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“There,” Helen said softly when the bodice was laced. “Hand me the brush and I’ll do your hair.”
“Can you braid it and put it in a crown?” Abigail asked.
“Of course.” Helen smiled. She sat on a low stool. “I’ll make you a princess.”
Abigail turned around, and Helen began stroking the brush through her hair. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Abigail’s thin shoulders lifted, and her head ducked as if she were a turtle withdrawing into a shell.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it,” Helen murmured, “but I think we must, dearest. At least once. And then, if you wish, we’ll never discuss it again. Would that be all right?”
Abigail nodded and took a deep breath. “I woke up, but you and Jamie were asleep, so I took Puddles downstairs. I went with him outside so he could do his business, but then I saw Mr. Wiggins, and I ran back inside with Puddles and we hid.”
She paused, and Helen set down the brush to divide the long flaxen hair into three parts. “And then?”
“Mr. Wiggins came in the room,” Abigail said softly. “He… he shouted at me. He said I was spying on him.”
Helen’s brows knit. “Why would he think that?”
“I don’t know,” Abigail said evasively.
Helen decided to let it drop. “Then what happened?”
“And… and I cried. I didn’t want to—I tried not to, but I couldn’t seem to help myself,” she confessed miserably. “I hated crying in front of him.”
Helen’s mouth tightened, and she concentrated on braiding Abigail’s hair. For a brief, fierce moment, she wished that Alistair had killed Mr. Wiggins.
“Then Sir Alistair came in,” Abigail continued, “and he saw me and he saw Mr. Wiggins, and, Mama, he moved so fast! He took Mr. Wiggins by the neck and dragged him from the room, and I didn’t even know what was happening until I went into the hall, and then you and Jamie and Miss Munroe were there, and you told Sir Alistair that he must stop.” She took a deep breath at the end of this recitation.
Helen was silent a moment, thinking. She finished the braid and set aside the brush.
“Hold the pins,” she murmured, “while I do your crown.”
She placed the hairpins in Abigail’s hand and began wrapping the braid high across her daughter’s head.
“Thank you, darling.” She accepted a hairpin from Abigail and placed it carefully in the braid to anchor it. “I was wondering if anything else happened in the room where you hid with Puddles?”
Abigail held very still while she did her coiffure, but her eyes were lowered to the pins in her hand.
Helen’s heart missed a beat. Something seemed to be clogging her throat, and she had to clear it before going on. “Did Mr. Wiggins touch you at all?”
Abigail blinked and looked up, her eyes puzzled. “Touch me?”
Oh, God. Helen made her voice casual. “Did he put his hand on you, sweeting? Or… or try to kiss you?”
“Ewww!” Abigail’s face screwed into a mask of appalled disgust. “No, Mama! He didn’t want to kiss me—he wanted to beat me.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know.” Abigail looked away. “He said that he was going to, but then Sir Alistair came in and dragged him out.”
The clog in her throat was abruptly gone. Helen swallowed and asked, to be completely sure, “Then he didn’t touch you at all?”
“No, I told you. Sir Alistair came in before Mr. Wiggins could come near me. I don’t think he would want to kiss me when he was so angry, anyway.”
Abigail looked at her as if she was rather dim.
And Helen had never been so glad in all her life to be thought stupid. She placed the last pin, turned Abigail around to face her, and hugged her, careful not to squeeze as tightly as she really wanted.
