Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 3

Emma, chagrined at herself for having misplaced the woman’s name, bid her a stuttered adieu and stared after her as she bustled down the lane and disappeared into the crowd. It was then that Emma noticed an ivory card lying on the ground where the lady had stood moments before, her dress having mantled it in the confusion of their accidental meeting. It was surprisingly untainted by London filth. A very pretty card—or, on closer inspection, an invitation of sorts—with a black lace border and elegant black script. Littérature Étrange it read. Neatly printed below that was a date, a time, and an address in Cavendish Square. She wondered if Étrangère had regretfully been misprinted as Étrange. A Foreign Books exhibition seemed far more likely than one that featured Strange Books, so Emma determined that it must indeed be a misprint.

Emma hoped the stranger whose name she’d stupidly forgotten (confound her poxy memory!) had memorized the address and that her entrée was not wholly dependent on possession of the physical invitation she’d mislaid.

Milli had by this time caught up with their aunt and uncle and was pointing and gesturing animatedly. Without further ado, Emma left the scene of the incident, sure that the lady was not returning for her card, and joined her family.

Perhaps she ought to present herself in Cavendish Square at the specified date and time. Emma could then return the invitation to its eccentric owner and, having played the heroine, perhaps venture to hope for an invitation for herself. Books were something of an obsession with Emma, and if the exhibit truly contained strange books, then Emma was that much more determined to go. She was after all, in her family’s opinion, a strange sort of bird.

“Do stop dawdling, Emma.” Milli knit their elbows together and gave her sister a little tug. “Where did your victim disappear to?” Milli searched the crowd. “Uncle thinks we’re having him on, for she’s quite disappeared without his having seen her.”

“Do you recall her name?” Emma tucked the invitation into her bible for safekeeping as their uncle gestured impatiently for them to hurry along.

“Of course I remember. It’s…” Milli’s mouth twisted in consternation a moment. “Oh, pooh! How vexing, it’s quite escaped my tongue.” But she didn’t let that trouble her too long. “Well, never mind her silly name—and I do recall it was a very silly name. I daresay, I was rather too distracted by her ghastly dress. How positively outdated she looked.”

“She was rather odd,” Emma agreed, glancing back.

The woman with the silly name had been unfashionably dressed in what appeared to have been an absurd amount of fusty dark velvet, yellowed lace ruffles, and a black fichu. Her hands had been invested in ivory netting that might once have been her grandmother’s fingerless gloves.

“Odd you say? I’d as soon have called her a mystic!” Milli gave a sudden squeal of excitement. “Oh! It’s a famous good thing her crystal ball wasn’t in her reticule or she’d have cursed you in her gypsy tongue for shattering it!”

“You, Milli, are the silliest creature that ever possessed a tongue.”

“If you should happen to run into her again,” said Milli with a sportive grin, “do ask her to divine my future in her crystal. Do you think she would for a shilling?”

“A shilling? When you haven’t even a sixpence to scratch with? No, your future has already been decided, if your prodigal habits are anything to go by. And here it is: certain penury for you, my dear.”

“Well, I daresay that crystal gazer would disagree with your dull predictions.” Milli was thoughtful a moment and then brightened. “I’ve always had a strange inkling that I’d someday marry a prince, live in an old castle, and be divinely rich.”

“If you keep prattling on about Madam Strange and her silly name, I should not be surprised if she turned you and your maggoty prince both into toads. Or worse.”

Milli gave a sniff. “What could be worse than that? I should hate to be a toad. How is one to enjoy one’s castle if one must live as a toad?”

They continued in silence for a moment, Milli muttering about toads and princes whilst Emma watched the saturnine faces of passing pedestrians. She nimbly avoided the rank mires of horse ordure that had yet to be swept from the street. “London is a dreary place, isn’t? I can’t wait to go home and breath the country air again.” Emma felt as though her very lungs were coated in soot and sewerage.

“Back to Little Snoring?!” Milli was aghast. “Emma, you cannot be serious!”

Their sleepy village certainly was aptly named, for nothing exceptional ever truly roused the place to wakefulness. But what the parish lacked in excitement it certainly made up for in quaintness and crisp fragrant air and…well, she was sure some other delightful commendation would occur to her later. At any rate, Little Snoring wasn’t rife with snobbery and sooty air, that was the point. “Milli, I assure you I am quite serious about missing home.” It was not as if she would find a husband here.

“Well, not I,” Milli replied with warmth. “I might petition our uncle to keep me here indefinitely.”

“I daresay your petitions will fall on deaf ears.”

To that, Milli gave a good humored snort and changed the subject.

A subject Emma barely followed, for she had become aware of a twinge along her spine. The twinge of an unwelcome gaze.

An absurd notion. She shook the sensation off at once and refused to look about her. Who in heaven’s name would want to watch her? Plain Emma Rose of Little Snoring? Nobody. She gave vent to a self-deprecating snort and allowed Milli’s chatter to distract her from her strange fancies, and from the gnawing certitude that something very wrong was afoot in London.