by Sofia Daniel
I sat back and listened to Alice ramble about the janitor’s sexual escapades with a whole host of girls. This was perfect. Not only had I found someone to complete the task of putting up the cameras, but I’d also found a fall guy who deserved to be framed.
Alice fell asleep in the back of the car, and I emailed the recordings to Jackie on my burner phone with my request. She replied immediately, congratulating me on a brilliant idea and saying she’d get someone down to visit Mr. Carbuncle in Mercia county as soon as possible.
When the car pulled into the driveway outside Elder House, I shook Alice awake.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Thanks for a fun evening.”
I smiled down at her. “Glad you had a great time. We should do it again.”
She opened the door and staggered out of the car. I let out a long, satisfied yawn. That had been a very satisfying evening. I followed her up the stairs and into the building. The reception hall was dark, only lit by the roaring and crackling fire. I stood in front of the mesmerizing sight when a hand grabbed my wrist.
“When will you let Bachmann know?” said Henry.
I pulled out of his grip and folded my arms across my chest. “Have you been waiting here all night for me, just to ask about Sergei?”
He loomed over me, his green eyes unusually stormy. The light of the fire made the ends of his hair glow like sunshine. “You said—”
“You can’t expect me to throw away a good man for a foot massage with a happy ending,” I hissed.
His face fell. “What about our agreement?”
“I said, I’d consider forgiving you.” I prodded Henry in his hard pectoral muscle. “It’s going to take a very long time to trust you after what you did.”
He bowed his head. “If my father ever discovered I’d swindled the family out of a ransom, I’d be disinherited.”
I growled with frustration. Why hadn’t I turned on the recorder? That could have been excellent blackmail material. The next time I would bring up the subject, it would be in front of cameras or at least my smartphone’s recording app.
“I’m not ready to talk about that yet,” I snapped. “Good night.”
As I stalked across the reception hall, he murmured, “I regret what I did, now.”
“Now?” I stopped by the doorway. “That implies you had no regrets at the time.”
He jerked his head back to the fire. “You’re twisting my words.”
“I’m interpreting them. It’s called comprehending English.”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking straight last term, but I’ll make it up to you.”
I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him over his shoulder. “I’ll need more than just an apology.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I know.”
Chapter 7
It was strange. Telling Henry that he’d have to earn my forgiveness had deepened the trust of the triumvirate. The week before, they’d held me at arm’s length, but with the realization that it would take a little more time and bonding for me to fully accept them, they accepted me back into the fold and insisted that I sit with them in classes again.
I spent most of my free time catching up on the work I missed in the previous term and using that as an excuse to avoid studying in Edward’s office with the others. Their idea of prep was a repeat of what had happened the week before. While it had been the most explosive experience of my life, I had to be careful not to let them distract me. Distraction had been a tactic they had used so I wouldn’t work out who had really been behind Henry’s supposed kidnapping.
On Monday night, Jackie sent me a text on the burner phone telling me that Mr. Carbuncle had agreed to put up the cameras in exchange for not reporting him to the police. I texted back to ask if whoever she had sent had coerced him to stop his sexual activities with the girls, but Jackie didn’t reply. My chest tightened at the implication that they hadn’t told him to stop. If I caught him with a girl in his office, I’d have to do something about it.
The following Saturday, just before breakfast, I sat on the edge of my bed and checked the Correspondent’s home page and found an animated gif of a young man stumbling out of a casino with the headline: SHAME OF SUPREME COURT SECRETARY OF STATE. A breath whooshed out of my lungs, and I flopped down onto the corner of my bed. That was Charlotte’s brother!
“Did you get bad news?” Rita stepped out of the bathroom with a towel over her hair.
“Look.” I turned the smartphone around and showed her the screen.
Her eyes widened. “B-but I told you about that.”
“Did you tell me which casinos he visited?” I asked.
“No, but—”
“Then don’t worry. No one will track that information to you.”
She pulled the towel off her head and let her long, dark hair tumble down past her shoulder. “Underwood is going to work out that the leak came from the school.”
“Or her father’s secretary,” I said. “She’ll never know you eavesdropped on her conversation.”
“Actually, I overheard Patricia telling Alice.” She patted her hair dry.
“See? You’re off the hook. Don’t worry about it.”
Rita chewed her lip. “She’ll lash out. Everyone thinks her brother is an advisor for the Saudi Royal family. When they discover she was lying, people will ostracize her.”
I pushed myself off the bed and headed for the bathroom. “Let her see what it feels like for a change.”
Charlotte didn’t turn up at breakfast that day, although Patricia and Wendy sat together in silence, not answering questions from the rest of the house about their friend. Students crowded around Duncan’s table, as he had subscriptions for nearly every British newspaper.
I turned to Edward. “What’s going on over there?”
“A scandal surrounding Charlotte’s brother,” said Blake. “Well, it’s more focused on their father and how he’s selling off his assets to pay his son’s gambling debts.”
I feigned a gasp. “Is that true?”
He shrugged. “She was always tight-lipped with me about her family.”
Edward huffed a laugh. “It’s a pity she wasn’t tight-lipped in other respects.”
Henry snorted his juice, making his friends chortle. I placed my own glass over my lips to hide my disgust at their double standards. Especially Blake, who had recorded Charlotte giving him a blow job and then made it look like I’d been the one who had broadcasted it on the school trip. It had resulted in me waking up in the middle of nowhere, then confronting Henry and getting myself embroiled in a kidnapping plot and subsequent framing.
Charlotte didn’t turn up for any of her meals on Saturday, and she was missing at breakfast on Sunday. I hoped she was dining on plastic-wrapped sandwiches, just as the bullies had forced Rita to do until I had found an unoccupied table.
Later, I told the boys I wanted to buy tampons from the school’s tuck shop. It was the only way they would leave me alone to walk around the campus. Frost still covered the grounds, but the weather was mild compared to what it would be like in New York.
I strolled over the lawn, admiring the snowdrops and Christmas roses sprouting from the flowerbeds. Mercia Academy would have been a paradise if it hadn’t been for Charlotte and the Triumvirate. Most students only bullied to win the favor of the school’s kings. When I dethroned them, maybe the scourge of cruelty and snobbery would vanish.
A loud blast of heavy metal caused me to turn to the direction of International House. A young woman stepped out through the double doors, dabbing a handkerchief to her face. She wore a hooded jacket, a woolen mini skirt, and ankle boots. My gaze swept up and down her long legs. Either they were bare, or she was the queen of selecting perfectly nude pantyhose.
“Are you alright?” I jogged up to her.
She turned to me with doleful eyes. In a thick, Eastern European accent, she asked, “Do you have international phone card?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, no. Tr
y the tuck shop.”
Her over-plucked brows creased together. “Tuck?”
“Umm… It’s a store that sells snacks and other things. Are you a teacher?” I asked.
“No. I am student of GCSE.”
I examined her features. With her heavy makeup, bouffant hair, and crow’s feet, there was no way she was fifteen or sixteen, the typical ages of GCSE students. She was at least twenty-five. Although Mom had signed me up for the International Baccalaureate in Park Prep, I knew enough about the British educational system to assume that people her age could go to a less prestigious university as a mature student instead of spending two years getting their GCSEs and then another two just to get their A levels.
“I’m Emilia.” I gave her my warmest smile.
“Nadia.”
“I’m going to the tuck shop, now. Should we go together?”
Nadia smiled back, and we strolled across the campus to the small building that held both a cafe and a general store. The assistant found a stack of phone cards, and Nadia paid from a wad of cash she kept in an envelope in her purse. I swallowed. Who carried about that much money these days?
We strolled over the path leading back to our houses, our feet crunching gravel underfoot. A cold shock of wind blew through my thick tights, and I glanced at Nadia to see how she was faring with her bare legs. Her face didn’t even change expression.
“Aren’t you freezing?” I asked.
“England is not so cold compared to the Sakha Republic.”
“Where’s that?”
Her face fell. “The north-east of Russia.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you homesick?”
Edward approached from the other side of the path, bundled up in a scarf and hat. Even though I couldn’t see most of his expression, it was hard to miss his wintry glare. He caught up with us outside International House, where two sets of stereos competed for attention.
“Emilia.” His gaze flickered up and down Nadia’s form. “You’re wanted back in Elder House.”
Nadia dipped her head. “Thank you for helping. I feel better now.”
I gave her a friendly smile. “You’re welcome.”
As soon as she was out of earshot, Edward whirled on me. “Don’t mix with the students of International House.”
Excitement jolted through my chest. If I acted clueless, he might reveal something I could give Jackie. “What’s wrong with Nadia?”
His brows furrowed. “If that’s your idea of a nice girl, I seriously doubt your judgment.”
“Because she’s from Russia?”
He reared back. “Of course not. I wouldn’t be so prejudiced.”
“How do you explain all those Yank taunts you made last year?”
Edward’s expression froze. In his little bout of self-aggrandizement, he’d forgotten how everyone had used my nationality as a slur. A wave of genuine anger crashed through my veins as I remembered looking into the mirror and finding words scrawled on my face in blue permanent marker. Then the shower of red dye that had broken my spirit. Even if he hadn’t meant to be xenophobic in his warning about International House, I still despised the way he had treated me the previous term.
“How can you say you’re not prejudiced when you bullied Rita,” I spat. “She isn’t what you’d call an English rose.”
“Because she was a scholarship student,” he replied in a tone that implied it was reasonable to victimized someone for being awarded a place on merit.
My nostrils flared. Did he think I was some kind of idiot? “I’ve met the other scholarship students, and none of them mentioned being bullied. What made Rita a target when the others weren’t?”
He jerked his head away. “You’re coming to the wrong conclusions on purpose.”
“Don’t gaslight me.” I tossed my head with as much indignation as I could muster. I’d meant what I had said about him singling Rita and me out for bullying. We were outsiders, and he was a bigot. “You dislike the students of International House because they’re not British.”
I stormed off back toward Elder House, hoping he would chase after me and explain the reasons for his warnings, but I didn’t hold out hope. Edward had one of those patient, calculating personalities. I would have to work on him a little more before finding out why such strange people occupied International House.
Days later, Henry leaned into my side in English Lit. “I haven’t seen you alone in ages.”
I pursed my lips. Whose fault was that? After the kidnapping, I had wanted to continue things as we’d left off, but he had kept a distance romantically, waiting for the opportunity to present itself to share me with his friends. As much as I wanted to spit that, and a few other choice words, into his face, I shrugged. “I’ve been trying to get my grades up.”
“Don’t you have the rest of the afternoon free? There’s a French restaurant in the village. We could go there for an early dinner. Or I could get a car to take us to London. Then you’d be able to do whatever you like.”
My eyes narrowed. Was the London trip a ploy on the part of these manipulative fucks to break up my pretend relationship with Sergei? He’d probably want to take me somewhere prominent, so the paparazzi could take pictures of Sergei’s supposed fiancé on the arm of the Bourneville heir.
I placed my hand on his. “The French restaurant sounds lovely.”
Henry was about to say something when Miss Oakley gave him a demerit for talking in class. He clammed up and turned his attention to the old lady. I rested my chin on my hand and listened to the rest of the lecture. I couldn’t wait to gather information on him to share with Jackie. Of all the triumvirate, he had hurt me the most.
The car stopped on the same stretch of road as the phone box we’d used to call for help after our supposed kidnapping. A pang of sadness hit me as I spotted the red structure. At the time, I had been so relieved to have my freedom, but it also reminded me that the kidnappers had injected me with a drug. Several times.
“Here it is.” Henry placed a hand on the small of my back and led me to a store with darkened windows. He opened the door, letting out a waft of garlic-and-rosemary-scented air, and we stepped inside. “You’ll love this place.”
I gazed around the restaurant, eyes wide. The exposed brick walls, wooden beams, and baskets hanging on the walls gave it a homey, rustic feel, and I couldn’t wait to try out the food. “It’s so beautiful. Why are we here alone? Blake and Edward would adore this place.”
The side of his lips quirked into the kind of smile that used to make my heart melt. Now it made my heart twist with sadness. The triumvirate had probably practiced all their facial expressions on girls over the years. How else could they attract so many hangers-on even when they showed them little interest?
“Jean-Paul and Françoise have been surrogate parents for the three of us. This is the perfect place to start our reconciliation.” He guided me to a table close to the kitchens. “Nothing can be right between us until I fix things.”
An elderly couple rushed out and both wrapped their arms around Henry.
“Henri,” cried the woman. “Je suis heureuse de te voir! Comment ça va?”
He gave them a crooked smile. “Bien, merci. Êtes-vous?”
I shuffled my feet as the conversation in French continued, until the old lady gave me the widest grin and asked, “Et ta nouvelle fille?”
Henry straightened. “Jean-Paul, Françoise, may I present Emilia Hobson.”
The old lady stepped close and gave me two kisses on the cheek. As I drew back, she said in a French accent, “We embrace four times in Loire Atlantique.”
“Oh.” We exchanged two more kisses before she drew back, and her husband gave me four.
Afterward, the couple disappeared into a back room while we looked over the menu.
“What would you like to order?” Henry asked. “The taster menu is sublime.”
I raised a shoulder. “Sounds good.”
When Jean-Paul returned, Henry proceed
ed to order for me in fluent French. I propped my chin on the heel of my hand, wondering how many other languages he spoke apart from French and Spanish. Did he speak German as well? I tamped down the giddy feeling of awe rising from my chest. With enough money and enough time, a school could drum any subject in their students. What they couldn’t teach them was basic decency.
We stayed in the company of Jean-Paul and Françoise for hours, drinking red wine and eating samples of whatever the old couple brought out from the kitchens. If I hadn’t been with Henry, it would have been a wonderful date.
After Henry paid the check, we strolled around the village, enjoying the sight of the quaint, stone buildings and their thatched roofs. The sun had already set, and old-fashioned iron lamps cast the street in warm, orange light. We reached the corner by the red telephone box, and Henry grabbed my hand.
“I can’t express how much I regret my actions of last term.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “And I can’t tell you how lucky I am that you’re back.”
I let out a long, deep breath and stared at the bridge of his nose. If this was where I was supposed to forgive him and say flattering words about feeling lucky to have three of the most handsome boys in the school, I would stay silent.
“I’m so sorry, Emilia.” He threaded his fingers through my hair and gave me a look of such hunger, it made my heart pound in anticipation of a kiss. “Believe me when I tell you, I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness.”
“Why don’t you start by explaining who decided to frame me?”
“Pardon?” His brows drew together.
“All three of you were remorseful about getting me into so much trouble. But I still don’t completely understand why you would let me take the blame for something I didn’t do.”
He pressed his lips onto my forehead. “It was never meant to be like this.”
My heart skipped several beats. Was he finally going to open up to me? “Go on…”
“If I had known how badly things would end for you, I would never have let you take the blame for their actions.”