Sally beamed regally upon them both. “They are my particular friends.”

“What happened to Annabelle Anstrue and Catherine Carruthers?”

Sally’s tone turned glacial. “They are no longer my particular friends.”

Turnip gave up. Female friendships were a deuced sight harder to follow than international alliances.

“What did they do?” he asked jocularly. “Borrow your ribbons without asking?”

Sally set her chin in a way that her instructresses would have recognized all too well. “I liked those ribbons.”

“Ah, yes, well. Righty-ho,” said Turnip hastily, taking a few steps back. Hell hath no fury like a little sister whose ribbon box had been tampered with. “Good term at school, then?”

“Oh, an excellent one!” contributed one of his sister’s new sworn siblings. Bouncing curls... this one was Lizzy Reid. Not that it did any good to remember their names. It would be a new set by next Christmas. That is, if Sally weren’t already out on the marriage market by then. That was a terrifying thought, his little sister let loose on the world. It was one that Turnip preferred not to contemplate. Ah well, time enough to jump that hedge when he came to it. “Catherine Carruthers was caught exchanging notes with one of the gardeners and was almost sent home in disgrace!”

“It wasn’t actually with the gardener,” the other one broke in. “He simply carried the notes for her. It was some officer or other on leave from his regiment.”

Sally squinted at her. “Are you quite sure? I heard that it was an artist and they were going to run away to Rome together!”

Tugging at his cravat, Turnip glanced over his shoulder at the door. Was it just him, or did they keep the school unnaturally warm for December? The French mistress, he noticed, had already beat a hasty retreat. Deuced sensible of her. For a large room, this one felt jolly small.