she crossed the street to the orphanage. If she guessed right, Henry would practice that trick until he could tilt a coin over and through his fingers with his eyes closed.
When she was perhaps forty yards from the orphanage’s front door, an angry-looking woman stalked out wearing a light-pink day dress with dark pink trim, a matching pink spencer, and large bonnet covered in pink silk flowers. The painted fan in her hand beat warm air toward her face, causing her profusion of blond ringlets to bounce in protest.
Miss Spranklin.
It had to be.
Thank goodness she wasn’t towing a child behind her. Chloe hurried to catch up.
“Miss Spranklin?” she called out in an upper-class accent. She infused her voice with merriment. “Why, it is you!”
The woman paused to look at Chloe, a slight frown flitting across her brow.
It was the expression Chloe’s presence always engendered. The vague confidence of having seen a face like hers somewhere before, coupled with a complete inability to produce the name of the person it belonged to.
“Miss Brown,” Chloe supplied, then gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “Oh, of course you don’t recall my name. I didn’t have my cards with me last time, did I?” She made a show of opening her basket and pulling out one of her cards. “Here you are, just as I promised.”
Miss Spranklin accepted the card. “‘Jane Brown, Governess.’ Of course. I remember now.”
Whether she was lying to Chloe or to herself was impossible to guess.
Either way, Chloe beamed at her and barreled on, a tornado of bubbly good cheer.
“As you may recall, I tire of being a governess. I want to be a businesswoman like you! I can barely concentrate from thinking about the empire you’ve made and the inspiration you are.”
Miss Spranklin straightened at this bit of flattery.
“Please say you’ll be my mentor and advise me on how best to begin a school of my own. Or—” Chloe gasped and clapped her hands together as if the most wonderful idea had occurred to her. “Let me learn from you. May I? I could be any kind of assistant you desire. I’ve the skills of a governess, and I’m not too proud to manage accounts and correspondence or perform any other tasks that need completed. Under your tutelage, I just know I’ll learn everything there is to know. There’s no one I admire more.”
That was laying it on a bit thick, but Miss Spranklin had begun to preen more and more with every word.
“I’m in a rush at the moment,” Miss Spranklin said, “but if you can pay a call to the school tomorrow afternoon at five, I can spare half an hour in which to give you a proper interview.”
The post was as good as Chloe’s.
She clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, thank you! You’ve already been even more marvelous than I dared to dream.”
Miss Spranklin’s eyes glittered. “I assume you can bring references with you?”
“Of course,” Chloe gushed. “It would be such an honor to learn from you. I can hardly credit my good fortune. I will be there at five and not a single second late, references in hand. I swear it.”
“See that you are,” Miss Spranklin said briskly, then turned and strode across the street with a much jauntier gait than when she’d exited the orphanage. She flagged a hackney and was gone with no further delay.
“Good show,” said Bean as he and Henry crossed the street to Chloe. “I presume you secured the interview?”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” she said with a satisfied smile.
“Watch!” cried Henry.
The shilling managed to tumble across two of his knuckles before slipping through his fingers and falling to the ground.
“Be careful.” Chloe scooped it up from the ground and handed it back to him. “That’s a magic coin.”
“It doesn’t seem magic. Every time I—” He stared at the coin in his palm. “It’s not a shilling anymore! It’s a sovereign! It is magic!”
Chloe exchanged a grin with Bean before ushering Henry in through the orphanage door. After presenting their cards to the man guarding the door, she hurried in the opposite direction of the wards toward Mrs. Pine’s small office.
The door was closed.
Upon hearing the knock, Mrs. Pine opened the door a crack, then wrenched it open wide.
Dot was seated on the floor in the corner with her arms wrapped about her knees.
“Did you see her?” Mrs. Pine whispered. “Abhorrent woman!”
“I’ll find out the extent of it tomorrow,” Chloe assured her. “She’s allowing me an interview. What did she want here?”
“Nothing that she