She was so sleepy. Emma wriggled her head against the back of the chair and let her eyes drop shut. She was just going to have a little rest. She heard Jasper moving. Sparks of pain flared and died on each fingertip. She jolted up. Jasper jumped and darted a look at her.
“It’s just the bandage. Sorry if it hurt. Lie still. You’ll feel better soon.”
His expression seemed important, somehow, but the reason why drifted beyond her reach. Somewhere far away, a door closed. Emma sank into black nothingness.
“Oh, Emma.”
Jasper was gone. It was Julia kneeling in front of her.
“I didn’t know you drank the punch. I should have warned you, I never touch it. I don’t know what they put in it. I should have been looking out for you. After what happened to Imogen—oh God, your hands. Do they hurt?”
With Julia’s support, Emma lurched out of the dining room. The world was still unsteady.
“I was so wrapped up in my own night, and me and Richard—”
“You and Richard?” Emma repeated, sliding into a wall that seemed to have moved since she last looked at it.
“Oh, well.” Julia negotiated Emma around a tricky corner. “It turns out he’s not quite as indifferent to me as I thought.”
Julia was smiling, so Emma smiled too. Then she had a thought.
“Wait—stop. We need to get Jasper. I can be with him, and you can be with Richard.”
She wondered why the smile was slipping from Julia’s face.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”
“Not a good—why?”
“Just let him cool off. Give him a few days. He’ll see it’s not your fault.”
Julia didn’t understand. Jasper wanted to be with her. He’d asked her to be here. He’d looked after her hand. But Julia was guiding them through the front door, and they were already outside, and it was too hard to argue.
“Come on. Hop in the cab.”
Emma moved obediently. The top of the car wobbled and caught her head as she sat down, but she didn’t complain. Julia was talkingto the driver. Emma twisted in her seat. The Turnbull Clubhouse was right behind them. The curtains in the dining room were open. And he was there by the window.
Waiting. He was waiting for her.
“Julia, look. He wants me—”
But when she turned back, Jasper was not alone. Framed in the light of the window were two silhouettes. Emma watched as Jasper pulled Lady Alice Blount to him, slender and yielding. As she swayed in his hold. As he captured her lips with his.
It didn’t make sense.
“But—”
There was a hole in her chest. It was roaring.
The engine was starting.
“Wait—”
The clubhouse shrank to a dollhouse in the rear window. Julia’s hand was tight around hers. It hurt. Her hand hurt. All of her hurt, all the way back to Gabriel College and up the steps to the tower. She sat on the bed watching Julia hunt pajamas out from drawers. It felt like ice, the pain. It sat in her chest, in her lungs, in the hollow place where her stomach used to be.
The pain thawed, just for a moment, when Julia leaned over and tucked the coverlet around Emma’s neck. “Sleep tight,” she said.
But then Julia was gone.
