Free Beyond A Wicked Kiss by Jo Goodman Page B

since January. And before you inquire, no, there is no Miss Weaver."
    It hadn't occurred to West to ask after the academy's namesake, but now he could not resist. "There is no Miss Weaver now, or there never was?" He wasn't entirely surprised when Ria did not deign to answer. She was learning when she must ignore him, which he counted as a good thing. "Go on, Miss Ashby, you have explained to my satisfaction why you think of the students as your girls, but it begs the question as to how you came to Miss Weaver's Academy. Last night you mentioned an allowance. I cannot reconcile that with you taking a position at the school. Did the duke provide so little for your care?"
    "His Grace provided a generous allowance," she said. "The choice to engage in respectable employment was mine."
    West had learned to listen for what it was that people did not say. He thought he heard something between the lines now. "My father did not approve of your enterprise."
    "No. He did not forbid it, but neither was he in favor of it. He insisted that I continue to accept the allowance."
    Here was another thing she was not quite saying, West decided. "Which you do not use for your living expenses," he said, eyeing her serviceable gown, "but for sustaining Miss Weaver's Academy."
    "There are always students who can ill afford to pay the tuition."
    "These are students with little in the way of consequence and with few prospects of acquiring any. Why educate them at all? What can be the sense of it, especially as they are females?"
    It was an argument Ria had heard before. Usually it frustrated her. Now, coming from this man, it merely disappointed. "That is one view," she said in carefully neutral accents. "Mine is considerably—" She stopped because she was finally able to comprehend the perfect blandness of his expression and know he was putting significant effort into affecting such a countenance. "You do not believe that at all, do you?"
    West smiled a little then. "No, I do not." He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs comfortably. His hands were folded loosely on the edge of the table. He tapped the balls of his thumbs together. "But I do not think I am such a reformer as you. Indeed, I am not a reformer at all. It's a messy business, better left to politicians, who like to wallow in it, or women, who cannot help but take a broom to it."
    "I think you are a cynic, Your Grace."
    "And I make no apology for it." He regarded her thoughtfully. "There is much more here I want to know, Miss Ashby, but mayhap you should tell me about your missing girl."
    "Her name is Jane Petty, and she is but fifteen years old."
    "Then she is no child."
    "No, but—"
    "Have you considered there is a young man? Perhaps she has fashioned an attachment to one of the local fellows and gone to Gretna."
    "I don't think so," Ria said, shaking her head. "I could find no evidence to support it."
    "Then you did admit the possibility."
    "Let us say I did not want to overlook it. Jane is rather more trusting than is strictly good for her, so I could envision that such a thing had come to pass. Yet she is not a restful girl, and one has to consider that maintaining secrecy around an elopement is wholly out of character."
    "You are perhaps understating it when you describe her as not restful? "
    With an almost imperceptible nod of her head, Ria conceded the point. "Jane is a chatterbox," she said, her tone giving clear proof of her fondness for the girl, "and her movement is not confined to the workings of her jaw. She is rarely still. She chafes at inactivity and suffers the strictures of the classroom because she must. Outside of it she flits about like a hummingbird, pausing here and there, but never settling for more than a few moments. She fairly thrums with energy, and she cannot do a thing quietly. Something is invariably overturned or at least set askew. One always knows when Jane has been about." The recollection raised a faint smile that quickly disappeared as Ria