“Most praiseworthy of you,” Emm said dryly. “Heseeming so helpless and lost. And apparently in need of people to carry.”
Lavinia giggled. “Wasn’t he delicious, miss? So stern and handsome and tall, and those eyes...”
“You, miss, are a minx,” Emm told her. “Now be off with you. Get on with your French poetry exercise. And I’ll give you an extra poem to translate and learn as punishment for your mischief.”
Lavinia sighed, but she was getting off lightly and she knew it.
Emm paused, then added, “Lavinia, before you go, I want you to think about this: Which young lady do you think a gentleman would find most interesting—the girl who thrusts herself eagerly into his company, unasked, or the young lady who remains ever-so-slightly aloof—a prize to be won?”
Lavinia looked perplexed. “You think he thought me too eager?”
Emm fought a smile. The girl had been flirting outrageously in the way of the very young and innocent. “I have no idea what that particular gentleman thought. All I ask is that you think about the impression you wish to give.”
“But if I am too cool and aloof, gentlemen might not even approach me.”
“There is no danger of that,” Emm assured her. “You’re a very pretty girl with a lively and affectionate nature. You will have your pick of gentlemen, I’m sure. A little reserve will not frighten men away—it will only make you a prize more worth the winning.”
Lavinia gave her a doubtful look.
Emm said lightly, “Men—most people, in fact—value the hard-won prize over that which comes to them easily, don’t you think?”
“I never thought of that.”
Emm smiled. “I’m not suggesting you change your personality, just that you try to consider the impression your words and actions might give. A girl’s reputation is a delicate thing, and it rests almost wholly in the hands of others. People who don’t know you can misinterpret your actionsand make false judgments about you, and once that’s happened, there’s very little you can do to change things.”
If only someone had told her that when she was Lavinia’s age.
Lavinia thought that over and nodded. “I see.” She took a few steps, then paused and turned back. “You are so wise, Miss Westwood. Why did you never—?” She broke off, blushing. “Sorry,” she muttered, and hurried away.
Emm knew what she had been going to ask. Why had Emm never married? The girls speculated constantly about that, she knew. She’d never explained, and never would.
The girls had come up with a range of stories, she knew, the most widely accepted being that she’d been in love with a soldier who’d been killed in the war.
Emm never discussed it. The truth was uglier than anything the girls, in their innocence, could come up with. Emm still didn’t quite understand how it had happened.
Just that it had. And her life had been ruined.
No, not ruined, she told herself firmly. She was happy here. She loved teaching, she really did. And the girls were wonderful.
But it wasn’t how she’d dreamed her life would be.
She hurried to her room to prepare for her next class. Geography. A frustrating subject; not only had the borders of so many countries been changed by Napoleon’s conquests, they kept changing after his defeat. It was almost impossible for a teacher to keep up.
She set out the globes and tried not to think of the tall, hard-eyed man waiting below. What would bring such a man to Miss Mallard’s Seminary?
***
“The Rutherford girls?” The elegant silver-haired headmistress stared at Cal in horror over herpince-nez. “You want me to take Rose and Lily Rutherford back? No and no and no!”
Cal said soothingly. “Not permanently, just for a few weeks or a month, until I can—”
“No!” She removed thepince-nez, placed them in a caseand closed it with a snap. Business completed. “Not for a week, not for a month, not even for a minute!”
“Why not?”
“Your half sisters are too old for this establishment. Too old and too... restless. They would lead the younger girls astray.”
“What if I paid double the usual fees?” She didn’t respond, so he said, “Triple?”
