Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)(26)
“Oh, I like that!” Dimity pretended offense. She clearly liked to think of herself as a proper lady.
“Present company excluded, of course. Look at Monique. Speaking of which, she and I have an agreement. She won’t tell the teachers about Bumbersnoot if I don’t correct her version of the flywaymen rescue.”
Dimity did not look pleased. “Oh, but Sophronia, she’s such a pollock!”
“I didn’t say you would also hold your tongue. But if you could confine yourself to gossiping with students about it, that would mollify her. And it prevents everyone else from figuring out the real reason for her demotion.”
“Oh, are we keeping the prototype secret, too?”
Sophronia slowed, forcing Dimity to fall back with her and allowing distance to develop between them and the others. “Did you hear the alarm?”
Dimity nodded.
Sophronia explained, “It was flywaymen again. A whole bunch of airdinghies this time, after the prototype. They gave the teachers three weeks to find it. Professor Braithwope and Professor Lefoux are trying to build a fake in the interim. Monique won’t tt sue wonell them the location of the real one. But I think the teachers are allowing her to keep it secret for some reason.”
“Remind me, why are we so interested?”
“It lost us our luggage. Also, it would prove we were better than Monique if we could produce the prototype for the teachers, now wouldn’t it?”
“But what if Monique stashed it before we even got on board the school?”
“Well, then, we will have to determine a way to sneak off and find it.”
“Already? But we just got here! I haven’t even had my supper.”
All the while they talked, they wended their way through the hallways of the school. As the young ladies were dressed to the height of fashion, this had to be done two by two; any more than that would not fit in the passageway due to the fullness of their skirts. Only Sidheag had a narrow gown, one that looked like it properly belonged on a governess. Sophronia could respect its practicality. Her own Sunday best was not used to such activity as it had seen over the past day. It was beginning to chafe, and she could but wish she had something more sensible to wear.
“What does ‘London hours’ imply?”
Dimity grinned. “Breakfast at noon, morning calls around three, tea at five, supper at eight, entertainment all evening, and bed by one or two. Doesn’t it sound the pip? I’d love to be a London lady. Do you think my parents would be awfully mad if I married a nice politician and gave up on a life of crime? Then I’d get to throw dinner parties all the time.”
Sophronia, country girl, for all she was gentry, found the very idea of London hours shocking in the extreme. “Rise at noon, you say?” Why, that sounds positively decadent!
Much to her shock, Sophronia actually enjoyed the lessons. They were nothing like what she expected from either a finishing academy or an ordinary grammar school. She’d had, at varying times in her life, a host of indifferent governesses. They were either overwhelmed by the number of children in the Temminnick household or in possession of the remarkable ability to nap through most everything—including lessons. Education, therefore, had been a matter of Sophronia’s own interest and access to her father’s library, rather than instruction. Consequently, she knew a good deal of ancient history and mythology, something on the fauna of Africa and native hunting practices, and all the rules of cricket, but little else.
“When defending yourself against a vampire,” said Professor Braithwope at the start of the lesson, “it is important to remember three things, whot? He is a good deal faster and stronger than you will ever be. He is immortal, so debilitating pain is more useful than attempted disanimation. He is most likely to go for your neck in a frontal assault. And he is easily distracted by damage to his clothing or personal toilette.”
“That’s four things, Professor,” corrected Monique.
“Don’t be pert, whot,” replied the vampire.
“Are you saying,” Sophronia ventured, “that it’s best to go for the waistcoat? Say, douse it with tea? Or possibly wipe sticky hands on his coat sleeve?”
“Exactly! Very good, Miss Temminnick. Nothing is more distressing to a vampire than a stain. Why do you think containing blood is so important to us? One of the tragedies of any vampire’s life is that in order to survive we must continually handle such an embarrassingly sticky fluid.”
les Sophronia wondered whose blood Professor Braithwope drank on board the school. It must be someone loyal to the professor, as if they were a drone. She felt self-consciously for her own neck and thought affectionately of shawls.
The vampire paced back and forth as he lectured, his movements fluid and quick. The room in which they sat in no way resembled a classroom, except that it was called a classroom. A series of brocade settees was arranged in a semicircle around an imitation fireplace, a small piano, and an articulated brass statue of a cow. There were plush carpets on the floor, side tables on which the girls placed their books, and a maid mechanical waiting patiently in the corner in case she was needed to fetch tea. It looked more like a drawing room than anything.
“Another weakness in vampires, of course, is the limited range. A vampire who is hive-bound must stay near his queen, and the queen cannot leave her house. Roves are similarly tethered to a place, although our range is larger. When swarming, of course, all distances are moot, whot. There are some notable exceptions; the queen’s praetoriani has a larger range.”