Acting quickly, Emmaline rushed down the hall and instructed, “Ruperts, have the footmen help you carry him to the dining room and put on the table.”
“The table?” her stepmother exclaimed. “You shall do no such thing!”
Emmaline dropped down beside her stepmother, trying hard not to look at her father. He looked even worse than he had earlier that morning, though he was groaning, and his eyes no longer rolled in the back of his head.
“Do… as… she… says,” the earl ground out through gritted teeth. And Emmaline felt only a small relief to hear him speak.
“My love, no,” Margaret protested but Ruperts and the other men were already adhering to their master’s wishes.
Almost the second that the earl was gone around the corner of the hallway, carried like precious cargo by his loyalist servants, the countess jumped to her feet and turned on Emmaline.
“You!” she spat venomously, glowering down at Emmaline with pure hatred. “This is all your fault.”
“Mama! You can't mean that,” Jane protested, rushing down the hall to join them. She dropped down to help Emmaline to her feet.
When they stood before her, arm in arm, the countess continued, “You and your bright ideas have done this, Emmaline! You have ruined this family and sickened your father! You have made it impossible for you or Jane to marry!”
Emmaline's heart sank yet she kept her head held high, taking all her stepmother had to throw at her. She was right, she did deserve it.
“Whatever do you mean, Mama?” Jane protested, “What has happened?”
“Ask yoursister!” the countess spat. Emmaline didn't think she had ever seen her so mad.
Before Jane could ask anything, the countess stepped forward and slapped Emmaline hard across the cheek. “This is what you get for having ideas above your station. The dowries are gone. The inheritance is gone. The house shall be gone by the end of the month! We shall be destitute!”
Bile rose in the back Emmaline's throat. More and more, she struggled to breathe. There was nothing she could say or do. All she did was stand and take the venom her stepmother spewed. Her cheek burned with pain, but she could not even bring herself to rub out the sting for she deserved that too.
She held her breath, her chin held high, and watched her stepmother turn on her heels.
It wasn't until the countess had disappeared that Jane released Emmaline’s arm and turned to look at her with a quizzical expression. “Is it true?”
Emmaline's chest tightened. “I fear so.”
Jane looked at her with unbridled horror. “It cannot be.”
Emmaline couldn't bring herself to see the devastation on her sister's face for a moment longer.
Instead, she turned away and stepped through the still open door of her father's study.
Finding it just as she had left it save for a flower vase broken upon the floor where her father had likely first fallen, she carefully stepped around the broken glass and headed for the desk.
There had to be something she could do, some way to fix all of this.
And so, she set about to find it, looking through all of her father's accounts and ledgers. One way or another, she was determined to find something, perhaps some money her father had failed to collect from a tenant or some tradesperson yet to pay what they owed. Something, anything to help make things a little less dire.
“Emmaline, what are you doing?” Jane asked from the doorway, leaning on the frame as if it were the only thing holding her up after the ordeal of watching her stepfather collapse.
“Don't worry,” Emmaline said. “Everything is going to be fine. Go, be with your mother. Make sure father is well for me, please?”
She looked pleadingly at her sister. If anything should happen to him, she might never forgive herself.
“Of course. What are you going to do?” Jane asked.
“I am going to try and fix this,” Emmaline said confidently though inside she felt anything but.
She was only slightly relieved when her sister dipped her head and exited the room.
Again, she turned her attention to the papers spread out on the desk in front of her. Receipt, receipt, receipt, money out, money out, money out.
