The Headmaster (9 page)

Her mood brightened when she got into her classroom the next day. The boys were ready to talk. Every last one of them had read the chapters she’d assigned and all ten boys participated in the discussion. Laird thought it interesting that Pip loved someone so coldhearted as Estella. Gwen posited that people tend to want what they can’t have even if it’s bad for them. Laird nodded sagely.

“Like me and dairy foods,” Jefferson said. “Not a good combination.”

“Tell us about it,” Laird said and pinched his nose.

Gwen kept waiting for Edwin to show up and observe her class like he did yesterday, but he never once showed his face. Not for her first period, her second period or her afternoon class. Long after the last boy had shuffled out of her classroom, she sat at her desk going through her notes. An apple suddenly appeared on her desk.

She looked up and saw Laird smiling kindly down at her.

“For you, Miss Ashby,” he said. “There’s an orchard behind the school. Thought you needed a smile.”

“Thank you, Laird. I appreciate that.” She held the big red apple in her hand.

“Give him time,” Laird said in a low conspiratorial tone. “He’s out of practice.”

“You’re playing matchmaker again.”

“They say every Adam needs his Eve,” he said with a wink and left her alone with her apple. She took a big bite out of it and pretended it was Edwin’s heart.

After her final class on Wednesday, Gwen headed out the back door of Hawkwood Hall. She needed to walk, to stretch her legs and to think. She and Edwin hadn’t spoken since Monday night when they’d shared that life-altering kiss. She knew she was a sensible soul, always had been. She had to stay calm and rational as the world fell apart around her after her father died. But now one kiss had been so powerful she was considering staying at a school out in the middle of nowhere with no internet access, one phone and a headmaster who made her every kind of irrational, imprudent and insensible, especially when he kissed her. But she couldn’t make decisions with her heart and her body. She needed to use her brain. And her brain told her that she shouldn’t stay at a school where she had such strong feelings for the headmaster.

And yet, here she was…

She walked along the perimeter of the school right inside the wall. For such a small school, it boasted a large campus. The five buildings stood on a square quarter mile of land. It took twenty minutes simply to walk the full stretch of the wall. While she walked, she studied the ground. She’d seen The Bride walking on top of the wall but surely she’d started somewhere on the ground. Gwen checked for footprints but saw nothing but large shoe prints that surely belonged to the boys. They played too hard on campus for her to find anything but disturbed dirt and grass everywhere she walked. Some of the ivy on the walls looked torn but that was the beginning and end of her evidence.

At the third turret, the one that faced east, Gwen discovered a narrow staircase built into the wall. She carefully walked up the stone stairs and discovered a small room inside what she’d assumed had been a merely decorative feature. It had a narrow opening that she slid through sideways. Inside the turret she discovered nothing but some dust and bits of paper. Apparently the boys liked to do their homework out here. She found some equations, a few Latin quotes…

But what was this?

Gwen unfolded a sheet of notebook paper.

Saturday night. Usual place. Please, I want you.

Gwen grinned as she read the note. Steam practically rose off those four little words—“Please, I want you.” Gwen’s theory that one of the boys had a secret girlfriend who was sneaking onto campus didn’t seem so farfetched now.

For two whole seconds, Gwen considered taking the note to Edwin. Surely sneaking a girl onto campus was a huge violation of the rules. But she was no snitch, and Edwin had already chosen to turn a blind eye to The Bride for whatever reason. She tore the note into tiny pieces lest anyone else find it.

The week that followed washed over her like an ocean wave. The joy of teaching buoyed her. The anger and hurt at Edwin sent her sinking into the heavy sand. So she focused on her work, on her classes, on teaching thirty teenage boys about the Victorian class system and leading discussions on the concept of nobility. Was it inborn? Or was it earned? Or was the entire idea of the “gentleman” a farce?

Friday came around and Gwen delivered her last lecture and had her last discussion on
Great Expectations.
The boys had enjoyed the book, they’d said. They only wished Dickens hadn’t written two endings. They had no idea which one to consider the “real” ending—the quiet philosophical one or the happier one where Pip ran off with an older and wiser Estella?

Gwen only saw Edwin a few times that week, and even then it had been at dinner in the dining hall with all the boys present. Thank goodness she had Mr. Price and Mr. Reynolds to talk to, or she would have packed her bags and left right away. Or would she? As much as Edwin had hurt her, the students had healed her. Teaching them was such a pleasure, it hardly felt like work. Their questions surprised her, opened the book up to her in new ways. As boys about Pip’s age, they had their own take on his motivations that were different from her adult woman’s perspective. She learned as much from them as they learned from her.

At the end of each class on Friday she thanked all the boys for giving her such a wonderful week at William Marshal Academy. She said she wasn’t sure if she’d be back next week as that was the headmaster’s decision. But whatever happened, she would treasure her week among them as one of the best of her life.

The boys filed out of the room and Gwen sat at her desk for a long time before working up the courage to leave it. She didn’t want to leave Marshal. She didn’t want to stay either. Not after what happened with Edwin and that terrible, wonderful kiss. She didn’t know what to do—stay or go—so she would leave it up to the Fates. And by the Fates she meant she would leave it up to Edwin.

After her last class Gwen went for another walk. Laird hadn’t been lying. At the back of the school, a rusty-hinged wooden door led into the wild apple orchard behind the school. She gazed out at the patch of apple of trees, at their bent and bowed limbs hanging heavy with red September apples. Reaching out, she plucked an apple from the tree and took a bite of it. The tartness of it set her teeth on edge. The juice wet her fingers. Her mouth burst with the bright flavor. She wanted to stay. There and then she decided it. Life was here. Learning was here. Whether or not she and Edwin would work out their differences…it didn’t matter. Laird was sweet, but he was also wrong. Eve didn’t need Adam as long as she had her apples.

Gwen stepped onto the dirt path behind the school but she paused when she saw two figures moving through the trees. One she recognized immediately. It was Christopher, Laird’s best friend and partner in rogue-welcoming-committee activities. Next to him stood an old man who had to be in his seventies or eighties. Despite the age difference between the old man and Christopher, Gwen could see a family resemblance. They were nearly the same height and walked with a similar long-legged gait. Both of them held their shoulders a certain tense way and had the same tilt to their nose and jawline.

The old man and Christopher didn’t speak. Why were they walking side-by-side in total silence? And who was the older man? Christopher’s grandfather come to visit him? That would explain the family resemblance. But it didn’t explain why the old man wept as he walked. Christopher had apparently given up trying to console the man. All he could do is walk next to him keeping him company and saying not a word. The old man paused. He laid a hand on the nearest tree and swiped at his face with a handkerchief. No, not a handkerchief. A white napkin. White napkin with a red border. He must have been to the same diner in town where Gwen had stopped.

Gwen watched as the man regained control of himself. He stood up straight and walked right past her through the door in the wall. Christopher walked behind him and threw her a sheepish smile as if embarrassed by his grandfather’s display of emotion. Gwen squeezed Christopher’s shoulder to show she understood. For a few days now Gwen had almost convinced herself she was living in long-gone time. It certainly seemed that way out here in the foothills with no internet, no televisions, and no cell phone reception. But the old man climbed into a late model Lexus and drove away, Christopher standing watch as the car disappeared from view.

Gwen gave up on her stroll and returned to her cottage. As she swung open the door, she found Edwin waiting for her in the drawing room.

Chapter Eight

Gwen could only marvel at the sight of him for a moment. She would have been less surprised to find The Bride dancing the samba in her parlor than she was at the sight of Edwin standing there.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said after recovering herself. “I don’t recall you knocking on my door.”

“For the record, I did knock. I’m not to be blamed that you weren’t here to hear it,” Edwin said.

“So you just let yourself in?”

“Yes.”

“That’s breaking and entering.”

“I broke nothing,” he said. “So it’s merely entering.”

Gwen pursed her lips at him.

“Are you here to fire me?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I can’t fire you as I haven’t hired you,” he said, his hands still in his jacket pockets. He seemed to be attempting to look casual and comfortable. Instead he looked tense and worried.

“I did good work with the boys this week. I just want you to know that. We had great discussions. And they wrote fantastic essays on what it means to be a gentleman. You should read them. You might learn something.”

Edwin’s eyes flashed again. Then he sighed and nodded.

“I owe you an explanation, Miss Ashby.”

“Yes, I think that you do,” she agreed and sat down on the sofa. Out of pure spite she counted ten seconds before asking Edwin to have a seat.

He picked up one of the wooden chairs and moved it in front of where she perched nervously on the edge of the sofa.

“Monday night,” he said as he sat down and faced her. “No. I’m starting in the wrong place. Forgive me, Miss Ashby.”

“Didn’t we have this discussion? You can call me Gwen. Or Gwendolyn if that’s just too casual for your liking.”

“I like Gwendolyn.”

“My grandparents always called me Gwendolyn. I liked it when they did.”

“And when I do it?” he asked, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. Usually he sounded so sure of himself, so stolid and sturdy. A small hairline crack formed in her anger at the sound of his nervousness.

She smiled at him.

“I like it when you do, too,” she admitted.

“Very good then, Gwendolyn,” he said. “I’m not quite sure where to start. Miss Muir left us so suddenly, and I admitted Samuel to the school…things have been complicated ever since. Complicated enough I don’t feel comfortable bringing in an outsider to our unique situation.”

“It’s not a unique situation. You pissed off some parents. Students left. Now you’re rebuilding the teaching staff and the student body. Lots of schools go through this, Edwin.”

“No school has ever gone through what ours has gone through. Not entirely. I’m certain of that. And there would be consequences—serious consequences—if I let you stay.”

“You know you need a new literature teacher? Are you planning on teaching
Ivanhoe
for eternity?”

“I didn’t mean there would be consequences to letting a teacher into the school. Although there would be. What I meant… what I mean is…Gwendolyn, if I let
you
in…”

Edwin looked at her with imploring eyes and a hand over his heart. Now she understood. He didn’t mean there would be consequences to letting her in the school. No, he meant there would be consequences to letting her in his heart.

“Edwin…” She reached out and took his hand in hers. He looked down at their clasped hands as if he’d never seen such a thing before—a woman taking a man’s hand in her own.

“It’s not in my nature to have casual dalliances. I have never had casual dalliances. It’s not the gentleman’s way to play with a woman’s affections without honorable intentions.”

“Honorable intentions?” Gwen repeated, utterly incredulous. “You mean if we become lovers, you’ll want us to get married?”

“I believe that is the definition of honorable intentions.”

“Are you really religious or something?”

Edwin furrowed his brow. “I was christened and raised in the Church of England. Of course I’m not religious.”

Gwen pondered that a moment. The pondering turned into a laugh.

“You are living in the wrong time,” Gwen said, taking Edwin’s hand in hers. “You should have been born in the Regency era. You would have made a wonderful Mr. Darcy.”

“I take that as a compliment,” he said, a smile at last playing across his lips. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, although briefly blinded by prejudice against Miss Bennett’s family situation, allowed his better instincts to hold sway. He knew a marriage of true minds and good hearts was vastly superior to a union born out of pure duty to his station in life.”

“I also think Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy wanted to rip each other’s clothes off.”

“I believe you’re reading a great deal of subtext into the work.”

“I love the subtext,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You know, I had the boys write essays this week on what it means to be a gentleman. You want to know what I think a gentleman is?”

“I believe you’re going to tell me whether I want you to or not.”

“I am,” she said, putting her hand back in her lap. “I think a gentleman respects women and doesn’t pretend to know better than his lady what is good or bad for her. I think a gentleman is brave enough to eschew the silly rules society tries to enforce on women. I think a gentleman tells the world to mind its own business and concerns himself only with what he and the lady in his life want to do together in private.”

“You have an interesting definition of gentleman.”

“It’s admittedly a little self-serving. Then again…that was the most amazing kiss of my life, Edwin.”