Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 2

in widow’s weeds. Each expression was imbrued with gloom, every whisper furtive and curt, all save her own and Milli’s. Well, her Aunt Haywood might also have been included in that minority, but the old dear was rarely aware of the hour, never mind the day of the year, and she was certainly in no danger of being sensible to the grim features of her leery neighbors. Uncle Haywood, however, was manifestly au fait with whatever evils plagued London, yet, time and again, he spared himself the trouble of satisfying his niece’s curiosity. Much to Emma’s vexation, her uncle took to answering her with contrived deafness. Although, she allowed, he was rather deaf at the best of times, poor fellow.

At length, the rector’s voice grew hoarse and the service drew to a close. It was with dreary shuffling that the murmurous flock began to withdraw from their perches in a funereal procession of narrowed looks.

“Ghastly business!” said a man nearby. He was speaking in hushed tones to the gentleman beside him. “My poor Fanny keeps to her bed now; she won’t even look out the window, lest she attract some fiend’s notice.”

“More than a few rum-looking fellows about, I can tell you,” said his neighbor.

“And what think you of these pestiferous fogs we’ve been having of late?”

“Quite chronic, indeed.”

“I blame the Whigs, sir.”

“Quite so!”

Emma gritted her teeth against an absurd impulse to interject and demand these perfect strangers expound what her uncle determinedly withheld. With a rueful sigh, she trailed after her guardians, resigned instead to filling her empty stomach with warm vittles in lieu of fulfilling her curiosity.

At the door, she returned the rector’s adieu, noticing the way his stern expression instantly smoothed beneath the power of Milli’s angelic smile. And he was not the only ridiculous young hopeful to find himself besotted by her sister. Rolling her eyes, Emma pushed past the two young gentlemen that were also vying for Milli’s attention. In due course, the girls followed their elders from the churchyard down to the cobbled lane—the flirtations having finally concluded—and thence onto the thoroughfare that would take them back to their uncle’s townhome.

The clouds were so heavy with gloom that their black underbellies seemed to drag along the rooftops. It was really too bad, Emma thought, glaring down at her clacking boots, that Milli’s coquettish smile could not do for the London sky what it had done for her admirers who had left the church with brightened gazes.

She pulled off her glove to better scratch the itch on her nose and ducked her head, lest anyone think she was picking it instead. Emma’s thoughts so overmastered all other faculties—such as the simple business of avoiding fellow pedestrians—that it was with a startled gasp that her bonnet collided with another’s.

The stranger threw up her hand the very same moment that Emma did, therewith dropping her reticule into a dirty puddle and promptly rueing its loss with some foreign and obscure utterance. The contact of those long white fingers, raised in defense, against Emma’s own naked palm shot a strange and unpleasant current along Emma’s skin. She hastily slipped her glove back on, muttering apologies.

“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