He faced her, head cocked with interest. “That is only my second favorite pleasure.” When she made no reply other than to fold her arms, he said, “Care to guess at the first?”
Emma glanced sideways at The School of Venus, scowling. “No doubt it is something lewd, so no, I don’t care to guess.”
“Really, Miss Rose, you give a man’s tarse far too much thought. I was going to say chess.”
“Chess?”
“Above all things, I enjoy a lively game of chess. You can tell a lot about someone by the way they play.”
Blushing, she peeked at the book again. “And you can tell a lot about someone by examining their library…”
“Indeed,” he said with a hearty laugh. “You are quite right.”
She lifted her chin and turned to leave. But he called out her name very softly and she paused, eager, despite herself, to hear what else he had to say.
“Miss Rose…” What followed was a heavy pause in which even the candle flames stilled a moment. Then he said, “I look forward to our game of chess.”
A premonition of sorts fluttered up her spine, finally impelling her with all haste from his library where the air had become altogether too warm and intimate. It had been a warning, those parting words. A gauntlet thrown down between them, and she feared that she had already taken it up in acceptance without ever knowing when or how or what she was in for. She had already passed the point of no return.
Not even upon reaching the drawing room did she feel herself safe from him. She wondered if she ever would. Something had shifted between them tonight and she found that she was anxious and thrilled and filled with a species of voluptuous dread, a species of fear, but not fear in its animal form. It was not fear that had kept her in the library when she ought to have fled the moment he shut the door; it wasn’t fear that trailed her now, but some divine and darksome thing. Fear not of him but of herself!
She’d tried always to think of him as Lord Winterly, not Winterly or Markus, injecting his title between them to remind herself to keep aloof. But slowly, everything was becoming blurred. How had Winterly got so deep under her skin? Winterly. Even his name held power over her.
Emma knew that she was flushed, for she noticed the curious glances she attracted upon joining the rest of the party. Milli’s had been the sharpest look. God only knew what they were all thinking and suspecting of her! Winterly’s absence had also doubtless been remarked. Dear God! She wished the carpet would just swallow her up and spit her out in another time and place, she little cared where. Van Diemen’s Land was preferable.
Soon after she’d seated herself, Winterly entered the drawing room with a glass of wine so deep a shade of red as to be almost black. “Ah, Miss. Rose,” he said, “there you are. You looked a little under the weather earlier, so I took the liberty of having a palliative prepared for you.” His lineaments were now arranged in the most civil and impersonal assiduity. It was as though that interlude in his library never happened. “Under Dr. Wheatstone’s advisement, of course.” He lifted a brow at the good doctor who, after a pause, nodded like a gracious thespian.
“Yes, I remarked it too,” said her uncle, adding his nod for good measure. “You seemed most unlike yourself tonight, my dear.” Perhaps now he might forgive her her earlier impertinence if he thought her unwell.
Emma found herself taking the wine like a docile child, ready to play along, for Winterly’s demeanor implied to the world—should the world wonder at their absence—that naught but the most exemplary conduct had transpired between them. Quite possibly it suggested that they had only seen each other in passing.
“Thank you, my lord.” Emma peered down into the dark liquid. After the heat of the library she certainly was thirsty, but wine was the very last thing she needed just now to clear her head.
“Markus, is that a good idea?” Victoria had lifted herself out of her chair and was glaring at her brother. “I don’t—”
He merely lifted his hand to silence her. She obliged him and sat down again with a reluctant furrow marring her otherwise perfect countenance.
Emma peered around the room to find that all eyes were riveted either to her face or to the hand in which reposed the wineglass. Mr. Grimm’s eyes seemed to be glowing with anger. Mr. Black appeared to be whispering under his breath to Mr. Valko, the latter merely nodding gravely.
“Drink it,” Winterly said, “you will feel better in the morning.”
She did as she was told, too enervated to summon up the indignity his arrogance deserved. The wine left a strange coppery tang on the back of her tongue, but overall it had a pleasing flavor. She took another sip and then another. Satisfied, Winterly withdrew from her side and settled himself across from her. The conversation returned to normal, but Emma swore that the air was now tainted somehow.
Finally, it came time to depart, and they made short work of bidding their adieus. It was not until the family were tucked away in the carriage that Emma drew in a deep breath and relaxed, boneless, into the seat. She had not realized just how tense had been her back all night until she all but melted against the side of the speeding carriage, drowsy despite her teeth rattling over the ruts. She would sleep like a corpse tonight.
Chapter Fourteen
Incubus
Dearest Emma,—I do hope you mean to replace your spectacles, if you have not done so already, I should hate for you to view London in such darksome shades. It might induce the eye to see unclearly—to see that which isn’t really there… Your affectionate cousin,
Mary.
Emma was visited by the strangest dream that night, hallucinations so lucid that she could not distinguish dream from reality.
At one point the wind rapped the glazing, the branches tapping an eerie tattoo at the window, which they had never done before. The window, she discovered, was left ajar and stood open to the night, near enough that the branches could run their skeletal claws athwart the glass. She did not recall opening it before bed, but she had been so tired that she may have done so unconsciously. Her cheeks had been aflame all night, so it was only natural to want to cool them.
The fragmentary moonlight upon her counterpane offered only a somber glow. As she shifted her sleepy eyes to the corner of her room, she was suddenly affrighted by a large shadow looming where the moonlight could not reach it.
“Who’s there?” she asked the shadowy figure. Her question was met with eerie silence. “Are you real or am I dreaming again?” Or was she talking to the shadow of her wardrobe?
“I am as real as any man, and yet nothing like a man.” The shadow’s voice was so very reminiscent of Winterly’s. How strange.
Its very strangeness convinced her at once that she was dreaming again. Such dreams! Could she not have respite from him even in sleep? “No, I must be dreaming.” Winterly would not have scaled the side of the house and entered her bedroom through the window.
“So you dream of me often then?” His tone was heavy with amusement. “That is rather provoking of you, Miss Rose.”
“That is just what the real Winterly would say.”
“Ahh, but you have already determined that I am most unreal,” he replied.