The Longest Night: A Drake Chronicles Novella (11 page)

The perfume bottle fell to the floor. It broke in half, leaking thick fluid that smelled
like rot and roses. A crystal bead rolled out, coming to a stop against her foot.
She stared down at it, annoyed. “That was my mother’s,” she snapped, but he was already
gone.

She bent to gather the pieces. One of the shards sliced into her left thumb, drawing
blood through the thin silk of her glove. Around her, a country dance was in full
swing, polished shoes
squeaking, and skirts flouncing. Aunt Mildred searched the floor for her and her cousins.
If Emma crossed the room in order to make her way to the library to hide out with
Gretchen, she’d be caught. She needed a quiet corner. For some reason, holding the
broken pieces of her mother’s perfume bottle made her want to cry.

She eased backward until she was mostly hidden by the potted palms. She slid along
the wall until she came to the nearest doorway and then stepped into the relative
peace of the hall. A silver candelabrum filled with beeswax candles burned on a marble
table. The soft, humid scent of orchids and lilacs drifted out of the conservatory.
She pulled off her stained glove so as not to instigate one of her aunt’s mind-numbingly
dull lectures, and practically dove into the indoor garden.

Extensive windows and a curved glass ceiling held in the warmth and moisture of hundreds
of flowers. The marble pathway wound around pots of daffodils, lilac branches in glass
vases, and banks of lilies pressing their white petals against the windows. She tried
to see the stars through the ceiling but mist clung to the glass, obscuring the view.
Instead, she contented herself with wandering through the miniature jungle, listening
to the faint strains of a waltz playing from the ballroom.

It wasn’t all she heard.

The soft scuff of a shoe had her turning around, frowning. “Is anyone there?”

She thought she caught a shadow, but it was gone before she could be sure. It wasn’t
the first time since her coming out that she’d thought someone was watching her. Only
it didn’t just feel like being spied on.

It felt like being hunted.

It made no sense. Who would bother to spy on her? She was the seventeen-year-old daughter
of an earl. She was barely allowed to visit the chamber pot without a chaperone. Nothing
interesting ever happened to her.

Shivering, she reminded herself not to be a goose. There were a hundred reasons why
someone would walk through the garden room and not want to be seen. Like her, they
might be hiding from a chaperone. Or more likely they were looking for a private place
to steal a kiss. That was why there were so many strict and tiresome rules about proper
behavior; no one wanted to follow them in the first place.

Thumb throbbing and still holding what was left of her mother’s keepsake, Emma forced
herself to go deeper into the scented shadows. If only to prove to herself that she
wasn’t one of those girls who were afraid of every little thing.

Although sometimes, fear was the only logical response.

And not only because the ground lurched under her feet, as if it had turned into the
deck of a ship in a storm. She grabbed the nearest table to steady herself. Pots of
orchids rattled together. The room lurched again, making her belly drop. Her ears
popped. A vase of calla lilies tumbled to the polished floor and shattered. She felt
as if there was ice melting off her, or invisible chains falling away. It was the
strangest thing.

But still not as strange as a girl stumbling out of the leaves, covered in blood.

She crumpled before Emma
could reach her.

The girl’s brown hair fell in ringlets out of its pins, dragging on the ground. Her
eyelids fluttered. Emma thought her name was Margaret, but couldn’t recall for certain.
They’d made their curtsies to the queen together last month, wearing ostrich feathers
and ridiculous court-ordained panniers.

Now she was wearing blood.

Emma dropped to her knees beside her. “Where are you hurt?”

Margaret moaned, managing to open her eyes. “I don’t know.” She jerked suddenly and
began to weep. “Feels like the time I fell out of a tree when I was little. Broke
my collarbone.”

Emma gingerly pushed her hair off her shoulder, wincing at the bump protruding under
Margaret’s pale skin. “You’ve broken it again. The earthquake must have knocked you
off your feet.”

She shook her head. “No, there was . . . can you feel it? It’s so cold.”

Pain must be confusing the poor girl. And no wonder. Blood filled the hollow of her
cracked collarbone and dripped down her arm, soaking into her gloves. It looked worse
than it had just a second ago. “I’ll get help.” Emma leaped to her feet.

She rushed down the path, clutching the hem of her gown so it wouldn’t trip her up.
“I need a doctor,” she called out, sliding the last few feet along the slippery flagstones.
She could hear agitated voices in the ballroom. “Someone help—” She crashed into a
man just inside the door, partially obscured by ferns. He caught her in his arms,
steadying her.

“Not that way, love. The tremor knocked a candle into the curtains. Ballroom’s on
fire.”

She recognized the voice and stifled a groan. “Not you,” she muttered.

Anyone but Cormac Fairfax, Viscount Blackburn, heir to the Earl of Haworth.

They hadn’t said more than a word to each other in months, not since that night in
the gardens when he’d kissed her. The next week he’d gone away to school and refused
her letters and turned away whenever she entered the room.

She still had a fierce desire to kick him.

He’d recently turned nineteen, and was tall with strong shoulders under his navy blue
coat. His cravat was simply knotted and blindingly white under a severe jawline. His
dark hair was tousled, and his eyes narrowed with disgust. She’d hoped he’d gotten
ugly since she’d seen him last, at Lilybeth’s dismally boring birthday celebration.

No such luck.

He was just as handsome, just as lean, but the edge of danger was new. She wished
it was unattractive. He raised an eyebrow and looked ready to make some pithy comment
when he noticed the blood on her thumb. He seized her wrists. “You’re hurt.”

She squirmed in his grasp. “I am now,” she said, trying to break free. “Let go.”

He was too busy staring in horror at the broken perfume bottle she was clutching.
She had to admit the odor was unpleasant but it didn’t deserve that kind of reaction,
surely. Especially not with wisps of smoke starting to drift out of the ballroom behind
him.

“Where did you get that?” he asked, oblivious to the danger.

“Never mind that,” she snapped. Didn’t he know how fast fires could spread? “There’s
an injured girl back here. We need to get her out.” She yanked out of his hold, throwing
him a dark glance over her shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”

He followed, grim-faced as the corridor filled steadily with smoke. The flickering
of the fire in the ballroom seemed to have a curious violet hue. She thought she smelled
lemon balm and fennel seeds.

Margaret had managed to push herself up into a half-sitting position. Her cheeks were
clammy, her eyes red with tears. “I smell smoke,” she said, coughing.

“It’s all right,” Emma said with more confidence than she felt. “We’ll get you outside
and with all the smoke someone’s already fetching a doctor, I’m sure.”

“What’s your name?” Cormac asked.

“Margaret York.”

“Gently then, Margaret,” he murmured, bending to scoop her into his arms. She gasped
when the movement jarred her collarbone. “Sorry, not far now.” His comforting smile
died when he glanced at Emma. “The door,” he snapped.

She yanked it open, glaring back at him. If he hadn’t been holding an injured girl,
she might have thrown a potted orchid at his head. He carried Margaret outside, laying
her carefully in the grass. He took off his coat and placed it over her for warmth.

Smoke crept out of the ballroom windows like dark snakes. The lawns were crowded with
frantic guests. A gentleman in old-fashioned buckled shoes fainted. Footmen raced
about, opening doors and sweating under their powdered wigs. The light was too bright
at the windows, the smell of scorched silk wallpaper and paint wafting out. More footmen
raced from the kitchens with buckets of water.

“I have to help with the fire,” Cormac said to Margaret. “But you’ll be fine.” He
turned to Emma. “Can I trust you not to get into any more trouble?” he asked acidly.
She’d never seen him with a temper. He was usually draped over some girl or another,
smirking.

They both watched him go, his white shirt tight over the muscles of his arms and back.

“He’s divine,” Margaret murmured.

“He’s a prat,” Emma returned. Margaret just smiled. “I have to make sure my cousins
are out,” Emma added. “And fetch that doctor for you. Will you be all right here?”

“As long as I don’t move,” she assured her through gritted teeth.

Emma went right through the hedge, not bothering to go around it. She found Penelope
standing on a bench by the fountain looking disgruntled. Mr. Cohen was nowhere to
be seen. “Have you seen Gretchen?”

Penelope shook her head. “I was looking for you.”

“She’s probably still in the library then.” They went around the side of the house.
Gretchen was always in the library. Not because she loved novels the way Penelope
did, but because it was the only decent place to hide. She loathed these affairs and
when she couldn’t avoid them, she snuck away as soon as she could.

“I hate this ball,” Penelope muttered, sounding more like Gretchen than herself.

Emma cupped her hands around her eyes, peering through her reflection into the shadowy
rooms of the Pickford mansion. Penelope climbed into the bushes and did the same.
The bite of smoke covered the usual smells of Mayfair: horses and roses. “I’ve found
her.” Emma tapped on the glass.

On the other side, Gretchen poked her head around a bookcase, frowning. She appeared
to be holding a pink dog. She pulled open the window. “What on earth are you doing
out there?”

“Didn’t you feel the tremors?” Emma asked.

“A few tremors require you both to stand in the rosebushes?”

“The house is also on fire,” Emma added. “You might have noticed?”

“It is?” Gretchen sniffed deeply. A warning bell rang from the front door, alerting
the watch and the neighbors. If the wind
picked up, the fire could spread throughout the city, ravenous and pitiless. Gretchen
handed the dog to Emma, before hiking up the hem of her ball gown and sliding out
of the window. Beside her, Penelope raised her eyebrows. “What is that? Candy?”

“It’s a dog.”

“If you say so.”

Gretchen patted it absentmindedly. The dog licked her nose frantically. “I don’t have
biscuits,” she said. “You look like a tea cake. Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you.
And I hope you bit Lady Pickford for doing that to you,” she said conversationally.

Smoke drifted between the trees. “If only it would rain,” Emma said.

The sky opened overhead like a broken water jug. Rain pattered over the roof, soaked
their dresses and tangled their hair like seaweed. In moments, the gardens were a
maze of ruined silk, mud, and slippery stone. A balding duke slid on his perfectly
polished shoes right past them and into a hedge. A dowager who usually limped on a
diamond-studded cane gathered up her hem and darted over the lawn, her wrinkled knees
bare. Prim Aunt Mildred was shouting something about the apocalypse. Footmen passed
buckets to one another, emptying the ornamental pond.

“Doesn’t this seem rather odd?” Emma asked, frowning. Earthquake, fire, Cormac. Something
wasn’t right. She worried at it like a loose tooth.

Gretchen snorted. “I’m holding a pink dog. Odd doesn’t quite cover it.”

“Daphne just fainted,” Penelope pointed out, crossing her
arms so her dress wouldn’t cling to her figure. Her grandmother would never forgive
her the impropriety. Her parents wouldn’t care; they rarely came out into society.
The other fashionable girls in their thin white gowns were soaked through, corsets,
ribbons, and legs outlined in great scandalous detail. A young lord tripped over his
own foot when he turned and saw through Emma’s wet dress. Penelope shifted to cover
her, glowering at him so fiercely he hid behind a tree.

Gretchen tilted her head as chaos continued to boil around them. “Daphne is playacting,”
she said dismissively. “And not very well, I might add. Who faints in such a comfortable
position? Not to mention she ought to have toppled right into those rosebushes if
gravity was at all involved.” She sighed. “And that footman is barely strong enough
to hold that kind of bucket. He’s doing it all wrong.” She thrust the wet dog at Penelope.
“Here, take the tea cake, would you?” She dashed away toward the struggling footman.
“Lift with your knees, not your back, muttonhead!”

Emma watched her go, resigned. Gretchen would now classify this as the best ball they’d
ever attended since she’d avoided the actual social gathering in favor of hauling
buckets of water and battling a fire. In the rain, no less. Gretchen loved the rain.
Emma was less enamored with it. She pushed her soggy hair out of her face where it
clung uncomfortably to her forehead. At least it would help stop the fire from spreading.
Already it seemed less virulent, its burning jagged teeth easing from bite to nibble.