Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 63

“It wasn’t…he did not act without some…encouragement on my part,” Emma admitted. “He kissed me in the abbey—”

“He did what?!”

“—and I’ll own to you that I thoroughly kissed him back. Whatever were his impressions or expectations after my…participation, I assure you I did not wittingly encourage…bedding.”

“Emma, you little hussy! Is it any wonder you’ve hidden yourself in your room since then? Oh,” she said with a sigh, “to be so bold in a tempest, and so missish now…” Then began the fervent inquisition: How long exactly had they kissed for? Was Winterly devilishly good at it? And were they like to do so again? The girl was in an agony of restive curiosity.

Why Emma had felt the need to tell her sister she knew not, for now Milli would never let the matter rest until she had exhausted herself, chewing the cud of amatory rapture. But, in Emma’s defense, the compulsion to confess all had been an overwhelming one, for her heart might have burst otherwise. Winterly had haunted what little sleep she’d had these last few days and she needed to tell somebody or else go mad. Madder than she already was.

Perhaps in sharing, some small part of her had hoped to dilute the effect of this power he held over her; moreover, make sense of it. Yet no such dilution or sense was forthcoming. Especially not from Milli’s corner.

“You must tell nobody, Milli. Promise me!”

“Upon my honor, Emma, there was never any question of that.” Milli’s brow was clouded with affront. “And you needn’t be so stubbornly unforthcoming.”

“Stubbornly unforthcoming?” Emma sniffed. “What more is there to say? We kissed and then it rained.”

“Well, well, you admit you were so caught up in a passion you did not even notice the oncoming storm? Nor mind a good drenching? Better and better.”

Emma was tempted to throw another pillow. “Isn’t it time you go dress yourself and leave me to my morning toilette?”

Milli skipped to the door, giggling. “For such a man, I too would have risked a cold!”

“Off you go.” Emma shooed her out with another pillow.

But Milli had one last thing to say before she withdrew. “You cannot avoid him forever, Emma, the bal masqué is in one week.”

“You worry about yourself, Milli, you’re still looking far too pale.” Avoiding everyone else meant that Emma had been unforgivably neglectful of her sister. She rose from her chair by the fire and joined Milli by the door. “Let me see your neck.”

“Whatever for?” Milli drew back.

“Hold still.” Despite Milli slapping her hands away, Emma’s insistence paid off and, with a little force, she was able to inspect her sister’s neck. Nothing.

“What has gotten into you?” said Milli, drawing her shawl securely around her shoulders with a terse shrug.

“I was looking for bite marks.”

Milli’s face instantly lost what little color had been there. She backed away from Emma, disconcertion twisting her brow. “I’m fine, there isn’t anything the matter with me.” And with that she rushed off.

Emma watched her sister go, perturbed by Milli’s keeping secrets of her own.

As to Emma’s behavior, Milli was right, she had been avoiding the master of the castle under pretense of a cold. To her shame, it was not because he was a vampyre—yes, she was almost certain of his possessing a preternatural nature of some kind—but because her own behavior frightened her. But just because she had not seen him did not mean his countenance was effaced from her mind’s yearning eye, or the fever calmed from her blood.

She could not even blame a contagion, or magische ansteckung, for she’d inspected every inch of her neck for bite marks when she’d returned, sopping wet, to her room, lest the beast have infected her blood somehow. There were none to be seen, of course. She was, therefore, left only with the unpalatable intelligence that she was, in fact, a wanton at heart; Winterly held court in that faithless heart every unremitting moment of each day.

With a grimace, she thought back on how she’d rushed to her room after alighting from the carriage that day, almost a sennight ago now, his raffish laughter mocking her as she’d fled. Thankfully, he’d accepted her refusal, for she’d feared for an instant that he might follow her there. She’d ventured downstairs but rarely since then, and only when she was assured of his being out. It was easy to avoid him at mealtimes, for he often dined out, keeping faithfully to his odd hours. And when Emma had been informed of his intentions to join them for dinner last night, she had had the foresight to develop a megrim—if Victoria could sham megrims over sunlight then she could do the same over a feigned cold.

She was a hen-hearted ninny, she knew that, but clever withal for thinking to catch a cold in that storm. How else was she to linger conveniently above stairs for almost a week. However, there was only so much convalescing she could do without arousing skepticism or calling for a physician. Trifling cold or no, Milli was right, it was time to gird her loins and face him.

“Shall I come to your room tonight, Emma?” Just the memory of those words left her atremble.

Emma ought to drag her sister home today, this minute! But what would she say to Milli? “My mind misgives me, Milli,” said she, mocking herself, “we are in a den of vampyres!” Ha! Milli was as like to laugh in her face as help Victoria pack her off to Bedlam.

There was nothing for it. She would stay and face Winterly and, in a week, go to the Midsummers Ball. For now, though, it was imperative that she busy herself with her book—there was nothing like a little vampirology to quell this perverse obsession with him.

After donning a morning gown, Emma settled into the comfortable sofa by her window and opened the volume at the place she’d marked with