The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas (16 page)

Miss Dempsey stuffed the paper in her pocket and tucked the book up under her arm.

Signor Marconi pressed a hand to his chest. “I offer to you dee most-a sincere apologies of my heart.” Struck by a sudden inspiration, he added, “I only a-tried to defend-a dee young-a ladies. I thought you were intrrrrrrrruder.”

Miss Dempsey eyed him skeptically. “How very noble of you.”

“Well, well,” said Miss Climpson vaguely. “I'm sure it was all an accident, and an unfortunate one at that. We'll have stronger locks fitted on all the windows tomorrow. Shouldn't the girls be in bed? And Signor Marconi, I would appreciate if you would confine your visits to daylight hours. Much less unsettling for everyone. Miss Dempsey, if you would latch the window?”

“What? Oh, yes. Of course.” Miss Dempsey pulled herself together sufficiently to make her way to the window, blocking the aperture with her body as she reached up to pull down the sash.

It was quite a nice view. Turnip took back all the unkind things he had thought about that gray dress. The simple lines molded themselves to her upper body as she reached up to pull down the window sash that he had pushed up some time before. Since he was taller than she, there was a fair amount of reaching involved. He might have jammed it up there just a little too hard, since the window appeared to be stuck. Miss Dempsey's feminine attributes jiggled interestingly as she yanked at the sash.

Turnip would have helped, of course. But he wasn't meant to be there.

Turnip shifted uncomfortably in the flower bed. Bloody good thing it was quite so cold outside. He wasn't supposed to be thinking these sorts of things about his sister's teacher. He was sure there was some sort of school rule about it. On the other hand, he had known her before she became a teacher—even if he hadn't quite remembered her name—so oughtn't there to be some special sort of dispensation for that?

Catching Miss Dempsey's eye, Turnip grinned up at her and gave a little wave.

Miss Dempsey blinked at him, resting her hands against the sash.

“The world has gone mad,” she said out loud. “And me with it.”

“Miss Dempsey? Do you need help with that?” It was Sally's voice, at her most butter-wouldn't-melt.

“No, no. Don't! It's just a bit . . . sticky.” The window finally gave, dragging Miss Dempsey along with it. The sash slammed into the sill with enough force to make the glass quiver. Miss Dempsey's chest rose and fell as she let out a heartfelt sigh of relief.

From somewhere just behind her, Turnip could hear his sister's voice. “Are you all right, Miss Dempsey?”

“Ask me again tomorrow.” He could hear the snick of the bolt sliding into place. “I haven't decided yet whether this is all a very vivid dream.”

“I could pinch you,” offered Sally. “I'm a champion pincher. Just ask Reggie.”

Through the glass, he could see Miss Dempsey look down at him. He nodded emphatically. Sally could pinch for England. Miss Dempsey's lips twitched and she hastily turned away, blocking the window with her back.

“Thank you for the exceedingly generous offer,” she said politely, taking Sally's arm, “but I believe I'll just wait it out.”

“Sometimes,” offered Lizzy, falling in on her other side, “I dream of being a Chinese philosopher pretending to be a butterfly.”

“Dear, oh dear.” Miss Climpson turned around from the doorway. “Nurse has an excellent remedy for that. Extract of castor oil, bean curd, all mixed into barley water. It does wonders for the cerebral passageways. Remind me to tell her to dose you tomorrow.”

Lifting himself cautiously on his haunches, Turnip watched as the ill-assorted procession made its way out of the drawing room. Miss Dempsey took up the rear, flanked by his sister and Lizzy Reid. She cast a last glance over her shoulder before disappearing around the doorway, but she was too far away and the glass too distorted with frost to determine whether she had been trying to tell him anything by it.

Turnip tried the window, but it was well and truly locked. Nice to know that his sister and Miss Dempsey would be safe, but deuced irritating when one needed to get inside. The side doors were probably all locked right and tight and if they hadn't been, they would be now.

Bother it. He needed to speak to her, and not merely to gloat about having been right about there being something dodgy going on. Oh, all right. Maybe only to gloat a little bit.

Turnip took a step back, scrutinizing the façade of the building. He could see the light move slowly from window to window. Miss Dempsey's room was on the fourth floor. He knew because he'd had Gerkin ask. The school was made out of a rough stone, hung with ivy.

Where there was ivy, there was generally a trellis.

W
hen Arabella peeked into Catherine Carruthers's room, Catherine was tucked up in bed with the covers pulled over her head.

She had, however, neglected to remove her shoes.

Arabella stood in Catherine's doorway, her candle casting a faint light over the blackened soles of a pair of brown leather boots. They were half-boots, the sort that laced on and couldn't be kicked off easily. Not even when one was racing to bed in a hurry with several schoolmistresses in hot pursuit.

As Arabella watched, the shoes slowly retreated beneath the blanket.

Arabella contemplated drawing Catherine's attention to the matter of the shoes and then decided against it. In less than a week, everyone would be packed off home to their families for Christmas and Catherine would be someone else's problem. In the meantime, let her enjoy her small victory. She must have snuck back upstairs while everyone was tripping over furniture and bumping into one another in the drawing room. If the blankets had been just a little longer, or Catherine just a little shorter, she might even have gotten away with it.

Arabella backed soundlessly out of Catherine's room, closing the door gently behind her. Tomorrow morning, she would see that a strong bolt was placed on the outside of Catherine's bedroom door, to prevent any such further nocturnal perambulations. It probably made Arabella a bad schoolmistress, but as long as Catherine was back in her bed, not on the road to Gretna Green, Arabella didn't much care what she had been up to. All that mattered was that Catherine remain on school grounds for the next five days, after which she would be her betrothed's problem, not Arabella's.

Poor Catherine. She so enjoyed flouting her schoolmistresses and shocking her friends. She would hate to know that she had been upstaged by a falling mustachio and a crouching Turnip. But really, compared to the rest of the evening's activities, Catherine's were positively mundane.

Arabella wondered if Turnip Fitzhugh was still out there, keeping the school safe from puddings and their perpetrators. Arabella choked on a giggle. Little did Miss Climpson know that Turnip and his faithful groom were on patrol, like a latter-day Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. All that was missing was the donkey.

Arabella paused in front of her own door. Did that make her the donkey? Perhaps this wasn't quite so perfect an analogy as she had originally thought.

What was it Lizzy Reid had said? Maybe they were all just Chinese philosophers dreaming of being butterflies.

Or maybe it was quite late and she should go to bed before she lost what was left of her mind.

“I must have misplaced it in the drawing room,” muttered Arabella, and then looked guiltily around to make sure no one had heard her.

Of course they hadn't. Everyone else was asleep. Or at least doing a decent job pretending.

Juggling her candle in one hand and the notebook Miss Climpson had given her in the other, Arabella shoved the notebook up under her armpit. With the notebook clamped against her side, she awkwardly turned the handle of her door, nudging it open with one foot.

Only to nearly drop the notebook.

There was someone in her room. Not just someone. There was a man in her room. A great big man dressed all in black.

He was sitting on her desk—or, to be more accurate, he was sitting on Clarissa Hardcastle's history composition, which was sitting on her desk. His knit cap had come off somewhere along the way, leaving his hair squashed flat on one side and sticking up at odd angles on the other.

“Hullo,” said Turnip Fitzhugh, swinging his feet so his heels clunked against the legs of her desk.

Normally, the sight of a man in one's room would be cause for alarm. Consternation, even. It ought to be enough to send her sprinting down the hallway, screaming rape, murder, and everything in between. Not, however, when that man was Turnip Fitzhugh. Arabella found it hard to work up the proper level of maidenly alarm and indignation at finding Mr. Fitzhugh in her bedchamber. He was just . . . Turnip.

Arabella closed the bedroom door behind her. “Are you a Chinese philosopher or a butterfly?”

Mr. Fitzhugh considered the question. “Since I'm not Chinese, does that make me the butterfly?”

“That would explain how you managed to fly up four stories without using the stairs.” Arabella realized that she was still holding the notebook and set it carefully down on the corner of her desk not occupied by Turnip. She would figure out whom it actually belonged to later. “Not to seem nosy—purely out of curiosity, you understand—how did you get up here?”

Mr. Fitzhugh indicated the window behind him, which was currently open and blowing cold air straight through her room. “I climbed the trellis.”

Naturally. Why hadn't she thought of that? Perhaps because she hadn't even known there was a trellis. And wouldn't have expected strange men to go climbing up it if she had. Her bedroom was not generally high on the list of Sights to Be Clandestinely Visited by the Male Population of England.

“You climbed the trellis. Of course you did.” It made as much sense as anything else that had happened this evening. “Do you climb trellises frequently?”

Mr. Fitzhugh gave the matter due consideration. “Wouldn't quite say that. Never climbed one before. Trees, yes, the odd wall, but never a trellis.”

Four flights up, no less. That was impressive. Potentially suicidal, but impressive. “And you made it all the way up on a first go? I'm very impressed.”

“It did get a bit dodgy at times, but it's not all that different from climbing a wall once one gets the knack of it.” And then, since he seemed to feel some further explanation was required, “Seemed safer up here with the Climpson prowling around below. Didn't want her to catch me and dose me with barley and whatnot.”

“She has been known to climb the occasional flight of stairs.” As Mr. Fitzhugh started to scoot off the desk, taking the top two pages of Clarissa's composition with him, Arabella held up a reassuring hand. “Don't worry. You're probably safe for the moment. She's too busy with Signor Marconi to bother about the odd trellis climber.”

“I'm not that odd,” protested Mr. Fitzhugh. He looked down at his sweater, and a leaf flopped down onto his nose. He blew it away. “At least not compared to Signor Whatsis.”

“Signor Marconi?”

“That's the chap. Shouldn't wonder if he and your Miss Climpson were a while. They're probably still looking for his missing mustachio.”

A sound somewhere between a choke and a snort escaped Arabella's lips. She could just see Miss Climpson and Signor Marconi on their hands and knees, crawling around the drawing-room floor, searching for the music master's missing facial hair.

“He should have used stronger glue,” Arabella agreed, doing her best to keep a straight face.

“If a man can't grow it, he shouldn't wear it,” pronounced Mr. Fitzhugh with great decision.

“That would be very aw-aw-awkward applied to breeches.” Arabella barely managed to get the words out. The images in her head were too ridiculous. All the absurdity and tension of the evening came bubbling out, despite the hands she clasped over her mouth to try to keep the laughter in. She could see the whole scene in front of her, everyone bumping into one another and toppling over each other and Signor Marconi—Signor Marconi—

“Miss Dempsey?” Mr. Fitzhugh peered earnestly at her. “But don't you wonder what he was doing there?”

“Other than being sat upon by Lizzy? Oh, heavens, the look on that man's face! And then Miss Clim—Miss Climps—” Arabella was laughing too hard to speak.

Mr. Fitzhugh leaned forward, holding on to the edge of the desk, tilting first this way then that to try to get a look at her face. “You all right there? Everything tip-top?”

“Oh, qu-qu-quite!” gasped Arabella. “I wasn't the one who was s-s-s-sat on.
Miss Reid! People are not for sitting!
”