Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 18
“A devilish temperament.”
“Uncle? Yes, I suppose he does have at times.” Wait a moment, why was she bothering to talk sense to the senseless? “I wish you will stop maundering, Emma. You sound ridiculous.”
“Curse you, thief!”
Milli made a sound of impatience as she bent to retrieve the candlestick she’d dropped earlier when she’d rushed outside. The gilding had chipped away from the wood in several places where it had hit the floor. “Faugh!” She marched off to the library, her sister in tow. “Look at what you made me do.”
Emma gave a sleepy nod, her eyes unfocused as she watched Milli return the misused gimcrack to the side table in the library. “Take care, Miss Rose.”
“Too late now.” It was obvious she would get little sense out of Emma tonight. Mayhap her sister would be herself again in the morning. “Either you are drunk as a wheelbarrow, Emma,”—pulling her sister up the stairs—“or you are still asleep, and I am not sure which I ought to be disturbed by more.” She had never known her sister for a somnambulist.
In Emma’s chamber, Milli drew back the counterpane and guided her sister into bed. “For once, I am the adult and you are the child.” She tucked the covers under her sister’s chin and then straightened to leave. But she found she could not bear to return to her own room where, no doubt, the clammy darkness now awaited her. She paused, knitting her fingers in her hair as she glared into the shadows beyond Emma’s door. “Perhaps…perhaps I ought to sleep here, Em.” She glanced back at Emma and then, resolved, moved to shut the door. “Just in case you take it into your head to leave the house again.” She lifted the covers and climbed in beside her sister. “For your own sake, you understand.” It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was still afraid of the dark.
“You walk among monsters,” said Emma.
The words touched Milli like a chilling claw. “Stop it, Emma, you’re frightening me.”
Unexpectedly, Emma sat up with a start. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Are you not too old to sneak into bed with me, Milli? I thought you had outgrown that silly habit.”
After some bemusement, Milli said, “I just saved your life, you goose.”
“Nonsense, you’re scared again.” Emma turned onto her side and gave her pillow a good fluffing. “There is nothing to fear from the dark, you know.”
“How very ungrateful you are. We could have been dashed to pieces by a coach, or murdered by that mad butcher or wicked monk or whatever.”
“What an imagination you have.”
“You ought to thank me, not scold me.”
“If you are determined to talk nonsense,” —Emma yawned, shifting to make space for her sister— “then go to your own bed at once.”
“I liked you better when you were maundering.” With a mutter, Milli rolled over and gave her back to Emma. “See if I save your life again.”
“Lord Winterly saved my life,” Emma sighed, her words slumberous.
“Well, where was he tonight?” Milli turned to shoot a glare over her shoulder. “Hmm?”
But Emma had already succumbed to sleep again, her breathing soft and even.
“I’m sure I don’t know of any gentlemen, at least no respectable ones, that stalk about late at night in such dreadful weather when there are murderers about.” The last was cut off by a yawn. “Perfectly strange behavior for a viscount, I say.” Then, with a long sigh of her own, Milli sank deeper into her own pillow and was soon lost to fitful dreams.
Chapter Ten
An Invitation To Dinner
Dear Mad Emma,—Do stop reading all those gothic romances, they’ll only give you nightmares. Yours affectionately,
Mary.
Nearly a sennight after that last vexatious interaction with Lord Winterly on her doorstep, there was still no relief from the intractable humiliation Emma harbored. How insulted he must have felt! How abominable he must think her! Even the night at the theater they had lately enjoyed had done little to distract her from her shame.
“You are being dreadfully tedious, Emma,” Milli repined after breakfast as they withdrew to the parlor. “You know very well Aunt Sophie will not allow me to attend any assemblies if you are not with me. How shall I leave the house if you are determined not to? That is unless it’s in your sleep.”
“I did no such thing.”
Milli crossed her arms. “Why would I lie?”
“To vex me.” Emma released a sharp sigh. “Why don’t you ask Mrs. Stapleton’s niece to chaperone you?”
“Eunice Maggot? Heavens, no! She’s an old maid.”
“It’s Baggot, dear.”
“I don’t care a fig for her whether she’s a Maggot or a Baggot, and, I daresay, she’s even duller than you are. Why, she leaves the house even less frequently than you do; furthermore, she laughs like a dying cat.”
“What a catty thing to say.” Emma gave vent to the yawn she’d been stifling this last half hour. Perhaps Milli was right and she had toured the streets of London in her sleep, for she was ineffably and inexplicably tired this morning. To say nothing of her dirty feet.
“Now what are you doing?” Milli glared at her sister as Emma seated herself by the window that fronted Milk street.
“I thought I might sketch the prospect.”
“Again? No, I have a better idea!”
“Surprise me,” Emma muttered, sharpening her pen.
Milli jumped up from the divan and clapped her hands together excitedly. “Had we