The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig

Author:Lauren Willig [Willig, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780525951872
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Published: 2010-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Arabella’s head snapped up.

What?

In the meantime, Turnip blithered blithely on. “Think that pudding might be related to what happened to your room. Too much of a coincidence otherwise. Deuced strange goings-on and whatnot.”

“You made a scene in the middle of the virgin birth because you wanted to talk to me about puddings.”

“It wasn’t the middle of the virgin birth,” said Turnip, looking virtuous. “I waited until the shepherds.”

“Naturally,” said Arabella. Because that made such a difference.

“Sally told me about the notebook that was taken. Said it was in French.”

“French exercises,” Arabella corrected. “French exercises.” Presumably written by an English student. In the process of learning French.

Turnip nodded in agreement, although agreement with what, Arabella wasn’t quite sure. “Cunning, ain’t it?” he said admiringly. “Who would think anything of a notebook full of French exercises?”

“The French mistress who has to mark them?”

“But that was just the thing!” said Turnip triumphantly. “What if the marks weren’t marks, but replies? Sitting on the windowsill like that, anyone could reach out from the outside and take it down, read it, reply, and put it back.”

“In plain sight of the gardener, the games mistress, and at least a dozen bedroom windows?”

Turnip ignored her and carried blithely on. “Might have been a sort of code. Really quite brilliant when you think about it—people put all sorts of ridiculous things into school exercises, all that rot about borrowing the plume of one’s aunt’s sister’s second cousin twice removed …”

Arabella listened to him go on about his inventive and entirely imaginary scheme for smuggling information and felt her fingers clench tighter and tighter into fists at her side. This was why he had shouldered his way into the prompting booth with her? This was why she had risked discovery and disgrace to meet with him in private? So he could talk about imaginary spies?

Clearly, their kiss had been entirely beside the point for him, just one of those little things that happened in between climbing trellises and lying in wait for puddings, nothing to remark upon and certainly nothing worth remembering a whole long two days later. He’d probably forgotten all about it by now.

All that was merely incidental to the more pressing issue of how spies meant to convey information at an all-girls’ academy that was obviously the center of espionage for the entire British Empire—no, Arabella corrected herself recklessly, the world. Bonaparte was probably, at this very moment, making plans to produce reams of student notebooks, written in bad schoolgirl French, purely for the purpose of infiltrating Miss Climpson’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies. It made perfect sense, thought Arabella flippantly. He must want her recipe for miniature mince pies. Then he could get all the pastry chefs in France to band together to produce them in bulk and deploy them as a weapon of mass destruction against the combined forces of the Allied Army, which would fall into disarray and defeat, their jaws glued together with mismade mince.

Now that was a brilliant plan. Maybe she should suggest it.

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