Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School, #2)(25)

“I think that’s a capital idea.” Professor Lefoux was struggling to control her emotions.

Until that moment, Sophronia would have said the austere teacher didn’t have emotions.

“You should examine your loyalties, Beatrice. Someday you will have to choose.” Sophronia could hear the slamming of books as Shrimpdittle packed.

“Choose?”

“Between science and the supernatural.”

“I wasn’t aware they were on opposite sides.”

Sophronia heard the door slam.

“Oh, that man!” Professor Lefoux exclaimed in French to the empty room. Then there was silence.

Sophronia peeked through the window. The teacher was cleaning up the apparatus on the table, systematically putting everything away.

Sophronia signaled Vieve.

“Take a look,” she whispered, making room on the railing and assisting the smaller girl to look in. “What do you make of those parts?”

Vieve didn’t answer, face pressed to the glass, until the gas in the room was turned off and the interior black.

She swung her weight back and slid down off the railing. Sophronia followed.

“I don’t know. It looks almost like armor, but for what? Undersea exploration?”

“Perhaps it has to do with our trip? Perhaps we’re going to London because of your aunt or Professor Shrimpdittle and this invention.”

Vieve considered. “It’s possible. It’d explain why they need the whole school—access to my aunt’s laboratory.”

“You were saying about the valve?”

“That one you gave me, I have to run further tests. But I don’t see how it can affect mechanicals or the oddgob.”

“Keep at it, will you?”

“Until I get caught or something more interesting comes along.”

Sophronia patted her friend on the head in the manner of Soap, a thing she knew the girl found particularly annoying. “Good little inventor.”





GARNERING INVITATIONS





The girls entered the breakfast room to find the postal steward calling names and passing out correspondences. Since they had gone to white, Captain Niall must have undertaken a run back to Swiffle-on-Exe to retrieve missives. The teachers were always saying that the captain was not an errand boy at the beck and call of young ladies’ whims, but on occasion he did perform groundside services made convenient by his land-bound state and supernatural speed.

There was nothing for Sophronia, who sat bleary-eyed and exhausted at the end of the table while the other girls exclaimed. Her fellows exhibited new trinkets to their male dining companions and shared the latest gossip from home. It was an orgy of batted eyelashes, and Sophronia was finding herself unable to cope with fluttering on only a few hours sleep.

Felix Mersey ostentatiously picked up his place setting and moved it next to hers. “What’s wrong, pretty Ria? You seem to have lost your customary aloofness.”

“Oh, do go away. I’m not up to dalliance this morning.”

He pouted at her. “Is that all I am to you? A plaything, a speck of dust on a sunbeam, a bit of dandelion fluff on the breeze?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly.” Sophronia hid a smile at such silliness. No sense encouraging the blighter.

“Hard-hearted, that’s what you are.”

“You’re an imbecile, you do realize?”

Any further conversation was interrupted, as it was surely meant to be, by a squeal from Monique. It was emitted upon reading a gold-embossed letter and caught even Mademoiselle Geraldine’s attention from the head table.

Felix moved hastily out of indiscreet proximity to Sophronia.

“Miss Pelouse, have you something of note to share with the assembly?” wondered the headmistress.

The blonde girl stood gracefully, glancing over the entire room with a beneficent smile. She looked like a queen addressing her subjects, holding her gold missive in one hand as though an award received from on high. Her dress that morning was of royal blue with butter-lemon stripes, a row of gold pom-poms down the front in increasing size. It was almost as though it were intended to match the letter.

“Nothing of any consequence, Headmistress,” she said, blushing prettily. “It’s only that my dear mama has informed me that she intends to hold my coming-out ball when we arrive in town!”

Pandemonium reigned. The announcement of a trip to London had been one thing, and the presence of boys another, but this was the Thing to End All Things—a ball!

A breakfast selection of German sausage, broiled kidney, dried salmon, and muttonchops arrived, but few registered it. Some of the young ladies even ate the salmon without concern to vital humors—when everyone knew colored fish flesh could bring on an attack of hysteria.

Sophronia refused to be ruffled. She ate the same thing every morning: porridge.

Girls began to find excuses to call at Monique’s table to compliment the horrid girl on the cut of her dress or the size of her pom-poms, angling for an invitation.

“What lovely earrings, Monique.”

“Yes, aren’t they pretty? My father purchased them in Spain. Such an expense for little me!”

“Did you do your hair differently this morning, Monique?”

“No, but it is looking quite shiny, isn’t it?”