A Price to Pay

"If you need me, you know where I'll be." the woman said gently, not daring look back over her shoulder to face the man lest her feigned strength leave her altogether and the tears she'd so stubbornly been blinking away.

"Emma, wait," called the doctor in response, his voice so tired and, perhaps if she was not mistaken, verging on the edge of breaking just like her own was, if this was not wishful thinking on her behalf, "Please, Emma, my love, please don't leave me too."

Emma Carew turned to her fiancé, and this was the hardest thing she had ever had to do. Unthinkingly, she had balled her hands into fists, clutching at the fabric of her skirts, black as it was a mourning gown. Mourning in appearances, however, as she had never had any real fondness for those who had been found dead, but customs were customs and she knew just how important appearances were.

"I could not take it if you left me, my love," Henry continued, reaching out to her from where he had sunk into his chair, reaching out like a drowning man who could see his salvation laying just out of reach, "Hastie has already left me, and Gabriel looks upon me with fear even as he promises his affections, I cannot see you leave me too. Promise me you'll stay?"

"Oh, Henry," said Emma, wishing she could not understand the allure of leaving with her memories in tow and, as her cheek still ached faintly she wished she could not understand the fear, "Even if I wanted to leave, I could never get far. I promised my love to you, promised to stay by your side through the darkness and the light, and I have no intention of going back on my word." She had drifted just close enough for the doctor to reach out and take her hand. "I promise you, Henry Jekyll, that I will never leave you and will always love you." 

I promise you, Henry Jekyll, that I will never leave you and will always love you.

Well, it had been a good promise at the time, but the newly named Mrs. Emma Jekyll found it to be exhausting, even if she never considered breaking the promise. She loved her husband, and she had said for better or for worse, though she hadn't expected the extremes to be quite so clear cut. Out of all the lovely men and - with far more subtlety from carefully masked words, fan flutters and empty rooms - women who had wanted to win her heart, somehow it was Henry Jekyll who had claimed her as his prize, and she had won him as her prize in return.

The sun had slipped away behind the horizon, and the word outside of the living room's ornate window was almost illuminated in a rather lovely way by the half moon, leaving the garden she was so fond of looking like a scene from one of her books, or perhaps a scene from a half remembered dream. Comfortable in her nightdress, the woman had curled herself up on the lounge, flicking through the book she had brought down. It was her intention to visit one of her friends, Ethel at her home at midday the following day, to discuss the book, and given that both Mary and Christine were boasting to have already finished the novel she did not want to seem uninformed as they discussed the book over tea. 
Unfortunately this was not as easy as it should have been.

One moment the book was in her hand and she was reading about a possibly madwoman wandering through some not so far off misty moor, and the next moment the poor book was hurtling to the floor and a needlessly high heeled boot had taken it's place.
Edward Hyde had kicked her book to the ground despite the fact he had explicitly promised to not kick anything this time. He was never good to his word so this didn't surprise her one little bit, but she wished it would. The strange man had claimed far too much of the lounge for himself, stretched out until she only had a little nook for herself, the leg that had done the needless kicking having been resting in a way that she was quite sure was far from comfortable.

"You make it very difficult to try and find something desirable about your presence, I hope you know that." she remarked, her voice wavering slightly with a sigh as she could tell her place was lost in the novel and so it was going to be even more of a fuss than she'd like.