by Jo Goodman
The girls dropped to their benches with such alacrity that West's restraint was sorely tested. He lost the battle with himself and his bland smile became a boyish, light-hearted grin. The deep dimple appeared, along with its less showy twin, and somewhere among the girls a spoon clattered to the stone floor and a whisper campaign began. Most of them had opportunity to glimpse that roguish smile before West reined it in.
Beside him, Ria sighed.
"What?" he asked, taking his seat.
"You have no idea of the havoc you have wrought."
West picked up his spoon and dipped it into the steaming lentil soup. "With no time to prepare, you cannot have expected a more erudite speech. What it lacked in pomposity, it acquired in pithiness."
Ria smiled evenly when she noticed that Miss Taylor was watching her with some concern, and lowered her voice so she could not be overheard. "I was not referring to your speech."
"Oh, then what?"
"Did you have to look at them in that particular manner?"
"In what manner?"
"Grinning as if you had swallowed the sun."
He flashed her that same smile but asked "You would rather I had glowered at them?"
"Infinitely preferable," she said tersely, forcing her own sweet smile to the forefront.
West considered this as he took another spoonful of soup. "Perhaps when I am one of the governors, you will explain your thinking to me. I admit I find your methods peculiar. I have not seen you glower." He chuckled quietly as she suppressed the desire to fix him with her angry stare. She was caught neatly between the devil and the deep blue sea, unable to vent her frustration without alarming her fellow teachers or her students. "The soup is excellent," he said. "You know what they say about a luncheon postponed."
"I know what you said."
"It is gratifying to know you were listening. Tell me, how do you think my birth-out-of-wedlock speech would have been received?"
* * *
After the meal, West and Ria retired to her study. He held the door open for her and allowed her to pass before him. "Are you certain you are feeling quite the thing?" he asked. "I thought you would strangle on that mouthful of soup."
She could cheerfully strangle him. His seemingly artless question had caused her to aspirate a spoonful of broth and cost her the pleasure of drawing a single breath. She had choked and wheezed and gasped, stuffing her serviette against her mouth to keep from spraying the table, all the while having to suffer the flat of his hand on her back, thumping her as if she were an infant in need of burping. The dining hall had fallen silent again, except for the gurgling that rose from the back of her throat. West had taken it upon himself to assure everyone that she would be fine, never once pausing in the application of steady percussion to her back.
"You beat me like a kettledrum," she said.
"An efficacious remedy and I make no apology for it. I may have saved your life."
Ria's sour look told him more eloquently than words what she thought of that. There was no time to point out that he had been the cause of her choking fit in the first place as she heard Amy Nash's distinctly pitched voice in the corridor. "Mrs. Abergast is bringing Amy now," she said. "Will you want me to leave while you speak to her?"
"No, I think she will be more comfortable if you are present, but I require that you say very little. I do not want the child looking to you for answers or being influenced to respond as she thinks you want her to." He looked around the room and saw a well-worn reading chair in one corner. "If you will sit there when we begin, I think it will do. Amy and I will sit here." He pointed to the chair behind her desk and the one opposite it.
Ria offered no advice about this arrangement, though she thought it was unlikely that Amy would be comfortable with West asking her questions from across the desk. "Here she is." Ria turned smoothly and invited Amy inside. "There is nothing else, Mrs. Abergast. I will send for you if I need you."
The teacher nodded once, accepting her dismissal, and hurried away.
Ria started to take the girl's hand, but she caught West's quick, negative shake of his head and resisted the urge. She made introductions again and watched in some amazement as West made a courtly bow and lifted Amy's hand to his lips. The child was immediately in his thrall, and Ria had the honesty to admit it was not so different for her. Excusing herself quietly, she slipped to the corner of the room. Amy, she noticed, did not glance once in her direction.
"Come, child, will you not sit down?" asked West. "Or shall I play the frog for you?" He dropped immediately to his haunches and met Amy at eye level. "I confess it is deuced uncomfortable. Will you not have some pity and take Miss Ashby's chair behind the desk?"
Giggling, Amy accepted this direction. She skirted the desk and climbed onto the Queen Anne chair. With its decorative carved shell on the top rail, gracefully curved splat, and ball-and-claw feet, it required little imagination before it became a throne. Once she was situated on the horseshoe-shaped seat, her mien was condescension itself.
"May I?" West asked, indicating the chair at his back.
"Please," Amy said, inclining her head just so.
The child was the equal of the great Mrs. Siddons, West thought as he took his place. In fact, she may have been able to teach that actress something about embodying a role. "I understand that you requested my presence so that you might tell me about Jane's disappearance. Is that correct?"
"Yes, it is." Amy's voice was properly grave, and she kept her hands folded neatly on the edge of the desk. "Shall I begin, then?"
"By all means."
Nodding once, Amy launched into her account of everything Jane had confided. When she was finished she regarded West expectantly. "Shall you find her now?"
"Is it your command that I do so?"
"Yes. Yes, it is."
"Then I can hardly refuse to begin the search," he said. "But I cannot promise that it will be resolved quickly."
Adopting the royal we, Amy said, "We are nothing if not patient."
"That is gratifying to hear." Keeping his tone one of polite interest, he asked, "What can you tell me about the gentleman's means of transportation? Jane told you he promised to take her to Firth Street. How do think he meant to get her there?"
"By carriage, of course."
"Not horseback?"
Amy shook her head. "Jane does not ride. She is afraid of horses."
"I see. Then you do not know if her gentleman had a carriage, only that she would not ride to London on horseback."
"I know he has a carriage. Jane said he would wait for her at it." Amy seemed to hear herself say this last and was properly abashed. Beneath the desk, her legs began to swing. "I did not say so before, did I?"
"Your Highness has many things to occupy her mind. She cannot be expected to remember every detail all at once."
Amy's legs slowed and finally stopped. "That is true."
West continued questioning Amy for twenty minutes before he judged she was grown weary of it. By carefully maintaining a manner of neutrality, he had been able to gather more in the way of particulars than Ria had the night before. More importantly, Amy had not once mentioned Gretna Green. To West, it was a good sign that she was no more susceptible to suggestion than any other child might be.
When Ria returned from escorting Amy back to the classroom, West had moved from her study to the sitting room and was in a partial recline on the sofa. "It is not your intention to sleep here, I hope."
He roused himself enough to open one eye. She was standing over him, legs stiffly planted, arms slightly akimbo, every inch of her the headmistress. "I was rather late retiring last evening." He closed the eye and placed his forearm across both of them for good measure. If he was being strictly honest with himself, this was done in aid of hiding from her flinty blue-gray stare. He had been wrestling with a vague sense of having been unfaithful to her since the serving wench had crawled into his bed, though why it should be so was not immediately apparent to him.
>
It was not as if he owed her fidelity. They had shared nothing beyond a wicked kiss. Even Ria, with her genteel sense of what was correct, could not fault him for taking advantage. And was he not two-and-thirty and unattached?
Certainly of an age and circumstance where he might enjoy a woman at his leisure without fear of repercussion.
What he owed Miss Ria Ashby, according to the lady herself, was a quarterly allowance. He had discharged that responsibility by seeking out the solicitor to make certain it continued without disruption. Now he was here, offering his assistance when he was not obligated to do so, and she had not done much more than upbraid him for announcing himself without notice, scold him for trespassing, reproach him for winning favor with her students, and now wanted to deny him a few moments of well-earned respite.
Except for that appealing kiss, she was singularly ungrateful.
"Are you asleep?" Ria nudged West's shoulder with her fingertips. "You are not sleeping. You cannot have fallen asleep so quickly."
"Not with a magpie chattering so sweetly in my ear." He let his arm fall away and pushed himself upright. "You do not mean to stand there, do you, hovering like a hummingbird?"
"You are mixing it up badly. I cannot be both magpie and hummingbird."
West gave her a crossways look that put her firmly in the nearest chair before he was all for the task at hand. "How did you find Amy's recitation? Is it your opinion that she did her best to remember accurately?"
"Oh, yes. She was very forthcoming, I thought. You made it almost effortless for her, treading as lightly as you did. I confess, I did not realize you would suggest that she sit in my chair. She seemed to think she was controlling the interview."
"She was. I merely posed questions that followed the weave of her story."
He did more than that, Ria thought, though she could not clearly identify what it was. He had managed to engage young Amy within moments of meeting her, not as a friend her own age might, but as an adult who might be depended upon. It was skillfully done, and watching him from the back of the room, Ria had been filled with admiration. "And her answers?" asked Ria. "They will be helpful to you?"
"I think so, yes. The carriage, in particular, was useful."
"How? The description Jane provided Amy was unexceptional. There must be a score of well-sprung carriages in this part of England with brass fittings and plump leather squabs. As one approaches London, the number will be multiplied tenfold. You probably traveled to Gillhollow in such a conveyance."
West did not deny it, though she was wrong about the springs. They were too stiff to be accommodating on the rutted roads, and he had elected to ride alongside the carriage for most of the distance. "You are missing what is salient," he told her. "Jane's description suggests that she had ridden in the carriage at one time. Else how would she know if it were well-sprung? The brass fittings she could view from the outside, but the squabs? How would she know if they were plump if she had not rested her head against one? Of course it would be very neat if Jane had recounted the details of a family crest on the carriage door to Amy, but I doubt there was any such brand upon it. Therefore, we must endeavor to examine what we have been given."
West made a steeple of his fingers and tapped the pads of his thumbs together as he thought. "What opportunities were there for Miss Petty to enjoy a carriage ride?"
Ria considered this for a time before she answered. She did not know that her lush mouth had flattened or that a crease had appeared between her brows. When a tendril of silky hair fell forward at her temple and she worried the inside of her cheek, she looked as young as Amy. "She has ridden in the school's carriages, naturally, but they have always been accounted for. Neither of them is particularly comfortable, but there you have her point of reference." Ria shook her head and batted back the wayward lock of hair impatiently. "I cannot think of a single opportunity she had to ride in a better appointed conveyance. We closely supervise our students. It is the sort of thing that would have been noted by one of the teachers or reported directly by the other girls."
"As I noted Miss Emma Blakely's elopement last night?" he asked wryly. "Or as Amy reported directly?"
Flushing at the soft rebuke, it was all Ria could do to hold West's steady gaze. His green eyes were not accusing, but neither was this a tease. "You are right, of course. There must have been many opportunities of which I am unaware."
"Do not whip yourself for it," he said, a smile touching his eyes now. "You are hopelessly outnumbered by them. What one girl does not think of, another will, and when they join forces in pairs or threes or fours, it is only by experiencing a most damnable run of bad luck that they will not outwit you."
Ria held up one hand, palm out. "You must stop," she said, striving for firmness. "Else I will be forced to resign my position immediately. I wonder that I ever considered myself competent to take it."
"Madness," West said succinctly. "The explanation lies there."
Ria felt the corners of her mouth lift. How was it that he could chide her for her naivete in one moment, then take the sting from it in the next? It was somewhat humbling to realize she was as pliable in his hands as Amy Nash, but she could hardly lay the fault for it at his door.
"Tell me about Jane," he said. "Have you the sketches I asked for?"
"Yes, and the descriptions also." She rose and went to the adjoining study to retrieve them. "I think you will find them satisfactory," she said handing them over. Her fingers brushed his as the papers passed between them. There was heat in that touch, but she suffered it so that she would not appear cowardly. She could not say if it was the same for him, only that he did not pull back, either.
West skimmed the written description, then studied the skillfully rendered watercolor portrait. "Is it a good likeness?" he asked.
"I think so." Ria perched on the edge of her chair and smoothed the folds of her gown over her knees. She had chosen a dark-gray day dress with lace edging at the scooped neck and hem. It was serviceable, and satisfied her desire for plain, simple lines. In observance of mourning, she wore a wide black band on the upper sleeve of her right arm and covered her shoulders with a black, fine woolen shawl. "She is very pretty, as you can see."
West nodded. "It is perhaps what brought her to the gentleman's notice." Jane Petty's likeness stared back at him and he felt the pull of the girl's leaf-green eyes. Here was a hint of mischief. She had a clear complexion, if he was to believe Miss Taylor's painting. No spots marred her fair skin. Her hair was a dark honey-brown, cut short, and curled forward to frame her heart-shaped face. In the portrait she wore a green ribbon hair band the same shade as her eyes. It was a loving detail supplied by the artist that West knew would distract someone looking at the watercolor for the first time. It was doubtful Jane was wearing that hair ribbon any longer, or even that she had worn it when she disappeared.
"What about her family?" he asked, putting the papers to one side. "You have said nothing about them."
"Because there is nothing to say. She has none. Jane is one of the school's charity students. She was plucked from a London workhouse when she was Amy's age, and brought here."
"Plucked?" West's glance narrowed a fraction. "Plucked how? By whom?"
"I should have to look at the records, but I think it was Lord Herndon—he has a seat on the board—who found her and thought she showed promise. He sent her here. That was before I joined the school, but I can check my facts if you wish."
"I most definitely do wish."
Ria heard something in his tone that prickled the back of her neck. "Why?" she asked. "What is it you think you know?"
West was a long time in answering, weighing the consequences of doing so. "Let me ask you a question first, Miss Ashby," he said slowly. "What do you know of the Society of Bishops?"
Chapter 5
"The Society of Bishops?" Ria repeated. "It is not familiar in the least. Are they clerics?"
West laughed at that but without genuine humor. "Hardly, a
lthough they have been known to demonstrate a certain religious fervor." He glanced at the clock and saw there was time enough to relate his information, though perhaps not with a guarantee of privacy. "I wonder if you would be willing to accompany me to Ambermede in exchange for particulars regarding the bishops."
"Accompany you?" She could not have been more surprised. "To the manor? Whatever for?"
"You ask a great many questions at once, you know, but the answers are yes, yes, and because I wish it."
"Well, as long as you wish it, then I must hold my objections, mustn't I?"
West winced a bit, knowing this softly spoken statement was but a precursor to illuminating every one of the reasons she must not join him. Before he could inject his plea that she should restrain herself, she was already off the leash. He took some solace from the fact that she did not nip and yip at him. She made her argument to the logic of the thing, not the emotion. When she had finished he nodded once and then asked, "Will an hour be long enough for you to collect your things?"
* * *
In the end it didn't matter but that he would have his way. Ria had been able to fashion a compromise in which she was allowed to have an hour and one-half to pack her portmanteau and valise and an additional hour to set her house in order. The latter involved meeting with her teachers, placing Mrs. Abergast in charge temporarily, and dividing her responsibilities for instructing geography and history among them. She left drafts to pay the laborers for the roof repairs and, in the event Mr. Oliver Lytton made an appearance, specific directions that he should leave immediately for London to investigate the leads Amy provided.
She had been in favor of dismissing the man, but when she mentioned it to West, he had been adamantly opposed. It was yet another thing she conceded to him without knowing the why of it, but not before she had wrested a 200-pound-per-annum increase in her allowance.
West returned with the carriage remarkably close to the appointed time, given the onset of darkness and the poorly maintained road between Gillhollow and the school. Snow had also begun to fall, and the graying, bulging underbellies of the clouds promised it would not remain a light scattering for long.
