Free Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis Page A

light. Mama’s magic mirror was excited by where we were. And my mouth was suddenly dry with sickly, horrible fear. I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t ever going back into that mirror world again. But I wasn’t sure that the mirror itself would accept my decision.
    Luckily, my sisters weren’t looking at me.
    “Look,” Angeline said, as the carriage rattled onto the stone bridge that led across the river. “There’s the house itself … if you can call it a house.” She snorted. “The first owners certainly must have thought well of themselves.”
    “What on earth are you chattering about now?” Stepmama’s frown eased into a smile of satisfaction as she peered through the window at the house beyond the abbey. “I would call that a very fine house indeed.”
    If Grantham Abbey could have fit two hundred monks within its walls, the manor house attached to it could have held a hundred more of the monks’ closest friends. The peaked windows of the house had been built to mirror the arches of the abbey, and it sprawled nearly as far along the sides of the hill as the abbey ruins below it.
    It was almost enough to take my mind off the dangerously hot reticule in my hands. “What do you think they do with all that space?”
    Angeline arched one eyebrow and smirked. “Roll around in it and gloat, perhaps?”
    “They most certainly do not,” Stepmama said sharply. “My cousin Rosemary has done very well for herself indeed, and you girls would do well to take note of it. Her success certainly did not arise from impertinent humor.”
    “What a pity,” Angeline murmured. “She could use a sense of humor, to live in a gothic monstrosity like that.”
    Elissa still hadn’t uttered a word. Her face was as white as snow.
    I frowned at her and freed one hand to reach out to her. She gasped at my touch.
    “Why, Kat! You’re burning hot. What’s wrong with you?”
    “Nothing!” I said. I pulled my hand back, too late. Angeline had already swiveled around to frown at me.
    “She doesn’t look feverish,” said Angeline. “She is a little flushed, though.”
    “I’m fine,” I said. I wrapped my hand back around my reticule, pushing it deeper into my lap, away from view. “Leave me alone.”
    “If you’re not feeling well …,” Elissa began.
    Angeline’s frown deepened. “Maybe that’s not it after all,” she said. “I know that look in your eyes, Kat. What have you got in your lap?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “Just a reticule, like yours.”
    “Hmm.” Angeline leaned across the pile of bandboxes that separated us. “Let’s see that—”
    “Enough!” Stepmama said. “We’ve arrived.” The carriage pulled to a stop in the long, circular drive in front of the house, where about a dozen footmen waited for us. “Angeline, Elissa … Kat …” She directed her most forbidding glare at me. “I trust you all to behave like proper young ladies. Or—!”
    She left her threat unfinished as the carriage door sprang open. The footman’s eyes widened as he saw how much baggage lay piled at our feet, but he bowed low anyway and offered his hand to Stepmama as soon as he’d cleared the way of bandboxes. She accepted his hand with a steely smile and stepped down onto the stone drive.
    Beyond her, two figures stepped into the open doorway of the manor house. One of them was a tall, brown-haired woman I’d never seen before in my life.
    The other was Mr. Gregson.

Seven
    Mr. Gregson’s gaze met mine. I shoved myself back against the carriage panels. If it hadn’t been too late to hide, I would have thrown myself underneath the piles of bandboxes at my feet.
    Then I caught myself.
    Mr. Gregson and Lady Fotherington had insulted my mother and my parents’ marriage. They had tried to attack me with magic—to make me do whatever they told me, like a magical slave. But I had escaped, despite their best efforts, and I was almost certain I’d broken Lady Fotherington’s nose.
    They were the ones who