Chapter Nineteen‘Emmeline, wake up.’
‘Huh? What?’
‘You fell asleep. It’s almost six o’clock. I’m assuming you’d like to be dressed when your brother and sister and mortal enemies arrive for dinner?’
I smiled at Matilda sleepily for a long moment before her words sunk in. Then her words sunk in. She laughed at me and pinched me in surprising locations as we scrambled to dress me and to arrange my hair in something resembling order.
‘Your habit of looking perfect at all times is really very annoying,’ I muttered to her as she hauled on my corset laces.
‘Born this way,’ she said serenely.
We were innocently (except for some indecorous puffing on my part) clearing off one of my work tables for dinner when there came another knock at the door, and the formalities began.
My cooks had deci
