A School for Unusual Girls

by Kathleen Baldwin

  My faithful and loving husband, you are so much like Sebastian, always off fighting tyrants. This book is dedicated to you. You are the greatest supporter a girl could have. When you heard Tor bought this series you were so happy you jumped up and down. In that moment, my heart overflowed. Joy means so much more when shared with you.

  Read on for a sneak peek at Tess’s story, to be told in Exile for Dreamers, Book 2 of the Stranje House series:

  “You can’t go.” I blocked Lord Ravencross’s path. “They’ll kill you.”

  “We all have to die sometime.” He grasped my shoulders and moved me aside.

  “It needn’t be today.” He let go, so I said it louder. “Not today.”

  Please.

  He strode down the hall and I followed. “Very well then, if you won’t listen to reason at least let me ride with you. They might not attack two men.”

  “You may think this is a clever disguise.” He cut a hard ruthless gaze over my trousers and coat. “Look at you, Tess. Inside of two seconds any fellow worth his salt would be able to tell you’re a female.”

  He tromped away. “I can’t catch them and protect you at the same time.”

  I snapped, “You wouldn’t need to. I can protect myself.”

  “You will stay here.” He charged out of the room with a pistol in his hand and another tucked into the crook of his arm. “Miss Stranje,” he bellowed. “Muzzle your pup!”

  My heart pummeled against my chest as he rushed downstairs.

  “Let him go, Tess.” It was Sera who came to me, not Miss Stranje. She tugged on my arm. If it had been anyone else I would’ve jerked away, but Sera understood.

  I squeezed my eyes shut against the anguish threatening to make me ill. “I saw them murder him,” I whispered. “This morning. In the woods. I saw it.”

  “I thought as much.” She smoothed back my hair. “But now that you’ve warned him, it won’t happen.”

  “You can’t know that for certain.”

  “It’s a fair assumption. Your visions saved Sebastian and all those other men in Vienna.”

  I kept my voice low so Georgie wouldn’t overhear. “We don’t that know for certain either. Events changed in Calais, but we don’t know what has happened since. There’s been no word from the Captain or Sebastian for almost a fortnight.”

  Sera straightened. “This morning you saw what would happen if Lord Ravencross hadn’t been warned. Now that you’ve told him, everything is changed. He’s riding out armed. He is going after them.”

  I backed away from her. If only I could stop seeing clubs beating against his skull, knives slicing into his chest, and blood, all that blood, his blood, and him collapsed in it with no life in his eyes, then maybe I could believe her. Maybe.

  “Girls!” Miss Stranje called sharply. “If you will all gather around we shall have our first lesson on guns this morning.” She announced this in the same manner any other headmistress might gather her students to discuss the proper way to pour tea. But ours pushed open a window that looked out over the park and held out the basket of guns. “Suppose my quarry were to dash across the park in that direction.” She pointed across the drive to the far side of the front lawns. “At that distance a small pistol will be of little use. So I will select the pistol with the longer barrel. Why do you suppose that is?”

  Georgie piped up. “The elongated barrel will cause the bullet to fire under more pressure. Thus it will go farther and the trajectory will be more reliable.”

  “Precisely.” Miss Stranje knelt on the floor and aimed the gun out of the window. “The longer barrel will also provide a more reliable sight.”

  Georgie knelt down beside her. “Yes, of course. That makes perfect sense.”

  Miss Stranje tilted her head to one side, peered down the length of the pistol, and kept talking. “When you aim at moving target, keep the sight slightly in front of…”

  Palms sweating, only half-heartedly listened, scarcely able to stand in one spot, I kept watch out of the other window. With shaking hands I trained the telescope on the far corner of the north field. Waiting. Watching for Lord Ravencross to come riding along the path.

  Maya protested, “Surely, we will never be called upon to use such deadly weapons. We have other methods at our disposal.”

  “One must not limit one’s arsenal,” Miss Stranje said. “If your persuasive voice would suffice in every situation, Maya, you would not be at Stranje House, would you?”

  “I … she … that was my inexperience.” Maya rarely lost her composure. The off-key notes of pain in her normally melodic voice were unmistakable. She fidgeted with the black pelisse she’d donned for this excursion. “With more training and practice I might have prevailed. Surely, you cannot be suggesting I ought to have shot my step-mother?”

  “No.” Miss Stranje exhaled loudly, still sighting the gun. She adjusted her position at the window. “Although it is a rather intriguing thought, is it not?”

  Maya gasped.

  Jane patted Maya’s shoulder. “She doesn’t mean it. You mustn’t take everything so literally.”

  Georgie studied the angle of Miss Stranje’s gun. “I can think of a situation in which a pistol would’ve come in very handy.”

  I remembered well the night she had in mind.

  Miss Stranje said blunty, “That, my dear, might have proved a grave error. I fear Lady Daneska would’ve disarmed you and used the gun against you. She is very well-trained.”

  Georgie sniffed defensively but held her ground. “You trained her. You can train me.”

  “We shall see.” Miss Stranje explained how to sight down the barrel of the gun.

  I could not concentrate on her lesson. I stared through the telescope at the far corner of the field where the murderers lay in wait. It was a small thing, that hare bounding out of the adjacent woods, but prickles rained over my scalp and arms. My hands shook. I clenched the scope so tight it’s a wonder it didn’t break. The next instant a flock of birds winged skyward.

  I didn’t need a vision to tell me what was going on.

  “Ambush!” I shoved the scope at Sera. “It’s not just the men in the woods between the estates. More are hiding in the back field.” I snatched the double-barreled pistol from Miss Stranje’s basket and dashed out of the study.

  Miss Stranje called after me, ordered me to stop. I ignored her, took the stairs two at a time, yanked open the front door, and ran. In the freedom of man’s trousers I almost flew. I blazed straight and true across the field to the plance where they planned to trap him.

  I was too late. Lord Ravencross cantered Zeus along the far path headed straight for disaster.

  About the Author

  KATHLEEN BALDWIN has written three award-winning traditional Regency romances for adults, including Lady Fiasco, winner of CataRomance’s Best Traditional Regency, and Mistaken Kiss, a HOLT Medallion finalist. She lives in Plano, Texas, with her family.