Page 5 of The Passion of the Purple Plumeria

  He sketched a bow. “And is it Miss Climpson I have the honor of addressing?”

  The woman drew back as though struck. “What an appalling notion,” she said. “Most certainly not. I am Miss Gwendolyn Meadows.” She said it much as one might say, I am Cleopatra.

  Was he meant to know who she was?

  “A pleasure,” William said again. He deliberately included both women in his smile. He had one objective: finding his Lizzy. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to enlighten me, it’s my daughter I’m after looking for, Miss Elizabeth—”

  “Hmph,” said Miss Meadows, smacking the ground with her parasol hard enough to strike sparks. “You won’t find her here.”

  William dodged out of the way, shocked into brevity. “Why not?”

  Miss Meadows looked down her nose at him, a rather impressive trick given that he would have wagered on her being some few inches shorter than he. “Your Elizabeth has run off with our Agnes.”

  “She’s—what?” Who in the blazes was Agnes?

  “Run off,” said Miss Meadows succinctly. “Run. Off. Do pay attention, Colonel Reid. Really, it’s quite simple. Your Elizabeth has run off with our Agnes.”

  William was stung into retort. “How do you know your Agnes didn’t run off with my Lizzy?”

  Miss Meadows looked superior. “Really, Colonel Reid. Do be sensible. Agnes isn’t the running kind.”

  Whereas his Lizzy—what did he know of his Lizzy? He’d had a letter a month for ten years, just that. Twelve letters a year times ten, with an extra on his birthday . . .

  William pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Forgive me, ladies. I’ve just come six months by ship, five days by coach, and the rest of the way uphill by foot. My wits are not my own. Are you telling me that my daughter has gone missing?”

  Mlle. de Fayette opened her mouth, but Miss Meadows got in first. “That is precisely what we have been telling you. Elizabeth and Agnes have both gone missing. Presumably with each other. Theoretically of their own volition. Does that answer your question?”

  Hardly. William’s head was reeling with questions. He settled for the most pressing. “What’s been done to find them?”

  Miss Meadow’s lips pursed. “Precious little. Come with me.” She jerked her head down the hall. “You’ll want to speak to Miss Climpson—for what good it will do you.”

  She set off down the hall, her skirts swishing around her legs, heels tapping briskly against the wood floor.

  William hurried after her, his wet boots squelching. “Are you employed at the school, then?” he asked dubiously. Somehow, he’d got the idea that schoolmistresses were meant to be quiet, downtrodden creatures.

  “Quiet” and “downtrodden” were not terms one could apply to Miss Meadows.

  “Merciful heavens, no! You couldn’t pay me to be a teacher.” The idea was horrifying enough to stop Miss Meadows in her tracks. Drawing herself up, she regarded him with great dignity. “I am Agnes’s older sister’s chaperone.”

  It sounded like a French exercise. “I see,” said William, although he didn’t see at all. “And that makes you . . .”

  “The only one with any common sense in this debacle.” Miss Meadows stopped in front of the open door of a drawing room decorated in shades of blue. It was adorned with an alarming variety of porcelain knickknacks, mostly of the cherub variety. Porcelain cherubs simpered from the mantel, more cherubs lurked at the corners of the windows, and a truly appalling assembly of them smirked from a large oil painting in the center of the ceiling.

  Of the non-cherub population, William counted four. A woman in late middle age, with a cap like an overgrown cabbage, sat in a chair before a tea table, flanked on either side by a man and a woman dressed in clothes of equally outmoded vintage. The man wore a frock coat and a slightly moth-eaten periwig, the woman a wide-skirted gown of heavy brocade. A slim girl in a blue gown stood by the windows, blending neatly with the draperies.

  “Mr. Wooliston, Mrs. Wooliston, and Miss Wooliston.” Miss Meadows fired off the names like pistol shots. She nodded at the woman in the immense cap. “And that’s Miss Climpson, the prime preceptress of this academy, such as it is.” She grinned at him, rather grimly. “Let’s see if you can get any sense out of her.”

  It felt like a challenge. “I’ll do my best.”

  His companion indulged in a smile that looked alarmingly like a smirk. “Do,” she said. “Do.”

  It was not entirely encouraging.

  Advancing into the room, William approached the woman in the massive cap. “Miss Climpson? I’m William Reid. Elizabeth’s father,” he added when Miss Climpson looked at him rather blankly.

  Miss Meadows gave him an “I told you so” look.

  William turned his back on her and concentrated the force of his charm on Miss Climpson. “What’s this about my Lizzy going missing?”

  The ribbons on Miss Climpson’s enormous cap bobbed dizzyingly. “It is most inconvenient,” she said spiritedly. “How is one to teach a girl when she is not on the premises? It presents a distinct pedagogical problem.”

  William would have thought their problems were more than pedagogical. “How long have the girls been missing?”

  “Missing,” said Miss Climpson, “is such a strong word. I prefer to think of them as having misplaced themselves. Most inconsiderately.”

  “Are you sure she’s gone? She was always such a quiet child.” The woman in the old-fashioned gown peered at a chair as though expecting to find her daughter lurking between the threads of the upholstery.

  “Can’t be trusted not to wander off. Temperamental things, ewes,” said the man in the periwig expansively, rising from his chair to greet the new arrival. “But they tend to find their way back to pasture, don’t they—er?”

  William dodged a genial whack on the shoulder. “Reid. Colonel Reid. It seems we’re in the same boat—er, pasture. My ewe appears to have wandered from the fold as well.”

  The man stuck out a hand. “Bertrand Wooliston.” He nodded to the woman in the brocade gown. “My wife, Prudence. And I see you’ve already met our Miss Meadows.”

  “Yes,” said William guardedly. “You might say that. Now, about the girls . . .”

  “Never a bit of trouble,” said Mrs. Woolison, squinting at him through a pair of pince-nez pinched far too low on her nose. “Agnes wound wool so beautifully.”

  “There, there, my love.” Mr. Wooliston pounded her soundly on the shoulder, setting his periwig askew. “Leave them alone and they’ll come home; that’s how it goes.”

  “Wagging their tails behind them?” Miss Meadows snorted, an emission of air that rather adequately summed up William’s feelings. “I sincerely doubt it.”

  William was beginning to experience grave doubts about Miss Climpson’s academy. “Do the girls here misplace themselves frequently?”

  “Fencing,” said Bertrand Wooliston firmly. “That’s what’s needed. Good, strong fencing. None of these doors and windows.” He nodded scornfully at the long sash windows that looked out into a scrubby sort of garden.

  “Be that as it may”—William had always prided himself on his ability to adapt to the local idiom—“the, er, ewes have already left the pasture. I’d suggest we put our efforts to finding them, wouldn’t you? How long have they been missing?”

  Miss Meadows cut into a
confusion of garbled explanations and deliberations from the others. “Two weeks,” she said bluntly.

  William’s eyebrows soared towards his hairline. “Two weeks?”

  He’d sent Lizzy to England to keep her safe, by God. She’d lived those first few years with his wife’s mother, in Bristol, but when the letter had come suggesting Lizzy be sent to a young lady’s academy for a bit of polish—well, it seemed a good solution to an awkward situation. Mrs. Davies was Kat’s grandmother, not Lizzy’s. It was a golden opportunity for Lizzy, Kat had assured him. The school catered to the children of the upper gentry, the daughters of landed ladies and gentlemen. The reflected luster would smooth Lizzy’s way in the world, wiping out the taint of her birth. It was an opportunity William could never have afforded for her, and he had responded enthusiastically.

  He had never imagined this. Didn’t the affluent of England keep closer watch on their offspring than that?

  Mlle. de Fayette stepped forward. “It is not entirely as it sounds,” she said hesitantly. “In the beginning, you see, it was thought that Miss Reid and Miss Wooliston followed one of their schoolmates to her home. Miss Reid was of the most unhappy when Miss Fitzhugh left the school.”

  “You’ve sent to this Miss Fitzhugh?” said William brusquely. He hadn’t much of a temper, as a rule, but the idea of harm to his Lizzy . . . Lizzy, whom he hadn’t seen in ten years. He could see her as she’d been when he put her on that ship, seven and without guile.

  “We sent to Miss Fitzhugh at once!” Mlle. de Fayette hastened to assure him. Her face fell. “Miss Fitzhugh expressed the confusion entire.”

  William grasped at straws. “It’s sure you are that she was telling the truth?”

  Mlle. de Fayette lowered her eyes. “Miss Fitzhugh was of the most indignant at being, as she said, ‘left out of the fun.’ Her brother, Monsieur Fitzhugh, was of the most accommodating. He searched through all the wardrobes and under the beds, and even under the vegetable beds in the gardens. The girls, they were nowhere to be found.”

  “All right, then,” said William grimly. “Where else?”

  Mlle. de Fayette and her employer exchanged a long look.

  “In other words,” said Miss Meadows, before William could, “you haven’t the slightest idea where they are.”

  “We know where they aren’t,” provided Miss Climpson brightly, and it was only with the greatest effort that William kept his hands from closing around her shoulders and giving her a hearty shake. There were no words for the nightmare images that assaulted him. They were too terrible to be given a name. “By the process of elimination . . .”

  “There are only several million places the girls might be,” said Miss Meadows crisply. William looked at her with gratitude. “This is useless. We need clues.” She paced across the room, drawing all eyes as she whipped back and forth, back and forth, tossing out directives as she went. “The Fitzhugh girl will need to be questioned, as will the staff. Is there a porter in this establishment? No. Then we’ll need to interview someone who can tell us of their comings and goings.”

  “Really, Miss Meadows,” protested Miss Climpson. “I don’t see why that should be necessary. The girls are most strictly chaperoned. . . .”

  “Then why aren’t they here?” said Miss Meadows with withering sarcasm. “Right. Let’s to business.”

  Young Miss Wooliston untangled herself from the curtains and stepped forward, her voice pleasant and level, a soothing patch of calm in the whirlwind that was Miss Meadows. “Were there any letters before they left? Any”—she cast a glance over her shoulder at the older Woolistons—“billets-doux?”

  “She means love letters,” said Miss Meadows baldly.

  Love letters? William’s mouth opened indignantly. He could picture his daughter, all tousled curls and sun-browned hands, a little imp of mischief. Why, his Lizzy was too young for that sort of thing, practically a baby yet. She was all of—

  Seventeen.

  The realization of it hit him like a stone. Seventeen. His Maria had been fifteen when he’d met her, sixteen when they’d married. When he remembered what they’d got up to behind her parents’ backs—well, it was a distinctly sobering thought. William’s mouth snapped shut again.

  “They’ve not been”—William had trouble getting the words out—“consorting with men?”

  The French mistress hastened to correct him. “Oh no. They were not the sort. I have seen”—with a guilty look at the headmistress, she quickly caught herself—“that is, one comes to recognize the signs of an affair of the heart. These girls, they were still girls.”

  Oh, one did, did one? “You’ve had girls run off with men before?” William asked faintly.

  “‘Run off’ is such a harsh term,” said the headmistress. “It was really more of a precipitate departure.”

  “It was only the once,” put in the French mistress. “The gardener who passed the notes, he was—how do you say?—let go.”

  William failed to find that entirely reassuring.

  “I think,” said Miss Meadows crisply, “that we ought to see their rooms.”

  “Yes,” William agreed hastily. “Yes, we ought.”

  Miss Meadows regarded him imperiously. “Come along, then. Mademoiselle de Fayette, you’ll show us the way? No, no, Prudence, no need to come with us. We’ll see ourselves back, won’t we, Jane? Bertrand, see your wife home; there’s nothing more for you to do here.”

  William watched with amazement and admiration as Miss Meadows neatly sent everyone packing. The elder Woolistons departed for their lodgings. Miss Climpson, routed, made excuses about seeing to the girls. Miss Wooliston watched the proceedings with a faint smile of amusement.

  “Well?” Miss Meadows turned to William with a raised eyebrow. “What are you standing around for? Are you coming to their room or going home?”

  William saluted. “I am yours to command. At least so far as the second landing.”

  Miss Wooliston covered a smile.

  Miss Meadows regarded him haughtily. “Hmph,” she said. “Come along, then.”

  Without waiting to see whether they followed, she stalked towards the stairs.

  Chapter 3

  “I seek my daughter,” quoth bold Sir Magnifico.

  “Seek her not here,” warned the Mother Superior, “for she is not within these walls.”

  She spoke him fair, but Sir Magnifico’s misgivings misgave him. “Show me to her cell,” he commanded, “and then we shall see what is to be seen.”

  The Mother Superior regarded him with a weary eye. “Bold sir,” she said, “it is not what is seen but what is unseen that we needs must see.”

  “Madame,” quoth the knight, “your speech be passing strange.”

  —From The Convent of Orsino by A Lady

  Gwen didn’t like any of this. She didn’t like it one bit.

  All her instincts, well honed over years of midnight raids, were shouting “trouble.” How much of the trouble was coming from the situation and how much from a certain sun-bronzed colonel was a matter for debate. Bad enough that Agnes had gone missing; worse yet to have to deal with the parent of the other girl, poking his nose in—however attractive a nose it might be—and posing questions that might prove inconvenient for everyone.

  And by everyone, she meant the Pink Carnation.

  The last thing they needed was someone else taking an interest in the matter. Not that she thought there was a matter, of course. Until proven ot
herwise, she was firmly of the opinion that those empty-headed chits had simply jaunted off on some expedition of their own, never thinking whom they might worry in the process.

  Even so, just on the off chance, on the very, very off chance, there were anything more nefarious about it, anything that came in a tricolor package with a faint whiff of frog, much the better to keep it all as under wraps as possible.

  Behind her, Gwen could hear Colonel Reid gently quizzing that insipid gudgeon of a French mistress, drawing her out about the number of pupils in the school, their routines, their habits. His accent was a lilting drawl, distinctly un-English without being recognizably anything else. There was a pleasant burr to it, deep and musical. And quite, quite deliberate, Gwen reminded herself. She knew a born rogue when she saw one. There might be threads of silver among the red of Colonel Reid’s hair, but that crooked smile was pure danger.

  No matter. Gwen was proof against that sort of thing. He wasn’t going to get anything out of her. She had learned her lesson the hard way—unlike the weak-willed Mlle. de Fayette, who appeared to be lapping it up, relaxing in the Colonel’s company, taking the arm he offered to help her up the stairs as she told him everything and anything he wanted to know.

  Catching her eye, the Colonel had the effrontery to wink at her.

  To wink! As if they were in some sort of conspiracy together. Admittedly, they were the only ones with any wits in the room, but he was a fool if he thought she was going to let herself be drawn in that way.

  Stiff backed, Gwen marched up the stairs. The use of charm as a tool made her hackles rise. She respected a more direct approach. A battering ram approach. At least one knew where one stood with the battering ram, none of this butter-wouldn’t-melt nonsense that could mean yes, no, or maybe.

  Not that Colonel Reid didn’t get results that way, she admitted grudgingly. He was doing far better eliciting answers from the French mistress than she had. The woman had simply stared pop-eyed at her. No spine, no spine at all.

  “The room, it is this way,” said Mlle. de Fayette, gesturing diffidently down the landing. “If you would be so good?”