Manners & Mutiny Read online

  The boys had cleaned up as much as could be expected from those inclined toward evil. Civilities were observed to even Lady Linette’s standards. Carnets de bal were requested and filled in. Sophronia was proud of hers—it doubled as a garrote, among other things. She did not hold it up eagerly, as her compatriots did—that was not Agatha’s way. She skulked to the back of the room, finding refuge in a small crook-legged chair hidden behind a razor-edged metal fern.

  Sophronia watched interactions through its fanged fronds. There were a number of understandings between Geraldine’s girls and Bunson’s boys, despite a school policy that insisted these boys were for practice, not permanent liaison. There were certainly enough long-running courtships for the young men to know something was unusual. They approached customary objects of flirtation only to be confused when conversations deviated or did not occur at all. The face was the same, but the dress and interaction were at odds with all previous encounters.

  Preshea—as Sophronia—was flirting outrageously. Yet Lady Linette did not object. Am I that much of a flirt? Sophronia wondered. Preshea was eyeing Felix Mersey and edging toward him. Sophronia hid a sneer. Preshea would have done that no matter what. But it showed she was unaware of recent history. It was true Sophronia might have showed him favor, a year ago. Not anymore. In this Preshea got her entirely wrong.

  Felix hadn’t seen Sophronia yet, and if she had her way, he never would. He looked older and tired. His hair was too long and his eyes slightly sunken, without their customary kohl liner. Had he been ill? Or was that guilt? He still looked better than any other man in the room, but her heart no longer fluttered at the sight. Instead she felt… what? A slight nausea at possible confrontation, mixed with minor disgust. Sophronia had cut off all correspondence with him last February. She’d returned his letters unopened.

  “Crikey, Sophronia, what’s the matter with your lot this evening?” Of all people, Pillover had found her hiding spot.

  Dimity’s little brother had a longstanding relationship of such casualness with Sophronia as to make him treat the boundaries set by polite society with brotherly disregard. Sophronia had learned to accept this treatment, although she found it uncalled for; after all, she already had more than her fair share of brothers. Sophronia and Pillover were also, so far as Sophronia’s mother was concerned, engaged.

  “Here you are, lurking like some reluctant hedgehog. Most out of character. Why, for goodness’ sake?” Pillover must be ruffled. Usually he never said more than one sentence in a row.

  Sophronia looked at her toes so as not to show interest in the dance. She dearly loved dancing, but Agatha hated it. Ordinarily she would have said, “Pillover, you’re positively loquacious. Are you running a fever?” But Agatha wouldn’t, so Sophronia didn’t.

  He looked her over, head to toe. “And I can’t spot Bumbersnoot on you anywhere.” He plopped down next to her without waiting for an invitation. He had shot up into gangliness over the course of their acquaintance, accidentally cultivating an air of dissolute idleness that most ladies found fascinating. They thought he had a broken heart in need of repairs. In actuality, he was conjugating Latin verse in his head. As there was nothing Pillover disliked more than being the object of feminine attention, he remained utterly unmoved by their interest. This, of course, only made him more desirable.

  “Sophronia?” Pillover had left off calling her Miss Temminnick shortly after she forced him to dress in her petticoat in order to escape Bunson’s. Such intimacy demanded use of given names.

  “Good evening, Mr. Plumleigh-Teignmott.” Sophronia was gravely formal. Several of her teachers were wending through the crowd. The Bunson’s professors thought this was normal chaperoning, but the ladies knew better. Sophronia suspected Sister Mattie—or more properly Sister Mathilde—of being within eavesdropping distance at that very moment.

  “Sophronia, for goodness’ sake, snap out of it!”

  “I assure you, Mr. Plumleigh-Teignmott, I am in perfect health.”

  “You are behaving like a wilted violet. No, strike that, a wilted olive tree.” Even Pillover didn’t like Sophronia in Agatha’s dress. “My sister has nary a sparkle in sight. And Miss Woosmoss looks like a”—words failed him—“chandelier in slippers!” He seemed most offended by this last. Pillover had a soft spot for Agatha. He thought her restfully chatter free—the most desirable quality in a girl. Sophronia suspected him of being distressed by the degree of attention Agatha—as Dimity—was garnering. The pink ball gown suited her very well. Her hair was a glossy pile of russet curls, dotted with silk flowers. Draped about her neck was a string of pearls—her own and likely real. Her round cheeks were rosy from the attention, the dancing, and the embarrassment of both. Quite apart from everything else, they had, indeed, had to cinch the girl in very tight to fit her into Dimity’s ball gown. The resulting décolletage could be seen from the aetherosphere.

  Agatha had lamented this. “I look in imminent danger of spilling!”

  “The gentlemen will be most intrigued,” vowed Dimity. “And you can be certain if I had the assets I should do exactly that, so it isn’t at all out of character. Simply beyond my ability.”

  “Oh, dear,” wailed Agatha, nevertheless submitting to pink ruffles. She needed a high mark in this assignment. Agatha was in ever-great need of a high mark. So she cinched and took the consequences. Much to Pillover’s disgust, his sister’s predictions were correct. The gentlemen did seem most intrigued.

  Dimity herself was milling around in a white dress with royal-blue trim. It was cut on elegant lines and not overly fluffy, making the most of her figure rather than trying to emphasize what she didn’t have. She had ribbon rosettes of blue and white in her honey-colored hair, which was dressed fashionably but without fuss. She wore one expensive-looking diamond bangle and no other jewelry at all. The diamonds were fake, of course, but you’d never know without close inspection.

  Preshea was wearing a lovely black gown with gray lace ruffles and wine trim. It was more modern and stylish than Sophronia could afford, but certainly to her taste. Preshea had fashioned a dog-shaped reticule, which she wore slung crosswise across her body. She was chatting companionably with one of the teachers. Am I really such a goody-goody, as well as a flirt? wondered Sophronia. Or is Preshea mocking me?

  Bumbersnoot, the real Bumbersnoot, was slouching about the cloakroom. Knowing her little dog mechanimal was a dead giveaway that she was not obeying the identity shift protocols, Sophronia had smuggled him in under Agatha’s fur cape. She certainly wasn’t going to loan him to Preshea, of all people!

  Agatha twirled past in the arms of some handsome young buck.

  Sophronia was pleased. “I think she’s doing very well.”

  Pillover subsided into glumness, slouching forward and putting his elbows onto his knees and his chin into his hands. It was a shockingly lower-class way to sit, as though he were in a public park, or worse, the House of Commons.

  “Go cut in,” suggested Sophronia quietly. It was a non-Agatha suggestion, so she did her best to deliver it in an Agatha tone.

  Pillover didn’t move. “I never,” he objected to the floor.

  “You must act as if Agatha is your sister, or you won’t get anywhere.”

  “That is a disgusting suggestion.”

  Sophronia sighed. “No, I mean, treat her as you would a young lady of your sister’s type.”

  “Dimity is a type? You mean, there may be others?” Pillover was horrified out of his moroseness.

  “Do shove off, Pillover. How can I be a proper shrinking olive tree with you here? Shrinking olives are solitary creatures. Oh, and don’t forget,” she hissed, “we have to throw each other over at some point. I can’t afford to stay indefinitely engaged to you.”

  Pillover looked a mite less glum at the prospect of a broken engagement. Accordingly, he stood and mooched away. He could be a bit of a wet blanket, but one had to admire a boy who followed instructions.

  Sophronia continued
to sit, watching her classmates employ each other’s personalities as weapons against the young men around them. It was almost pretty.

  Dimity was twirled to a stop by a tall young man with unfortunate ears who looked most interested in further twirls. Dimity delivered what was clearly a barb about some other girl, and the young man laughed appreciatively. Dimity looked upset with herself, but soldiered gamely on into Preshea’s sour temper.

  The tall boy was not alone, for as soon as she sat, Dimity was surrounded by interested parties. Sophronia was willing to wager her friend’s dance card was full. Dimity sent various admirers off in pursuit of nibbles and punch, much as Preshea would have, leaving herself accompanied by only the two most persistent. Through the cleared masses, Sophronia caught her eye.

  Dimity gave the chin-tap fan signal of important information to impart.

  Sophronia flicked open her own fan. It was her filigree bladed one, safely capped for the evening with a leather guard, and delicate enough to pass for a normal fan.

  What? she fluttered at Dimity.

  Dimity flicked hers open and gave the swirl and dip for enemy among us. Then she tilted her head, as if flirting with a pale-haired boy to her left, but really pointing Sophronia’s attention to that side of the room.

  A woman had entered the ballroom. Her hair was dressed in the high curls of maturity that Geraldine’s girls were permitted to practice but not wear in public, so she was no student. She faced away from Sophronia, talking to Lady Linette. Even from the back, Sophronia’s training told her many things. The woman’s bearing marked her as an aristocrat, or at least trained to the correct posture to pass as one. Her hair was naturally blonde, and her dress was certainly Parisian—snow white with rose-pink ruffles, and silk roses sewn into the drapes of the overskirt and clustered at the puff of the daringly short sleeves. A coronet of roses, real, not silk, which meant hothouse, perched atop her hair, an amazing expense for a provincial school ball. Instead of a necklace, the stranger wore a lace ruff tied about her neck, likely to disguise the fact that she had vampire bite marks.

  Sophronia knew who it was before she turned.

  Monique de Pelouse.

  INVASIONS AT A BALL

  Why? Sophronia fluttered the question at Dimity. What on earth was Monique doing out of London during the holiday season? It was true much of the town shut down, but the vampires took that as an excuse to throw lavish parties.

  Dimity couldn’t answer even if she knew, for Monique left Lady Linette to stand in front of her instead. As Monique was a former student, fan fluttering communication was useless against her. She had left Mademoiselle Geraldine’s to become a drone to Countess Nadasdy, vampire queen of the Westminster Hive, some years ago, but she would keep turning up, like grease at the top of the dishwater. At their last encounter, Sophronia had had the great pleasure of throwing her out of a train.

  Dimity and Monique appeared to be exchanging pleasantries, of all things. Then Monique moved on about the room.

  Sophronia sank into the shadows. She couldn’t afford a confrontation with her old nemesis, not if she wished to stay in character. Sophronia had to bite down her pert answers at the best of times, and Monique practically begged for them. Agatha was never pert and rarely had answers. Better to avoid all contact.

  So far as Sophronia knew, Monique’s main drone assignment was to keep an eye on the Picklemen. Their free enhancements to all mechanicals over the past six months must have driven her crazy. Despite vampire opposition, anyone who owned a mechanical was delighted to see it upgraded with a new crystalline valve frequensor, which reputedly fixed the spontaneous opera problem of last winter and improved performance.

  Sophronia, her friends, Monique, the vampires, and a handful of others knew the real reason for the valves. The Picklemen wanted complete control over all the mechanicals in England. Yet since the upgrade, no attempt to seize that control had occurred. The vampires’ fuss over the enhancements had been dismissed as supernatural hysteria by the government and passed unnoticed by the popular press. Everyone who knew there would be a problem was forced into waiting for that problem to occur. And they had no idea what the Picklemen intended to do with their army of mechanical domestic servants. Last time all they’d done was have them sing “Rule, Britannia!” What was next? A ruthless bout of ballet?

  Still, if Monique is supposed to be monitoring the situation, static as it may be, what is she doing here?

  Someone sat down in the chair recently vacated by Pillover.

  “Ria, my dove, it has been too long.”

  Sophronia had actually relaxed her guard. Debut move! She marshaled her irritation into a defensive mask of Agatha-like nervousness. “Why, Lord Mersey, how do you do?”

  “Like that, are we?”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  Felix was no intelligencer. His training was in machinations and evil machinery. He cut directly to the point, with no attempt at subterfuge, “He’s my father, Ria. I had no choice.”

  There is always a choice, or at least evasive tactics, would have said Sophronia. “Why, my lord, I’m afraid I fail to follow your meaning,” she said as Agatha.

  “Please don’t be like that. He is working to save the country. Save the Empire. His ends are noble.”

  How unexpectedly revealing. How much, Sophronia wondered, can Agatha get out of Felix where Sophronia failed? She had underestimated how much he wanted her good opinion. Not to mention how much frustration brought about confession.

  “My lord, please, that isn’t necessary.”

  “Ria! What else was I to do? Surely you would have done the same in my position.”

  White-hot anger almost threw Agatha out of Sophronia’s head. She might be a spy, and a relatively good one, but she was loyal to her friends. Felix had betrayed them all, not only Sophronia, when he revealed their disguises. And then…

  “Your father killed Soap,” she hissed, breaking character.

  Felix was cheered by her return to form. “Ria, my dove, look on the bright side, at least he has stopped trying to kill you.”

  Only because I’ve been safely at school for three-quarters of a year. If there was anywhere the Picklemen couldn’t infiltrate, it was a mobile academy for female intelligencers.

  She reached once more for Agatha’s quiet spirit. “Oh, Lord Mersey, you are so droll. What makes you think I care two whits for your father’s murderous opinion?” She tapped his arm with her fan in a self-conscious flirtation, as though she were awkwardly following instructions. On the pullback from the tap, she sent the wrist swirl signal with her closed fan, Damsel in need of rescue. She had no idea if Dimity would see, but she required an extraction.

  Felix looked grim. “Back to that, are we? Very well, if you insist on playing games. Would you care to dance? You’d be afforded the opportunity to cut me in public by leaving me on the floor as per usual.”

  If Sophronia had any guilt over her shoddy behavior in the past, his ungentlemanly mention of it certainly cured her. She’d had good reason for abandoning him on the dance floor, every time. It was poor manners for him to discuss her indiscretions.

  Then, of all people, Agatha came whirling up. Her partner, Lord Dingleproops, seemed taken with the pearl-drenched Agatha version of Dimity. Odd, as he had once rejected Dimity herself.

  “My lord, might we rest a moment?” Agatha whipped out her fan, in evident need of cooling. You requested rescue? she signaled Sophronia.

  Sophronia blew out her cheeks in a sigh of both exasperation and relief.

  Agatha understood this silent commentary on social predicament. She turned her attention onto Felix. “Lord Mersey, how do you do this fine evening?”

  Felix looked confused. Prior to that, Agatha had barely strung three words together in his presence. “Miss, uh, Woosmoss, is it?”

  Agatha curtsied. “I understand from Lord Dingleproops that you are something of a whiz with waistcoats? He claims you have three apparatus, a monocle, and a pack of cards stas
hed at all times. Is this true?”

  Felix was no inferior gentlemen to resist a request from any lady when couched in such incontestable terms. He stood, bowing over Agatha’s proffered hand. “Dear lady, indeed it is.”

  Agatha tittered. “La, my lord, how droll of you. Can you show me any of them without, ah-hem, unbuttoning?”

  Sophronia was driven to gasp! To mention the act of undress, and to a young man of little acquaintance! That was flirting beyond even Dimity. Agatha was taking things too far.

  Sophronia used her fan to disguise shock.

  Felix and Lord Dingleproops found the mention of buttons enchanting.

  “Oh, la, I’m positively parched.” Agatha grabbed Felix’s arm and sailed smoothly away, angling toward the punch.

  Felix could do naught but follow.

  It was, Sophronia had to admit, a perfect extraction. Agatha had hidden depths of shallowness. Or she was a better study than anyone thought, and merely needed a different personality to bring out her abilities. Or she had partaken too freely of the absinthe-spiked punch.

  Sophronia turned her attention back to the gathering. Monique was making her way around the room. Whatever she was looking for, she hadn’t found it. Sophronia harbored a brief, horrible thought that her old enemy was hunting for her. They were, after a fashion, allied against the Picklemen. Perhaps she had a message from the dewan, Sophronia’s soon-to-be patron.

  Then someone else invaded her corner. Clearly it was not so hidden as she’d hoped. This time, however, it was a welcome invasion.

  Genevieve Lefoux, once known as Vieve and currently known as Gaspar Lefoux, appeared at Sophronia’s elbow. Now twelve years old, Vieve had shot up and was almost as tall as Sophronia. She was looking likely to be as much a beanpole as her aunt. Since she intended a long career disguised as a man, Vieve was no doubt delighted to find the Lefoux genes running true to form, or more accurately, true to figure.

  At Bunson’s, Vieve purported to be Professor Lefoux’s nephew, who exhibited such extraordinary engineering talent it had forced Bunson’s to take on a French charity case. Although she had never officially been a finishing school student, preferring to spend her time in the boiler room, something had rubbed off. She had grasped enough espionage to be good at maintaining her ties to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, without exposing her connection or her gender.