The thought came again that she would see no more of him after today, and she willed herself not to cry. She knew, with the certitude of a women’s instinct, that she would never again meet another man like Markus Winterly.
A few errant drops had begun to fall again, running down her cheeks like farewell tears. Victoria was already making her way back to her brother. It was as though Emma was waking from a trance, the din of the neighborhood suddenly invading. And there was the cause of the accident—two upended carriages; the horses, thankfully, appeared unharmed. She had been so engrossed in Lord Winterly’s badinage that all else had faded away save what was taking place between them.
“Just a collision—no casualties.” Victoria smiled as she joined them, readily dismissing the harried coachmen and their sorry plight.
Emma offered no more than a diluted smile as she thanked them and bade them a hasty farewell before crossing the street. She was very careful to look both ways first, for she would not have Lord Winterly put to the trouble of rescuing her a third time.
“Was not that a lovely excursion?” Milli cried, waving an ardent goodbye to her new friend.
“I never had a better one,” said Emma, stomping mud from her boots.
“Oh pooh! You’re being querulous again. I cannot think why, for Lord Winterly paid you the compliment of his complete attention.” With a suggestive wink, Milli peered behind Emma and looked meaningfully at the pair they had left on the far side of the causeway.
“Don’t wink like that, it’s vulgar.”
Milli ignored the rebuke and gave another wave. “I hope we shall see them again!”
“Not I.”
“Surely you cannot mean that.”
“I should much rather stay in my room all summer reading about wicked viscounts than spend a single moment in the company of one.” What a lie that was. But she reasoned if she told herself that enough times perhaps she might someday become convinced of it.
“That is really too bad,” said Milli, blocking the doorway as Emma moved toward it.
Emma stopped short to pin her sibling with an impatient glower. “No, it isn’t.”
“No, I mean you shall not have your wish, Em.” She was flushing with excitement as she looked over her sister’s shoulder into the street. “Lord Winterly, it seems, has more to say to you.”
At that, Emma whirled around to see the man himself sauntering purposefully over the granite cobbles of Milk Street.
“Milli, stay where you are.” But there was no reply. “Milli?” Emma turned to see that she had been abandoned by the little minx.
“Miss Rose,” Lord Winterly drawled as he finally appeared, taking the steps two at a time. “You forgot to take your novel.” He held out The Castle Of Wolfenbach, a knowing look about him. “You hurried off so fast I scarcely had a chance to return it.”
“Thank you.” She could feel the heat soaring into her cheeks and was eager to hide her head under a pillow.
Despite the light rain, however, he seemed in no hurry to return to his coach. “You see, I would not have you forced to spend a single moment without the adventure you championed so valiantly.” After a moment he replaced his hat onto his dark head, the nap of the suede disarranged by his fingers. “It would be a shame to have no wicked company to occupy you in your chamber…should you indeed cloister yourself there all summer.”
She gawked at him, sure she must look pale with shock. How the devil had he heard her from across the street?
“Although,” he went on, “I conceive you will be doing no such thing.” Thereat he turned on his heel and marched off to join his sister.
Emma slammed the door shut with a sharp groan, disregarding the startled footman. She was so deeply mortified as not even Millli had been able to mortify her. Stupid, stupid, Emma! Just how loudly had she spoken? She resolved then and there to admit herself into that Chelsea Asylum after all if it meant she would never have to show her face again. Especially to him.
But no, hadn’t he promised to visit her there? A sad state of affairs, indeed, when a woman couldn’t even escape a wicked viscount in an asylum.
Chapter Nine
The Sleepwalker
Milli hated the dark. It had been many years since she’d crawled into her sister’s bed during a thundershower or fallen asleep beneath the watchful safety of a taper when the moon had waned to nothing. She was a child no longer, despite that Emma often asserted otherwise. Still and all, the darkness tonight felt strange and unnatural. It bore down on her with such awful weight, desiccating her courage with its force until it condensed and gathered on her brow and palms like a sickly dew.
Her eyes were full and round—even if the moon was not—and her ears seemed to pick out every sound so that she misgave herself she could hear even the rats colluding in the garret. Outside, the trees were whispering, yet there was no wind to disturb them; nothing but that frightful fog was moving in the streets below. And then came the song of bells, tolling their dirge as midnight crept upon her window and leered through the glass.
Milli threw her feet over the side of the bed and gave an impatient sigh, hoping to convince even herself that she was not afraid of the dark, only vexed that sleep was evading her. “I am not a child,” she said with an emphatic lift of her chin, wiping the clamminess from her hands as she pushed the bedsheet aside. She slipped quietly towards the window and peeked down at the gaslit street below her. There was no street, only fog.
The creak of floorboards outside her room sent her ducking madly behind the sheer drapes with a yelp. “Who’s there?” she hissed, watching the door like a startled thief. There came no answer, only another audible groan of boards as someone passed outside her door.
Where was the glow of candlelight beneath her door? Surely someone would have a light to guide them down the pitch black corridor on a night like this. And if it was someone—not a ghost or a murderer—why hadn’t they answered her when she’d called out? Though she was reluctant to leave her room, she could not bear feeling like a coward and so she tiptoed to the door and carefully opened it, thrusting only her head out into the corridor. There was no one there. She stood alone. But she could see enough to know Emma’s door was wide open.
“Emma?” The darkness crowded in, drowning out her voice as she crept to her sister’s room. There too, however, she found herself alone. Alone but for that terrible, yawning darkness that perfused the room. Its feral breath clung to her skin. Something felt terribly wrong with the darkness here. Milli could not say what exactly, she only felt desperate to escape it.
Out in the corridor, she called for her sister again, louder this time. Again, there was no answer.
In the morning she would berate herself for being a silly coward, and for being so fanciful as to imagine her sister’s room was steeped in frigid shadows, but the nighttime, at its thickest, had a cunning way of eclipsing one’s bravery. Milli was suddenly possessed of a primeval need to escape the unnatural solitude of the house—as though all were dead save her alone—and to find her sister. Perhaps Emma had taken herself to the library to find a book.
Without a candle? No, Emma was too sensible to risk her neck on the dark stairs. That was the height of foolishness, and Emma was never foolish. Milli carefully navigated down the stairs, her toes fumbling in the dark.