“Miss Livingston,” Coraline murmured as she took to waving a hand in front of her flushed face. “You sure are light on your feet. But to return to the topic of spinsterhood, while I’m sure it can be considered a noble pursuit for some, I’m not sure it’s a requirement for spinsters to adopt such a, well, terrifying appearance.” She winced. “I’m not sure you noticed this the other day, but poor little Bobby Glessner, who thought it would be a real treat to accompany his mother when she came to fetch Mabel from school, took one look at you and fled back to his mother’s carriage.” Coraline gave a sad shake of her head. “Bobby now refuses to come with his mother to the academy, and he’s been having nightmares about a woman who has bumps on her face.”
Seraphina grinned, leaving one of the moles she’d attached to the side of her mouth wobbling ever so slightly. “To point out the obvious, if I’m capable of causing a boy to flee from me, I don’t stand a chance with gentlemen, so you’ll have to reconcile yourself with the fact that any matchmaking attempts would be wasted on me. With that now firmly out of the way...” She nodded to Annaliese. “I’ve just been informed by Mr. Grimsby that we have a caller—one Mr. Seth McCormick, to be exact, who’s waiting for us in the receiving room.”
It wasn’t exactly a surprise when Phoebe and Coraline began looking smug, with Coraline then adding a bit about how Mrs. McCormick had been right and that Seth was becoming downright enthralled with Annaliese. She then muttered something about that enthrallment increasing after Annaliese had shown him her bug collection, at which point thetwo girls burst into a fit of the giggles and all but skipped down the hallway.
“I see they’re still plotting,” Seraphina said as she began walking with Annaliese down the hallway, both of them having to squint because the sun was now beaming directly onto the gleaming suits of armor. “But what was all that about showing Seth your bug collection?”
“Nothing even remotely romance worthy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Annaliese said, pausing for just a second to wipe a smudge off one of the suits with the cuff of her sleeve. “Seth simply came with me when I went off to find Pippin the other day, and then after we found my little darling, I took a few moments to show him my insects and spiders.”
“And his mother thinks he’s become enthralled with you because of those insects?”
“Louisa seems determined to see romance where none exists. As proof of that, if Seth was actually enthralled with me, I’m sure, when he picked up Norma Jean and Velma yesterday, and the day before that, he would have made a point to seek me out to speak with me, which he didn’t.”
“Is that a note of disappointment I detect in your tone?”
“Of course not,” Annaliese said, although, in all truthfulness, she had beenslightlydisappointed Seth hadn’t sought her out at least one of the two days.
“I think it is disappointment,” Seraphina argued. “However, there really is no need for that because you seem to be forgetting that two days ago, when classes let out, you were in a conference with Elena Zambarello, who wanted you to give some private dance lessons to Caterina since she’ll be making her debut in a few months. Then, yesterday, if you’ve forgotten, you were occupied with Harriet, who somehow learned how to run herself a bath and was making a muck of your bathing chamber.” Seraphina sent her a knowing grin. “It would have hardly been appropriate for Seth to seek you out there.”
It was rather telling when the slight disappointment she’d been experiencing faded straightaway as she strode into motion again and into the receiving room, stopping in her tracks when she caught sight of Seth, who was looking quite unlike himself at the moment.
Gone was the gentleman who normally resembled a mad inventor or absentminded professor, replaced by someone who looked as if he’d jumped straight from a gentleman’s fashion plate.
His hair, while still rumpled, was now rumpled in a way that suggested someone who knew their way around a pair of shears had had a go at it, and instead of wearing a jacket and trousers that didn’t quite match, he was wearing a dark pinstriped suit with a pristine white shirt and collar underneath, with an intricately tied cravat completing the outfit.
His face sported not a hint of the scruffy stubble he normally walked around with, and while Annaliese had thought that the stubble suited his mad-inventor style, the clean-shaven gentleman who was lounging oh so elegantly on a fainting couch was, without a doubt, causing her heart rate to ratchet up a notch ... or three.
Seth took that moment to rise to his feet, a smile on his far-too-handsome face as he presented her with a bow, then did the same to Seraphina.
“Ladies,” Seth began, “I apologize for interrupting your day while classes are still in session. However, I was heading off to see that nearly deaf aunt of mine who lives up the road and is having difficulty with the artificial eardrum I made her and decided to stop by because I have something for both of you.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brown paper bag, which he promptly handed to Seraphina. “It’s a special adhesive and should alleviate any further shifting of the moles on your face, although I feel I should mention that you don’t always apply those in the exact same spots every day.Nevertheless, given the strength of my adhesive, you might not need to worry about that anymore.”
Seraphina’s nose wrinkled. “My moles are occasionally in different spots?”
“Indeed.” He nodded to her face. “That one underneath your eye seems to be the one that moves the most, although the mole on your chin does have a tendency to shift around a bit, probably because of how much you have to move your mouth in any given day.”
“The students might notice if I suddenly turn mute, but...” Seraphina tilted her head. “How long have you known that I apply moles to my face?”
“Since our first meeting, when everyone had to jump out of my boat when it caught fire. Your mole was dangling from your chin but was reattached to your face once you dried off.” He smiled. “Moles don’t normally do that, nor does hair usually take to losing its color when it gets wet, but yours went from straight brown to having streaks of blond poke through it that day.”
“I thought that berry solution I’d been using would hold the color longer.”
“The only solution that might hold color longer would be something that’s calledmauveine,” Seth said. “It was invented back in the fifties by chemist William Henry Perkin, who was searching for a malaria treatment.” He gave his clean-shaven jaw a rub. “It might dye your hair purple, though, so it might be best to just continue on with your berry solution, or you could always use carrot juice if you want to add a bit of an orange effect.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, although I’m relatively certain that students would spend more time gawking at my orange- or purple-tinted hair than any lesson I might be trying to teach them, which suggests I’ll just continue on with the berries and avoid being dunked in water.”
“Or you could simply make sure to wear a hat at all times.”
“A very practical solution,” Seraphina said right as a bell rang and she winced. “I’m late for my next class, but thank you, Seth. I’ll be sure to use your adhesive the first chance I get, and nice to discover you’re not nearly as much an unobservant mad-inventor type as I thought you were since, clearly, you’re aware of my ruse.”
After dipping into a graceful curtsy, which was at complete odds with the almost gangly spinster character she’d adopted, Seraphina strode out of the sitting room, leaving Annaliese alone with Seth, who was looking at her rather intently, something that had the immediate effect of leaving her cheeks heated and her pulse jittery.
“Are you trying to decipher if I’ve added a few moles to my face?” she finally asked when he continued staring at her.
He blinked, then blinked again. “Forgive me, Annaliese. I fear I have once again allowed myself to become distracted from the conversation at hand because of the symmetry of your face, which is quite extraordinary.”
“My symmetry is extraordinary?” she asked.
