Arabella paused in front of the door of Miss Climpson’s seminary. It was painted a pristine white with an arched top. It certainly looked welcoming enough and not at all like the prison her friend painted it. She could be happy here, she told herself.

It was the sensible, responsible decision. She would be making some use of herself, freeing her family from the burden of keeping her.

It wasn’t just running away.

Arabella squared her shoulders. “Please give your mother and Cassandra my fondest regards,” she said, “and tell them I will see them at supper.”

“You are resolved, then?”

Resolved wasn’t quite the word Arabella would have chosen.

“At least in a school,” she said, as much to convince herself as her companion, “I should feel that I was doing something, something for the good both of my family and the young ladies in my charge. All those shining young faces, eager to learn...”

Jane cast her a sidelong glance. “It is painfully apparent that you never attended a young ladies’ academy.”

Chapter 2

They were everywhere.

Girls.

Young girls. Very young girls. Even younger girls. Not a surprising thing to be found in an all-girls’ school, but Mr. Reginald Fitzhugh, more commonly known to his friends and associates as Turnip, hadn’t quite thought through all the ramifications of placing nearly fifty young ladies — using the term “ladies” loosely — under one set of eaves. They thronged the foyer, playing tiddlywinks, nudging one another’s arms, whispering, giggling. There was no escaping them.

And someone had thought this was a good idea?

Turnip dodged out of the way of a flying tiddlywink, wondering why no one had warned of the hazards involved in paying calls on all-girls’ academies. Come to think of it, this must be why his parents had been so deuced eager to foist the job of delivering Sally’s Christmas hamper off on him. He might not be the brightest vegetable in the patch, but he knew a dodge when he saw one.