Waistcoats & Weaponry Read Free Page A

other three as
confidantes extraordinaire
. The best part being that she knew they felt the same way about her. Each had her own set of abilities. Sidheag had stoic strength. Dimity a guileless craftiness. Agatha… well, perhaps Agatha was a bit of a wet blanket. She was loyal to a fault and she did try. She tried too hard sometimes.
    As if to illustrate this, the chubby redhead looked suddenly panicked and began to pat her person and rifle through her reticule. “What class do we have after tea?” she asked, voice wobbling.
    Dimity looked up from applying strawberry jam to her pikelet. “Captain Niall. It’s Thursday, we always have him on Thursdays, unless the moon is full. Really, Agatha dear, how could you forget? It’s
Captain Niall
!”
    Agatha was relieved. “Oh, that’s all right. Unless… we weren’t meant to bring anything, were we? Scissors, or paperweights, or wheat paste, or…?”
    “No,” Sidheag answered. She was
always
prepared for Captain Niall’s classes. They were her favorite, and not only because he was a proper bit of sweetmeat. Sidheag liked weapons training. She was Scottish, after all. “We’re moving on from deadly library supplies to something else this evening. He didn’t say what.” She tugged on her earlobe, uncomfortable. Sophronia wasn’t certain if that was because she didn’t know what was going on or because of Captain Niall. Sophronia suspected Sidheag of harboring a good deal of romantic interest in their werewolf professor. Of course, half the young ladies of Mademoiselle Geraldine’s tendered feelings in his direction. Captain Niall was quite dashing. Sidheag, either because she wasembarrassed to acknowledge any emotion or because she was disgusted with herself for belonging to a popular movement, had yet to confess said interest.
    Sophronia, as a result, rather enjoyed teasing her on the subject. “Didn’t say? Not even to you? But I thought you two were so close.”
    Sidheag walked right into her trap. “Not that close! He doesn’t share lesson plans with me.”
    “Well, then, does he share something else?”
    Dimity was feeling equally mischievous. “Dead rabbits, perhaps? Laying his kill at your feet.”
    “What?” Sidheag was genuinely confused.
    Dimity was not to be turned aside. “As if we didn’t see you nuzzling up to the lovely captain regularly.”
    Sidheag objected to this unwarranted accusation. “Nuzzling! He’s ten times my age!”
    Dimity waved an airy hand. “Immortals usually are, and he certainly still cuts a fine figure.”
    Sophronia nudged Sidheag’s shoulder. “And you know werewolves. I mean to say,
you
know them.” They so rarely got to rib Sidheag.
    The Scottish girl actually blushed.
    Mindful of her chamber-mate’s finer feelings, Agatha returned them to the subject of preparing for class. “Well, thank goodness it’s him. I was sure we had Lady Linette, and I’ve misplaced my chewing tobacco for card rooms and informant recruiting.”
    “Again? Really, Agatha.” Sidheag was unsympathetic.
    “To be fair, yesterday it was the lip tint. If you only kept your side of the room cleaner.”
    “You can’t blame me for your absentmindedness.”
    “Yes, I can.” Agatha only really had any gumption with Sidheag. Which was funny, because Sidheag was so gruff and Agatha so timid. But after months of their living together, Agatha had learned to stick up for herself. Sidheag was a big softy underneath her grumbling. It came, they all suspected, from being raised by werewolves. As Dimity said, “Sidheag surely does grumpy old man very well for a sixteen-year-old girl.”
    “Are you four going to sit there gossiping all night?” Preshea was standing above them, looking down her nose. A rare opportunity for the girl, as she was quite short.
    The dining room was empty. Somehow, they had missed the mass exodus. The maid mechanicals were beginning to clear the tea tables.
    “Oh, I see, you’re waiting to gather up the extra