Kat, Incorrigible

by Stephanie Burgis

  I smiled all the way up the stairs.

  I might have kept my smile even longer if Angeline hadn’t caught me.

  “Aha!” She swooped down on me as I turned into the corridor that led to our bedrooms. “I thought I heard your voice.”

  I tried out my innocent, wide-eyed look on her. “Were you looking for me? I’m so sorry. If I’d had any idea—”

  “Very amusing,” Angeline said. “Now stop blinking like a fish, Kat. It won’t have any effect on me. Or on Elissa, once I’m finished with you.” She took my arm and started hauling me down the corridor as she spoke.

  I said, “Stepmama’s already given me a tedious, long lecture, so—”

  “So that would be a good beginning, then,” said Angeline. “Just you wait.”

  She swept me past the door to Elissa’s room, past my door, and on to hers. She swung it open and pushed me inside. “You see?”

  “Ah …” I stared at the irrefutable evidence. The closet door stood open. Mama’s magic books sat in full view on top of the bed. The four valises that had been neatly stacked in the corner by the closet were scattered across the floor, knocked open and trailing clothes.

  Angeline crossed her arms and leaned back against the closed bedroom door. There was no escape. “Now do you see why I’m so furious?” she said.

  The best defense is a good offense, I thought. “What a mess,” I said. “Has Stepmama seen how you keep your room tidy?” I shook my head portentously. “And that certainly doesn’t look like a safe hiding place for Mama’s books.”

  Angeline’s glare should have burned my skin. I had to force myself not to step back.

  “No?” she said. “Well, then, it’s a good thing that isn’t where I left them. But when I came back to the room after breakfast, they were lying on the floor, underneath the bed, which isn’t where I left them either. And the rest of the room”—she waved at the scattered luggage—“was as you see it.”

  I put on my most offended voice. “And you think I did this?” I asked.

  “No, you ninny, of course I don’t.” Angeline rolled her eyes. “If you knew anything about magic, you would be able to feel all the magical residue and know that I’d left a spell here—a strong one—and someone else broke it. Someone truly powerful. Trust me, you wouldn’t have been remotely capable of doing it.”

  “Oh.” I slumped with relief. “Well. That’s all right, then.” I sat down on the bed. “I’m glad you realized that. Because of course I would never—”

  Angeline’s eyes narrowed. “But I think you know who did.”

  “What?” I straightened with a start. “What are you talking about? Why would I know anything about it? That’s absurd!”

  Angeline ticked off the points on her fingers. “One: You’re babbling. You never babble unless you’re nervous—which means that you do know who did this, and you don’t want to tell me. Two: Last night you asked me where Mama’s magic books were. I assumed you were only after them for yourself. But you kept asking if they were safe. So.” She advanced on me like the Angel of Vengeance. “You knew that someone would come looking for them.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. “You’re leaping to conclusions. Papa would tell you that that is very bad logic, and—”

  “The question is,” Angeline said inexorably, “how did you know that they were in danger? The only answer I could come up with is that you told someone about Mama’s magic books. Someone who should never have been trusted with that information. So, Kat.” She stood over me, her hands on her hips. “Whom did you tell?”

  I squirmed, pinned under her glare like a butterfly under glass. I knew perfectly well, and believed with all my heart, that I did not have to obey Angeline in anything. But sometimes it was difficult to remember that … especially when she was so convinced of the exact opposite.

  It was patently unfair. She was only five years older than me.

  “I didn’t tell anybody,” I said, and jerked my chin up to return her glare with interest. “Now stop interrogating me. I haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “Now, there’s a likely story.” Angeline laughed. “I don’t think—”

  A knock sounded at the door behind her. “Angeline?”

  It was Elissa’s voice. Saved. I relaxed and grinned up at Angeline as cheekily as I could. “I think we’re finished now,” I said. “Don’t you?”

  She sneered down at me. “Don’t even imagine it. Elissa is just as unhappy about your disappearance as I was.”

  “And how does she feel about these?” I scooped Mama’s magic books off the bed. “Have you told her about them yet?”

  “Give me those!” Angeline grabbed them, but I didn’t let them go. “Kat, if you don’t—”

  The doorknob turned. Then it hit the lock and stopped. It turned again.

  “I can hear Kat inside with you,” Elissa called. “Why have you locked the door?”

  “Yes, Angeline,” I said. “Why have you locked the door?” I batted my eyelashes at her. “Could you possibly be keeping secrets from our sister?”

  “That’s it.” Angeline snatched the books from my hands. “Don’t even imagine that you’re safe now, Kat. I will find out the truth.”

  I sneered back at her. “Fine. Then maybe Elissa can find out the truth about you, too.”

  The doorknob rattled. “This is absurd,” Elissa hissed through the door. “What is going on in there?”

  “It’s not my fault,” I called out. “I want to let you in. It’s Angeline who—ow!”

  Angeline straightened. Her cheeks were flushed from bending over to shove the books under the bed. Her eyes were glowing—no doubt from the pleasure of kicking me hard on the way. She crossed the room and threw open the door.

  “Elissa,” she said. “Come in.”

  Elissa’s cheeks were flushed too.

  “Do you have any notion of how embarrassing that was?” she said. “I was passed by two people while you made me stand out there, rapping. Two people! The looks they gave me—”

  “Good God, it must have been a fate worse than death,” Angeline said, and closed the door behind Elissa with a bang.

  “Must you be so vulgar?” Elissa swept across the room and stopped, staring at the wreckage beyond the bed. “What on earth has happened to your bedroom?” She swung around and looked back and forth between me and Angeline. “Have you two been fighting again?”

  I opened my mouth. But before I could say a word, Angeline said, “Yes. We have.” She crossed her arms and gave me a sardonic look. “Kat started it.”

  “I did not! Elissa—”

  “Never mind.” Elissa sank onto the bed beside me. “I don’t even want to know the particulars.”

  “Just as well,” Angeline murmured, and crossed the room to throw herself down across the pillows on her bed. “So. What have you come for, darling sister?”

  “Really, Angeline.” Elissa glared at her. “You are in the oddest humor today.”

  “I wonder why,” said Angeline, and darted me a malevolent look. I stuck my tongue out at her, behind Elissa’s back.

  I had to pull it back in fast when Elissa turned to look at me. “I looked everywhere for you this morning, Kat. You really mustn’t disappear without telling anybody.”

  “This is my third lecture,” I said. “Please, please, may I finally be forgiven now? I didn’t mean any harm.”

  Angeline snorted. Elissa sighed.

  “I know it must seem very tedious to stay cooped up in your room when the abbey and the manor house are here to explore, but you are old enough by now to understand the rules of propriety. Lady Graves has been very generous in letting you be a part of the house party despite all of Stepmama’s arguments. If you embarrass her now by doing something foolish and immature—”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! Now, please, can the lectures finally be over?”

  Elissa put her hand on mine. “Do you promise not to go exploring again without telling
one of us first?”

  “Yes,” I said. “At least, I will if I can find any of you to tell.”

  “Fair enough,” said Angeline, and swept her legs off the bed, preparing to stand up. “You two can stay and weep and forgive each other all day long if you like, but I won’t. I’m going down to the drawing room to—”

  “Keep an eye on Mr. Carlyle?” I supplied. I braced myself for possible flight, watching Angeline’s face get more and more flushed as I spoke. “Monitor his flirtations? Sigh if he—” I leaped backward as Angeline lunged for me.

  “Angeline, don’t!” Elissa snapped, and Angeline subsided back onto the pillows, even though I could still see murder in her eyes. “Kat, behave,” Elissa added, keeping a wary eye on our sister. “Both of you, be still.” She took a deep breath. “Honestly. I came up here to tell you something, and you drove it completely out of my head.”

  “Honestly, Angeline,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes at me in a way that meant: Revenge.

  Elissa said quickly, “We’re going out tomorrow night, all of us, on an expedition to the local assembly ball. Kat, we’ll have to look through your gowns and see if we can quickly make something up a little finer for you. Angeline, I thought perhaps the rose….”

  Angeline shrugged her shoulders and, for once, escaped a lecture from Elissa on how unladylike it was to shrug. I didn’t blame Elissa for letting the gesture pass unremarked—even I was starting to wonder if I’d pushed Angeline too far.

  “I’ll find something to wear,” Angeline said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Good.” Elissa looked warily between us. “Kat, perhaps you should come with me.”

  “Wait,” I said. I had only just realized. “We can’t go out anywhere tomorrow night, can we?”

  “Whyever not?” Elissa blinked. “I just told you—”

  Angeline’s smile made prickles of fear run up my spine. “Let me guess. Kat’s hatched some new scheme for tomorrow night, and going out would ruin it? What a tragedy that would be, and yet—”

  “No,” I said. “It’s nothing like that. But it isn’t safe to leave the house at night. Is it?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Elissa stared at me. “What are you talking about?”

  I stared right back at her. Hadn’t either of them had a decent gossip with their dinner companions last night? Surely I wasn’t the only one who had heard the news.

  “But what about the highwayman?” I said.

  Fifteen

  For once, I didn’t actually mind being overruled. As I waited to step into Lady Graves’s sixth carriage the next night, holding my battered reticule in one hand and lifting my skirts up off the ground with the other, I felt a delicious thrill of anticipation.

  Highwayman, I thought.

  Of course, I knew we might not be lucky that night. There would be carriages driving to this assembly from all across this part of Yorkshire, so the chances of the highwayman actually attacking our particular carriage were perishingly slim. But he had to attack someone, surely. Otherwise it would be a wasted night for him. Even the simple act of driving to the assembly and back, when such an attack might happen at any moment, had to be a better adventure than another night spent smothered in Lady Graves’s drawing room, making inane small talk and listening to Sir Neville drop horrible veiled threats while Lady Fotherington and Mr. Gregson watched me from opposite sides of the room. Last night I’d felt like a mouse being stalked by three great cats. It was not a comfortable feeling.

  Much to Stepmama’s surprise, I’d actually leaped at the prospect of spending all day today until now sitting safely with her in her bedroom to sew extra ruffles and a new neckline and sleeve caps onto my best gown for the ball. I’d even managed to listen to her usual lectures on ladylike deportment and propriety without exploding from sheer boredom. I’d had tonight to look forward to, after all.

  “Come along, Kat!” Stepmama said. “You’re making everyone wait for you.”

  I followed her into the carriage and pressed myself as close to the window as possible. The cushions in Lady Graves’s carriage were thick and comfortable, and it would have been easy to rest back against the padded seats and close my eyes. But I didn’t want to miss a second of the preparations.

  The sky was only just starting to fade into twilight now, so the torches the footmen carried had not been lit. But I could see something else as I looked through the window. Two more men swung up to sit beside our driver—and both of them were carrying rifles. I sucked in my breath.

  “Is something wrong, Kat?” Elissa asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing at all,” I said happily. I peered through the window, twisting my head to try to see all the way up to the driver’s seat on top of the carriage. No luck. “I wonder if they would let me sit with them on the way back,” I said. “I could hold one of the rifles for them.”

  “Heaven forbid,” said Elissa, and she and Angeline and Stepmama all exchanged a meaningful look.

  I ignored it. “I told you it was dangerous,” I said. “You should have believed me.”

  “It is not dangerous,” Stepmama said. “Rosemary has taken all reasonable precautions. No highwayman would dare to attack a line of six carriages—particularly not when each of the carriages is armed.”

  “Mm,” I said, and angled my head farther to try to see the other carriages. “Perhaps if we were separated, though—”

  “That is quite enough!” Stepmama said. “You will kindly refrain from any more speculations on the matter. Especially—” She cut herself off as a fifth figure stepped into the carriage.

  “I do hope you’ll pardon the squeeze,” Frederick Carlyle said, and grinned at all of us. “I’m afraid all the carriages are equally packed, so I thought, if it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition …”

  I looked at Angeline, waiting for her to say something sharp about rakish flirtation. Instead she blinked rapidly and looked away from him. I saw color rising on her cheeks. She must have been too angry to speak. So I smiled brilliantly at him.

  “You can sit next to me,” I said. “There’s plenty of space.” At least there would be if Stepmama moved over.

  “Thank you, Miss Katherine,” Mr. Carlyle said, and made me a sweeping bow. “You are very kind,” he added solemnly, and winked at me.

  “Thank you,” I said primly, and winked back.

  I didn’t mind shoving myself even closer to the window to make space for him. “Have you seen the rifles the footmen are carrying to protect us from the highwayman?” I asked. I pointed out the window to where the other carriages were being loaded.

  “Katherine,” Stepmama said in an undertone, behind Mr. Carlyle’s back.

  “I have indeed,” Mr. Carlyle said. “Have you ever shot a rifle yourself, Miss Katherine?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Not ever,” Angeline amended. “For which we are all eternally grateful.”

  Mr. Carlyle’s lips twitched. “I’ll teach you when you’re older, if you like,” he said. I saw him glance surreptitiously at Angeline from the corner of his eyes. Leaning closer to me, he added in a stage whisper, “I do believe your sister Angeline might be an excellent shot too. She does have the temperament for it, don’t you think?”

  “Now that would be far too dangerous,” I whispered back, with great satisfaction.

  The carriage door closed. I heard the crack of the driver’s whip.

  “Thank goodness,” Stepmama said. “We’re on our way.”

  The carriage rolled smoothly down the drive and into the deep green overhang of the woods. As the sky darkened, the woods on our right looked more and more ominous, full of tantalizing shadows, and the river on our left became a deep, dark mystery.

  But still, the highwayman didn’t appear. By the time we arrived at the local assembly room, an hour later, I was completely disgruntled.

  You would think he would have noticed that Lady Graves had visitors. You would think, if he wanted to make a good
picking, he would aim for the top.

  If I found out that he had wasted his time attacking some completely impoverished family in full moonlight while we were driving down that whole long, shadowy road full of possibilities, I would … well, I would be seriously displeased.

  At least Angeline seemed to have finally gotten over her temper—with Mr. Carlyle, at least. Elissa had engaged him in polite conversation at first, and then Angeline had gradually unbent. By the time the carriage ride ended, she and Mr. Carlyle were actually laughing at each other’s jokes and trading stories like old friends.

  Until we stepped out of the carriage.

  “Mr. Carlyle!”

  “Oh, Mr. Carlyle!”

  “Oh, there you are, Mr. Carlyle!”

  The three young ladies who’d breakfasted with him for the past two mornings fluttered toward us in a cooing flock from the next carriage over. In the darkness, I couldn’t make out the exact shades of their gowns, but they were all wearing light pastels that matched their fair hair and skin, and their fans flapped madly in front of their faces.

  “Isn’t this exciting?”

  “I feel so giddy with nerves, I vow, I positively cannot breathe!”

  “Only look at my hand, see how it’s trembling, Mr. Carlyle!”

  “Humph,” said Angeline, and turned away pointedly.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off them. They were just like birds, but person-shaped. As they clustered around Mr. Carlyle, their fans fluttering, they let out cheeping sounds of glee, and I had to bite down hard on my lower lip to keep myself from laughing out loud.

  “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me …” Mr. Carlyle was grinning. He met my eyes across their fair heads for a moment, and we shared a look of perfect understanding. I bit my lip harder as I watched him try to disentangle himself from all the fans and clinging hands. It didn’t work. But I was impressed by the ingenuity of his next attempt. “If you’ll pardon me,” he said to them, straight-faced, “I had actually promised to be Miss Angeline Stephenson’s escort to the ball, so—”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, Mr. Carlyle—”

  “But Mr. Carlyle, please—”

  “You needn’t worry yourself about it, sir,” Angeline said. Her voice cracked through their chirps like a whip through feathers. “I am sure I am perfectly happy to excuse you.”