by A. W. Exley
They struck off from the girls’ hall to the main school building and their first class of the new term. Allie took a deep breath and decided to change the topic of conversation from one boy to another. “Do you know a student called Jared McLaren?”
A dreamy expression fell over Eloise’s face. “Ah, the McLaren boys.”
“There’s more than one of them?” Allie hoped they weren’t twins or triplets.
“Two, they’re cousins, Jared and Duncan. They make quite an impression on the female population.” Eloise turned and gave Allie a curious look. “Why do you ask?”
“I met him this morning. He was with Marshall.” Allie bit her lip before she mentioned how the handsome young man made her pulse gallop when his strong arms wrapped around her and crushed her to his chest. How the scent of warm musky male and autumn leaves filled her nostrils and for a moment, she couldn’t think of anywhere else she would rather be, than in his arms. Even back with Hakim.
“He’s the son of the Duke of Lothian, his father is King Rab’s advisor. Jared is one of the highest ranking nobles here as the Marquis of Kerr, even if they are Scottish.”
“I did notice the burr.” A stone settled in Allie’s stomach at Eloise’s words. Oh, well done me, going gooey-eyed over the highest ranking noble in the school. You might have found the one situation more tragic than falling for the sultan’s guard, who wants to be a eunuch.
They walked the halls in companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts. The imposing stone school buildings had lain dormant all summer when only the skeleton staff crept along the silent passages. Now, on the first day of term, the bricks and mortar came to life as students filled the hallways with their activity and chatter.
The corridors rung with a multitude of greetings, but none were for Allie or Eloise. On their first meeting, the girls had sensed the loneliness in each other, fuelling their friendship and the need to fill a void.
A total of eight hundred students would fill the waiting classrooms. The school only admitted a maximum of forty girls for their last three years of education. Allie walked amongst them like a shadow amid the bright sunlight. Those young women sent to the school tended to dress like peacocks, each trying to put on a better display than her peers. They sought to garner the most attention from the ever-watchful young men. For the girls who would debut, they could capitalise on their placement at St Matthews to gain the upper hand in the hotly contested marriage market. Allie was the dull peahen but her simple appearance made it easier to disappear. She didn’t want to attract attention.
The girls wore their corsets externally to display the rich construction of lush materials and beautiful embellishments. They had beautiful walking dresses with trains and skirts of luscious silks and satins in rainbow hues, falling in opulent pleats to the floor.
The matrons set to chaperone the girls wore dull orange; their very presence a warning signal to the boys as they watched their charges with eagle eyes to ensure no prolonged contact between the sexes. Students headed in different directions, rushing to find friends before classes started. The hard heels of the boys’ boots clicked on the stone floor. The girls passed like ghosts, silent in their soft indoor shoes, except for the rustle and sighs of their skirts.
Allie heard the twitters and whispered comments swirling around her, the only commoner to ever be admitted to the aristocratic school. They all wondered what made her special and why was she was amongst them?
“Ready for calculus?” Eloise gave her arm a squeeze as they came to a halt at double doors.
Allie took a deep breath. Her very first class at St Matthews. In fact, her first organised class of any kind. Lessons in the harem were much more casual and conducted around the pool while lying on enormous cushions. She blew out through her nose. “As ready as I will ever be.”
Eloise pushed the doors open and stepped into the classroom. There was an instant change in tone from the students present. The volume of conversations dropped as the odd couple walked across the tiled floor, Allie at least a head taller than her petite friend. The eyes of those present appraised the newcomer. Allie kept her gaze fixated on the floor, only peeking from beneath heavy black lashes as she kept pace with Eloise.
The few girls present noticed Allie’s simple clothing and dismissed her as a charity case of no consequence or threat to their finely structured pecking order. The boys took in the tall, slender form within the clothes and were far more interested.
The classroom was tiered with a central set of stairs leading off each row. Allie picked up the corner of her skirts and ascended the stairs behind Eloise. Staying away from where the other students were scattered in pockets of three or four, they headed to one side. Allie wrapped mental armour around herself and took her seat. Once sitting, she was relieved to notice they were no longer an object of interest and the rest of the class resumed their discussions.
“I love calculus.” Eloise lay down her books and pulled forth a pencil. She aligned the corners of her book at a precise distance from the edge of the desk. A sigh escaped from her lips as she breathed a name. “Zebidiah Lithgow.”
Allie dropped her books in an untidy huddle and suppressed a laugh. The object of her friend’s longing, a tall, scrawny student with a mess of sandy hair and wire-rimmed glasses, took the centre seat in the front row.
Zeb remained in residence at the school over the summer break and Allie frequently encountered him in the library, studying. Watching the interaction between Zeb and Eloise reminded Allie of the crocodile and the oxen. Not that there was anything remotely predatory about Eloise; it was the way the entire focus of the crocodile centred on the oxen. The creature’s body hummed with awareness, so intent it could predict the movement of the oxen, nothing else existing, except the object of its desire. Meanwhile, the cattle lumbered along the riverbank, drinking from the murky water with its muzzle mere inches from the crocodile’s jaws. It remained ignorant of the ever-watchful eyes.
“Since you have him to swoon over, why do I have to be here?” She pulled a pencil from one of the small canisters hanging around her waist. Extracting a clean sheet of paper from between her books, she entertained herself by doodling pictures while they talked.
“So you can calculate the proper angle and trajectory for throwing your toys,” Eloise replied with a grin.
Allie was adding hieroglyphic embellishments to her picture when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Looking up from her drawing, she found Jared standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at her. She resisted the urge to bite her lower lip on seeing he would be in the same class.
I wonder if I will have him asking all the questions now, instead of Marshall.
He inclined his head at her briefly, before placing his books next to Zeb. Instead of walking around his friend, he simply vaulted over the desk to take his seat. Once settled, he bent his dark head close to Zeb’s sandy one. She wondered what they were talking about. Whatever the topic, the appearance of the Math Master cut all conversation.
Calculus seemed to drag forever. None of the students possessed a particularly long attention span after the long summer of freedom, and the sense of disquiet among them grew. The sunlight coming in through the mullioned windows highlighted drifting dust particles. Allie stared at them for so long they started to form into pi symbols and danced around the cornicing. She resisted the urge to raise a hand and poke one as it lazed past. She didn’t want the Master to misinterpret the gesture and send her to complete the quadratic equation being explained on the board.
Whenever her gaze landed on Eloise’s work, her friend complete the required calculations moments before Zeb raised his hand. Her lips formed the answer, to be echoed seconds later by his words.
As the large grandfather clock in the corner chimed the hour, a collective sigh of relief went up from the students. Allie pulled her books together and watched as Zeb tugged on the chain of his pocket watch, pulling it from his vest. He flicked open the ornate gold ca
sing and compared the face of the watch with that of the larger clock. Snapping the watch shut, he fumbled it back into his vest. His fingers took three attempts before the watch finally obeyed and sunk into its pocket.
Zeb, accompanied by Jared and a blonde poured into blue velvet, exited the classroom, leaving Allie alone with Eloise.
“Why do you do that?” Allie voiced her held in question.
“Do what?” Eloise gathered her books, ready to dart to the next class.
“You knew all the answers, but you never raised your hand.”
They descended the stairs and left the empty classroom. Eloise cast around, looking which students remained in the corridor. “It’s just not done.”
Allie frowned. “What’s just not done? Answering the questions? That’s absurd and it doesn’t stop the boys. You’re a genius, you knew all the answers before Zeb.”
Colour crept up from under Eloise’s collar at the comparison. “Girls should be accomplished at needlework and music, not calculus and biology. No man wants a wife more intelligent than him.”
The frown remained on Allie’s face, before she blew out a sigh. “I can see a few things are going to have to change around here.”
loise took different classes after calculus, leaving Allie alone in a hostile sea. She drifted through History, capsized in English, and almost drowned in Political Science. Stony silence greeted her arrival in each class. Curious eyes assessed the commoner amongst them and Jared’s grey stare held more curiosity than any other. As she passed to find a seat, gossip swirled in her wake. She kept her mental armour wrapped tight, her face a schooled mask of indifference.
Inside she wished to be back on the streets of Cairo or London, running through the crowd, dodging the authorities. Even facing the guild weapons tutor, who taught her faster reflexes by slicing her limbs, seemed an easier option than surviving a year at St Matthews. She nearly gave a cry of relief on seeing Eloise’s smiling face waiting for her outside the last class.
“How’s your day been?” Eloise stared at her red stained fingertips with a frown. She licked one tip. “Ink,” she murmured, and smiled as though relieved the colour hadn’t leeched from anything else.
Allie leaned on the wall next to her friend, watching the flow of students. “Tense. You seem to be the only one who doesn’t think I’m an abomination against nature, about to steal the school silverware.”
Eloise frowned and took Allie’s hand. “You are my friend. Try not to let the rest of them get to you. If it helps, they don’t like me either.” She dragged Allie down the hall and then targeted one particular lanky student. “Zeb has never cared about your breeding, so that’s two of us on your side.” They caught up with the distracted youth. “He is fascinated by your background, aren’t you Zeb?” Eloise posed her question as they fell into step next to him.
He blinked behind his glasses, stopped and flicked his gaze from one girl to the other. “Aren’t I what?”
“You are more interested in Allie’s background than her breeding.”
He pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose with an index finger. “Oh most definitely. I read all about Master Donovan’s work with Champollion and then in Egypt. Marvellous stuff. Why do you ask?”
“Allie is feeling a little overwhelmed.”
“Oh.” Zeb frowned, not understanding Eloise’s statement at all.
“Zeb promised earlier to assist me in replicating an alchemy experiment.” Excitement shone in Eloise’s eyes at having the attention of her idol. “Do you want to join us?”
Allie smiled; she wouldn’t dare impose herself on their quiet time even if she had any interest in smelly chemicals and open flames. “No, I’ll head back to our room and tackle this pile.” She held up her arm load of books.
“I’ll see you later then.” Eloise’s smile nearly outshone the sun.
“Of course.” She watched Zeb push open the heavy metal doors of the Alchemy lab and hold it wide for Eloise. Her friend practically squealed as she ducked under his arm into the heavily reinforced laboratory.
Allie’s feet trod the hallway as her mind flew over the lush fields of England to the hot desert of Egypt. Reaching an empty point in the corridor, she paused at a low window and pressed her forehead to the thick glass. If she closed her eyes, she could take the day’s press of bodies and constant chatter from the students and turn it into the raucous life of the Cairo market. For a brief moment, warmth once again kissed her skin and she inhaled the rich spice of coriander and garlic from a street vendor’s stall.
Opening her eyes, she returned to her body, trapped in York. Outside in the quad, an ancient elm spread limbs dripping with emerald leaves. Students sat under the spreading shade, protecting delicate skin from browning in the gentle sun. She remembered the vertical greenery of soaring palms and heat so intense her skin glistened with a thin veil of sweat.
She didn’t belong here, not on any level. The commoner amongst the nobles, the girl with olive skin amongst the pale beauties, hard won self-reliance amongst chaste obedience.
A deep sigh welled up in her chest. Life had been simple and happy in Egypt; but she turned seventeen, and her father’s patience wore thin. Soon a lifetime of training would be called to the service of her guild.
Unless I refuse.
Turning from the window, lost in thought, she collided with a hard shoulder and her books scattered over the floor. An automatic apology rose to her lips as she dropped to a crouch and began gathering up the fallen items.
Three pairs of shiny, polished boots surrounded her. No one spoke a word or offered to help and an icy trickle of warning ran down her spine at their silence. She took her time, stacking one book on top of the other before scooping up the pile and straightening her knees. She stood, eyeing the unexpected situation.
In front of her were three sullen youths of similar age to herself. Two were the same height, the third taller. All three shared the pallid unhealthy complexions of those who lounged around inside, instead of pursuing outdoor activities. They dressed completely in black, stark white shirts the only break in total darkness.
Someone’s read too many gothic horror novels.
The tall blond one set the tone for the other two; a sneer of distaste curled the corner of his lip. “There’s only one reason the school has accepted the likes of you here,” he said.
Allie hid an eye roll behind dropped lashes. “For an education like everyone else.” She went to brush past them, unwilling to indulge their social prejudices but the blond snaked out an arm, stopping her.
“No, you are here for our entertainment, a spot of sport whenever we require diversion.” He reached out a hand and traced a finger along her collar bone.
Revulsion shot down her spine at the uninvited contact.
Feminine laughter filled the corridor. Allie’s gaze flicked over the boy’s shoulder to see the willowy blonde in blue velvet from calculus class.
“Your sort is meant to serve. You should be on your knees before us.” He leaned closer into her space, using his height to intimidate. The other two boys stood to either side, caging her against the wall.
Allie kept her breathing even and slow. They picked the wrong girl to try to frighten. She turned her gaze to his arrogant face. “I’m a student, not a scullery maid.” She pronounced each word slowly, in case he didn’t grasp the distinction.
The tall youth stepped back as the noble girl moved closer.
“Look at her, so drab and plain in brown. Just like a servant.” A sneer turned the girl’s beautiful face into something base and ugly.
Allie remained composed, used to pushing all emotion to one side. Her gaze locked with the other girl. “In Egypt only whores wear blue. It makes them easier to spot when men want to buy their time.” It wasn’t true but Allie needed to make her own strike. These nobles had to learn she wasn’t defenceless or intimidated.
The girl hissed, drew back a hand and then lashed out. Surprise registered on her face when
the slap missed its mark. Allie’s fingers wound tight around her wrist, halting forward momentum inches from her face.
“Problem?” A soft burr inquired from behind.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” She met the other girl’s cold blue gaze and released her grip, pushing the arm away.
The noble girl narrowed her eyes. “Stay away from me, little scullery maid.”
Allie screwed up her nose and then shook her head. “No, I’m no good with boundaries. I think I will continue about my day however I want, and you will stay away from me.”
Tension crackled in the hallway as the two girls eyed one another. Allie would not budge, refusing to show any sign of weakness to the bully.
“Madeline, I thought you wanted to ride this afternoon?” Jared’s Scottish lilt cut through the strained atmosphere.
Cold blue eyes flashed and the girl’s nostrils flared. “She insulted me, she should be made to apologise.”
Jared eyed the assembled group, ranged around the new student. “Four to one is hardly how we welcome new students at St Matthews. I’d say Allie was holding her own.”
Allie flicked her gaze to the floor to hide her confusion while she assessed Jared. Why does he defend me to his fellow nobles?
“The school should never have admitted a commoner.” Madeline stuttered as though the word commoner leeched an unpleasant taste in her mouth as it passed over her tongue.
Jared moved closer, putting himself next to Allie as he spoke. “You don’t have to like the school’s position, you just have to abide by it.”
“You shouldn’t side against your own.” The other boy moved as though unable to stand too close to Jared. His friends shifted further away, distancing themselves.
“You’re missing the point, Hamilton, there are no sides.” Jared’s predatory eyes raked the other boy, his arms crossed over his chest. “Allie is a student, same as you and me.”
Allie watched the body language between the two youths. Cold waves came off the one called Hamilton, the sneer he showed Allie now turned on Jared.