Underneath the message, a row of skull emojis winked up at her.
CHAPTER 11
Old Hob Quad gleamed gold in the sunlight. An autumn breeze tumbled leaves across the flagstones and batted Emma’s hair around her face.
It felt good to get out of her room. Her fellowship dataset was misbehaving. No matter what analysis she applied, it threw up glitches. Like insisting the river animals were larger than they could possibly be, compared to previous years. It had to be data error, unless they’d all somehow found an extra energy source to feed on. Nothing of the kind showed in her surveys: no new species, no change in prey populations. It was infuriating.
Emma jogged up the stairs to Jasper and Richard’s rooms. Nobody answered the door. But it was unlocked, so she slipped inside.
There were voices from the living room. Jasper was squared up to a man whose eyes were as bright blue as his own, and whose face was dark with anger.
“—for God’s sake, Jasper, try to get it right. Don’t let yourself down.”
Emma had meant to declare herself, but the rage in that voice stopped her where she stood.
“Dad, it’s just a dinner. I don’t know what you’re so bothered about.”
“You need to be more bothered. This is important for you. The impression you make here will be—”
“I know, it’ll determine the course of my life forever and ever.”
His father slammed a hand onto the window frame, inches from Jasper’s face. “You will take the Society seriously. I won’t have you throwing your chances away with your arrogant, lazy—”
“I’m the president now, not you. This is my dinner. And I’m doing it my way.”
Jasper’s father loomed over him until their faces were inches apart. “It may be your dinner. But it’s my Society. Mine and all of the other old boys. And you’re not going to humiliate me.”
Jasper and his father locked gazes in silence like dogs sizing each other up, the air thick between them.
“Fine,” Jasper muttered.
As Jasper’s mouth tightened, his father’s smile broadened.
“Now, Jasper, what do you reckon to this suit? My tailor is ready to disown me. Says the peak lapel makes me look like an American, but I’m quite partial to it.”
Emma thought the time was right to show herself. She sidled into the room.
“Oh—Emma. I was meant to—Never mind. Dad, this is Emma Curran.”
“Pelham-Curran,” said Emma, and immediately wondered what had possessed her. She’d never double-barreled her surname, though she’d long suspected that the Pelham family’s place in theannals of the peerage would have unlocked doors for her. She’d always been proud to be her brilliant mother’s daughter, first and foremost. But something about the tailored man in front of her reminded Emma of her father at his most unreachable. She found herself wanting to impress him.
Jasper’s father looked at her closely. “Not as in Hugh Pelham?”
Emma nodded.
“Pelham.Good man. Jasper, why didn’t you tell me about your little friend?” Jasper’s father smiled at Emma, all charm. “I see your father in town sometimes. I didn’t realize his daughter went here. I thought you were up at Manchester.”
Emma felt something hard and hot in her throat.
“That’s his other daughter,” she said woodenly. “Poppy. We’re about the same age.”
“Mea culpa,” Jasper’s father pressed his hands together in apology. The laurel wreath on his signet ring glinted. “I’d thought, for some reason, that Hugh and Amal only had the one daughter. Isn’t she a lucky woman to have two girls? And your brother—is he finishing up at Harrow soon?”
“I don’t know,” Emma gritted. “I’ve never met him.”
Jasper’s father raised one brow.
Emma had to force the words out. “They’re his other family. His proper one. My mum and I happened to him before that.”
