The Governess Gambit - Erica Ridley Page 0,21

the table and opened the wicker lid. Inside the basket were oatcakes and raisin biscuits, as well as a tall stack of parchment. Chloe had spent all night drafting the perfect papers for her students to work on independently, tailoring each task to the child and her level. Conjugations and composition for the eldest, matching and copying for the youngest. Between the practice work and the sweets, the girls would be busy for an entire hour.

Chloe was counting on it.

She handed out the papers and explained the instructions. “For each page you complete, you are allowed to select one cake or biscuit from the basket. Understand?”

Never had a group of girls been so delighted to receive a stack of coursework.

“Where will you be?” asked Nettie, one of the older pupils.

Chloe held up a brown paper package. “I shall deliver these to the girls in the scullery, and then return posthaste. I trust you will all remain silent and studious while I am gone?”

The children’s eyes widened, and they nodded vigorously. They did not want to catch Miss Spranklin’s attention any more than Chloe did.

“Off you go, then. Attend to both sides of page one before you select a biscuit.”

A dozen pencils immediately flew to the first page.

Chloe cracked open the door and listened for the sound of music coming from the salon before she slipped out into the corridor.

One hour. An abundance of time. She had once picked pockets without breaking her stride. Picking locks was only a tiny bit slower. Finding damning evidence and misappropriated wages... well, she would cross that bridge once she was inside Miss Spranklin’s office.

But first, she had to deliver the cakes to the scullery. If Chloe were caught with them, Miss Spranklin would see that the poor overworked girls never received a single crumb. Chloe didn’t think Miss Spranklin would dismiss her for an insubordination this innocuous, but she didn’t want to find out.

Chloe hurried down the corridors to the kitchen and scullery at the rear of the school. She had been slipping the girls packages of food whenever she could. They even had a secret spot behind the potatoes where they hid their bounty.

It hurt Chloe’s heart that the children couldn’t openly enjoy something as simple as a raisin biscuit. But she was here to solve that problem. Today. This very morning.

“Thank you so much,” gushed the girls. “Will you stay and share one with us?”

“I would love to, but I really—” Chloe’s stomach twisted at their crestfallen expressions. “Just one. I must hurry back to my class.”

She hated to abruptly abandon such lonely, eager-to-please children, but her hour in which she could help them was already dwindling precipitously. As soon as she could do so without hurting their feelings, Chloe hurried back into the corridor and made her way to Miss Spranklin’s office.

Distant music from the pianoforte drifted down the hall. Chloe checked her pocket watch. Fifteen minutes remaining? Her fingers shook. She could manage it. She had to.

She returned her watch to her pocket and pulled out her picks. She dropped to one knee in order to be at eye level with the keyhole as she twisted her metal rods this way and that.

Only when the click of the interior mechanism falling into place sounded clear and sharp did Chloe realize the pianoforte in the salon had gone quiet. She grabbed her watch. She still had ten minutes! Miss Spranklin would not have ended lessons early for any reason.

Of course she would. She was Miss Spranklin. The one game she enjoyed just as much as terrorizing children was appearing unexpectedly to check on Chloe.

Cursing under her breath, Chloe used her picks to push the pins back into a locked position and then sprinted down the corridor and around the corner to her students’ classroom. Her hand had barely closed on the door handle when Miss Spranklin’s footsteps sounded from the opposite direction.

“Going somewhere?” came the headmistress’s sharp voice.

Going somewhere. Perfect. Miss Spranklin thought Chloe was sneaking out of her classroom, not back into it. She spun to face the headmistress.

“I heard the music stop ahead of schedule,” Chloe said brightly, “and worried something had happened and that you might need me. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Doubtful,” Miss Spranklin said. “Unless you’re particularly gifted at finding missing children.”

Chloe gave her a blank look. “Missing... children?”

“A runaway.” Miss Spranklin crumpled what appeared to be a letter in her fist. “I hired a man to search a five-mile radius of