
She shrugged and stuck it into her own mouth instead.
She proceeded to slurp noisily from her teacup and promptly spilled some onto her dress. She rubbed at it with her blistered hand.
He handed her a napkin wordlessly.
She waved him away.
The girl was a walking catastrophe. Truly, she was the most clumsy, untidy, mishap-prone creature he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter.
His Nana, however, appeared to adore her.
Goddaughter, she’d said. Lady Viola’s mother had been her close friend. Bastian mused on the nature of their relationship with a frown on his face.
“If you keep on frowning like that, the frown will get stuck,” Viola informed him with a full mouth, between two bites of biscuits. “He disapproves terribly of me, Nana,” she told his grandmother. “He is thinking at this very moment that he has never met such a vexatious person as me.” A low chuckle emerged from her throat. It might have sounded adorable had it come from any other female.
He was about to deny it vehemently when he held himself back. For it was true, wasn’t it? He did find her vexatious.
“Bastian? Nonsense. Don’t let him intimidate you. His bark is worse than his bite, but underneath the hard facade, he has the kindest heart. He just needs to keep the world a bit at a distance. It is merely self-preservation, you see. He is also shy.”
He felt a wave of heat crawl up his neck. “What nonsense you talk, Nana.”
