Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School, #2)(19)

“But who?”

Pillover was remarkably unconcerned. “Isn’t that your job?”

“Have you missed the part where she’s not speaking to me?”

Pillover had once been made to wear Sophronia’s petticoats in pursuit of information and safety. This gave him an inflated opinion of her abilities. “You’ll manage.”

“You’ll give it some thought, please?” Sophronia pressed. “I’m a little worried.”

“Well, she is my sister,” Pillover reluctantly agreed.

The meal proceeded, and Sophronia and Pillover conversed civilly, in a manner quite in keeping with training, until the tables were cleared and the cards brought forth.

Given their new numbers, the girls were told that round games were to be played so the entire table might participate. Monique declared that they would play loo and dealt without waiting for a consensus. Since loo was best played with seven, Sophronia, without being asked, and Pillover, who cared not one jot, sat out.

They watched the others play for a while. Felix kept glancing up over his cards at Sophronia.

Finally, she asked Pillover, in a low voice, “What is it with Lord Mersey?”

Pillover’s face darkened, and he shifted in his seat as though it were uncomfortable. “Golborne’s a famously conservative family. Too much money, not enough new blood.”

“Ah, anti-integration?” Sophronia prodded. Some of the aristocrats had fought hard against allowing the supernatural any part of government. That had happened centuries ago, but aristocrats and vampires had long memories.

“Worse. Picklemen.”

Sophronia stared at Felix. “Really?”

Pillover, whose family was quite progressive, answered sarcastically, “Can’t have monsters taking over the government, can we? We’re food to them. You know the propaganda. Fear supernatural creatures! Forget the fact that they won us an empire.”

Sophronia had come around to appreciating both the werewolf Captain Niall and the vampire Professor Braithwope as much as one could appreciate teachers. Even if Captain Niall had once accidentally tried to eat her. So she considered herself mostly progressive.

Her attention was diverted by a small, polite cough.

“Vieve?”

“Good evening,” said the scamp, from near her elbow.

Pillover nodded at her. They’d met before, during the incident with the petticoats.

“Listen, Sophronia, Soap says there’s something you might want to see tonight when we leave the moor. And I know I want to. I’ll be by with the obstructor later, so you won’t need to climb.” She didn’t wait for Sophronia’s agreement and rabbited off.

“Did you understand any of that?” Pillover asked, in a tone of voice that said he didn’t really care.

“You mean to say, you didn’t?”

“Nor was I meant to. Are you going out this evening, then?”

“Possibly.”

Pillover looked down the table to where Felix was once more staring in their direction. The viscount seemed distressed by the amount of attention Sophronia was bestowing upon Pillover. Since Pillover was customarily the victim of the Piston’s pranks, he was morosely pleased to be getting under the boy’s skin.

“You want any company?”

“Oh, no, thank you.”

“I wasn’t thinking of myself.”

Sophronia gave him a crafty smile. “Has no one officially warned you boys about Geraldine’s alarms?”

Pillover looked as cagey as a round boy with an obvious stash of apple fritters could. “Nope. I know from Dimity, of course.”

“In that case, you might mention to Lord Mersey that I’m planning a jaunt later tonight.”

Pillover smiled for the first time in their acquaintance. “I might do that.”





FLIRTING WITH DECEIT





With the sun firmly down and card games satisfactorily completed, the students went to their next classes. The boys had lessons in mechanics and machinations with Professors Shrimpdittle and Lefoux. The girls, all forty-five of them, trooped down to a lower deck to disembark using the glass platform lift. They had their weekly lesson with Captain Niall. There was a palpable waft of excitement, not to mention perfume, as the werewolf was most every young lady’s favorite teacher. He was also, by far, the handsomest.

Sophronia liked him, too, even though she knew the floppy, easygoing military man was a sham. In his werewolf guise, he’d tried to kill her and got her best horsehair petticoat instead. He’d been moon-mad at the time, but she’d never quite forgiven the lapse, nor the loss of the petticoat. Like a proper gentleman, the good captain had never made any mention of the undergarment murder.

The girls stood on the moor. The glass lift turned into a gaslight for evening fighting lessons. Captain Niall strode toward them—a dashing soldier with a beaver-skin top hat tied to his head and a leather greatcoat buttoned from collar to hem. He had a loose way of walking as if he had temporary, and not very good, control over someone else’s legs.

“Ladies, today we leave off knife fighting and move on to the most useful of all skills.” The werewolf paused dramatically. The young ladies about him inhaled in anticipation.

“Running away,” said Captain Niall with a flourish.