Page 93 of The Girl Out of Time
“We can’t get it from above, but it should be reachable from below. The water is frozen.” She stepped on the bank, where a few patches of grass peeked from under the snow, and carefully touched the ice. Solid enough.
“You are not going there under any circumstances.”
“The ice is thick. I’ll be fine.” She edged toward the pouch.
Theo ran to the bank but stopped before the ice. “There can always be thinner patches. Watch—”
She reached her hand over and unhooked the pouch from a metal stick lodged into the bridge.
“Out,” Theo finished.
She waved victoriously with the pouch, just as ice cracked under her feet.
She leaped toward the bank. Under her heel, the ice gave in. Theo, his eyes widening, reached for her and pulled her onto the firm ground.
For a few moments, they breathed, not quite in an embrace, but fallen near enough each other.
“Just like the old times,” she said.
Theo’s face darkened, and he got up, helping her to her feet. “You have the clue. Let’s leave.”
“Don’t you at least want to know what it says?”
He started walking back towards the fence. Emmeline caught up with him while she undid the string of the pouch. But there was no note inside; only three small wooden tiles, one with the letter combination PE, the second with the letter A, and the third with the letter B.
“This might be a part of a word. At least I hope it’s not another clue,” she rambled as they crossed the fence and continued down the road. “Perhaps the rest have more.”
“This is the first one you’ve done?”
“Yes. But I have some ideas for the others. One, at least, must be somewhere in Berkeley Square.Where the Silence lies low; heads will roll, trees will grow. Sebastian—that is, Lord Haverston—let me explore his library for anything I needed. I found this book on landscaping, and it says Berkeley Square is remarkable for its plane trees—”
“Those are in many parks. And areas in London.”
“Yes, but only there were they planted the year the revolution in France began.Heads will roll.”
Theo grimaced, and she remembered what she knew of his parents—his father, the revolutionary.Oh, no.“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“You were only deciphering a clue. No offense taken.” They reached the place where he’d left his horse, and he jumped onto it.
“But I still have to figure out the first line. There’s no chance I’m searching through the entire square for a pouch.” She stored the pouch—and her freezing hands—back into her muff. “If I had some help—”
“I have to go,” he said. “Good luck, Emmeline.” And he nudged the horse and rode off before she could say anything.
She stayed on the road, unmoving, watching as he turned into a black spot in the distance.
Chapter 23
Afew days later, Emmeline was reading in the drawing room when Rafferty, Sebastian’s butler, appeared in the doorway. “A visitor, Miss.”
“Oh!” She jumped to her feet. “I’ll go get Sebastian.”
“The visitor is not for His Lordship, Miss, but for you.”
Emmeline’s heart did a somersault.Theo!Maybe he wanted to help her, after all. Maybe there was still a chance to get their relationship to a better point. Whichever point that would be.
She ran past Rafferty, but there was no figure in a dark cloak looming by the front door. Instead, a woman looked up, dressed in a warm woolen coat of dusk pink and a matching hat, partially obscuring her golden blond ringlets.
“Louisa?”
