Manners & Mutiny
Page 63

“Please, Headmistress. Allow me.” Sophronia snapped open the lid of her flask of lemon-infused tincture and dabbed a generous amount onto the vampire’s nose.
Nothing happened for a moment.
Then Professor Braithwope sneezed violently, which forced him to unhook his fangs from the Pickleman’s neck.
“Professor, dear,” said Mademoiselle Geraldine, “I have your robe. Do put it on.”
The vampire straightened, dazed but now free of any evidence of torture. All his wounds were healed. One could see this, of course, because he was still without clothing. He turned to face them.
Sophronia and the headmistress got a good view of all matters at that juncture.
Sophronia couldn’t entirely hold back a squeak. It was so surprising. “Goodness. Well, I always told my mother this school provided a comprehensive lesson plan. It is a good thing she did not realize how comprehensive.” She did not turn away, however. A lady of good breeding wasn’t afforded many in-person anatomy lessons, not even at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s.
Professor Braithwope struck an Adonis pose. “I was sculpted in marble. Did you know? I was once thought quite the fashion.”
The headmistress smiled and draped the yellow robe about the vampire’s shoulders. “Unfortunately, my dear man, this is England in the modern age, and you really must wear clothing. How would we otherwise get any work done? Such a distraction. And what will I tell this young lady’s mother?” Even though the Pickleman was barely conscious, Mademoiselle Geraldine was careful not to use Sophronia’s name.
If Sophronia had lingering doubts about the headmistress being a trained intelligencer, they were now put to rest.
“You tell her that her daughter got a bang-up classical education,” replied the vampire.
Sophronia didn’t entirely understand the subtext, but Mademoiselle Geraldine found this hilarious.
The vampire shrugged into his banyan, tying its fringed sash tight about his waist. Sophronia breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a bit much.
Mademoiselle Geraldine moved the conversation on. “Forgive me, Professor, but your meal? What should we do about him?”
The vampire looked at the prostrate man. “I’m full now.” His tone was childlike.
Sophronia considered the problem. “We can’t leave him. He will eventually tell what he knows.”
“And what is that?” wondered Mademoiselle Geraldine.
“That I am here, that you two are free, that I’ve already eliminated one other man, and that I intend to eliminate more.”
“Ah. I see. Your thoughts, Professor?”
“Every man should fly once in his lifetime.” The vampire’s mustache had recovered from its faint and was puffy with malcontent.
“Out the window, you think? Well, if you would do the honors.” In an aside, Mademoiselle Geraldine said to Sophronia, “We have a good excuse, that way. He could have simply fallen off.”
The vampire lifted the prostrate Pickleman. The headmistress opened a large porthole on one side, behind a pile of leaflets, and without ceremony, the vampire stuffed him through it.
Sophronia preferred not to think about the man falling to the countryside below. Even had he survived the bite, he would not survive that. Death, she thought, laid at my door. Absurdly, her brain fixated on the man’s appalling grooming habits. At least she wouldn’t have to look at that beardlet ever again.
She then found she wanted rather badly to cast up her accounts. But her stomach was empty. She could only hide the fact that she was retching by turning away and covering her mouth with her fan. That only caused her to notice the blood on the blade. She cleaned it hastily with her red doily, the one they were always supposed to carry with them but were never told why.
“My dear girl, was that…? Surely not. Your first finishing?” The headmistress took her arm, solicitously. “Come, I believe there is a little tea left in the pot. You look as though you could use a drop.”
The teapot, on its side where the Pickleman had dropped it, did indeed still contain a splash of tea. It was enough for a much-needed, and very fortifying, tiny cupful.
Sophronia sipped it gratefully.
“There, that’s the color back in your cheeks.” Mademoiselle Geraldine patted her shoulder.
Professor Braithwope joined them, drawing up Sophronia’s former pouf and perching on it like an odd buttercup-colored walrus. He seemed utterly harmless in his yellow quilted robe, his mustache bristling with satisfaction.
Sophronia had a difficult time looking at him.
“So, my dear, what’s the occupation situation?” asked Mademoiselle Geraldine.
Sophronia felt better at the question. This was something she was prepared for, that she was equipped to handle with skill and training.
“I have a map for that.” She reached into her pocket.
NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WICKER
They had to study the map at length in order to formulate a satisfactory plan of action.
It was Mademoiselle Geraldine who called a halt to the proceedings. “We should move. They may send a runner up here to find out what’s happened to our airborne friend.”
Sophronia nodded. “They are less likely to search student quarters, although with two men missing, they ought to begin a room-by-room sweep. That’s what I would do.”
“Do they have the manpower for that?” asked the headmistress.
Sophronia grinned, looking feral. “Not if we keep hounding them.”