Plots and Pans Read Online Free PDF

my time here.”
I wouldn’t waste my breath
. “I questioned your implication that our time together has reached its end.”
    The headmistress clicked bony fingers, and a maid edged into the room, carrying a familiar, half-packed valise. “We will discuss your departure in the salon while your bags are packed.” She sailed from the room, obviously assuming Jess would trail at her heels like some eager pup.
    She didn’t. Jess resisted, determined to prove herself more powerful than the pull of her own curiosity, hopes, and fears. Miss Pennyworth might dictate her future for a little while longer, but Jess remained in control of herself. Instead of chasing after the headmistress for answers, she calmly helped the maid finish packing her belongings. Then she took a few more moments—both to compose herself and further enrage a waiting Miss Pennyworth—to rinse her face and hands.
    In a way she felt like she was washing away any remnants of this place. It relaxed her, giving her something tangible to do as preparation for moving on. Only then, when she felt good and ready, did she make her way down the stairs to the parlor. By now other students were stirring. She even spotted Cecily down the hall and drew encouragement from her smile. In the end, it didn’t matter where Miss Pennyworth chose to send her—eventually she’d make her way home.
    “Close the door behind you,” the headmistress directed when she stepped into the salon. Once Jess obeyed, she gestured to the uncomfortable horse-hair stuffed settee across from her. “Go ahead and sit down. You should probably pour yourself a bracing cup of tea before we begin.”
    She might have responded that there was no such thing as a “bracing” cup of tea—particularly when served lukewarm—but something in Miss Pennyworth’s expression stopped her.
    Suspicion, frustration, judgment, and even resignation were regularly served up with the headmistress’s everlasting disapproval, but here was something different. Softer somehow.
    Then she spotted the platter of cakes and tartlets beside the teapot. Miss Pennyworth never served sweets, and she never looked at Jess kindly. The changes completely flummoxed Jess, bringing back the anxious panic. She couldn’t even consider a tartlet, her thoughts too full of what horrors could move the headmistress to pity.
    “No thank you.” Jess kept her spine straight and her chin up. She’d meet this head-on.
    “Stubborn.” Miss Pennyworth shook an admonishing forefinger, and Jess took heart.
    “I’ve no illusions that you’re sorry to see me go.” She tried to sound businesslike. “But I’d rather not spend my last moments being chided. Tell me where you’re sending me, and I’ll be off.”
    “You’re going to your grandparents’ in Wiltshire.” The older woman rose to her feet and pinned her with a stare. “It is my fond hope that there you will cease secluding yourself and find that people hand out rules and advice not only to instruct, but to protect the people they care for.”
    Already smarting from this latest proof that Papa still didn’t want her to come home, Jess bristled at Miss Pennyworth’s censure. “I doubt I’ll be secluded, considering I don’t go about locking
myself
in rooms. There’s a vast difference between protection and imprisonment.”
    “And there are ways to isolate yourself without ever shutting a door.” The headmistress pursed her lips as though trying to hold something back. Then she sighed and held out a letter.
    That’s not Papa’s writing
. Jess’s pulse picked up as she took the envelope. It pressed heavily against her hand, as though burdened by the weight of its words. Her brother’s spiky scrawl sent streaks of fear shooting up her spine. Ed didn’t write to her very often, and even then he enclosed his notes with Papa’s longer letters.
It’s been too long since I heard from Papa…
.
    Jess jerked her gaze away from the envelope, glaring at Miss