Page 113 of The Girl Out of Time
Lady Scarlet sat there, the fan still spread in front of her face, as if getting ready to pose for a portrait.
Emmeline stopped, catching her breath. “We finally meet.”
“So we do, Miss Marshall,” Lady Scarlet said, teasing laughter in her voice. It was the voice of an older woman, and as she lowered her fan, Emmeline could indeed see this was no longer the young lady they’d chased at the castle. Strands of gray ran through her hair, and little wrinkles were etched into the corners of her eyes and mouth.
The said mouth curled into a smile. “Or should I call you Emma?”
Emmeline blinked. Nobody had ever called her that. It was always Emmeline, or Aunt Emily would sometimes call her Blue …
Lady Scarlet smiled and stood. “It’s all right. I won’t blame you for forgetting, even if it was much longer for me, still.” She came closer, the light from the window chasing the shadows off her face until Emmeline could see it clearly—an oval face with dark eyes, older, but recognizable still.
“You’re Maria Grey.”
Chapter 28
“It can’t be.” Emmeline brought a clenched fist up to her mouth. “You can’t be here. I—I sent you somewhere, I was supposed to find you …”
“And find me you did,” Maria said, her tone gentle and perfectly amicable, while Emmeline expected Maria to lunge at her and shake the living daylights out of her for daring to ruin her life.
“How can you be here?” Theo asked. “And why were you pretending to be a character from a novel?”
“I wasn’t pretending,” Maria said. “But let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Sit, please.” She resumed her place on the chaise lounge while Emmeline and Theo sat on the sofa opposite of her.
“I was so confused when I showed up in the past,” Maria started. “You sent me to nearly thirty years ago, you know. I thought I was dreaming, but I wouldn’t wake up. Finally, I had to accept reality. I won’t bore you with how I got to that. What matters is that I had to find means to survive—not easy for a young woman used to having her servants take care of everything.I found out I was terrible at sewing and that my cooking could poison even the hardiest stomachs. But I was good at one thing.” She leaned in. “Writing.”
Emmeline’s eyebrows shot up. “Lady Scarlet—”
“Is me, but I’m also the one who wrote her.”
“You’re the author,” Theo said. “Miranda Stormcliffe.”
“Correct.”
Emmeline gaped. The fear of Maria Grey accusing her of ruining her life transformed into admiration, and she barely contained herself to not drop to her knees and beg Maria—Miranda—to tell her everything. Instead, she only choked out a “How?”
“I always thought it was a nice name. Much more dramatic than Maria.”
“Yes, but, how are you … how did you …”
Maria smiled. “The strange, unexplained displacement that happened to me helped with the imagination quite a lot. I’d always enjoyed reading, too, so I suppose it was bound to happen. I do have to thank you for it. I doubt my own escape attempt would’ve been as half as successful.”
“So you’re not angry at me?”
“I have not been for a long time.”
“The story,” Theo said. “The Visitor in Scarlet. Emmeline said the events we witnessed when we traveled back happened exactly like in the book. The masquerade ball, the fire, a search for a treasure—”
“Oh, yes, that was all real, and I saw you there.” Maria winked at him.
With that, the questions poured out of Emmeline. “Then where did you hide the pendant? Do you know how de Villiers—I mean, the Duke of Redbridge—finally got it? Why did you let him take it?”
Maria laughed. “I said it was all real, not that everything happened the way you think. For one, no lover of mine dramatically fell to his death onthe night of the fire. He’s very much alive, still.” Her eyes took on a dreamy look. “My Edward. I met him soon after I landed in the past, at a country ball. I stole a dress from a seamstress, just for the night, and snuck in. Didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know me—perfectly romantic, wouldn’t you say?”
Emmeline felt her lips spread in a smile.
“I didn’t mind having a … protector, and he liked having someone to talk to.”
“Did you marry him?”
