Page 118 of The Girl Out of Time
“Stop! Papa, please!”
Growling, Wescott stepped back, a second away from steam blowing out of his ears. “Leave,” he bit at Theo. “Get out. I don’t want to see you in this house or around my family.”
Theo looked at Cass, who nodded in reassurance. He’d only aggravate Wescott further; he’d be calmer with his daughter, and she could take it from here. Perhaps, with her side of the story added to Theo’s, Wescott would finally understand.
He only started shaking as he left: his hands first, then his legs, and he sped up into a march as if that could help him shake out the adrenaline. He’d done it. Messy and incomplete, but successful.
He was free.
***
Emmeline was floating in the pleasant state between dreams and wakefulness, bits of memories and fantasies—the castle, the ball, Lady Scarlet—mixing in with the vague awareness that she was safe in the embrace of her dreams. She twirled a blade of grass between her fingers and looked back at Theo, following her through a field of gold. Steps echoed from somewhere—not behind, not ahead—and she tried to cling to the dream.Don’t wake me up. Don’t let it end yet.
Something crashed, and her field of gold faded into her room, and the bright summer sun into a wintery gloom.
“My lady, you cannot—” Rafferty’s voice came from somewhere far back, and something shook her.
“Emmeline! Wake up!”
She yawned and blinked, clearing her view into that of Louisa, standing next to her bed, trying to give her the experience of riding a runaway horse.
“Louisa,” Emmeline mumbled, and her friend finally stopped shaking her.
“Have you heard the news? Of course you hadn’t, you’re still asleep—well, you’re not asleep now, so I’ll tell you—or should you get dressed first—no, no, I must tell you!”
Emmeline rose to a sitting position, shaking out her hair. “What’s going on?”
“The rumors, Emmeline, the rumors! Well, they’re not rumors anymore—it is quite definitely certain, for something like this would never spread as a false rumor.” Louisa grabbed her by the lace on her shift’s collar. “The engagement is off!”
“The what?”
“God, you’re slow.”
To be fair, she had been rudely awakened, and she wasn’t entirely sure a part of this didn’t still belong to a dream.
“Lady Cassiopeia and Theo”—Louisa held her by the collar and looked her straight in the eyes, like a mother trying to impart an important lesson onto a child—“are no longer engaged. It’s over. It’s been called off!”
“No.” Emmeline’s head felt like it was swimming as she shook it slowly. “They can’t. Wescott wouldn’t allow …” She couldn’t believe it, sheshouldn’t, because if it wasn’t real and she was given false hope …
“I don’t know how, but it’s happened,” Louisa said.
More commotion followed from downstairs; in unison, Emmeline and Louisa whipped their heads toward the open door of Emmeline’s room.
“Sir, it is much too early for visits,” Rafferty said. “I will not have it. I must inform His Lordship …”
Louisa looked at her, her eyes wide and even bigger than usual behind her glasses. “Do you think he’s come here?”
Wescott? Did he come for revenge? How much did he know about her and Theo, about what Maria had told them? Emmeline got up, threw a dressing gown on top of her shift, and stepped into the hallway.
“… not even breakfast yet!” The butler continued his indignited rant.
The other voice was quieter, enough that Emmeline couldn’t make it out, other than it being male. She approached the staircase opening into the foyer. Anxiety swirled in her stomach, but released the moment she caught sight of the visitor, standing next to Rafferty, trying to argue his case in the most diplomatic way possible.
“Theo?”
He looked up, his expression changing into admiration, mouth dropping in awe. “Emmeline.”
She clutched the balustrade, her feet itching to run down. “What’s going on?”
