Emma by Le Veque Kathryn

Author:Le Veque, Kathryn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2021-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

The Awakening

That question rang in Emma’s mind.

What happened?

For someone who had told her not to bother him, he was being terribly intrusive. He’d awoken from his fevered stupor, rude and gruff, and the truth was that she intended to stay away from him for the evening. She didn’t want to be in the presence of someone so clearly bitter. She’d had enough of that as of late, mostly from herself, and she didn’t need an echo of the cynicism she felt over life in general. Whoever the man was, he was clearly unhappy.

So was she.

She turned for the door.

“I will trouble you no longer, sir,” she said, ignoring the question. Quickly, she picked up the candle nub because the corridors of this ghostly place really were quite dark. “If you are hungry, the tea and gruel are next to your bed, though they are cooling by now. Good evening to you.”

She could hear him calling at her as she rushed from the room, out into the corridor where the cat was following along at her heels. As she headed for the stairs, the cat cut in front of her and almost tripped her. She eyed the feline unhappily as it perched on the edge of the steps as if uncaring that it had nearly sent her plummeting to her death.

Silly cat!

When Emma was certain the cat wasn’t going to dart out in front of her again, which was never a certainty when it came to cats, she quickly took the stairs and returned to the kitchen to make herself her own hot cup of tea before finding a couch to sleep on. She wasn’t going to return to the second floor, where she knew there were beds, because the sick man was up there and she didn’t want him wandering into her room while she was asleep.

Better to stay as far away as she could from him.

Down in the kitchen, the fire in the heart was still burning and the pot of water she’d put over the flames was simmering. Using some of the water, she made herself a cup of tea, hot and strong, and sat down to drink it. It was fortifying. There was also some gruel left in the small iron pot and she used her finger to scoop it up, eating the first real food she’d had in a couple of days. When the tea was gone, the porridge finished, and the fire covered once again, Emma went on the hunt for a couch.

She found it in the haunting reception room.

It wasn’t even covered up to preserve the fabric cushions. Years of dust had settled on it and she had to beat the cushions out a bit to shake out the dust before she was able to lay on them. Using her satchel as a pillow, she lay on the old couch in the bereft chamber, staring at a ceiling that had once been painting with glorious scenes and colors.

In fact, the entire room had been.

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