The maid opened her mouth to argue, that while she had just happened to overhear him talking, that she considered that eavesdropping, but she knew better by then to pick her battles with what she pushed back on. Viola had very little patience for Ava being even remotely hard on herself.
She watched, instead, with growing distress, how her lady shifted very quickly from angry to calm, something she envied but also sort of feared, a little.
"Well--" No, she bit her tongue again when she was told she'd done nothing wrong, because she did feel as if she'd done something wrong, otherwise why was the cold weight of anxiety so heavy in her middle? Viola smiled, though, which seemed odd, and Ava frowned in that way she had when it became clear she had missed something.
A certain... person?
Her frown only deepened. Dark eyes ticked left, right, then back to Viola, as she tried very hard to figure out what it was that she was talking about.
"What? No. What? No!" She shook her head quickly. "My eyes haven't caught a thing!" How on Earth had they gone from Dr. Cress to whatever this was?!