Tommy absently touched the dog’s side, scratching at it with one hand while she fussed at her sketch with the other.
Claire didn’t remember deciding to come here. She only recalled turning from the orchard as Freddy, Patricia, and Oliver had departed breakfast in the direction of Crooked Nook, and knowing that she must go in the opposite direction. She did not often visit the dower house, truth be told, and her relationship with Tommy was best described as cordial. Necessary.
They had never bonded.
Tommy, however, had not asked any questions. She had simply led her into the sitting room and returned to her spot on the settee, where she was evidently sketching some ferns next to a cup of cooling tea.
Tommy was often taciturn like that. Claire didn’t really understand it, but she did, in this moment, find it comforting somehow.
In fact, she understood very little about her grandmother-in-law. Tommy was self-possessed to the point of coming across somewhat masculine. Her hair was stark white, often poorly combed, and always stuffed into something that must have started as a neat bun, but had begun to unravel the instant it was left to its own devices.
She had nut-brown skin from spending so much time in the sun, a thing Claire had thought all English girls of breeding were raised to abjectly fear from a young age. She carried a cane but never seemed particularly dependent on it. She called it her walking stick. Perhaps that was all it was. Just now, the stick was leaning against the arm of the settee, its brass rings gleaming against the smooth wood.
Even her name was odd, Claire had always thought. What sort of woman wanted to be called Tommy rather than Lady Bentley? What sort of woman insisted upon it?
“Her maiden name was Thomas,” Patricia Hightower had said, by way of explanation after Claire’s first introduction to the woman. “Her husband and friends always just called her Tommy.”
“Not her first name?” Claire had asked, perplexed.
“Does she seem like a woman who would answer to Judith?” Patricia had returned with amusement, then she’d shuddered and added, “or Judy?”
No, Claire thought as she gazed at Tommy. No, she did not.
With a jolt, she looked back at the dog.Abra, she realized. The Biblical Judith’s maid. The one who had … who … wait a moment.
“Tommy,” said Claire, drawing the other woman’s attention. Her eyes were blue, but not the same hue as Patricia, Freddy, and Oliver. They were dark, a fierce cobalt. They were like Silas’s eyes. “Tommy, did you name your dog after the slaying of Holofernes, in the Bible?”
Tommy gave a dry chuckle, setting her pencil to the side and regarding Claire on her floor. She wore her husband’s old pinky ring on her second finger, the dull ruby catching the light as she moved her hands. “I did. She is Abra the Fourth, actually.”
“But that’s ghastly!” said Claire. “She’s such a gentle dog!”
“Ah, well, perhaps,” said Tommy with a fond rub of Abra’s ears, “but she’s not been provoked, has she?”
“I suppose not,” Claire allowed. “I only just remembered that your given name is Judith. It is clever, of course, just a bit … dark?”
“Dark? Never,” Tommy returned with a sniff. “Holofernes was the villain, my dear.”
“That’s true,” Claire said, though she couldn’t quite banish her frown. “He was.”
“He was,” agreed Tommy, those dark eyes flashing, almost opaque in her engagement. “And it is not as though you, yourself, have been above punishing a wayward man. After all, that’s how you ended up here, lady of the manor. Perhaps you are just as fierce as Abra’s namesake and mine own, hm? Ever considered that?”
“Me? I’ve never beheaded a man!” Claire squeaked, startling all four of the puppies from their attempts to scale her knees and making them bunch up like pill bugs, scattering to all four corners of the compass rose.
“Not yet,” Tommy corrected with another dry chuckle. “But you’ve struck your blows in your own way, haven’t you? You and that razor-sharp little chit that married Silas. I saw those gossip sheets, Claire. I know your sword has edges.”
“Mysword,” Claire repeated, aghast. “Can youimagine?”
“You holding a sword, my dear?” Tommy asked, fussing with some loose hair over her ear, twining the silver strands over her sun-spotted fingers. “Of course I can.”
“You cannot,” Claire returned petulantly before she could stop herself.
This time she got a full-bodied laugh from the other woman. Tommy laughed like a man too, unabashed, at a natural pitch, without covering her mouth. She was utterly unconcerned with the trappings of her femininity.
Claire could only stare.
“You know, girl,” said Tommy, “this might be the only sincere conversation we’ve ever had. I like you much better unguarded.”
Claire scoffed. “You are alone in that, I assure you.”
