Page 85 of The Girl Out of Time
“Who are you, boy? Tell us,” the duke prompted gently.
“We know you’re not my daughter’s servant, because she isn’t my daughter,” Grey added.
Theo opened his mouth, but as his eyes passed uncertainly over Emmeline, she jumped in. “I hired him as a servant. He doesn’t know I’m not Maria. You can do what you want with me, but don’t punish him. I deceived him as much as I deceived all of you.”
“But why?” Daniel turned her to him. “Why drag him into this? Why the charade?”
“I’m tired of your excuses!” Grey wagged his finger at her. “If you won’t tell me the truth, you’ll talk to the police. And then you’ll hang for what you did!” He stormed out of the room, leaving behind a thick, electric silence.
Emmeline hugged her middle, her stomach twisting and sending nausea to her throat. Her lovely delusion was over. They were going to take her to the authorities. And from there, she only had two options—to tell them the truth or to omit it, but either way, it wasn’t going to end well for her.
Not an undeserving ending, though. Her books would tell her the same. She wasn’t the sweet, plucky heroine; she was the schemer, the deceiver, the villain. One of those who lied and killed to get what they wanted. She wasn’t Christine, torn between Raoul and the Phantom—shewasthe Phantom.
“Your Grace, if I may speak with you in private,” Theo said.
The duke nodded; he and Theo left the room, and Daniel followed soon after, not gracing her with another word.
Emmeline swallowed a lump in her throat, but she couldn’t swallow the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her whole body shook in convulsions, and she turned to the desk and leaned on her elbows to steady herself.
She was left unguarded, but escape—even if her feet could carry her—was the last thing on her mind.
***
Theo barely registered his surroundings as the duke led him into another, smaller room. The walls, the furniture, even the light itself had blurred somehow, as if the only clarity in this world were its people, and in the center of them, Emmeline.
Or, as she was apparently known to others, Maria. The servants had always called her Miss Grey; Theo hadn’t even considered that identity was false. Emmeline—Emmeline who? A deceiver? A liar? Her reveal implied so, but something in his heart rebelled, insisting she couldn’t be a villain.
The duke turned to him. “Go on, boy.”
“Your Grace.” Theo folded his clammy hands behind his back. “Whatever she’s done, please, don’t punish her.”
“It’s not up to me. This is Grey’s conundrum to solve.”
“But you can sway him.” He had the money, the influence—more than the viscount.
“You’ll have to give me a good reason.”
Theo scrambled through his confused mind, trying to put together something sensible and truthful. “I’m not innocent. She only stayed here to cover for me.”
The duke inspected him from underneath bushy, twitchy eyebrows. “For you? A servant?”
Theo closed his eyes for a second. “I’m not a servant. I’m the nephew to the Earl of Wescott.”
The duke’s eyebrows shot up.
“I was here undercover by his command.” Oh, the hole he was digging for himself! If Wescott found out, he was done. Not dead; he meant too much to Wescott. But he would suffer, in surely horrible ways, for the rest of his life.
“Why?” the duke asked.
“To take this.” Theo brought the Starry Night pendant out of his pocket.
The duke pursed his lips until they were white in anger, but then slumped his shoulders. “I see.”
“Please, accept it back. You may privately charge me for any inconvenience I caused to you, and for the harm Emmeline’s deception had done. She’s not to blame. Only me.” He’d pay, either through the pocket money Wescott would give him, or through other means.
With a tired sigh, the duke collapsed into a chair. He hid his face in one hand and waved off Theo’s offered pendant with the other. “Keep it. Take it to him, if he desires it so. Let him be content at last.”
“But—”
