(The Drake's Rakes, #3.5) It Begins with a Kiss by Eileen Dreyer.pdf

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It Begins with a Kiss

1811, Near Windsor

S he was incorrigible. That was what Miss Lavinia Chase, the proprietress of Miss Chase’s Finishing

School in Sonning, said. It was what the curate from St. Andrew’s down the road said. It was what the

Charitable Gift Committee, who traveled the few miles from Reading to oversee her education, said.

Of course, all of the girls at Miss Lavinia Chase’s finishing school were incorrigible. It was why they

had been sent there, at what was more vulgarly known as Last Chance Academy. But even in that pantheon

of misbehaving, maladroit young women, Fiona Ferguson stood out.

She was always thinking . Not in matters of poise or etiquette, not even in the art of being agreeable.

No, that would have at least done them all some good. It might have ensured Miss Fiona Ferguson a place,

however tenuous, in society. But Miss Ferguson preferred science over penmanship. Philosophy over

etiquette. And, dear heavens preserve them all, mathematics over everything. Not simply numbering that

could see a wife through her household accounts. Algebra. Geometry. Indecipherable equations made up

of unrecognizable symbols that meant nothing to anyone but the chit herself. It was enough to give Miss

Chase hives.

The girl wasn’t even saved by having any proper feminine skills. She could not tat or sing or draw.

Her needlework was execrable, and her Italian worse. In fact, her only skills were completely

unacceptable, as no one wanted a wife who could speak German, discuss physics, or bring down more

pheasant than her husband.

Even worse than those failings, though, was the fact that Miss Ferguson had a definite lack of humility.

No matter how often she was birched or locked in her room or given psalms to copy out a hundred times,

she couldn’t seem to drop her eyes, or bend her knee the appropriate depth. In fact, when her benefactors

visited to inspect her progress, she looked them right in the eye and answered as if she had the right to say

anything besides “thank you for your benevolence to such an unworthy girl.”

Incorrigible. And if they could find her brother, they would deliver her back into his care. But her

brother, an officer with the Highland Brigade, was fighting somewhere on the Continent, which meant they

had no hands to deliver Fiona into if they showed her the door. She did have a sister, of course, but even

the Charitable Trust knew better than to deliver any human into the care of Mairead Ferguson.

“It’s not that Miss Ferguson doesn’t deserve to be left to that unnatural family of hers,” Lady Bivens

sniffed at the board meeting to consider the latest crisis Miss Ferguson had fomented. “Plain, great gawk

of a girl. Why, she’d be nothing without us. Cleaning out chamber pots or plying her trade at Covent

Garden.”

Across the room Squire Peters snorted. “Not likely. Rather mount a draft horse.”

As usual, Peters was ignored. The rest of the board continued happily blackening Miss Ferguson’s

name until their carriages pulled up.

They wouldn’t do anything, of course. They all knew it. Ian Ferguson might be poor as a church mouse,

and he might have questionable antecedents, but Britain had made him an officer and a gentleman, and his

timely rescue of the Duke of Wellington at a place called Bussaco had made him famous. His sister was

safe. For now.

Fiona Ferguson was safe because she was locked in the attic room where all misbehaving girls were

sent to ruminate on their sins. After all, the board meeting had been called in response to her attempted

flight from school with a groom from the local public stables. And she would have made it, if Letrice

Riordan hadn’t discovered the scheme in time to notify Miss Chase.

Fiona had said not a word when she’d been intercepted by the headmistress and John the footman on

the back path leading to the mews behind Glebe Lane. She hadn’t said a word all the way back inside and

up the four flights to her prison, or when they’d locked the door in her face. She had just stood there,

silent and aloof, determined not to give them the satisfaction of seeing her weep.

Not one person had asked why it was she had packed one small bag and run off, a crumpled letter in

her hand. And not one person thought to check on her throughout the long October night, to see if she was

afraid or hungry. Miss Fiona Ferguson was being punished, and that was enough.

To be honest, Fiona didn’t notice the cold or the hours. She lay atop a thin blanket on the narrow rope

bed, fully clothed, staring at a water stain on the ceiling that over the years had taken the shape of Italy.

But she wasn’t paying attention to that either. Fiona’s attention was on the paper she clenched in her right

hand, which had sent her on her way in the first place. The letter had come to the Reading receiving office

five days ago. It had taken her three days to sneak the money to the cook to claim it without Miss Chase

finding out. It had taken a day to prepare her escape, and another three hours to be found out and dragged

back.

She was still lying in the frigid room thinking of how to manage a more successful escape when she

heard the scrape of a key in the lock. It must be close to dawn.

“You can’t just hie off and not let your friends know,” was the greeting she got as an elfin blond girl

tiptoed in and shut the door. “We’re supposed to help.”

Fiona didn’t look over as her friend hopped onto the bed and began to pull apples from the deep

pockets of her uniform apron.

“I didn’t want you to run afoul of Miss Chase,” Fiona said. “She wouldn’t forgive you for helping me.”

Pippin Knight waved off the words as insignificant. “Oh, what can she do to me?”

Fiona just shot her a look. The subarctic chill of the room should have answered Pippin quite nicely.

And if not, Fiona knew that the other girl bore the same bruises she did from the canings they had suffered

along with most of the girls in the school.

“You can’t just walk back to Scotland, Fiona,” Pip protested, tilting her head like a bright-eyed

sparrow. “I assume that’s where you were headed.”

Fiona sat up and retrieved an apple. “It is.”

“Can’t you wait a bit longer? I’ve sent for my brother Alex. He’ll help. He is one of your brother’s

dear friends, after all.”

Pip’s brother had been the one to recommend Miss Chase’s, when there hadn’t been enough money for

any other school. For that alone Fiona could dislike him. But his casual recommendation had also netted

her the only friends she’d ever had, so in the end it had all evened out.

At least it had until she’d received that letter.

“Why would you think I’d want you to contact your brother?” Fiona asked anyway. “What do you think

he could do?”

Pip took a bite of one of the apples and chewed. “I don’t know. But it’s certain we can’t help you, and

I don’t like you traveling all that way alone. Besides, it’s about time Alex answered one of my pleas for

help.”

Fiona faced Pippin, and saw real concern in her big blue eyes. Fiona almost smiled. With hair like a

yellow puffball, a round little figure, and a face like a cherub, Pippin looked as innocent as a child. But

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