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 next night. 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 walking past 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.
It sounded like an excuse. Emma hoped it was an excuse. To see her alone, because he wanted things to be as they were before. Because he missed her.
The door of the clubhouse opened and there he stood, looking her up and down.
“You look nice. Not great to run in, though.”
Emma stared at her feet as though that could make trainers appear. She would have remembered if he’d told her to dress for running, surely? If only she remembered their phone call more clearly. She’d been too caught up in her vision of winning him back. What else might she have missed?
“Later? When—Oh, never mind.” Jasper turned away from the door. Emma darted in to catch it before it swung shut.
He took her through to the dining room.
“There.”
He was holding out cloth ears and a tail. It hadn’t been an excuse.
Jasper turned to the dining table, where a hunter’s gear was already laid out. He tugged his T-shirt over his head. The unexpected fire of a December sunset poured over him, bare-chested before the window. Emma became very aware of her breath.
He was outlined in light. It stroked over the rippled honey of his back, the shadowed paths of muscle tapering to his waist. Even indoors, in the dead of winter, he gleamed like a bronze statue. As though a private sun shone on him alone. Always golden.
He tossed the T-shirt aside, and she watched the muscles of his stomach, hard under his skin. Her fingers itched to reach for him.
“How have you been?” she ventured.
“Fine.”
“I just—I haven’t heard from you for a while.”
“God, Emma, it’s just been a busy time. I didn’t think you were the kind to get possessive with people, not after all of your traveling. I thought you understood.” He flashed her a smile. “What are you going to do when I sail around the world, then, if you get upset at a few weeks apart?”
Jasper swatted at her with the waistcoat he’d been about to put on. Emma gave a laugh of pure relief. She saw how unreasonable she’d been. She had misjudged him.
“And you’re sure it’s okay to bring me tonight? After last time?”
She thought she saw his face darken, just a fraction, and regretted bringing it up.
“Why wouldn’t it be? I’m the president. I’m inviting you. Who else has got anything to do with it?”
“It’s just—I can’t remember—I thought the others might be angry at me. After I broke—that thing.”
“No, the opposite, really. I was the one who got worked up about the bowl. Rich calmed me down and got it fixed, and the others never shut up about how great you are.”
Seeing Emma’s face, he put down the waistcoat and crossed the room to her.
“Honestly, Piers practically begged me to get you back to one of our clubhouse parties, and Richard told me I looked miserable and should invite you. Even Hugo asked if you were coming tonight, and I didn’t think he had enough brain cells to notice anyone but Julia. ”
Why would they have to be so insistent? a small, miserable voice thought. Did Jasper need that much persuading?
“So you’re making a big worry out of nothing.” And with a funny face for Emma: “Don’t get paranoid on me.”
She felt strange when Jasper was fully dressed.
The costume was exactly as she’d seen in cartoons: red coat with tails at the back, breeches, shining top boots.
She watched him, absorbed in adjusting the white stock around his neck.
She’d known that Jasper’s parents lived mainly on their country estate.
Why had she never thought to ask him about hunting?
“Is that yours?” she asked. “The hunting outfit.”
“What? No. This is fancy dress.”
“Oh.” Emma smiled, relieved. For a moment, she’d felt a dizzying shift.
As though her vision of Jasper had always been a smoke screen, and she’d just seen the complete stranger beneath.
A person whose edges were made up of questions she hadn’t thought to ask.
But she shouldn’t have doubted. Of course this was only fancy dress for him. She knew who Jasper was.
He did up the last button. “My hunting gear’s black, not red.”
Her mind was a chaos of shattered thought fragments, and she had no time to straighten it. Jasper was already leading her down a corridor.
The room they entered was dark. Clusters of candles cast flickering shadows over the audience that waited for them.
Hushed, expectant. Emma hesitated in the doorway, but Jasper led her on by the wrist. A table had been set in the middle of the room, like an altar.
Emma saw crumbling parchment, the gleam of a knife, a jug of red liquid.
And at the center, the Turnbull bowl. Spiderweb cracks marked where they’d had to glue it back together.
Emma’s cheeks burned, but no one was looking at her.
They all watched Jasper. Squaring his shoulders, stepping forward to the table. The Turnbulls crowded round him, all in red coats and hunting hats. Among them, Emma recognized nasty Piers, Richard, and Hugo.