My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(59)
“Colonel Abercrombie,” the man corrects.
“Aye. And he’s the general pest of the home.” Mac laughs again, harder than before.
“Aide-de-camp of the home, I prefer,” Abercrombie puts in.
“Aye. My former commander. And this heap”—Mac slaps the doorway—“is my most recently won donation. My charms sometimes gain favors that help out the bairns, but it is a hustle and a task to keep the gifts coming. The wee lads and lassies are nae fond o’ teachers, mostly because they have a tendency to turn tail and run back to their soft beds once the going gets tough.”
Mac’s eyes twinkle but display a hardness that speak volumes to his past experience with young ladies struck by a desire to “help.” He looks you over with these hard, twinkling eyes, and you can’t help but sense, despite his outwardly jocular behavior, that he is quite concerned about your arrival—or, perhaps, the length of your stay.
“If ye decide to follow suit,” he continues, “please wait till morning so I can get ye home safely. I’ll not have ye getting snatched up by Madam Crosby or other villains on my account, ye hear?”
“That shan’t be necessary,” you respond and hear several of the children giggle and/or curse at your posh tones. “Where can I settle in?”
“Eh, I will show ye to your quarters,” Mac says, distracted perhaps by the sheer amount of work to be done. “Ye can have a lie-down until we’re done doing the heavy lifting. The kiddies have waited this long for a teacher, they can surely wait another day.”
“Decade!” Abercrombie shouts down. “C’mon up, lass, I will nae bite ye.”
“Trust not a word he says,” Mac says. He laughs, claps you on the back, hoists your valise over his head, and disappears into your new home.
Your new quarters are grimmer than the tiny room the Dowager Dragon allowed you to have and feature a considerable company of bugs and rats. You wish to scream, but the dubious and expectant look on Mac’s handsome face makes you straighten your spine and don your best do-gooding smile.
“How can I get started?” you ask with forced brightness.
Mac gestures across the hall, to a room with the door thrown open, revealing a beautiful chalkboard…and a tangled heap of filth, school supplies, and furniture desperately shoved inside to be dealt with later.
“That’ll be the schoolroom,” he says, and the strong features of his face color with fret. “Look, lass.” He speaks with a softness he must reserve for only the most tearful orphan or haughtiest donor. “I know ye came all this way to have a look at the rough side, get a tale to tell your bosom friends at the next ball about how ye helped this one and did this deed. Are ye sure someone jest as…fine and delicate as ye are wants to muck about in this? No shame at all in going home, I can escort ye myself after I take care of a few things and get the children watched over.”
Your body burns with embarrassment. “I believe you informed me of a position regarding watching over the children. I came here for a job, not for a holiday in the slums.”
“Aye, lass, but all this”—he gestures at the decrepit building around you—“it isnae a story for high tea. It’s quite a piece of work.”
You seethe. “I am certain you will find, Captain Angus MacTaggart, that so. Am. I. Now, please, I beg your pardon, but I must get to work.”
“Of course, lass,” Mac says. “My apologies.” He knows he’s stepped in it but can’t quite figure how to step out. You raise your eyebrows ever slightly higher in response. “I will find ye for dinner.”
You hold your head high, determined not to cry or show any sign of what Mac may construe as weakness, and when he leaves you to the rats and cockroaches, you silently scream in frustrated anguish.
It makes you feel marvelous and fuels you with the double-headed desire to do good things and make Mac sorry he ever doubted you. The self-righteous Scottish prig! You are about to let off one last silent primal scream when you are interrupted by the orphans, who crowd around the door to your room.
“Whatcha gonna teach us, then?” asks Sallie, clearly the leader of the pack. The other kids peer at you with a mix of interest, scorn, and disappointment.
“No one can teach us nuffink,” None-of-Your-Business chimes in. “?‘Member what the last teacher said? We’re a hopeless case.” He scowls and kicks another child in the shin.
“Hopeless cases are like bogeymen,” you say with savage primness. The children look at you quizzically. “They don’t exist.”
You roll up your sleeves. It is time to take matters into your own hands. But how?
By teaching the children out in the streets? You see no reason why the world they live in can’t be their classroom! Turn to this page.
Or by getting the little brutes to use their strength to take ownership of their fates and help you clear out their schoolroom? Turn to this page.
“We have risen the temple, so now let’s raise hell!” You kiss Evangeline again, and then whoop and cheer the women into a happy frenzy.
“You’re one of us now, ain’t ye?” Gráinne cries with unmasked joy.
“You can bet your capstone, I am!”
You are exhilarated by the wild grins on the women’s faces, but especially by the one beaming at you from Evangeline’s beautiful visage. You enjoy the cool, strange shade provided by the impossible temple.