Page 12 of The Good Duke
“Of course not,” Mrs. Belden said tersely.
“Then I daresay it doesn’t matter what I say or do, as the outcome is certain to be the same.”
The old woman’s eyes bulged like the megacephalous bug Persephone once captured in a jar to study.
“Get out,” Mrs. Belden thundered.
Persephone quickly came to her feet and hurried to gather her things. She paused. “I don’t suppose I might inquire as to whether you would be willing to write a letter of reference on my be—”
“Nowwww!” Mrs. Belden shouted.
“Of course.” Persephone scrambled from the room, closing the door quickly behind her.
As Persephone exited Mrs. Belden’s office, she stepped into a swarm of big-eyed girls from ages thirteen on up to eighteen, so great in number they’d crammed the narrow corridor and made the hall impassable.
All her students remained with their rapt gazes locked on Persephone.
Or, rather, all herformerstudents.
After all, it had been made official just moments ago—Persephone had been sacked. Discharged. Dismissed. Let go.
She fought to breathe, suffocated by both her circumstances and the crowd around her.
And as if facing a now uncertain fate wasn’t cause for misery enough, her humiliation had been witnessed by at least half of the students at this horrid institution.
Only for once, the girls stared at Persephone with something akin to wonder and admiration. Sentiments all vastly different than the usual disdain these same girls reserved for all instructors in this miserableschool.
How very typical. They should finally come ’round to liking heraftershe’d been sacked.
“That will be enough.” That sharp directive rose amidst the quiet, followed by an impressively loud clap that managed to part the sea of students.
Mrs. Agatha Lovewell and Mrs. Gracie Harrington, two fellow instructors and also Persephone’s only two friends in the world, stepped through the cluster.
“Off to your classes.” Agatha’s deeper contralto had never failed to rouse fear in the girls here, and this moment proved no exception.
The students scurried off, scrambling in various directions and tripping over one another in their haste to be free of the three—or rather two—instructors.
When the corridor had cleared, Agatha and Gracie remained rooted to the floor.
Only, it was as if they’d used the last words they’d ever be capable of on the gaggle of girls.
Gracie, barely five feet tall and possessed of the prettiest blonde curls, and Agatha, nearly seven inches taller and with ink-black hair, couldn’t be more different in appearance, and yet they remained silent, continuing to stare at Persephone with identical expressions of wide-eyed wonderment.
A nervous laugh bubbled up Persephone’s throat. She silently willed her friends saysomething. Otherwise, she’d drown in a swift-rising sea of panic.
“I gather you heard that, then?” she asked.
Still as one, both women only nodded.
“Then I take everyone else also heard.”
Which, of course, they had. Persephone had caught more than half the school outside Mrs. Belden’s office.
“You shook the dragon,” Gracie whispered, and it was as though she’d freed the three of them.
Agatha clasped her hands at her big-bosomed chest. “I never thought I’d see the day,” she marveled. “It was…it was…”
“Magnificent!” Gracie supplied.
