“Why do you think I’m trying to get into Sandhurst?” said Wintervale. “The British fight lots of wars. Maybe there is something to be learned from them.”
Titus also wished Lady Wintervale had not adamantly adhered to the tradition of having a child from one of the Domain’s grandest families study alongside the heir of the House of Elberon. Lady Callista had been his mother’s companion—look how well that had turned out.
“Try not to get yourself killed in one of Britain’s colonial wars,” he told Wintervale. “It would be the ultimate irony.”
“Do I hear mentions of colonial wars?” said Kashkari, joining them, dapper in his impeccably turned-out uniform and sleek black hair. “Is your stomachache gone, Wintervale? You look better.”
“I’m fine now,” said Wintervale.
Lady Wintervale’s unpredictable mental state and penchant for relying on her only child meant that Wintervale often had to invent sudden pains to go back to his room—or clear his room—to use the wardrobe portal.
“Do the two of you want some tea?” Wintervale issued his usual invitation.
“Why not?” said Kashkari.
“I will join you in a minute. I think I saw Fairfax from my window. Let me go down to make sure it is really him.”
“Fairfax!” exclaimed Wintervale. “Are you sure?”
“But your window doesn’t face the street. How did you see him?” asked Kashkari.
“He was walking across the grass. Who knows? Maybe he wants to refamiliarize himself with everything.”
“About time,” said Wintervale. “We need him to play.”
“He still does not feel the strength in his leg,” said Titus, moving toward the stairs. The otherwise charm he had created before he first stepped into the school was fairly watertight: no one doubted that Fairfax existed. All the same, he had better reach the ground floor soon. The boys would not recognize her as Fairfax unless someone said the name aloud; and only Titus could do that. “Who knows whether he will still be any good at sports after an injury like that?”
Wintervale’s other passion, besides returning the barony of Wintervale to its former glory, was cricket. He had convinced himself—and a fair number of other boys—that Archer Fairfax was the veriest cricket prodigy whose return would propel the house team to the school cup.
“Strange. He’s been gone only three months, and already I can’t remember what he looks like,” said Wintervale.
“Lucky you,” said Titus. “Fairfax is one of the most ferociously ugly blokes I have ever met.”
Kashkari chuckled, catching up with Titus on the steps down. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“Please do.”
Mrs. Dawlish’s house, despite its overwhelming majority of male occupants, had been decorated to suit Mrs. Dawlish’s tastes. The wallpaper in the stairwell was rose-and-ivy. Frames of embroidered daisies and hyacinths hung on every wall.
The stairs led down to the entry hall, with poppy-chintz-covered chairs and green muslin curtains. A vase of orange tulips nodded on the console table beneath an antique mirror—a boy was required to examine himself in the mirror before he left the house, lest his appearance disgrace Mrs. Dawlish.
Titus was two steps above the newel post when Fairfax came into the entry hall, a slim, tall-enough figure in the distinctive tailed jacket of an Eton senior boy. Immediately he was appalled by his abysmal judgment. She did not look like a boy at all. She was much, much too pretty: her eyes, wide-set and long-lashed; her skin, needlessly smooth; her lips, red and full and all but shouting girlishness.
She saw him and smiled in relief. The smile was the worst yet: it brought out deep dimples he had not even suspected she possessed.
Dread engulfed him. Any moment now someone was going to shout, What is a girl doing here? And since everyone knew Fairfax as his closest friend, it would take no time for the agents stationed at Eton to put two and two together and conclude that there was far more than just cross-dressing going on.
“Fairfax,” he heard himself speak—his voice almost did not quiver. “We thought you were never coming back.”
Almost immediately Kashkari said, “My goodness, it is you, Fairfax!”
“Welcome back, Fairfax!” hollered Wintervale.
With the repetition of her name, other boys swarmed out of the woodwork and took up the chorus of “Look, Fairfax is back!”
At the sight of so many boys, her smile disintegrated. She did not say anything, but looked from face to face, her hand tightening upon the handle of the valise. Titus could not breathe. For eight years he had lived in a state of slow-simmering panic. But he’d never known what real terror was until this moment. He had always depended on himself; now everything depended on her.
Come on, Fairfax, he implored under his breath. But he knew it. It was too much. She was going to drop the valise and bolt. All hell would break loose, eight years of work would circle the drain, and his mother would have died for nothing.
She cleared her throat and beamed, a smug, lopsided grin. “It’s good to see all your ugly faces again.”
Her voice. Lurching from one emergency to another, he had paid no mind. Now he truly heard it for the first time: rich, low-pitched, and slightly gravelly.
But it was her grin, rather than her voice, that steadied his heartbeat. There was no mistaking the cockiness of that grin, absolutely the expression of a sixteen-year-old boy who had never known the taste of defeat.
Wintervale bounced down the rest of the steps and shook her hand. “You haven’t changed a bit, Fairfax, as charming as His Highness here. No wonder you two were always thick as thieves.”
Her brow lifted at the way Wintervale addressed Titus. Wintervale knew who Titus was, but to the rest of the school, Titus was a minor Continental prince.
“Do not encourage him, Wintervale,” said Titus. “Fairfax is insufferable enough as it is.”
She looked askance at him. “Takes one to know one.”
Wintervale whistled and slapped her on the arm. “How’s the leg, Fairfax?”
One of Wintervale’s thwacks could snap a young tree. She managed not to topple over. “Good as new.”
“And is your Latin still as terrible as your bowling?”
The boys snickered good-naturedly.
“My Latin is fine. It’s my Greek that’s as ghastly as your lovemaking,” she retorted. The boys howled, including Titus, who laughed out of sheer shock—and relief.
She was good.
Brilliant, in fact.
CHAPTER
AFTER RUNNING THE GAUNTLET OF handshakes, backslaps, and general greet-and-insults, Iolanthe hoped for a moment to breathe. But it was not to be.
“Benton!” Wintervale called. “Take Fairfax’s bag to his room. And make sure you light a good fire there. Fairfax, come with us for tea.”
A smallish boy, wearing not a tailed coat but one that stopped at the waist, whisked the valise away.
“Work him hard.” Wintervale smiled at her. He was as tall as the prince, blond and strapping, almost spinning in place with nervous energy. “Benton hasn’t done much in your absence.”
She didn’t ask why she had to work Benton hard—the prince would explain everything later. She only grinned at Wintervale. “I’ll make him regret that I ever came back.”
Before Little Grind, Master Haywood had taught at a school for boys. Each evening, after sports practice, a group of them would walk past Iolanthe’s window, chatting loudly. She’d paid particular attention to the most popular boy, carefully noting his cheerful swagger and good-natured insults.
Now she was acting the part of that happy, affably cocky boy.
The prince, walking a pace before her, turned his head and slanted her an approving look. Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t think he was the kind to approve easily.