Present Day
Philamora invited Tillie to bring Sterling and his nursemaid to her private garden for breakfast. The nursemaid played with Sterling in the grass, teasing him into crawling with a flower, whilst the lazy, white winged butterflies flittered overhead.
Philamora and Tillie were served breakfast at a small round table set beneath the shade of the small rotunda. Philamora watched the Fae maid with a tight compression of her lips before turning her eyes back to Tillie.
Tillie straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin recognizing the assessment in the other woman’s gaze. At least she had a couple of days in the castle behind her, Tillie thought to herself, and she had been bathed, her hair dressed in the current fashion, and she was outfitted as suited a noble woman, although her gown was almost insultingly simple and bereft of jewels.