Calling cards were not an affectation he possessed. He had no reason to call upon anyone who might request one of him. Had, in fact, not anticipated being challenged thusly on the broken cobblestones of a rookery.
Even here, he failed to meet expectations.
“Maxwell Gideon,” he announced instead, imbuing his voice with his usual confidence and swagger.
“Card room,” she muttered bitterly. “Everyone but me. Butler duty is a travesty.”
Max blinked and bent his knees to match her height. “Did you say, ‘card room?’”
“This way.” She made an about-face and strode off down a corridor without waiting to see if he would follow.
Quickly, he stepped across the school’s threshold, closed the door behind him, and hurried after the disgruntled redhaired lass stuck on butler duty against her will.
She led him around a staircase and through a wide chamber with a dais that could easily double as a stage and ballroom, then into a secondary salon where at least thirty people sat cross-legged on the floor amidst a hailstorm of fluttering playing-cards.
“Card room,” his guide announced and immediately stomped back to her post without properly introducing him.
It was just as well. Max could not tear his gaze from the mêlée within.
Most of the faces he glimpsed belonged to a range of girls as young as six and as old as fourteen. However, this level of chaos had not been caused by children alone. By his count, at least five grown adults were instigating the anarchy.
Heath Grenville, he knew at once. Bryony, of course. The soprano sister, he recognized from the caricatures. The Earl of Wainwright, her husband and a frequent visitor of the Cloven Hoof. And a dark-haired woman who—using his astonishing powers of deduction—must be the sister who had founded the school.
There.
That comprised the entirety of the logical conclusions Max could deduce from the illogical scene before of him.
What the devil they were doing, if indeed there was any method to their madness, was quite beyond his ken. The object of the game appeared to have more to do with keeping cards in the air than in play.
“Max!” Bryony exclaimed in delight and scrambled to her feet.
Given she was in a dress and not trousers, she did so quite elegantly.
He inclined his head in greeting.
She pointed to the dark-haired woman in the center of the room. “May I present my sister, Mrs. Dahlia Spaulding.”
When the sister scrambled toherfeet, Max caught a brief glimpse of trouser bottoms beneath her gown. He could not think of an explanation for such a sartorial choice, and decided in this case it was perhaps best not to seek answers.
Mrs. Spaulding dipped the most flatteringly low curtsy Max had ever seen in his life.
Come to think of it, he wasn’t certain anyone had ever curtsied in his direction before.
He knew that the proper response for a gentleman was to make an elegant leg of his own. As he had never previously been treated as a gentleman, he had not bothered to practice the maneuver.
He regretted that choice now.
Awkwardly, he dipped a little bow toward the headmistress and hoped it did not offend. “My pleasure.”
“Children!” Mrs. Spaulding called out. “Pay your respects to Mr. Gideon.”
Thirty little girls scrambled to their feet at once and performed picture-perfect curtsies in unison.
Max found himself bowing yet again. His mind fogged at the unexpected turn of events. He had gone from never-been-curtsied-to-before to curtsied-to-by-thirty-women-at-once in the space of a breath.
Bryony headed straight toward him with a sister attached to each elbow. “You’ve now met Dahlia, the headmistress of this circus. I’d also like you to meet Camellia, whom you may know as Lady Wainwright.”
The countess immediately dipped him an even more impressive curtsy than her sister had.
