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With the adults thus occupied, no one was watching the children.
In all the milling about, the newcomer had maneuvered her way over to them.
Tabitha started walking faster.
The lady extended an arm and allowed the boy to inspect her exotic-looking glove. The older girl looked unwillingly fascinated, but the littlest one glowered.
In a feat of legerdemain, one moment the lady’s hand was empty, the next it held a long chain. She let it dangle from her fingers and a stone pendant hanging from it began to swing, back and forth, back and forth; as it did, it seemed to glow, as if lit from within by an eerie fire.
Tabitha ran.
She ran as she had never run in her life, scattering lovage in her wake. Despite her skirts, she leaped over a low stone wall, and uncaring of the eyes she drew, she pushed through the crowd to stand between the children and the lady.
As quickly as it appeared, the chain vanished.
“How fast you are!” The boy, like a little magpie, diverted his attention to the newest interesting thing he noticed.
“I have never seen a lady run like that,” the older girl said, her tone unsure whether she should admire this or not.
“I did so every day when I lived in Greece, on the shores of the Aegean Sea,” Tabitha said, only slightly winded.
“You must be the lady apothecary I have heard so much about,” said the visitor. “You will have heard of me, I suspect.” She fluttered her lashes, as if out of modesty.
“Will I? And yet I do not know who you are.”I knowwhatyou are, Tabitha thought and put the children at her back. The smallest would not stay there and stood next to her, exuding stubbornness.
“She is the lady author, miss,” said the boy.
“Thelady author, oh my, I am hardly the only one of my sex scribbling away at my little stories.” How foul Mrs. Asquith was when she simpered.
“I remain unenlightened,” Tabitha said. The small girl looked up at her, assessing then admiring.
“You are very much in the dark, Miss Barrington.” The lady author’s eyes flashed red, and her smile evaporated. “Unenlightened in oh so many ways. In ways that speak to grave danger in your future, whether or not you become the wiser.”
Tabitha and the little girl exchanged dubious glances. “That sounds like the plot of a Gothic novel.”
“Art often imitates life,” the lady hissed.
“She is Mrs. Anchoretta Asquith,” whispered the girl at her back.
“Ah, that lady author. I have read a book of yours.” Mrs. Asquith touched her heart as though humbled, yet if looks could kill… “It is true,” Tabitha went on, “life often does imitate art. I have heard it is common in novels that an unaware heroine must conquer more than one travail to learn and grow. Is that so for your books, or…?”
“Do you not like stories, Miss Barrington? You do not speak as if you do.”
“Not as much as my brother does.” The child took a handful of Tabitha’s skirts, an oddly soothing gesture.
“I have a legion of fans amongst his…sort. How I adore them. They seem to identify with those helpless heroines.” Despite her gratified air at the thought of her ardent admirers, her tone mocked them.
“Children, let us join your family.” Tabitha herded the two eldest in the general direction of their mother then waited for the smallest, who was occupied with glaring at the lady author. “Come, love, I am sorry I do not know your name—”
“It is Ursella, is it not?” Mrs. Asquith said. “The Omega of the Humphries sleuth, if I am not mistaken.”
“You are not,” Ursella replied. “But you are misbegotten in your ways and will soon be thwarted.” With that, she spun on her heel and ambled over to her family.
Mrs. Asquith began, “I vow, the rearing of that child leaves much to be desired—”
And in the rudest action Tabitha had ever taken in her life that did not involve emetic herbs, she turned and walked away.
“Yes, go, Miss Barrington, flee while you can,” the lady author called, “but thanks to you, that which has slipped through my fingers will eat from the palm of my hand.”
