Beauty and the Duke Read Online Free PDF Page B

said with heartfelt passion.
    “What is true?”
    Dolly stepped forward. “This morning we found the ring on her desk. It must have finally come off herfinger yesterday. The ring is truly magic. She wanted to wed Mr. Darlington. And now she is wed.”
    Christine held out her hand. Dolly dutifully dropped a band of silver into her palm. Christine had in fact seen this ring on Amelia’s hand.
    “There is no such thing as magic.”
    “But there is, Miss Christine,” Dolly insisted. “Miss Amelia proved it. She wanted Mr. Darlington to fall in love with her and he did.”
    Christine took a seat at the desk and peered sternly over the rim of her spectacles at each of the girls. “Have you considered that he fell in love with her because she was worthy of his affection?”
    From the blank response on their young faces, they had not considered the possibility. Christine turned the ring into the light, noting an odd Celtic inscription carved within the band. Chance not. Win not . The ring itself was made of braided antique silver laced with something black.
    “Where did she get this?”
    “Lady Sophia gave it to Babs last year and said it was a special ring just for special girls,” Dolly said. “If a person puts it on then what she wants most in the world will make itself known all within five minutes. Babs really wanted to come to this school. When she put the ring on, she asked her papa if she could attend Sommershorn Abbey this year and he said yes. Isn’t that so, Babs?”
    The girl in question nodded vigorously. Christine shook her head and tried not to make light of the girl’s supposed miracle.
    “Oh, but ’tis true. He’d been adamantly against the school, Miss Christine,” Dolly insisted. “Only when Babs came here did the ring come off. Then six months ago, Sally put on the ring. Didn’t you, Sal?”
    The young blond girl in a black-and-white pinafore beside her nodded. “Papa was going to betroth me to that lecherous Viscount Alton. A letter arrived calling me home. But when I arrived, Lord Alton had run off with my older sister. Then Miss Amelia put on the ring. We were in your office upstairs, standing beside your desk when Mr. Darlington arrived just then, back from Edinburgh. He’d come to see you, but when he glimpsed Miss Amelia”—Dolly clutched her fist to her chest—“we all knew it was she he would pick.”
    For a moment, the words almost made Christine look away. Of course, Joseph had come to Christine’s office first. But she had been in the “dead room” that day cleaning up a fossil. She looked at her young protégés. “This is exactly the kind of balderdash that gives women a bad name.”
    Dolly lifted her chin. “You are always about facts and truths, Miss Christine. What if something else does exist that cannot be explained by physical evidence? Isn’t it our responsibility to explore these possibilities as well? What if we want to believe in something more?”
    Christine looked at the girls and felt a strange kinship to each of them. All of them in some way stood outside society. “You cannot wish your problems away,” she quietly said. “Your destiny is not inscribed in the stars. There is no such thing as magic or fairy tales…or curses…or mystical phenomenon. This is only a ring.”
    None of them looked convinced.
    “Would it satisfy you if I put it on? Would you then be convinced that everything that has happened thus far has a clear and logical explanation and there is no such thing as magic to grant you something that youare not willing to earn for yourself?” She turned in the chair and found the regulator clock on the wall. “Five minutes, you say.”
    The girls nodded and pushed close to the desk. Christine peered at each face. “All right. In five minutes, you will all forget this ring and allow me to get to the business of teaching you something important. Are we in agreement?”
    “Yes, Miss Christine,” they all answered in unison.
    “Very