Dahlia had never suffered the slightest hesitation to talking with people.
For better or for worse, her runaway mouth had always started conversations with everyone she ever met. Dukes, modistes, street sweepers, flower girls. She wouldn’t have been able to open this boarding school were it not for her propensity to collect orphans and her fearlessness to beg her betters for donations.
And yet, with Mr. Spaulding, she’d suffered a peculiar reticence. She doubted it was because he was the first Runner of her acquaintance. She had shown no signs of shyness the first time she’d met an earl or a governess or a pie-maker.
Which meant there must be something about Mr. Spaulding that made him different from the rest. Something that made her different. Something that made her sit at her desk mooning out the front window rather than—
Dahlia leapt to her feet, heart pounding. He was here.
Sort of.
He was outside on his horse, staring at the school from the corner of his eye as if he weren’t certain whether the abbey threshold was safe to cross.
If she hadn’t been gazing out the window like a featherbrained ninny, she might not have seen him stop. In fact, he didn’t even look as though he were staying!
Quickly, she raced down the uneven stairs, through the entryway, and out the front door, just in time to see him pick up his reins in preparation to leave.
“Halt, Police!” she shouted teasingly as she ran down the walkway to the horse posts.
“‘Inspector,’” he corrected just as teasingly, and lifted his hat. “I wasn’t certain if you were home.”
She wasn’t home, exactly. Home was with her family on the other side of town, but none of that was the point. “How did you plan to determine my presence without knocking upon the door, inspector?”
He gave her a cocky smile. “I believe I managed, don’t you think?”
Her cheeks flushed as she imagined her inelegant flight out the door.
“Touché,” she said. “But would knocking not have been easier?”
“I’m still not certain I should have stopped at all,” he admitted. “I promised to ride past your school, not deliver crumpets to it.”
“Crumpets!” she exclaimed. “You did not. Did you?”
He reached inside a leather saddlebag and pulled out a brown paper package secured with a bit of twine. “You’ll have to open it to find out.”
“But what of your cat-like sensitivity?” she asked, cradling the parcel to her chest. “Are these special crumpets that don’t make you sneeze?”
“I sneezed over every last one of them,” he informed her cheerfully. “And then I tied them up in brown paper for safekeeping.”
“Incorrigible scamp,” she scolded him. “What a horrid thing to tease.”
He smiled. “If you don’t want the scones…”
“I’ll take them. But you’re not invited to tea.”
“I am much like your girls in that regard,” he admitted. “I cannot recall the last time I stopped to take tea.”
“Well, in that case,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “I suppose we can invite you, just this once. Their first tea, your first tea… I might as well teach the lot of you how to do a proper pour.”
He straightened his hat. “Can’t. Too many open cases.”
“Hopefully nothing violent.” She shuddered.
He shook his head. “Not at the moment. Thieves, gaming hells, that sort of nonsense. Plenty to keep one busy. How about you? No further nocturnal incidents, I hope?”
“It’s been delightfully quiet,” she assured him. “The girls are back to their regular, rambunctious selves.”
“And you?” he repeated, his blue eyes locked on hers. “Are you feeling back to normal?”
“I’ve never been normal,” she said cheerfully. “If you haven’t noticed that by now, you’re not much of an inspector.”
His wide lips curved into a grin. “I notice more than you might care to think.”
“Oh?” She stepped forward, intrigued. “What have you noticed about me?”
He tilted his head. “You’re stronger than you let on. And more frightened. You come from significantly more money than you currently wield, yet you participate in more direct labor than mere bashing assailants with broomsticks. You haul coal, you wash laundry, you tend the hearth. You are exceptionally aware of your environment. You have a big heart and terrible penmanship, largely because you’re left-handed. You skip more meals than just tea, and you’ve curled your hair every day since the night we met.”
Dahlia blinked. How on earth did he know she was left-handed? Or any of the other things? She was not at all certain she cared for him to notice so much. And yet… “What do you mean, I’ve curled my hair every day since the night we met?”
“When I first visited your school on the night of the attack, your lovely chestnut hair was tucked under your bonnet, save for a few flyaway tendrils that had escaped their pins. In the three days since, the only thing escaping your bonnet are perfect little ringlets. Since I have seen that your hair does not form such shapes naturally, I am left to conclude that you have styled it thus on your own.”
“Clearly I style it that way. No one’s hair grows in perfect ringlets. The real question is how you would know what I looked like yesterday, unless you glimpsed me with your own eyes.”
“Ah.” He smiled. “I said you were observant. Now you have caught me. I rode by yesterday, but had no excuse to stop. Today, I have crumpets. And the sneaking suspicion that the pretext would have worked much better if I had stopped myself from explaining it.”
Dahlia couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t simply been thinking of her. He’d been thinking about all her students. A treat for them was a far quicker way to her heart than some meaningless trifle for her would have been.
“There is absolutely no way your gift will be received badly,” she assured him. “My girls will be thrilled to have a proper tea. It will be their reward for spending an hour a day learning self-defense.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Did you add that to the curriculum after the attack the other day?”
She shook her head. “It has always been an important part of their studies. Molly, however, was not yet a student at the time of the attack.”
“Do you think it would have gone differently if she had been?”
“I hope it helps in the future. No amount of training will enable a young girl to overpower a grown man, but the element of surprise is powerful indeed. Sometimes a mere moment is all it takes to break free or scream for help. And now that they have each other, they no longer have to brave the streets alone.”
His gaze softened. “It sounds like your school really is improving lives.”
“Isn’t that what we both strive for?” She smiled up at him. “Helping others, I mean?”
“It’s the reason I wake up every morning,” he said, his eyes serious. “And it reminds me that I’ve taken enough of your time. Go spoil your hungry girls, headmistress.”
She stepped back to give him room. “Go rescue a few fair maidens, Runner.”
He tipped his hat. “None will be as fair as you.”
Before she could answer, he rode off across the cobblestones, down past the dial tower and out of sight.
She stood there longer than was seemly, clutching a parcel of still-warm crumpets to her chest.
Chapter 6
Dahlia sat in the front parlor of the Grenville family townhouse and hoped that coming home hadn’t been a mistake.
Within these walls, she’d learned to walk, to talk, to read, to dance, to tumble, to embroider, to perform sums…everything except the one thing she needed most.
Permission to speak with her father.
She set down her teacup and leaned forward. “Please, Mother. It is urgent that I speak with him. Can you not ask him for a moment of his time?”
“Absolutely not.” Mother added another cube of sugar to her tea. “Your father is frightfully busy, dar
ling. Barons are very important people. He hasn’t time for daughters. That’s what mothers are for. Aren’t you enjoying this tea?”
Dahlia was not enjoying this tea.
The one she’d shared yesterday with two dozen delighted students had been infinitely more satisfying. Better yet, none of the girls had repeated the same well-worn platitudes Dahlia had heard since childhood.
Your father is frightfully busy, darling. Barons are very important people. He hasn’t time for daughters.
Folderol. He was a baron, not a duke. Father held no seat in the House of Lords. He didn’t even belong to a gentlemen’s club.
If he could not make time in his schedule for a word with his daughter, then he was either too heartless to care about two dozen other girls…or else he had no idea that his daughters had spent the last five-and-twenty years begging for an audience with him.
“He should make time for his daughter,” she bit out through clenched teeth, even though such an opinion would alienate her further from her mother. Dahlia slumped back against her wingback chair in defeat. Oh, why had she even bothered?
“None of your impertinence,” Mother chided with a shake of her finger. “You were always the most headstrong of the litter, but it is now time to grow up.”
Dahlia counted to twelve before responding. “Mother, I am grown. To your eyes, I may be the black sheep of this family, but to the students at my school, I am headmistress—and, frankly, nothing short of a miracle to them. They were good girls in bad situations. I am trying to give them a better one. How do you expect me to keep clothing and feeding them without the aid of donations?”
“I don’t expect you to continue with that silly project at all. It is past time you do your duty and get married. Just think how much happier you’ll be when you’re settled. A husband might be talked into taking you, but no reasonable man can be expected to take on the debt of a school of unsavories.”
“A school of—” Dahlia choked rather than repeat the phrase. “Ignoring every other offensive remark in that speech, can we please agree that the girls themselves are innocent?”
“Fine, if it will calm you down. Even those who live on the streets can be innocent. That does not mean I or anyone else is required to pay for them. The government funds hospitals and orphanages, Dahlia. That’s where those children would be if they truly required care.”
“Mother…” Dahlia rubbed her face with her hands. “Have you ever even seen an orphanage? Inside, where the children are?”
Her mother flashed her a baffled look before selecting another teacake. “Of course not. Why would anyone want to go there?”
“That’s the point! No one would want to go there. Not you, not me, not any children I have ever met. And yet, I am not sneaking in the windows at night to whisk them away. The girls at my school weren’t even fortunate enough to have a bowl of gruel and a lice-ridden mat on an orphanage floor. All they have is me. And to keep the school running—”
“I will not plague your father with a single word of this fancy. And that’s final. Your father’s portion is the precise amount this family needs, and I will not beggar my other children just to put bread in the mouths of your wards. Think about your sister. She also needs to make a fine match.”
“My dowry, then,” Dahlia suggested. With that, she could buy books for a library, pencils for doing sums, globes to practice geography. Food for the larder. “No one else is using my dowry money. Father could donate the funds to the school. It would pay for several months’ expenses. Lives could depend on it.”
“Over my dead body.” Mother set down her tea plate. “You will use that money to attract a husband, and so help me, that poor man will take you as far from that ridiculous school as humanly possible.”
Dahlia clenched her fingers. “It’s not ridiculous at all. I’m teaching them things they need to know. Giving them skills they never had.”
“Why on earth would ragamuffins require a finishing school? Does it matter if they can paint a watercolor or walk without slouching?”
“Absolutely not at all, Mother. You’re exactly right. That’s why I’m showing them practical skills. For example, there are no maids at the school. The girls not only tidy their own chambers, but are responsible for cleaning the entire abbey. Every week, they rotate to a new shift: chambermaid, scullery maid, lady’s maid, downstairs maid. The eldest even take turns as head housekeeper.”
“What is the point, Dahlia? That your little project is failing so badly you cannot even afford a maid-of-all-work?”
“The point is that many of those girls are now qualified to be a maid-of-all-work. They entered with no marketable skills, and they’ll leave with a signed reference affirming them capable of a paid position. It may not sound like much to you, but believe me when I say it is life-changing for them.”
Mother sighed and poured herself another spot of tea. “You wouldn’t have to worry about money at all if your school were in a better neighborhood. I wouldn’t have to be embarrassed when the topic comes up at dinner parties. If you started a proper finishing school, you could charge a self-sustaining tuition and attract a far better quality of girl. Wouldn’t that be the best of all worlds?”
Dahlia clenched her fingers and counted to thirty. It was comments like these that most infuriated her about her mother. As much as Mother liked to play the role of henwitted baroness who left all the money and business thoughts to her husband, it was more than clear that she had a very sound idea indeed of how one might make money managing an upper crust boarding school.
Her objection wasn’t to Dahlia’s work ethic, but to her audience. Unfortunately for Dahlia’s girls, such prejudice was often the case. For every duchess or viscountess who donated a stack of pound notes, ten other wealthy wives couldn’t be bothered to part with a single guinea.
Their reasons for avoiding charity projects ran the gamut from ladies don’t talk about such things to not my problem. Was it any wonder Dahlia had occasionally had to resort to desperate measures to make ends meet?
“Fine,” she said, defeated. “If you won’t let me speak to Father, I’ll fund the school some other way.”
Mother narrowed her eyes over her teacup. “If I hear one peep about you stealing half-eaten food from my friends’ rubbish bins…”
“I was twelve years old when that happened,” Dahlia reminded her without heat. “Far too young to understand propriety dictates we toss out perfectly good scraps of food and cloth and paper, rather than donate them to poor families who cannot afford them. Obviously we should toss our remnants into the slop bin, rather than feed the hungry.”
“At least you’ve learned something,” her mother said with a sniff. “Honestly, darling, I just want you to be happy. Won’t you consider finding a nice man? I can help, if you like. If you marry a man with deep pockets, you won’t ever have to worry about money again.”
“I don’t want a man with deep pockets,” Dahlia snapped. “Not unless he wants to donate the majority of it to the poor. Otherwise, what good is he for the school? I’d rather have a man with the time and heart to work beside me, than some rich nob who cannot part with a single ha’penny.”
The inspector’s handsome face came to mind. He would understand these arguments. Mr. Spaulding was as kind to her girls as if they were wards of his own. If he could spare a few moments in his busy day, why couldn’t the wealthy part with a few farthings?
Mother sighed. “This would be so much easier if all you wanted was a viscountcy to manage. I am at least acquainted with a few of those. Why do you care so much about children you don’t even know?”
“I want them to have options!” Dahlia burst out. “I want their futures to be up to them.”
“Oh, darling.” Mother set down her saucer with a sad smile. “I am not the enemy. When will you learn that none of us have ever had choices?”
Rather than respond, Dahlia pushed to her feet. “Don’t wait up for me, Mother. I’ll be spending the night at the schoo
l until I can be sure of its security.”
“Please consider marriage,” her mother replied without standing up. “And soon. Bryony cannot wed until you have done so. Now that Camellia has nabbed an earl, a precedent has been set. If you would just close the school and try to get back into Almack’s, you might do as well as your sister.”
“Goodbye, Mother. Enjoy the rest of your tea.”
Dahlia made her way out of the parlor and up the familiar steps to the sisters’ shared sitting room. Until recently, all three sisters were usually found within its sunny yellow walls. Dahlia, perched on the bay window. Bryony, either at the violin or attempting to curl her uncurlable hair. Camellia, practicing her scales or playing the unflappably calm intermediary between her two younger sisters.
Today, the room was empty. Bryony was God-knew-where, and Cam no longer lived at home. She had indeed married an earl, albeit a scandalous one. Although he and Dahlia had not started off on the right foot, her brother-in-law had recently pledged an eye-popping donation that was more money than any headmistress could hope to raise in six months.
But it still wasn’t close to enough. The girls didn’t need six months’ respite. They needed years. They needed a childhood. They needed time to grow up and mature and learn. What was she going to do?
Dahlia plopped down onto the window seat and leaned her head against the glass.
Her sister had become even more scandalous than her infamous husband the day she’d joined the opera. Cam had promised to donate every cent of her earnings to Dahlia’s school for as long as necessary, but she had to move up the ranks like every other incredible soprano.
Until she was a household name for reasons other than scandal, Camellia’s salary wasn’t enough for one person to live on, much less two dozen. Someday, she might earn enough to match her husband’s generous donation. But that day was not yet here.
Dahlia slid down against the window cushion and wished Cam was there. Not because she needed money, but because she missed her big sister. Camellia had always been as cherished a sounding board as Dahlia’s best friend Faith.
Rogues to Riches (Books 1-6) Page 43
