“I realized we never finished our introduction last night. I’m Armand Louis.”
He gave it the French pronunciation, Lew-eee, which wasn’t how Director Forrester had said it at all. It didn’t make me like him any better.
He held out his hand. I didn’t take it.
If I’m rude, he’ll go. If I make it clear I don’t like him, he’ll go.
“Hmm.” His hand dropped, but he didn’t leave. “Well. How is it?”
“How is what?”
He made a vague, circular motion with the goggles. “The school. Mrs. Westcliffe. Everything.”
“Satisfactory.” I took that second step back.
“Have you seen the conservatory yet?”
“No.”
“The grotto?”
“No.”
“How about—”
“I’ve been at Iverson approximately twelve hours, my lord. I have been to my room and to church, and very briefly to dine. That is all.”
Now he smiled at me, sharp and alluring, and it was just as unsettling up close as it had been from afar.
“Call me Mandy.”
“I don’t believe I will,” I said, with another step.
“It’s quite all right. Lots of the girls do.”
I summoned my own chilly smile. “How lovely for you. Why don’t you go chat with them? I’m sure they miss you already.”
“Eleanore, look.” He matched my retreating step with a forward one. “About last night. You’ll have to forgive me if I—if matters didn’t turn out as you liked. It’s just that, you know, Chloe. She’s—”
“Coming this way,” I finished for him.
And she was, striped skirts lifted with both hands, long coils of chocolaty hair blowing past her shoulders. She didn’t raise her voice, not quite, but the look she shot me could have melted steel.
“Mandy, darling! They’ve nearly finished unloading the motorcar, and I promised Lucille you’d take us for a spin along the coast. She’s got her hat and gloves and we’re all set to go.”
Lord Armand didn’t even turn around.
“Tea’s at four,” he said to me. “It’s decent enough. Will you be there?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, honestly.
Chloe had reached us. She placed a hand on his arm, fingers curving into his sleeve. The filmy tail of her scarf whisked up between them to tap against his coat.
“Ready?” she asked, almost a purr.
Armand looked from me to her, then back to me. I saw the change come over him, an invisible shield that dropped across his eyes, no warning, no retreat. He resurrected that icy smile, then escorted Chloe back to their waiting group of safely adoring schoolgirls.
• • •
It was impossible to hold a conversation while driving. That was one of the things he loved best about it, Armand decided. The raucous roar of the engine. The thick smell of grease and oil mixed with dust from the road, coating his face and the inside of his mouth.
And the speed. It was speed without the pure galloping smoothness of a horse, true. Driving as fast as he liked meant jolts that could rattle apart bones. But it was speed, and control, and the knowledge that the speed was dangerous and the control a mere fine-edged illusion. A ruse of shiny knobs and grinding gears.
He’d nicked the auto from the motor stable before Reginald had recovered enough from last night’s claret to notice. Armand wasn’t technically permitted to drive—it was one thing on a very long list of perilous things he wasn’t permitted to do—and so, when he could, he enjoyed driving very, very fast. He enjoyed that the Atalanta’s engine was so rough that neither girl next to him could politely shout over it. Chloe and her friend rode with their lips squeezed shut and their eyes narrowed and a hand each to their hats.
He’d told Chloe repeatedly to wear something with less of a brim if she wanted to go out motoring with him. She never listened.
What there was of road along this part of the mainland was dirt. Sometimes rocks and dirt. Sometimes ruts and rocks and dirt.
He saw a deep groove in the way ahead and hit the accelerator for all he could. They smacked over it high and bumped back down hard. Both girls screamed: shrill, birdlike peeps.
A pair of ewes stared at them, startled, from a patch of clover growing close to the road. The auto tore past them before the sheep even began their first running hops away.
Under other circumstances, on another day, Armand would have steered right for the next rut. But his mind kept drifting elsewhere.
To her.
He’d had the worst night. If he’d slept at all, he couldn’t remember it. His memory had run like a mouse on a wheel, the