Etiquette & Espionage Read Online Free PDF Page B

caught the headmistress watching them slyly from behind her hands. She was shamming. But why?
So she doesn’t have to explain anything? Such a peculiar woman.
    It was then that Sophronia noticed that Pillover was looking unwell behind his sneer.
    She turned her full attention on the boy. “And are
you
quite all right, Mr. Pillover?”
    “I’m not a very good traveler at the best of times, Miss Sophronia. You might have taken that last half mile a little smoother.”
    Sophronia tried to hide a smile. “I might. But what pleasure would there be in that?”
    steo “Oh, wonderful,” said Pillover. “You’re one of
those
kinds of girls.”
    Sophronia narrowed her eyes. “You could ride on the box next to the coachman. Fresh air would do you a world of good.”
    Pillover looked most offended. “Outside, like a peasant? I think not.”
    Sophronia shrugged. “Suited me.”
    Pillover gave her a look that suggested that her valiant rescue was no excuse and that she was, in fact, now quite low-class in his eyes.
    Sophronia returned her attention to the whimpering headmistress. “What are we going to do about her?” And then, more directly, “You’re not fooling anyone, you realize?”
    Pillover evidently had been fooled. “She’s shamming? Well, there’s nothing we can do about her. The coachman knows where to go. He can get us to Bunson’s. Someone there will know what to do.”
    Sophronia nodded and stuck her head out the carriage window. “Coachman?”
    “Yes, little miss?” The man looked generally upset with life.
    “You can drive us on to this Bunson’s locale, can’t you?”
    “Yes, little miss. I know the school. But I’m not convinced Iintend to continue on, now. Never been held up by flywaymen afore.”
    Blast it. How would Mumsy handle this?
Sophronia looked the coachman full in the face and straightened her spine as stiff as she could. “You will if you wish to be paid. Keep a decent pace and an eye to the sky and it shouldn’t happen again.” The moment she said it, Sophronia became completely shocked by her own daring. She was also mildly impressed by how imperious she sounded.
    So was the coachman, apparently, because he resumed his post without another word and set the horses a sedate trot.
    Pillover glanced over the top of his glasses. “You do that rather well, don’t you?”
    “What?”
    “Order other people around. I’ve not yet got the way of it myself.”
    Sophronia thought Pillover was, regardless, doing pretty well at snobbery, for a grubby boy. She was about to say something of the kind when Mademoiselle Geraldine’s whimpering escalated.
    “Oh, do stop it and explain yourself,” Sophronia ordered, feeling she was on an autocratic streak.
    Much to her surprise, the headmistress listened, transforming her simulated whimpering into outright ire, directed at Sophronia. “I didn’t attend for this, you understand. Easy assignment, they said.” Sophronia noted with interest that Mademoiselle Geraldine had lost her French accent. “Nothing to it but improvisational theatrics. Some on-point assessmentof new candidates. Simply act older. Put on a bit of an accent and a pretty dress. Such an easy finishing. Others should be so lucky. You’re certain to make it through. But no. Oh, no. I had to have a combination retrieval and recruitment undertaking with an unexpected attack from unknown counterintelligencer elements, and no second. How dare they send me on without a second? Me! I mean, did I ask for this? I didn’t ask for this. Who needs active status? I don’t need active status. This is ridiculous!” She seemed to be progressively building herself up to sublime self-righteousness.
    Sophronia felt that there was something else undercutting the flood of words. “Headmistress, is there nothing we can do for you? You seem upset.”
    “Upset? Of course I’m upset! And don’t call me headmistress.
Headmistress
, my ruddy arse.”
    Sophronia gasped at the shocking word.
Now,