Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)(50)

It was a good thing she’d chosen stealth, for on the other side of that door a new set of tracks started up, and waiting patiently was yet another faceless mechanical, this one smaller, wearing a white ruffled pinafore, and car cfor iron, enrying a duster in its articulated forceps. It was different, more chunky-looking, than the maid mechanicals at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s. This maid said nothing and did not react to Sophronia. Sophronia hoped that meant the creature could not make her out in the shadows.

Close on her heels, Vieve and Soap crowded in, intent upon coming to her rescue, if necessary, or her disguise, if not. They saw her hiding and confronted the mechanical maid, both talking at once and gesticulating wildly.

Sophronia hoped that this would confuse the sensory nodules Vieve had referred to earlier and took it as permission to inch past the maid and run down the hallway. Soap and Vieve followed.

They paused for a breather on a small staircase to one side of the hall.

Behind them, the front foyer of the building raised itself back up, filling with white steam as it did so.

“You should have worn trousers,” said Vieve in a low but disgusted voice.

“I may not be a lady yet, by any account,” said Sophronia with great dignity, she felt, “but I am not a boy, either!” She was finding herself far more concerned with attire now than before attending Mademoiselle Geraldine’s.

Soap looked at her. “You look like a lady to me.”

“Thank you, Soap.” Thank goodness it is dark enough for him not to see me blushing!

“Of course, miss.”

They continued down the next corridor.

There seemed to be fewer maids at Bunson’s, or perhaps they were decommissioned while the students were out. Sophronia would have predicted that a school full of boys would require more maids, not fewer! Everything was going swimmingly, with Vieve leading them unerringly ever upward through the building.

“You’ve been here before?” whispered Sophronia.

“Many times. Auntie always has some matter to discuss with Mr. Shrimpdittle. Lady Linette won’t let her leave me unsupervised on board. She used to try to get Mademoiselle Geraldine to mind me, but I’d always escape her.”

“So you’ve seen the communication machine?”

“Not as yet. They leave me outside. ‘Workshop’s no place for a child.’ ” Vieve’s voice was full of outrage as she repeated a phase she had clearly heard overmuch in her nine years. “But I know where it’s kept. On the roof.”

Both Soap and Sophronia paused, raising their voices in shock. “The roof?”

“Shush! We don’t know who might not have attended the theater. They wouldn’t leave the school with only mechanicals on duty.” Vieve took a moment to roll up the long sleeves of her shirt, her exposed wrists small and bony.

Sophronia said, “But why stash a piece of delicate equipment on the roof?”

“Search me. Intriguing, isn’t it?” Vieve dimpled at them in a way that made her look very young indeed.

We are being led into enemy territory by a child, thought Sophronia a





ll of a sudden. This is madness. Oh, well.

At that moment, a door ahead of them opened out into the darkened hall. Bright unflickering light of the kind that could only come from high-quality gas spilled forth. Into the beam trod a dark blob of a boy—not a mechanical.

The boy was relatively stock cati spiy and, like Vieve, shrouded in clothing too big for him. He was bent over a large, antiquated book and humming to himself.

Sophronia, Soap, and Vieve froze in horror.

The boy looked up, caught sight of them lurking in the shadowed hallway, let out a shriek of surprise, and dropped his book. The door slammed closed behind him and all was once more dark.





PROPER COMMUNICATION IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS


Who’s that?” came a querulous voice into the darkness. “I know you’re there; show yourselves!”

Sophronia stepped forward. “Buck up, Pillover. It’s only me.”

Pillover squinted. “Miss Sophronia? What are you doing here? How’d you get in? Is that my sister with you?”

Sophronia dragged a reluctant Vieve and Soap forward. “No, but I do have company. Pillover, may I introduce Genevieve Lefoux and Phineas B. Crow? Vieve, Soap, this is Pillover Plumleigh-Teignmott, Miss Dimity’s brother.”

Pillover gave his two new acquaintances a very haughty look. “Riffraff?”

“Only on the surface. They’re both good eggs. Vieve here is an intellectual, and Soap’s, erm”—she paused, struggling—“an engineer of a kind,” she managed to come up with.

Soap gave a little snort, but Vieve looked childishly delighted to be described as academic in any way.

Pillover looked Vieve over and seemed to accept her title readily enough for all that she was nine. Then he turned to look up at Soap, illuminated by a bit of moonlight. “But Miss Sophronia, he’s colored!”

Sophronia tilted her head and contemplated Soap as though she had never noticed his skin tone before. “It’s irrelevant. Or do I mean irreverent?”

“It is?” Pillover arched one brow.

Sophronia nodded firmly. “Yes.”

Pillover bent and picked up his book. “If you say so.”