Turnip tried the window, but it was well and truly locked. Nice to know that his sister and Miss Dempsey would be safe, but deuced irritating when one needed to get inside. The side doors were probably all locked right and tight and if they hadn’t been, they would be now.

Bother it. He needed to speak to her, and not merely to gloat about having been right about there being something dodgy going on. Oh, all right. Maybe only to gloat a little bit.

Turnip took a step back, scrutinizing the façade of the building. He could see the light move slowly from window to window. Miss Dempsey’s room was on the fourth floor. He knew because he’d had Gerkin ask. The school was made out of a rough stone, hung with ivy.

Where there was ivy, there was generally a trellis.

Chapter 12

When Arabella peeked into Catherine Carruthers’s room, Catherine was tucked up in bed with the covers pulled over her head.

She had, however, neglected to remove her shoes.

Arabella stood in Catherine’s doorway, her candle casting a faint light over the blackened soles of a pair of brown leather boots. They were half-boots, the sort that laced on and couldn’t be kicked off easily. Not even when one was racing to bed in a hurry with several schoolmistresses in hot pursuit.

As Arabella watched, the shoes slowly retreated beneath the blanket.

Arabella contemplated drawing Catherine’s attention to the matter of the shoes and then decided against it. In less than a week, everyone would be packed off home to their families for Christmas and Catherine would be someone else’s problem. In the meantime, let her enjoy her small victory. She must have snuck back upstairs while everyone was tripping over furniture and bumping into one another in the drawing room. If the blankets had been just a little longer, or Catherine just a little shorter, she might even have gotten away with it.

Arabella backed soundlessly out of Catherine’s room, closing the door gently behind her. Tomorrow morning, she would see that a strong bolt was placed on the outside of Catherine’s bedroom door, to prevent any such further nocturnal perambulations. It probably made Arabella a bad schoolmistress, but as long as Catherine was back in her bed, not on the road to Gretna Green, Arabella didn’t much care what she had been up to. All that mattered was that Catherine remain on school grounds for the next five days, after which she would be her betrothed’s problem, not Arabella’s.

Poor Catherine. She so enjoyed flouting her schoolmistresses and shocking her friends. She would hate to know that she had been upstaged by a falling mustachio and a crouching Turnip. But really, compared to the rest of the evening’s activities, Catherine’s were positively mundane.

Arabella wondered if Turnip Fitzhugh was still out there, keeping the school safe from puddings and their perpetrators. Arabella choked on a giggle. Little did Miss Climpson know that Turnip and his faithful groom were on patrol, like a latter-day Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. All that was missing was the donkey.

Arabella paused in front of her own door. Did that make her the donkey? Perhaps this wasn’t quite so perfect an analogy as she had originally thought.

What was it Lizzy Reid had said? Maybe they were all just Chinese philosophers dreaming of being butterflies.

Or maybe it was quite late and she should go to bed before she lost what was left of her mind.

“I must have misplaced it in the drawing room,” muttered Arabella, and then looked guiltily around to make sure no one had heard her.

Of course they hadn’t. Everyone else was asleep. Or at least doing a decent job pretending.

Juggling her candle in one hand and the notebook Miss Climpson had given her in the other, Arabella shoved the notebook up under her armpit. With the notebook clamped against her side, she awkwardly turned the handle of her door, nudging it open with one foot.

Only to nearly drop the notebook.

There was someone in her room. Not just someone. There was a man in her room. A great big man dressed all in black.

He was sitting on her desk — or, to be more accurate, he was sitting on Clarissa Hardcastle’s history composition, which was sitting on her desk. His knit cap had come off somewhere along the way, leaving his hair squashed flat on one side and sticking up at odd angles on the other.

“Hullo,” said Turnip Fitzhugh, swinging his feet so his heels clunked against the legs of her desk.

Normally, the sight of a man in one’s room would be cause for alarm. Consternation, even. It ought to be enough to send her sprinting down the hallway, screaming rape, murder, and everything in between. Not, however, when that man was Turnip Fitzhugh. Arabella found it hard to work up the proper level of maidenly alarm and indignation at finding Mr. Fitzhugh in her bedchamber. He was just... Turnip.

Arabella closed the bedroom door behind her. “Are you a Chinese philosopher or a butterfly?”

Mr. Fitzhugh considered the question. “Since I’m not Chinese, does that make me the butterfly?”

“That would explain how you managed to fly up four stories without using the stairs.” Arabella realized that she was still holding the notebook and set it carefully down on the corner of her desk not occupied by Turnip. She would figure out whom it actually belonged to later. “Not to seem nosy — purely out of curiosity, you understand — how did you get up here?”

Mr. Fitzhugh indicated the window behind him, which was currently open and blowing cold air straight through her room. “I climbed the trellis.”

Naturally. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Perhaps because she hadn’t even known there was a trellis. And wouldn’t have expected strange men to go climbing up it if she had. Her bedroom was not generally high on the list of Sights to Be Clandestinely Visited by the Male Population of England.

“You climbed the trellis. Of course you did.” It made as much sense as anything else that had happened this evening. “Do you climb trellises frequently?”

Mr. Fitzhugh gave the matter due consideration. “Wouldn’t quite say that. Never climbed one before. Trees, yes, the odd wall, but never a trellis.”

Four flights up, no less. That was impressive. Potentially suicidal, but impressive. “And you made it all the way up on a first go? I’m very impressed.”

“It did get a bit dodgy at times, but it’s not all that different from climbing a wall once one gets the knack of it.” And then, since he seemed to feel some further explanation was required, “Seemed safer up here with the Climpson prowling around below. Didn’t want her to catch me and dose me with barley and whatnot.”

“She has been known to climb the occasional flight of stairs.” As Mr. Fitzhugh started to scoot off the desk, taking the top two pages of Clarissa’s composition with him, Arabella held up a reassuring hand. “Don’t worry. You’re probably safe for the moment. She’s too busy with Signor Marconi to bother about the odd trellis climber.”

“I’m not that odd,” protested Mr. Fitzhugh. He looked down at his sweater, and a leaf flopped down onto his nose. He blew it away. “At least not compared to Signor Whatsis.”

“Signor Marconi?”

“That’s the chap. Shouldn’t wonder if he and your Miss Climpson were a while. They’re probably still looking for his missing mustachio.”

A sound somewhere between a choke and a snort escaped Arabella’s lips. She could just see Miss Climpson and Signor Marconi on their hands and knees, crawling around the drawing-room floor, searching for the music master’s missing facial hair.

“He should have used stronger glue,” Arabella agreed, doing her best to keep a straight face.

“If a man can’t grow it, he shouldn’t wear it,” pronounced Mr. Fitzhugh with great decision.

“That would be very aw-aw-awkward applied to breeches.” Arabella barely managed to get the words out. The images in her head were too ridiculous. All the absurdity and tension of the evening came bubbling out, despite the hands she clasped over her mouth to try to keep the laughter in. She could see the whole scene in front of her, everyone bumping into one another and toppling over each other and Signor Marconi — Signor Marconi —

“Miss Dempsey?” Mr. Fitzhugh peered earnestly at her. “But don’t you wonder what he was doing there?”

“Other than being sat upon by Lizzy? Oh, heavens, the look on that man’s face! And then Miss Clim — Miss Climps — ” Arabella was laughing too hard to speak.

Mr. Fitzhugh leaned forward, holding on to the edge of the desk, tilting first this way then that to try to get a look at her face. “You all right there? Everything tip-top?”

“Oh, qu-qu-quite!” gasped Arabella. “I wasn’t the one who was s-s-s-sat on. Miss Reid! People are not for sitting! ”

At the memory of Lizzy Reid perched on the music master’s back, like a cat standing guard over a particularly juicy mouse, Arabella gave up and howled.

Having ascertained that she was in no immediate danger of dying, Mr. Fitzhugh leaned back, planting his elbows on the desk. “It could have been worse. It could have been Sally sitting on him.”

Couldn’t. Cope. Arabella clutched her stomach, wheezing. Could a person burst from laughing too much? “S-Sally. Not so heavy.”

“No, but she’s a good head taller than the Reid girl.” Mr. Fitzhugh considered. “Less bounce in her, though. Once Sally sits on someone, she stays sat. Like a rock. Or a very large paperweight.”

Arabella pointed a shaking finger at Mr. Fitzhugh, laughing so hard that no sound came out of her mouth. She rocked back and forth, trying to get the words out.

Mr. Fitzhugh looked at her quizzically.

“It’s you,” she managed to gasp out. “Sitting on my papers.”

Mr. Fitzhugh jumped up as though Clarissa’s composition had burned his backside.

“No, no.” Arabella waved a hand. His face swam in and out of focus through the tears of mirth. “Sit, please. No harm done. You make an excellent paperweight. I might even keep you on permanently.”

“Don’t think Miss Climpson would like that.” He settled very cautiously back down on the desk, taking care to push the papers out of the way. The inkwell rocked on its stand and he made a successful grab for it before it could go over.

“Oooh, that hurts,” groaned Arabella, pressing her hands to her abdomen.

“Where you fell?” asked Mr. Fitzhugh, all concern.

“No, where I laughed.” Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Arabella confessed, “I was terrified that someone would see you out there, c-crouching in the bushes. You kept popping in and out.” She waved a hand to illustrate. “Like a j-jack in the box. Every time I’d look, there you were again. Up and down and up and down. You took three years off my life, you know.”

“Only three?” Mr. Fitzhugh grinned at her. “Didn’t want to miss anything. It was better than Astley’s Amphitheatre. Never knew who was going to pull which stunt next. All that was lacking were a few ponies in feathers. Although” — Mr. Fitzhugh’s face grew sober — “I did feel bad about not being able to rescue you.”

“Rescue — what?” Arabella applied a knuckle beneath her eye to try to clear the moisture away. Heavens, she felt tired all of a sudden. Tired in a good way, as a small child who had been playing outside all day in the sun and the wind, ready to go gratefully to sleep.

“When the intruder came in,” Mr. Fitzhugh said. “I was all set to charge in and do the knight-in-shining-armor bit. But I got tangled in the curtains.”

Arabella gave a surprised giggle that turned into a hiccup. “No, really?”

Not the curtains. She wasn’t sure her aching diaphragm could take it. She was all laughed out, hollowed, as though someone had taken a spoon and scooped out her insides. She took a long, deep breath, feeling it tickle at the back of her throat.

The breath turned into a yawn and she hastily covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

Mr. Fitzhugh scuffed his heels against the desk legs. “What if he hadn’t been the music master? What if he had been armed?”

Touched by his concern, Arabella reached out a hand to touch his sleeve. The knit weave of his sweater was rough against her bare fingers. “But he wasn’t armed.”

“That we know of,” countered Mr. Fitzhugh.

“What was he going to do? Threaten to affix his facial hair to my upper lip?” Arabella lowered her voice. “It would have been a disaster if you’d come barging in. I might have lost my position over it. At least Signor Marconi had a plausible reason for being in the school. You had none.”