“Faith, Emma!” said her sister with a snort, “what good are your spectacles if you will not look through them and watch where you are going.” Milli punctuated this jest with a good natured laugh.
Disregarding the playful reproof, Emma immediately begged the lady’s pardon yet again and bent to retrieve the soiled reticule from the mud. It was quite ruined. “Please, you must allow me replace it for you.”
“No need,” the stranger replied, taking the item from Emma, her pale eyes strangely intent as they pored over Emma’s face. “This one is old and not worth the worry.”
Emma considered the costly silk reticule with a dubious nod—the mud failing to mask its obvious quality—then lifted her eyes back to the striking woman.
Though the stranger’s bonnet swallowed much of her face and platinum curls, it did nothing to hide the loveliness of her porcelain features, atop which not a single freckle was bestrewn. The shape of her eyes were fiercely exotic and the press of that gaze was bold and not a little unsettling. There was something of unnerving delight behind her smile that gave Emma pause. The lady appeared distracted as introductions were dispensed with. She politely gave her name—which, queerly, Emma forgot almost instantly—and then apologized for her part in the collision. Emma admitted the fault was entirely her own.
The elder Miss Rose was hardly used to attracting notice, especially when in her younger sister’s fresh company, for Milli favored their beautiful mother in looks and figure. Emma’s much plainer features were forged in the mold of her father’s kin. But that did not signify, for, although Emma’s petals came up short beside Milli’s, she flattered herself she possessed an elastic mind, quick tongue, and a diverting love of the absurd which, on better acquaintance (or so she’d been told) lent her some prettiness. Yet this lady could know none of that, so the expression of intrigue she wore was decidedly unwarranted.
Milli, however, appeared wholly unconcerned by the lady’s eccentricity. Instead, she turned to call her uncle back. “Hulloa! Hulloa! Uncle!” Milli waved in vain.
“Poor dear,” said Emma, “he would not hear a cannon fire if he was sitting on the iron muzzle.” There was naught the matter with their aunt’s hearing, of course, but the fairies had seemingly run off with Aunt Sophie’s thoughts again.
Milli assured herself once more that the stranger was unhurt, if a little ill-used (the woman politely declared she was not), and then excused herself. She then promised to return with the wayward Haywoods directly.
“Oh dear, she really need not call your uncle back,” said the woman, staring after Milli. She possessed a peculiar accent, namely in that she seemed not to have one. Emma could not place her at all. “Well, you mustn’t think me rude, but I am abominably late for an engagement and cannot delay a moment more. Goodbye, Miss Rose.”
Emma, chagrined at herself for having misplaced the woman’s name, bid her a stuttered adieu and stared after her as she bustled down the lane and disappeared into the crowd. It was then that Emma noticed an ivory card lying on the ground where the lady had stood moments before, her dress having mantled it in the confusion of their accidental meeting. It was surprisingly untainted by London filth. A very pretty card—or, on closer inspection, an invitation of sorts—with a black lace border and elegant black script. Littérature Étrange it read. Neatly printed below that was a date, a time, and an address in Cavendish Square. She wondered if Étrangère had regretfully been misprinted as Étrange. A Foreign Books exhibition seemed far more likely than one that featured Strange Books, so Emma determined that it must indeed be a misprint.
Emma hoped the stranger whose name she’d stupidly forgotten (confound her poxy memory!) had memorized the address and that her entrée was not wholly dependent on possession of the physical invitation she’d mislaid.
Milli had by this time caught up with their aunt and uncle and was pointing and gesturing animatedly. Without further ado, Emma left the scene of the incident, sure that the lady was not returning for her card, and joined her family.
Perhaps she ought to present herself in Cavendish Square at the specified date and time. Emma could then return the invitation to its eccentric owner and, having played the heroine, perhaps venture to hope for an invitation for herself. Books were something of an obsession with Emma, and if the exhibit truly contained strange books, then Emma was that much more determined to go. She was after all, in her family’s opinion, a strange sort of bird.
“Do stop dawdling, Emma.” Milli knit their elbows together and gave her sister a little tug. “Where did your victim disappear to?” Milli searched the crowd. “Uncle thinks we’re having him on, for she’s quite disappeared without his having seen her.”
“Do you recall her name?” Emma tucked the invitation into her bible for safekeeping as their uncle gestured impatiently for them to hurry along.
“Of course I remember. It’s…” Milli’s mouth twisted in consternation a moment. “Oh, pooh! How vexing, it’s quite escaped my tongue.” But she didn’t let that trouble her too long. “Well, never mind her silly name—and I do recall it was a very silly name. I daresay, I was rather too distracted by her ghastly dress. How positively outdated she looked.”
“She was rather odd,” Emma agreed, glancing back.
The woman with the silly name had been unfashionably dressed in what appeared to have been an absurd amount of fusty dark velvet, yellowed lace ruffles, and a black fichu. Her hands had been invested in ivory netting that might once have been her grandmother’s fingerless gloves.
“Odd you say? I’d as soon have called her a mystic!” Milli gave a sudden squeal of excitement. “Oh! It’s a famous good thing her crystal ball wasn’t in her reticule or she’d have cursed you in her gypsy tongue for shattering it!”
“You, Milli, are the silliest creature that ever possessed a tongue.”
“If you should happen to run into her again,” said Milli with a sportive grin, “do ask her to divine my future in her crystal. Do you think she would for a shilling?”
“A shilling? When you haven’t even a sixpence to scratch with? No, your future has already been decided, if your prodigal habits are anything to go by. And here it is: certain penury for you, my dear.”
“Well, I daresay that crystal gazer would disagree with your dull predictions.” Milli was thoughtful a moment and then brightened. “I’ve always had a strange inkling that I’d someday marry a prince, live in an old castle, and be divinely rich.”
“If you keep prattling on about Madam Strange and her silly name, I should not be surprised if she turned you and your maggoty prince both into toads. Or worse.”
Milli gave a sniff. “What could be worse than that? I should hate to be a toad. How is one to enjoy one’s castle if one must live as a toad?”
They continued in silence for a moment, Milli muttering about toads and princes whilst Emma watched the saturnine faces of passing pedestrians. She nimbly avoided the rank mires of horse ordure that had yet to be swept from the street. “London is a dreary place, isn’t? I can’t wait to go home and breath the country air again.” Emma felt as though her very lungs were coated in soot and sewerage.