Chapter 6
Nell folded a shawl and placed it into the open portmanteau on her bed along with the rest of her meager belongings.
Yesterday morning, on setting out for London, her future had been settled. She would continue teaching, remaining in her role as deputy headmistress, until Miss Corvus decided to retire. When that day finally came, it would be Nell who took over the charity school.
But no longer.
Fate had seen fit to give her a new future. Nell had no choice but to face it.
After a restless night, she’d woken this morning clearheaded and resolute. Rather than join the students and staff in the dining room for breakfast, she’d washed and dressed, and immediately begun the painstaking process of packing her things.
Her options were admittedly limited, but she wasn’t without them entirely. Effie would be back from Paris tomorrow. Nell would go to her then, as she’d originally planned to do. But tonight…
Tonight, she would return to Mrs. Marigold’s Hotel in Whitechapel.
Miss Corvus had tasked Nell with finding Flora Brent.
Not Gemma, not Effie, but Nell—a person with a knack for dealing with women and girls, just as Miss Corvus had claimed.
That was Nell’s talent. She may have to leave the Academy for a time, possibly forever, but she wasn’t abandoning her vocation.
Whatever else happened, she was determined to finish her first mission. Even if it should prove to be her last.
“There’s a gentleman to see you, Miss Trewlove.”
Nell cast a distracted glance up from her packing, too lost in her own thoughts to hear what the junior teacher standing at the door of her room had said. “What’s that, Miss Hanem?” she asked absently as she placed a stack of folded petticoats into her case.
Miss Hanem fidgeted in the doorway, the iron gate key clutched in her hands. A former orphan of sixteen, she had only recently been promoted to her position. “A gentleman,” she repeated. “A great, tall, stern man with black hair. He’s asking for you.”
Nell slowly straightened, the girl’s words sinking in to pulse-quickening effect.
Miles is here?
For it must be him. Nell didn’t know any other gentleman who would fit the description Miss Hanem had supplied.
“Indeed?” she replied with creditable calm. “And you’ve admitted him, have you?”
“Oh no, Miss Trewlove,” Miss Hanem said.
Nell nodded her approval. “Well done.”
“Shall I tell him you’re coming?”
“No need. I’ll deal with him myself.” Nell crossed to the doorway. She was dressed sensibly in a blue cloth skirt and a white Garibaldi blouse, her thick blond hair twisted into a plaited roll. Not a glamorous ensemble, but neat, clean, and pressed. It would have to do.
She gave Miss Hanem a reassuring smile as she passed, pausing only long enough to retrieve the key from her. “You may return to the dining room, my dear.”
“Yes, Miss Trewlove.” Miss Hanem obediently hurried off.
Nell smoothed her skirts as she descended the steps. She didn’t use her cane. A night spent in her own bed had calmed the muscles in her leg enough that she could make do without it. It didn’t mean that her limp was any less pronounced. Her gait hitched with every step.
Exiting the manor house to make her way down the pebbled drive, she felt a distinct flare of self-consciousness. Miles was watching her.
He stood on the other side of the gates, looking tall, dark, and imposing in a black three-piece suit and a hat. He must have traveled up on the first train from London to have arrived so early. A one-horse cab was parked not far behind him, the driver hunched on the box.
“Mr. Quincey,” Nell said. “This is a surprise.”
“Is it?” Miles returned with no trace of humor. “Then you must not have been listening to anything I said to you when last we met.”
She stopped at the gates. “If you’ve brought news of Reverend Pettiman—”
“I couldn’t find him,” he cut in brusquely. “He must have left town immediately. It scarcely matters anymore.”
“No, as a matter of fact, it doesn’t. So, if you’ve come to pick a quarrel with me—”
“I shouldn’t have had to come at all. If you’d done as I asked you and waited—”
“I never agreed to wait for you.”
“No. But you might have—” He broke off, his heavy black brows notching in a scowl. “Must this conversation take place with a gate between us?”
Nell cast a wary glance back toward the manor house. She half expected to find Miss Corvus peering out her tower window. There was little that took place at the Academy that its redoubtable headmistress didn’t know about.
“I can’t permit you to enter the school,” Nell said.
“Can’t or won’t?” Miles asked.
“Both.”
“Very well. Then come out and join me.”
Nell chewed her lower lip. Her leg was feeling stronger, but she doubted it was equal to bearing her weight on the stones for a prolonged period of conversation. Not to mention the fact that the jarvey would be right there, listening from his perch to everything she and Miles said.
Coming to a sudden decision, she produced the iron key and unlocked the gates. She opened them just wide enough to admit him. “We can talk in the garden,” she said curtly. “There’s a bench there, far enough removed from the house.”
Commanding the jarvey to wait for him, Miles entered the grounds. He stood in grim silence as Nell locked the gates behind him. “You’re without your cane,” he observed as he accompanied her back up the drive.
She led him to the right, across the damp grass, to the small patch of wilderness that stood in the shadow of the tower. “I don’t always use it.”
“Why not if you need it?” he asked.
“I prefer not to rely on it too heavily when I’m at home.” She gestured to the curved stone bench beneath the old oak tree.
Miles remained standing. He looked up at the weathered edifice of the school. “Home,” he said doubtfully.
Nell sat down. Just because he wouldn’t avail himself of a seat didn’t mean she must be uncomfortable. She arranged her skirts about her, vaguely registering that her hands were trembling.
Miss Corvus was to blame—and Miles, too.
All that talk about Nell marrying him. It added a palpable tension to their encounter.
She could scarce be near him without unsettling thoughts creeping into her head about what it might be like to be his wife.
To take his name. Live in his house. And… all the rest of it.
Nell pushed the troublesome images out of her mind. “It has been,” she said. “For as long as I can remember.”
“It’s quieter than I’d expected.”
“You anticipated chaos?”
“I anticipated children.”
“The girls are at breakfast. After that, they’ll disperse to their classes. Reading, writing, arithmetic. And so forth.”
“And so forth,” Miles repeated. “Naturally.”
Nell tensed as his too-perceptive gaze drifted over the house and the grounds.
He may have come here to see her, but he couldn’t help himself, could he?
He wanted to crack open the secrets of the Academy.
To tie up the final threads of his exposé on Lord Compton, sating his journalistic curiosity about Elizabeth Wingard and all the rest of it.
And now Nell had let him into the gates.
“We are not anarchists, sir,” she said.
“I didn’t expect you were. That would imply a lack of purpose.”
She folded her hands to mask their shaking. “Purpose we have in abundance. And warmth, and community, and the bonds of sisterhood. The Academy provides all those things for the orphan girls who come here. For the teachers, too.”
Miles glanced back at her with solemn attention. “You’re loath to leave it?”
The tension in her coiled tighter. “Who says I must?”
“Given what transpired yesterday, you must have considered it.”
Nell had been considering little else since her interview with Miss Corvus yesterday afternoon.
It served no purpose to discuss it with him.
He had no part in her future. Not even if Miss Corvus commanded it.
Not even if marrying him meant that Nell might one day return to her role as deputy headmistress of the Academy.
She moistened her lips. “Speaking of yesterday, did you go to the police? About Mr. Cowgill?”
He gave a stiff nod.
“What did they say?”
“That they’ll investigate the matter.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“London is rife with crime. My reporter’s murder is but one of many.” Removing his hat, he ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It doesn’t signify. I’ll be investigating Cowgill’s death myself.”
Nell’s brows swept upward. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Probably.” He met her gaze. “I didn’t come here to discuss the fate of my late gossip columnist.”
Her stomach quivered at the gravity in his expression. “Yes, I gathered that.”
“The matter we discussed yesterday—or rather, began to discuss—” He stopped himself before continuing, his voice taking on a gruff edge. “I’m aware you released me from my obligation to you, but the fact remains…You have an obligation to me.”
She stared up at him, temporarily speechless. Of all the extraordinary reversals. Was he implying that she had ruined him?
“I beg your pardon?” she managed.
Miles soldiered on as though he’d prepared a speech and was committed to reciting the whole of it. “I don’t exist within these gates,” he said, “in this alternate world you’ve created for yourselves. I live in the real world. And in that world, actions have consequences that can’t be ignored.”
“I assure you—”
“I’m speaking about my reputation. My professional reputation. What happened yesterday took place at the Courant. It may not affect your life in here, but it’s already affecting mine out there, and decidedly for the worse.”
“You’re wrong,” she informed him.
His face hardened. “Shall I provide examples?”
“Wrong about me,” she amended. “It has affected my life here.” She gave a short, hollow laugh. The sound stuck in her chest. “Indeed, it’s ended my life here.”
Miles stilled.
“The fact is,” she said, “I’m leaving the Academy. I’ll be gone within the hour.”