Emma stopped checking her phone for messages.
CHAPTER 14
Hope is a dangerous thing. It came for Emma on a Monday, in the mail room of Gabriel College. Porters in waistcoats and bowler hats streamed about her, ferrying parcels. Students dug through their post like industrious moles, wrapped to the ears in college scarves. Emma stood in the middle of the rush, staring at an envelope.
She would have known the handwriting anywhere. Fine and firm, a product of the most exclusive education money could buy. Jasper.
She could not open it there, in front of a crowd. She fled to the tower. She had to shove piles of fellowship notes from her window seat to clear a space. It didn’t matter: They were mostly stills from a river camera near Regent’s Bridge that had corrupted, leaving strange flares on the night footage, as though the river itself had been glowing. A problem, but not one that needed her immediate attention. She slid the card from Jasper’s envelope.
THE TURNBULL SOCIETY
INVITES
Emma Curran
TO AN OPENING MEET 7PM TUESDAY 2ND DECEMBER GENTLEMEN IN SCARLET, LADIES IN TAILS
A few taps into Google unraveled the mystery of the “opening meet.”
Emma pressed her knuckles to her mouth.
It was a fox hunt. An opening meet was what they called the first fox hunt of the year, in those corners of England where horsemen still gathered with their coats and family trees in perfect order, ready to chase down their prey. She hadn’t been able to understand it when she was younger, and her mother had tried to explain the picture in the newspaper. Why would a group of grown humans bestride their horses, gather a pack of dogs, all to chase down one fox? To gallop laughing through fields and over hedges, while a shivering little creature fled in blind, uncomprehending fear?
“It’s how it’s always been,” her mother had said. “Some people find that comforting. It’s not cruel to them, when it’s tradition. That’s Britain for you.” Diana had turned her face up to the Australian sun, as if grateful to be there and nowhere else. “Old ways run deep.”
Emma let the envelope fall. Blood sports were the opposite of everything she held to be right. And the invitation was for the nextnight. Only a day’s notice. But Emma knew what her answer would be. She had known from the moment she opened the envelope.
Because Jasper would be there. She had ruined the most important moment of his dinner. Of course he’d been disgusted with her. But now she had a chance to see him again. She could make it right. She squeezed the card to her and winced. Blood shone from her palm. That cut was still refusing to heal, but she could bandage it later. Right now, she had to find her phone.
“Hello?”
The golden voice, so close to her ear.
“Jasper, it’s Emma. I’ve just, I—” She cursed herself and started again. “I’ve just got your invitation.”
“I hope you’re calling to say you can make it. Don’t let me down.”
She felt her breath come in a rush of relief. “Oh, no—I mean, yes, I can make it.”
“Meet me before. We can go in together. It feels like ages since I’ve seen you.”
Emma felt a rush, as though a hand pinching her heart had released its grip.
“Me too. Though, Jasper? The invitation says to wear tails. You know I don’t have a tailcoat.”
“Not actual tails.” He laughed. “It just means the ladies dress as the foxes.”
“Oh. So ‘scarlet’ means the men are the hunters?”
“Exactly.” A teasing note entered his voice. “All clear?”
She managed a laugh. But the line was already dead.
Emma assumed she would wear Helena’s chainmail dress, or the firebird gown. But the next night, she found herself walkingpast Helena’s box entirely and reaching into her own wardrobe. It was there, at the back. The dress she’d stolen from her mother when she turned fifteen. Black jersey, soft from wear. Her mother had said nothing when she saw Emma in it. Just brushed Emma’s hair behind her ear with a look so sad, Emma had known she must finally have looked grown-up.
She slipped it on now and was instantly at ease. Her skin felt her own in a way she hadn’t realized she’d been missing. It had probably cost a fraction of any of Helena’s outfits. It was, to be honest, rather shabby by now. But she was herself in it.
The bells of Gabriel Tower were striking six. Jasper had said to meet him at the clubhouse early. That he had a fox costume for her, the same the other girls would be wearing.
