Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 28
“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.
Emma sighed. “That is a relief.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, the real Winterly has no business in my bedchamber. I would not like to think more ill of him than I already do.”
“Come now, Miss Rose, we must always be honest with ourselves in dreams, must we not? You do not think nearly as ill of me as you wish you did.”
“I suppose not, but I really do try.”
“Might I ask why you persist in trying at all?”
“Well, he is…that is to say you are very confounding, for one thing, and you unsettle me abominably.”
“And in the spirit of this somnolent honesty, I demand to know in what wicked way I unsettle you.” Even the sound of this dream Winterly’s seductive whisper caused her flesh to pucker.
“I cannot say.”
“You mean you will not say.” The dark trembled softly beneath his amusement. “Then I must discover the answer for myself. And to that end…” He was suddenly leaning over her—one moment across the room and in the next instant they were nose to nose, the coverlet slipping from her limbs. Too swift to be real, which only solidified the fact that he was unreal. A beautiful, impossible dream. “I can be quite ruthless in my pursuit of knowledge, Emmaline. Even in dreams.”
“What are you doing?” Her heart leapt as he placed his palm on her chest over her heart, tugging the sheer cotton down an inch.
There was a curious look in his eyes as he appeared to inspect the flesh beneath his fingertips—something of relief and hunger there as his search concluded. An odd combination. Suddenly the palm moved away and dropped to the side of her head, his other hand paralleling the movement and effectively entrapping her in place atop her pillow.
“This is most irregular,” she said, feeling rather vivified by her phantom lover despite that he was only a figment of her dream.
“Are you not weary of pretense?” He said, sighing. “Will you not do in dreams what you fear to acknowledge in daylight?” He bent his head ever closer and her breath hitched in response. “Your gaze is not as guarded as it sometimes ought to be, you know. I see you.”
This phantom was turning out to be even more wicked than the real Winterly. “Don’t…” But her voice held no force and her body was only melting deeper into the