A School for Unusual Girls

by Kathleen Baldwin

  “You mustn’t be so hard on her,” mumbled Sera. “Her father’s life was at stake.”

  “She never cared one wit for her father. It was his title she cared about. That and her attachment to Lord Ravencross’s brother.” Jane crossed her arms.

  “We don’t have any proof,” Sera insisted.

  “You’re too soft.” Jane’s hands balled into fists. “It didn’t take much for him to get Dani to play the traitor, did it? For all we know she was involved with him before she even came to Stranje House.”

  “There’s no evidence of that.”

  “My instincts are evidence enough.” Jane turned to me. “If Captain Grey hadn’t warned the allies to change strategy, Leipzig would have fallen to Bonaparte. As it was, eighty-four thousand men died.”

  Eighty-four thousand.

  “In three days. The field is still red with their blood.”

  I gulped in horror. My mother never allowed talk of battles. All those men, wounded and dying. Young men like my brother. Boys. Some of them no older than me.

  “I hate war,” Sera said softly.

  I shuddered and could only nod.

  Below us, Miss Alicia Pinswary stroked Toby and looked worried. “Is it true? Is this fire-starting girl, this arsonist really one of your”—she reached for a square of cheese and nervously fed it to her dog—“your young ladies?”

  “I don’t think arsonist is the appropriate word.” Miss Stranje defended me, for which I felt exceedingly grateful.

  Lady Pinswary reached for another cake. “It is someone who starts fires—”

  “I’m aware of what the word means,” Miss Stranje said.

  “Then I cannot fathom why you would allow such a dangerous creature to reside under your roof. Your forbearance is foolhardy in the extreme. It says here, the girl set fire to her father’s barn and burned the place to the ground. My cousin’s orchard as well. Destroyed the entire crop.”

  Squire Thurgood’s apples. I moaned.

  “Good heavens, Emma, the child might put a torch to our entire neighborhood. We could all be killed in our sleep.”

  “In our sleep. Oh, dear. That would, indeed, be a tragedy.” Miss Stranje set her teacup on its saucer. “We really ought to be awake for such a momentous occasion.”

  Lady Daneska snickered and her cousin smiled behind gloved fingers.

  “Don’t be impertinent.” Lady Pinswary shot a quelling look at both girls. “I don’t know what you are playing at, filling your home with these troublesome girls. But I know for a fact your grandmother wouldn’t want you consorting with criminals.”

  “You will kindly leave my grandmother out of this.”

  “It’s for her sake I’ve come today. It’s my duty to warn you. Have done with this Miss Fitzwilliam! Send her packing. We can’t have her sort here in Fairstone Meade, it won’t do, won’t do at all.” She exhaled loudly, stuffed a large piece of ginger cake in her mouth and sagged back against the chair.

  Lady Daneska twirled a strawberry by the stem. “We must not leap to the hasty judgments, Auntie Prue. Her papa’s stables may have caught fire by accident, no? Even so, I must confess, I’m most curious about the young lady.” Her shoulders scrunched up in glee. “I would very much like to have a look at her. Wouldn’t you, Alicia?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her cousin nodded, combing her fingers through Toby’s fur. “I’m all agog to meet her.”

  “Don’t see why,” grumbled Lady Pinswary. “The Fitzwilliam girl is a menace. It says so right here.” She waved the crumpled letter.

  Miss Stranje patted Lady Pinswary’s hand. “I’m certain once you meet her it will put your mind at ease. You’ll see her and know immediately the young lady has no wish to murder anyone in their sleep.”

  Miss Stranje gestured to Tess. “Miss Aubreyson, will you please fetch Miss Fitzwilliam.”

  Lady Daneska rushed to add, “You will come back, won’t you? I want to hear about…” But Tess had already hurried out of the room. “… your dream.” Lady Daneska’s words withered like leaves on a winter breeze. She smiled as if nothing were amiss and put another strawberry in her mouth.

  “It’s time.” Sera nudged me and we turned to leave Hamlet’s hole.

  “Wait. We have more visitors.” Jane grabbed my arm and yanked me back. She pointed. “That’s Captain Grey and the fellow with him is Lord Wyatt. You might remember him, he found you and carried you back to the house yesterday.”

  I’d imagined Sebastian still in bed suffering the ill effects of the fumes. He looked a trifle pale, but walked tall and steady. Clearly his strength had returned. Relief nearly drowned me.

  Sera whipped back to peer at the newcomers. “With a face like that, how could you not? He’s positively byzantine.”

  “Byzantine?” I asked.

  Jane’s eyebrows arched. “Like a Greek god.”

  A wicked twinge of jealousy knotted my shoulder muscles. Except, I shouldn’t be jealous. Jealousy was an impractical notion. Completely illogical. Utterly pointless. Especially in this instance, Jane’s and Sera’s looks far outshone mine. Plus there was the blindingly beautiful Lady Daneska, who at that very moment was performing another of her vulgar curtseys for Sebastian’s benefit. The vixen lifted her hand up to him like Cleopatra.

  Cleopatra’s asp.

  I’m not so foolish to imagine I could compete with any of them for his attention. My neck kinked into even tighter knots. Why should it matter to me if he fell in love with one of them? It didn’t.

  “Yes, I know him well,” I said, with an unwarranted tone of proprietorship. “Lord Wyatt is my laboratory assistant.”

  Ten

  SEEING RED

  “Your assistant? And you kept this a secret? Selfish girl.” Jane’s wide smile belied her hushed scold.

  “Leave her be. I would’ve kept him to myself, too.” Sera sighed. “What’s it like working alongside him?” Sera was kind and good-natured; she deserved better of me than petty jealousy.

  “Come with me and see for yourself,” I said. “Lord Wyatt behaves toward me in a decidedly arrogant manner.”

  “That’s peculiar. He’s usually so amiable.” Sera leaned closer and looked at him again. “Even so, you must agree, he is excessively handsome.”

  “Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”

  Sera smelled the fib before it even escaped my lips. Her eyebrows shot up, but at least she had enough grace not to call me on it. Jane rapped my arm in a wordless rebuke. We studied the two men a moment longer. Captain Grey became a silent sentinel behind Miss Stranje’s chair. Despite Lady Pinswary insisting she could make room for him on the sofa beside her niece and daughter, Sebastian stood near the far window, gazing across the room at the Chinese screen as if he knew we were watching.

  “Very well, you’re right,” I whispered. “Lord Wyatt is tolerable looking in a dark, roguish, Byronic sense.”

  With a sideways grin Jane pushed me out of the spy hole. “Go on. Miss Stranje is expecting you any minute. I’ll stay here and watch.”

  Sera and I left the shadowed safety of the hidden passage. In the foyer, just outside the drawing room she stopped me. “Wait. Let me check you.” She turned me around and brushed dust off the back of my gown. “Remember to smile sweetly no matter what is said about you.” She smoothed down a stray curl at my temple and pinched my cheeks. “There. You look quite presentable.”

  I cringed. Earlier, I would’ve been pleased to hear anyone pronounce me presentable. I’d doubted such an outcome was even possible. Now, I longed for more.

  Was I that homely? Could she not have said pretty? Or at least charming?

  Next to her, I felt like a great, lumbering, blue-striped gargoyle. I wished she had refused my invitation to come with me to the drawing room. Sebastian would be so enthralled by her loveliness he would never even look at me. “Are you coming in with me?” I asked.

  “Of course.” Sera smiled brightly. “I’ll be right by your side.”

  Exactly what I fe
ared.

  We entered together, fairy princess and gargoyle. I found it difficult to fix my eyes anywhere but on the carpet.

  I knew Lady Pinswary would take one look at me and decide I was indeed a vile arsonist. That would distress Miss Stranje. The dog would leap from Miss Pinswary’s lap and try to bite my ankles. Sebastian would be captivated by Seraphina and wish she were the chemist instead of me. Lady Daneska would laugh and throw strawberries at my face. It was all going to go very badly, very badly indeed.

  Two boots appeared on the floor in front of me. I glanced up. Sebastian. “Miss Fitzwilliam.” He bowed. “A pleasure to see you looking so well, quite charming in fact.”

  Charming?

  Had he read my mind? Sebastian had never bowed to me before, not properly, not like a gentleman to a lady, and certainly not without insulting me. I was so stunned by his behavior I would’ve forgotten to curtsey if Sera hadn’t nudged me in the ribs. As I did, he said under his breath, “What, only one ruffle?”

  The wretch. His gallantry burst like a soap bubble, proving the compliment he’d given me was counterfeit.

  “She has red hair.” Lady Pinswary squawked like a hen laying an egg. “Red!” As if the color of my hair was an evil omen—the harbinger of kill-you-in-your-sleep fires.

  Lady Daneska smiled broadly. The dog yapped at me. Miss Alicia Pinswary appeared to be somewhat bored. She said, “I don’t know why you were in such a rush to meet her, Dani. She doesn’t look dangerous at all.”

  Miss Pinswary’s remark was rewarded with a quick pinch from her cousin. She squeaked like one of Tess’s rats and rubbed her thigh.

  “Miss Fitzwilliam.” Our headmistress signaled for me to come forward. “These ladies have received a troubling letter about you. Please put their fears to rest by explaining how your father’s stables caught fire?”

  Surely Miss Stranje didn’t expect me to tell the whole of it. These ladies wouldn’t approve of my explanation any more than my parents had. And what about the ink? I’d promised to keep it a secret. Lady Daneska thrummed her fingers against the sofa cushion. A sly smile played at the corner of her mouth and her arctic gaze held a barely contained eagerness. She would pounce the minute I tried to lie.

  I stood, knees trembling like a common criminal on trial. My tongue turned to sand. I swallowed, raised my chin and tried devilishly hard to appear at ease. Unfortunately, no words found their way to my mouth. Not a one.

  “As I understand it,” Miss Stranje prompted, “you were trying out a new recipe, were you not?”

  She astonished me. It was true. And yet not. I breathed in the reprieve. “Yes. Exactly. A new recipe.”

  “You were cooking?” said Miss Pinswary with considerable astonishment. “In the stables?”

  “How very odd.” Lady Daneska’s lips pursed. “Is your family so poor you have no kitchens?”

  Miss Stranje cocked one eyebrow expectantly.

  I had a ready answer to that question. Ready, because it was the pure truth. “We have a very fine kitchen, my lady. But our cook, you see, wouldn’t allow me in. Earlier that day I had attempted a similar recipe, and she complained that my concoction stunk up the place. I felt certain if she would just allow me to adjust the ingredients, the recipe would come out right. But, she said no, and banned me from the kitchen.”

  Lady Pinswary nodded sympathetically. “Cook doesn’t let me in my kitchen, either.”

  “Hmm, this is most confusing.” Lady Daneska continued tapping the sofa, with one finger, soft and slow, like rain dripping off the roof. “You don’t look like the sort of young lady who would enjoy the … how do you say, activities domestique.” Her finger stilled and she sighed. “Do you also like the sewing, and the sweeping, and the scrubbing of the floors?” She said all this in a disinterested singsong tone, and glanced over her shoulder, batting her ridiculously long eyelashes at Sebastian.

  “No,” I said a trifle too loud. “Just recipes. I like trying out new recipes.”

  Her eyes sparked and her attention whipped back to me, claws out. “Do you mean to say, you were so … what is the word? Determined? Yes, that is it. You were so determined to boil up this new concoction, as you called it, that you built the cooking fire in with the horses and the oxen?”

  “Yes.” I shifted nervously. I saw where she was going. I couldn’t tell her it had been because of a what if had whipped me mercilessly and driven me to experiment. I had to try. I had to know—at any cost.

  “But how foolish.” She shook her head and twittered, a frozen trill plucking at my raw nerves. “You seem to me a most bookish sort of girl. I would not have thought you stupid.”

  Foolish at times. But not stupid. I wanted to slap the sneer off her perfect face. Instead, I simply glared at her. She stared back, winter-sky eyes, barely blue. Blue would’ve held too much warmth. “And I would not have thought you rude,” I said sweetly. “You appear to be a more polished sort of girl.”

  Miss Stranje made a little noise, I might have guessed it a stifled laugh, but her features wore no expression at all.

  Sebastian cleared his throat and charged into the uncomfortable silence. “I thought all young ladies tried their hand at cooking now and again? Isn’t it required study for females?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sera agreed a little too eagerly. “Miss Stranje insists we all learn how.”

  Lady Daneska’s face went through a number of intriguing twists. It was like staring into a crystal the way her face fractured and reshaped itself, first angry, then charming, next shrewd and flirtatious. All in the space of a mere second.

  “Lord Wyatt,” she cooed. “You know much more about females than this, I think.” She patted the seat beside her. “Come. Sit. We will speak of the feminine cooking skills. Yes?”

  Heat flooded my cheeks. She’d managed to make cooking sound seductive.

  Sebastian laughed appreciatively and remained standing by the fireplace. “I’m afraid I have little interest in such things—wouldn’t know a compote from a cantaloupe.”

  Everyone in the room chuckled. My cheeks cooled and I took a deep breath.

  Lady Daneska shrugged and spread the silk of her skirt over the place she had offered to him. “I am most curious, Miss Fitzwilliam. There is an excessive amount of straw in a stable. You, I think, would not be ignorant of this. Why did you not build the cooking fire out of doors?”

  “Yes,” Lady Pinswary demanded. “Why didn’t you?”

  Alicia Pinswary’s dog barked as if expecting an answer, too.

  “It was raining.” Lightly misting really, but I couldn’t allow water to corrupt the ink formula.

  Lady Pinswary sniffed. “Surely, your mother keeps a stillroom where you might try new recipes?”

  “No, my mother has no interest in such things.” Nor in my need to experiment. “I had thought if I kept the flames low there would be no danger.” My shoulders sagged and I shook my head in shame. “But, as you said, there was too much straw. Dried bits of it floating everywhere. A spark ignited, and…” I stopped the tale there. No sense explaining that my formula burst into flames. That would ruin the illusion that I’d been cooking up a pudding of some kind.

  I cringed, remembering how flaming muck had splattered everywhere. Until that very moment, I’d blotted out the memory of the fire snaking across my work table and spilling onto the floor. Nor had I remembered the orange flames licking all around me, the crackling tongues of fire gobbling up straw. I’d forgotten screaming for our grooms as I tried to beat out flames with a horse blanket. Forgotten how the smoke seared my nostrils and stung my lungs. Forgotten slapping at the embers alighting on my skirts. How in heaven’s name had I blotted out the high-pitched whinnying of the terrified horses as we flung blankets over their heads and urged them out to safety?

  Mine wasn’t simply a failed experiment. The grooms could have been killed. The horses. All of us. Burned alive.

  “Are you unwell?” Sera asked.

  I couldn’t answer. The parl
or moved in dizzying wobbles. Sebastian rushed to my side and guided me to a chair. I sat down, breathing in stops and starts, stunned, shocked, but most of all, repentant. No wonder my parents wanted to be rid of me.

  I am a menace.

  Lady Daneska stared at me, no doubt judging me for the fool I was. “You must tell us, Miss Fitzwilliam, what was this most important recipe for which you were willing to risk everything.”

  There it was. The one question I couldn’t answer honestly without telling her about the ink. “It.… I—”

  Miss Stranje cleared her throat loudly.

  “Enough questions,” Sebastian ordered. “The trauma of recalling those tragic events has overset Miss Fitzwilliam. We ought not to tax her anymore with these painful memories.”

  Lady Daneska’s attention snapped to him. “How very solicitous of you, Lord Wyatt. I did not know you were so well acquainted with Miss Stranje’s new guest.”

  “We’ve only just met. But surely anyone can see—”

  “Yes,” she said, and smiled, looking quite satisfied. “Anyone can see.”

  She knows.

  Except, she couldn’t. It was impossible. She could only guess all this had something to do with him. Does she know Lord Wyatt is a spy? Supposing she did, she couldn’t possibly know what I’d been brewing that day. Not unless my mother unwittingly …

  I turned to Lady Pinswary. “Pray, did your cousin say anything more about the accident?” The minute the words escaped my mouth I wanted to grab them and stuff them back down my throat. I sounded far too desperate.

  Lady Daneska gave her aunt no opportunity to answer me. “No, no, Miss Fitzwilliam, poor dear, you are too overwrought. We must have no more questions about that dreadful day, n’est-ce pas. Only look at Lord Wyatt, your knight most chivalrous. I think he would bite off our heads if we dared ask more, no?” She stood up and smoothed out her skirt. “I fear our fifteen minutes have flown by.”

  Lady Pinswary set down her plate and followed her niece’s lead, flicking crumbs off her gloves as she stood. She steered her daughter in Lord Wyatt’s direction. Miss Pinswary curtseyed prettily.