Free Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 by Elf Ahearn

her. She poured a valerian and St. John’s wort brew into a teacup and handed it to Abella.
    The girl stared at the cup. Flavian lowered himself into a chair across from her. “A little sip that’s all, my Bella,” he said encouragingly.
    Abella lowered her tongue into the liquid. The squinched look on her face testified that no amount of honey could dampen the bitterness of the brew. She coughed, and Flavian went around the table to her. “Poor thing,” he said, patting her back. “Just have a little more and you’ll be done.”
    “If I drink whole cup, you let me go to London with Lady Claire?”
    “We’ll have to see what effect the medicine has on you,” he told her.
    “And what you look for, Vav?”
    Claire extended her arm on the tablecloth and tapped near the cup. “These herbs are calming.”
    “What if I no can sing when I drink this medicine?”
    “Your voice will be fine,” he assured her.
    “But my performance — I be sleepy?”
    Flavian bit his lip and looked to Claire. Those rugged cheeks, the cut of his jaw and worst of all, the need in his eyes, made her realize that the hurt at his rejection was incidental. “Abella, this remedy will do nothing but good for you.”
    Flavian wrapped his arms around the girl’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “Please try it, Bella. If you’re well enough, London shall be at your feet by autumn.”
    A spike of jealousy rose in Claire. If only his arms encircled
her
that way. For the thousandth time she wondered why he had pulled away and if her brash behavior had anything to do with it. What had she done to earn his change of heart? Yet, he’d told her so little about himself. She had a niggling notion that he was afraid and that his fear had nothing to do with his feelings toward her, but afraid of what?
    Abella put the cup down. The clank of china against china broke Claire’s reverie. “You remember horses at pond this winter?” the girl asked.
    “That was a terrible accident.”
    Abella’s eyelids reddened. “In winter seven horses went to pond. No wind was there. So, they stood on ice together. They touch each other in the cold. And then ice crack. It must have happened quick — maybe like sky went under their hooves. Seven horses — they scream in the water — fighting. And then there nothing but broken ice. I feel like those horses, Vav. Sometimes I be screaming in the ice.”
    Flavian stroked the girl’s hair. “Take a sip and maybe the horses will go away.”
    Shame wrapped around Claire’s jealousy like a thick wool blanket. This girl suffered horrible mental agony while she wallowed in hurt feelings.
Abella is my patient. I’ll try every herbal combination and seek every medical remedy to help her
.
    Abella picked up the cup, held her nose, and downed the bitter liquid. When she placed the draught back in its saucer, she sat very still with her eyes closed, gagging a little on the brew.
    “I’m sorry it’s got such an unpleasant taste,” Claire said. “I’ll try to make the next batch more palatable.”
    “The next batch … ?” the girl whispered.
    “I’m so proud of you,” Flavian said. “You’ll get used to the taste.”
    Abella gripped his hands. A tear dripped down her cheek, though her eyes were still shut. “Maybe you think there only six horses on the pond at first?” she said. “That a seventh join them, and it too much. Too much, and the ice shatter?”
    “I don’t know, Bella,” he said.
    “What I done to God that He take my Hernando and leave me with seven horses?” The girl put her face in her hands, and her shoulders convulsed with a sob. “Why God give me a voice of angels and make me weep alone?”
    Stricken, Flavian turned to Claire, and her throat tightened.
Please let the remedy work
, she prayed.
    • • •
    Flavian sneaked into the tower for the third night in a row. Lantern in hand, he studied the piles carefully. If anything new had been added, he didn’t see it. A lump