It wasn’t that he didn’t love the minx. Of course, he did. As these things went, she was the positive gold standard of female siblings, the Weston’s waistcoat of little sisters. That didn’t mean he loved the idea of four days in a carriage with her.
With a meditative toss of his pudding, Turnip reached for the door. Unfortunately, someone else was there first. The pudding tumbled to the floor as Turnip collided with something soft, warm, and quite clearly not a door.
Doors, after all, seldom said “Ooof!”
Chapter 3
Half an hour later, Arabella emerged from the headmistress’s office as a newly minted junior instructress of select young ladies.
All around her, the hall had been decked for Christmas, with bright bows of greenery and sprigs of holly. A pair of bright-eyed young girls walked past her, arm in arm, whispering confidences. Arabella forced herself to unknot her hands, taking a deep, ragged breath. It was done. She had done it, persuaded Miss Climpson to take her on, on short notice with no prior experience. It helped that Arabella had enjoyed the tutelage of an excellent governess, courtesy of Aunt Osborne. It also helped that the headmistress had found herself short an instructress with only three weeks remaining to the term. That, Arabella knew, had been the deciding factor, rather than anything inherent to herself.
Whatever the cause, she had accomplished her goal. She was to start on Monday, and if the three weeks before Christmas went well, she could stay on for the following term. Miss Climpson had made no promises regarding Olivia and Lavinia, but she had promised to consider it. Should Arabella prove satisfactory.
Arabella looked around the hall, at the bows and greenery and whispering girls. She could picture Lavinia and Olivia here. It would be good for them. Olivia needed to be drawn out of herself, exposed to the society of, well, society. As for Lavinia, exuberant and endearing, she needed just the opposite. Miss Climpson’s would provide her structure and polish.