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here, Miss Martin?”
    â€œIndeed we do,” she said. “We offer everything necessary to make accomplished young ladies of our pupils, as well as persons with a sound academic education.”
    He looked around the sewing room from just inside the door but did not walk farther into it.
    â€œAnd do you teach other skills here in addition to sewing and embroidery?” he asked. “Knitting, perhaps? Tatting? Crochet?”
    â€œAll three,” she said as he closed the door and she led the way to the assembly hall. It had been a ballroom once when the building was a private home.
    â€œIt is a pleasingly designed room,” he said, standing in the middle of the gleaming wood floor and turning all about before looking up at the high, coved ceiling. “Indeed, I like the whole school, Miss Martin. There are windows and light everywhere and a pleasant atmosphere. Thank you for giving me a guided tour.”
    He turned his most charming smile on her, and Claudia, still holding both his visiting card and Susanna’s letter, clasped her free hand about her wrist and looked back with deliberate severity.
    â€œI am delighted you approve,” she said.
    His smile was arrested for a moment until he chuckled softly.
    â€œI do beg your pardon,” he said. “I have taken enough of your time.”
    He indicated the door with one arm, and Claudia led the way back to the entrance hall, feeling—and resenting the feeling—that she had somehow been unmannerly, for those last words she had spoken had been meant ironically and he had known it.
    But before they reached the hall they were forced to pause for a few moments while the junior class filed out of the dining hall in good order, on their way from tea to study hall, where they would catch up on any work not completed during the day or else read or write letters or stitch at some needlework.
    They all turned their heads to gaze at the grand visitor, and the Marquess of Attingsborough smiled genially back at them, setting them all to giggling and preening as they hurried along.
    All of which went to prove, Claudia thought, that even eleven- and twelve-year-olds could not resist the charms of a handsome man. It boded ill—or
continued
to bode ill—for the future of the female half of the human race.
    Mr. Keeble, frowning ferociously, bless his heart, was holding the marquess’s hat and cane and was standing close to the front door as if to dare the visitor to try prolonging his visit further.
    â€œI will see you early two mornings from now, then, Miss Martin?” the marquess said, taking his hat and cane and turning to her as Mr. Keeble opened the door and stood to one side, ready to close it behind him at the earliest opportunity.
    â€œWe will be ready,” she said, inclining her head to him.
    And finally he was gone. He did
not
leave Claudia feeling kindly disposed toward him. Whatever had
that
been all about? She wished fervently that she could go back half an hour and refuse his offer to escort her and the girls to London the day after tomorrow.
    But she could not, and that was that.
    She stepped into her study and looked into the small mirror that she kept behind the door but rarely consulted.
    Oh, goodness gracious! Her hair really
was
flat and lifeless. Several strands had pulled loose from the knot at the back of her neck. There was a faint smudge of ink on one side of her nose left there when she had tried to remove it earlier with her handkerchief. And one point of her collar was indeed slightly curled and the whole thing off center. She adjusted it one-handed, very much too late, of course.
    Horrid man! It was no wonder his eyes had laughed at her the whole time.
    She remembered Susanna’s letter then and broke the seal. Joseph Fawcitt, Marquess of Attingsborough, was the son and heir of the Duke of Anburey, she read in the first paragraph—and winced. He was going to offer to bring Claudia and the