Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 11
“I thought you were a China merchant, Uncle?” Milli said, still looking bemused.
Emma waved her sister’s question aside. “But what does he import?”
“Impertinent girl.” Her uncle gave a grunt and picked his book up again. “We do not make a habit of discussing our clients’ business affairs with curious young women.”
Her arched brow proclaimed that she thought otherwise.
His lips twitched before he admitted, “Well, between you and I, the captain of the Astraeus informed me of a boatswain having heard one of Lord Winterly’s crates growling at him. He was looking for one of the steerage passengers who’d gone missing and found himself being growled at by a crate instead! Can you imagine?”
“Growling crates? What the devil is going on?” Milli slapped her palm on the chintz and stomped her foot for good measure.
“Mind your language, Milli.” Emma’s censure, however, was only half-hearted as she waited for her uncle to go on.
Thankfully he did. “Ah, but sailors are a superstitious lot. Best not to take them too seriously. Hornpipes, grog, taverns, and tall tales—that’s all a sailor knows.” Uncle Haywood scrutinized his pocket watch a moment, ostensibly to confirm that the time corresponded accurately with the tall clock striking the hour of nine. “The crates were, of course, inspected by His Majesty’s Customs officers…”
“And?” Milli appeared as invested in the details as Emma herself.
“And you shall never guess what was to be found within.”
“What? What was it?” Milli nearly screamed, she was that titillated. “A deformed circus man, wasn’t it? I just know it!”
“Carpets! Oriental carpets, my dear.” Their uncle was chortling, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. “What a good joke! Milli, I wish you had seen your face.”
Milli gave a sniff but said nothing.
“Growling carpets?” said Emma. “How peculiar.”
“Indeed. Very singular,” he replied distractedly, returning his timepiece to his waistcoat.
“What of the missing third class passenger?”
“Never found. Come, my dears, it is time for breakfast!” On cue, his stomach gave an enthusiastic rumble.
“So there was naught else in the crate?” asked Milli, deflated. “No curious beasties? I wonder what the growl was then.”
“Nothing of import—excuse the pun—just the tales of a superstitious seaman who had likely had a cup too many. Ships are known to creak and growl when the weather gets fretful.”
“I should think a seasoned sailor ought to know the difference between the ship’s growling and a crate’s growling. Well, never mind. Is Lord Winterly a duke?” Milli clapped her hands together. “No, wait—an Ottoman Prince!”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Ah yes, lest we forget you are to marry a prince.”
“Afraid I must disappoint you, Milli,” said her uncle, glancing back at his niece. “His lordship is merely a viscount.” He settled himself at the head of the breakfast table and gave his nieces a stern glance over the top of the London Gazette—tacitly defying further conversation—and then disappeared behind it with a satisfied grunt.
Emma turned to see her sister smiling impishly, her chin in her palm and her elbow resting nonchalantly on the table. “Imagine,” said Milli, “an Ottoman viscount! How romantic.”
“Ay, and he saved me from a fiendish gypsy in the fog,” Emma whispered, knowing full well that neither her aunt nor her uncle were paying them the least bit of attention.
“Did the gypsy steal your ghastly spectacles—you ought to thank him.”
“I shall be sure to thank him as soon as he’s cursed you into a toad.”
Milli, seeing that Emma was opening her book to read, stretched out a perverse hand to cover the pages. “Oh, do stop teasing me and tell me all that happened last night.”
Glancing pointedly at her aunt and uncle, Emma promised to tell her everything as soon as they were upstairs. It was little wonder, therefore, that before Emma had taken three sips of her chocolate, she was being forcibly dragged from the room by her impatient sister. Only later, much later, was she suffered to catch her breath and read her book, for Milli was not satisfied until she had recounted last night’s every minutiae, even that horrible spider dream.
Chapter Six
The Watcher
My dear Mary,—I feel as though I have awoken upon the pages of a Matthew Lewis novel! I bethought myself I’d been devoured by a great white spider! Your mad, blind cousin,
Emma.
“Shall we go into town for a bit?” said Emma, sketching the buildings across the street from the drawing room window.
Milli gave an indelicate yawn and stood up from the sofa. “What on earth for?” Coming up behind Emma, she pressed her forehead against the glazing like a woebegone child and glanced up at the moody sky. “Cannot you see it is bound to rain later?”
“It is not raining now, and I really ought to replace my spectacles today.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” complained her sister, “for they suit you ill indeed!”
“Well, I shouldn’t think you’d care. It is not as if you shall wear them, my dear.”
Milli snorted, scrutinizing her sister’s drawing. “I think you wear them so that you can hide behind those rebarbative frames and thereby blend in with all the rest of the sparrows. Emma, I forbid your acquiring another pair.”
“Before you go forbidding me anything, I suggest you first repay the half crown you still owe me. Now get dressed before I leave without you.”
“I shan’t repay a shilling if you threaten to buy spectacles with it!” Without preamble, Milli sashayed from the room before Emma could issue a satisfying retort.
Once they were settled in the coach—Milli having decided to risk muddy petticoats for the purpose of thwarting her sister’s ‘perverse’ spectacle errand—they set off west, by way of Fleet Street and the Strand, having instructed the coachman to stop in Finsbury Square. There they perused the shelves of one of London’s most famous bookshops, The