Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School, #2)(12)

Vieve frowned. “Not possible. Why would the oddgob need a crystalline valve frequensor? That valve is for wireless communication, nothing to do with oddgobbery.”

Sophronia shrugged and fished the item in question out of her reticule. She handed it to Vieve, experiencing some relief at no longer having it on her person. “Here, I stole it for you. Why don’t you tell me what it’s for.”

“Aw, Sophronia, how thoughtful. You brought me a present!” Vieve examined the mini-prototype for a moment. Soap and Sophronia watched her for signs of intrigue. “Amazing, they let it fall into your hands when they made such a fuss over it only last year.”

Sophronia nodded. “Unless it’s no longer a prototype and already in production and distribution. Technology does move awful fast these days.”

Vieve dimpled again. “I know, isn’t it grand?” She pocketed the valve, only then realizing Sophronia had neatly avoided her earlier question. “So, did you hold back during that test?”

“Maybe a little,” Sophronia admitted.

Soap grinned. “That’s my girl.”

Sophronia glared at him. He was getting familiar.

“You are, miss.” He continued to grin.

“I’m my own girl, thank you very much.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes you’re mine, or Miss Dimity’s, or even Vieve’s.”

Vieve was too young to follow this line of reasoning, but she was bound to agree with Soap if the conversation nettled Sophronia.

This one certainly did. In fact, Sophronia was finding it most flustering. She did not like being flustered, and she did not like that it was Soap doing the flustering. She wasn’t quite sure what this meant, so she resorted to orders. “Stop it, Soap.”

“For now, miss. You tell me when you want this conversation to continue.”

“Oh, really!”

But Soap, who certainly could be a gentleman when he tried, left the subject at that and moved the discussion delicately on to the latest boiler room excitement: the sooties had adopted a kitten.


Sophronia visited the boiler room regularly for the next few nights. Things remained uncomfortable in class and chambers. Dimity was barely passing polite, and the other girls ignored Sophronia.

Of course, Bumbersnoot tried his best, but a mechanimal hadn’t much conversation and wasn’t really interested in speculating as to what might be afloat. Sophronia refused to volunteer any information to the others. The possibility of a visit to Swiffle-on-Exe and Bunson’s—which meant young gentlemen—would have her compatriots in ecstasies of delighted anticipation. So Sophronia held on to the news out of spite. She didn’t try to warn Dimity that someone might be after her. Dimity would take it as a pathetic excuse for interference. Without knowing the motive behind that mystery attack, Sophronia had no way to make her case. She’d no idea how lonely such a life could be. So she escaped to see Soap, and occasionally Vieve, most evenings. It was a risk. She might get caught, but it was better than the pointed silences.

Then one morning at breakfast, Mademoiselle Geraldine made an official announcement.

Mademoiselle Geraldine was a source of amusement to the students. She was, supposedly, the headmistress. She thought her school was a real finishing school and had no idea about the espionage side of things. This was an ongoing covert operation lesson for the students—all the girls had to participate in keeping their headmistress in the dark. She always addressed them at breakfast with such concerns and inanities as might be important were they attending an actual ladies’ seminary. And, upon occasion, she was given something of substance to say by Lady Linette.

Over a light repast of giblet pie, boiled whiting, brawn, cold roast capon, and broiled haddock together with tea, brown bread, and sweet butter—the teachers did not approve of a heavy breakfast—Mademoiselle Geraldine informed them that they were headed to Swiffle-on-Exe for a brief stopover and that they could expect company once they arrived. The headmistress did not look pleased. Mademoiselle Geraldine might boast the rinsed red hair, loud voice, and well-upholstered figure of a former opera singer, but she took deportment seriously. Whoever their passenger was going to be, Mademoiselle Geraldine did not approve.

Accordingly, they arrived at the outskirts of Swiffle-on-Exe the next evening after dark. Instead of taking up their customary mooring point, off a goat path west of town, they went south and put down lines near the banks of the Exe.

The girls were all atwitter over this shift in tradition. Only Sophronia knew it was because they must take on boiler water. When everyone else was asleep, she crept out of quarters. It was dangerously busy in the hallway; the tracks were screaming with maid mechanicals, bustling to and fro carrying extra linens and washbasins. Sophronia had to flatten herself behind doors and inch along the walls at a pace so slow they wouldn’t register her. She decided not to visit the sooties, who would be too busy, and instead headed out onto a mid-level balcony. She leaned over the railing to watch as the airship sunk down and nested, nose first, over the river, rustling the willow trees along the bank. Eventually, the front section, which housed the teachers’ residence and engineering, bridged the water.

With a belch of smoke out the stacks and a loud rumbling, a huge articulated metal pipe ejected from the lower front of the hull. Standing on a mid-level deck, Sophronia was in good position to observe under the light of a half-moon.