The Bunson’s professors thought this was normal chaperoning, but the ladies knew better. Several of her teachers were wending through the crowd. Plumleigh-Teignmott.” Sophronia was gravely formal. Such intimacy demanded use of given names. “Sophronia?” Pillover had left off calling her Miss Temminnick shortly after she forced him to dress in her petticoat in order to escape Bunson’s. This, of course, only made him more desirable. As there was nothing Pillover disliked more than being the object of feminine attention, he remained utterly unmoved by their interest. In actuality, he was conjugating Latin verse in his head. They thought he had a broken heart in need of repairs. He had shot up into gangliness over the course of their acquaintance, accidentally cultivating an air of dissolute idleness that most ladies found fascinating.

“And I can’t spot Bumbersnoot on you anywhere.” He plopped down next to her without waiting for an invitation. Are you running a fever?” But Agatha wouldn’t, so Sophronia didn’t. Ordinarily she would have said, “Pillover, you’re positively loquacious. She dearly loved dancing, but Agatha hated it. Sophronia looked at her toes so as not to show interest in the dance. Usually he never said more than one sentence in a row. Why, for goodness’ sake?” Pillover must be ruffled. “Here you are, lurking like some reluctant hedgehog. Sophronia and Pillover were also, so far as Sophronia’s mother was concerned, engaged. Sophronia had learned to accept this treatment, although she found it uncalled for after all, she already had more than her fair share of brothers. “Crikey, Sophronia, what’s the matter with your lot this evening?” Of all people, Pillover had found her hiding spot.ĭimity’s little brother had a longstanding relationship of such casualness with Sophronia as to make him treat the boundaries set by polite society with brotherly disregard. Sophronia had cut off all correspondence with him last February. Instead she felt… what? A slight nausea at possible confrontation, mixed with minor disgust. Had he been ill? Or was that guilt? He still looked better than any other man in the room, but her heart no longer fluttered at the sight. His hair was too long and his eyes slightly sunken, without their customary kohl liner. In this Preshea got her entirely wrong.įelix hadn’t seen Sophronia yet, and if she had her way, he never would. It was true Sophronia might have showed him favor, a year ago. But it showed she was unaware of recent history. Preshea would have done that no matter what. Preshea was eyeing Felix Mersey and edging toward him. Am I that much of a flirt? Sophronia wondered.

Preshea-as Sophronia-was flirting outrageously.

The face was the same, but the dress and interaction were at odds with all previous encounters.

They approached customary objects of flirtation only to be confused when conversations deviated or did not occur at all. There were certainly enough long-running courtships for the young men to know something was unusual. There were a number of understandings between Geraldine’s girls and Bunson’s boys, despite a school policy that insisted these boys were for practice, not permanent liaison. Sophronia watched interactions through its fanged fronds. She skulked to the back of the room, finding refuge in a small crook-legged chair hidden behind a razor-edged metal fern. She did not hold it up eagerly, as her compatriots did-that was not Agatha’s way. Sophronia was proud of hers-it doubled as a garrote, among other things. Carnets de bal were requested and filled in. Civilities were observed to even Lady Linette’s standards. The boys had cleaned up as much as could be expected from those inclined toward evil.

Manners and mutiny read online