Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)(74)

His eyes scanned the cart, arrested briefly by Sophronia—who looked at him directly, without flinching, in a most unladylike manner—and then moved on to Monique. Monique, in the style of all older girls when faced with younger boys, pretended the entire crowd of Pistons did not exist. Her attention remained fixed on the road ahead, a pose that emphasized her fine features and the slenderness of her neck.

Sophronia remembered what Pillover had said about them. Nasty chaps. One or two of them were, unfortunately, good-looking. She exchanged glances with a dark-haired, pale-faced boy with sullen lips and a petulant expression. He met her gaze and then looked away, restless, like a wild creature. Sophronia thought he was beautiful. His almost gawky quality reminded her of Captain Niall. Was he what the scandal papers might call werewolf bait? She said nothing to any of them. They had not been introduced. Instead she smiled her prettiest smile at Pillover.

What Sophronia did not know, and had yet to learn to control, was that her smile was rather more powerful than most. The face she saw in the mirror each morning was passingly pretty, if not terribly thrilling, but when she smiled with the full force of her personality beperful thahind it, she came over vibrant and striking. It was one of the reasons Monique disliked her so.

Pillover responded to the smile by closing his book and grinning back. His own dour expression, so obviously a mask for worry, briefly dissipated.

“Coming to the ball, Mr. Plumleigh-Teignmott?”

“Ball? If you insist.” Pillover slid off his trunk, and Roger jumped down to help him load it into the cart.

“Ball?” said one of the Pistons with interest. “We like balls.”

Dimity gave them her best, most haughty look. “Yes, but are you certain they like you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophronia whispered to her.

Pillover joined them, as confident in his new situation as if he had always expected to set off with his sister and two other girls in a farm cart.

“I don’t know,” replied Dimity as they drove away. “It sounded good at the time.”

Pillover pretended interest in his book until they were some ten minutes into the journey. “Where are we going?”

“My house,” replied Sophronia promptly.

“All righty, then.”

The trip began pleasantly enough. For the first few hours, Sophronia and Dimity chatted idly about what they might wear and how they might wear it. Pillover rolled his eyes and tried to behave in as dignified a manner as possible under the circumstances of girlish prattle and open-air transport. Monique ignored them. Roger paid attention to the road.

Sophronia thought she spotted a carriage following them, a high flyer. But it stayed well back and might have simply been utilizing the same byways.

The pleasantness was marred only by Bumbersnoot. Sophronia had tucked her mechanical pet, after some debate, into a hatbox for transport. She’d given him a small lump of coal for a travel snack and strict instructions not to stain the interior with smoke, or to singe it, or to catch it on fire. He did, as it turned out, all of these things, but that is not what disturbed the drive.

Sophronia was not aware that anything was amiss until she looked up in the midst of an entertaining debate with Dimity over the relative merits of pearls versus diamonds for a ball to find that Monique’s blue eyes were fixed in horror upon the luggage pile. Sophronia’s eyes followed the older girl’s gaze, coming to rest on her paisley hatbox, which was vibrating rather more than any of the other luggage.

Sophronia put the hatbox next to her on the bench and put a hand firmly atop it.

Bumbersnoot, as it turned out, might have been trying to tell her something, for moments later, out from behind the hedgerows, they caught sight of an approaching airdinghy.

“Oh, goodness, look,” whispered Sophronia. “Flywaymen!”

Dimity let out a gasp.

Pillover closed his book with a snap. “What is it now?” Upon following their pointed fingers, he added, “Here we go again,” in tones of the deeply put-upon.

However, the flywaymen only kept pace with them for a long time, apparently content to watch from several yards away to determine whether they were worth approaching. Sophronia suspected the pony and cart of throwing them off. As a rule, such a contraption wasn’t worth attacking, given the general quality of the merchandise within. Uniseing. Soless, of course, they had determined that Monique was the one worth following in order to regain the prototype.

Roger, slumped and staring at the road before them, finally noticed they had company. He pulled the pony up.

“Don’t do that,” said Sophronia.

“Miss?”

“If they are going to leave us alone for now, then there is no point in delaying our travel. They will come at us if they want something. Otherwise, keep driving. I think we may have additional followers, as well.” She gestured at the carriage behind them.

“If you say so, miss.” Roger gave her a look that said he thought she had changed a good deal while she was away at school, and not for the better.

Sophronia turned back to Dimity and Pillover. “What kind of defenses do we have this time?”

Dimity canvassed her options. “Handkerchiefs, fans, two parasols, assorted hatboxes, hats, gloves, and jewelry—although I’d rather not use that.”

“Much better equipped than before.”