Page 101 of The Marriage Method

“We married by special license. The banns weren’t necessary.”

“And with the lack of a marriage announcement being published in the papers,” Effie added.

Nell fell silent. No. There had been no announcement. And there could be none now. Not after Nell had given her full name to Mrs. Pritchard. Not without revealing to everyone that Penelope Trewlove, former schoolteacher, had married Mr. Miles Quincey, editor in chief of the London Courant.

“Could Mr. Quincey not print something?” Effie asked. “A sort of belated—”

“No.” Nell shook her head. “It’s impossible. We’re traveling to Hertfordshire in four days’ time to attend Lord Amstead’s shooting party. He can’t learn that Mr. Quincey is editor of the Courant. And he mustn’t find out that my maiden name is Trewlove. If he did…”

“Yes, I see. It’s too dangerous.” Effie’s expression was grim. “Which leads me to an alternative solution. Mind you, it was Miss Corvus who proposed it, so don’t bite my head off.”

Nell’s lips compressed. “Go on.”

“Write to Pettiman directly. Invite him to come here. Perhaps even to stay with you for a day or two as an honored guest—”

“Are you insane?” Nell interrupted, aghast.

“Not I,” Effie objected.

“That I should permit that offensive, sanctimonious prig to come here and stay under my roof when all the while—”

“Then don’t,” Effie said. “Invite him for dinner. Or—even better—for tea. An hour’s visit at most, and you’ll be rid of him. Surely, it’s a small sacrifice given the magnitude of his power in relation to the Academy. And only think, the sooner the scandal dies away the sooner you can return to your teaching post.”

Nell lapsed into guilty silence. It had been several days since she’d thought of returning to the Academy. She’d been too busy settling into her new life with Miles. Enjoying her new life. She’d all but forgotten that it was supposed to be temporary.

The reminder brought with it a pang of anguish.

It wasn’t like her to be selfish. For the past eighteen years of her life, the needs of the Academy had always come first.

“Is that what you would do?” she asked.

“After I considered strangling the man and discreetly disposing of his wretched body?” Effie sighed. “I wouldn’t like it,” she said, “but yes. If I thought it would do the trick.”

Nell resented the obligation to her core. But resentment was a useless emotion. Academy girls were meant to keep their eyes on the future. Nell knew that better than most. These petty insults and offenses were nothing in comparison to the good that the school was doing. That it must keep doing.

“Very well.” Standing all at once, Nell limped to Miles’s desk. It stood on the opposite side of the library, a great carved mahogany monstrosity with a green leather blotter covering its surface. “If I must do it, I may as well get it over with.” She opened the topmost drawer, searching out paper, ink, and a steel-nibbed pen.

The latter two implements were readily to hand, but the paper was harder to come by. She had to look through two drawers before she found a stack of it. But it wasn’t blank. It was covered with Miles’s handwriting. An article he was writing, Nell supposed. She gave it the veriest glance as she moved to flip through the pages, seeking a fresh sheet. And then—

Her attention was arrested by a familiar name.

Miss Corvus’s Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies

It was the heading on what appeared to be a vast outline of facts about the charity school. Nell scanned the pages, her blood running cold. There were details about Miss Corvus, names and employment information about several of the Academy’s graduates, and notes about the charity school’s special curriculum—self-defense, swordplay, and coded samplers. And something else, too. A final line, recently added:

Rule No. 1—Know your surroundings.

26

Miles returned early from the office on Monday evening, in possession of the architectural plans for Northwick Hall. He was eager to present them to Nell. She’d been at the forefront of his mind all day, while he’d sat through dreary meetings about dwindling sales and loss of advertising, while he’d argued with the other editors about who was best qualified to take over Cowgill’s column, and while he’d revised a lengthy article one of his reporters had written on the rumors of war brewing in Japan’s Shimonoseki Straits.

But when Miles looked for his wife, first in the drawing room and the library, then upstairs in her room, she was nowhere to be found.

He exited her bedchamber, frowning, the portfolio that held the plans still tucked under his arm.

Gladys was scurrying down the hall with an armful of linens. She stopped when she saw him, dropping a curtsy. “Mr. Quincey, sir.”

“Has Mrs. Quincey gone out?” he asked.