I poke my head out from under the covers and hope he doesn’t see me blush. I pray I said nothing about what the king was doing. “That’s not so terrible.”
Emmett turns and flashes me a devilish grin. “And my name.”
“Ugh,” I shout, and dive back under.
“It’s not as bad as when you were sick. You said all sorts of things.”
Brown hair. A strong hand on my forehead soothing away a fever.
I poke my head out of the covers again. “That was you? I thought maybe I’d dreamed it.”
He stills. “I felt so responsible. It was my fault you had to jump in that blasted river in the first place. I made Lottie sneak me in to sit by your bedside in the night.”
Picturing the scene makes my heart ache. Emmett in the dark, sitting in that hard, wooden chair while I tossed and turned. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He won’t look at me. “Of course it was.”
I can see it all in the slump his shoulders, like the weight of the world is resting on them. “Emmett, you’re not responsible for keeping me safe.”
“That’s a stupid thing to say.”
I don’t understand why he sounds angry with me.
Downstairs in the pub, Emmett shakes awake a mostly sober driver, and at dawn we climb into a gig, a two-wheeled cart pulled by a single horse. Emmett hopes the lighter vehicle will do a better job at navigating the sodden Hampshire landscape. He pays the driver double to pull us as fast as he can, which proves to be not very fast at all.
The bogs have flooded, and the hard-packed dirt roads from yesterday have turned into rivers of mud.
Something strange happens on the drive. I can see Emmett retreat inside of himself again. The softness behind his eyes hardens and the cool mask of disinterest falls over his face once more. It’s suddenly like last night didn’t happen and I’m just another girl he’s ignoring at a ball he didn’t want to be at in the first place.
“Emmett?” I nudge him with my elbow. “Are you quite well?”
“Perfectly fine.” He still won’t look at me.
“What will we tell them?” I ask.
“I’ll tell them that I went to go get drunk in Alton, and you, with your kind heart, came to see if I was all right. We were trapped in the inn by the storm, but slept separately. I’ve already bribed the driver to corroborate.”
“It’s not a good story,” I say. It still involves me sneaking off, spending time with Emmett without a chaperone, outside of polite society. I’ll still be kicked out of the competition, but it might just keep me alive.
“It’s the best I can do.”
The poor cart horse trudges along for over an hour until we finally reach the outskirts of the hunting camp. The cheerful bunting has been blown down by the storm and it droops sadly, tangled in tree branches.
Emmett and I hop down from the cart, and he pays the driver at least triple what he’s owed.
And here it is. The moment I’ve been so afraid of. Time for my reputation to go up in flames. Will the queen strip my family of their lands and titles as she’s promised? Will I be killed? SurelyEmmett and Bram wouldn’t let that happen, but perhaps even they will be powerless against her.
My knees are weak, my hands clammy. All I ever wanted to do was fix things, and instead I’ve broken them beyond repair. Last night felt like a dream, but the cold light of reality is here now, and it stings my eyes.
Emmett marches in first, like I’m not even here. I trail after him like a shadow.
I expect a flurry of activity, of scandalized shouting and heavy glares. Instead, we find... nothing.
The tents are still secured to their platforms, though bedraggled after the storm. The ground is little more than a mud pit, the tables and chairs from the first night half toppled and covered in filth.
“Did they leave?” I ask.
Emmett looks just as confused as I am.
