Page 12 of The Headmistress

Sam, still reeling from the barrage of words and smiles and nicknames hurled her way, could only hold on and go along for the ride.

“Are you the welcome committee then, cutie?”

Magdalene, clearly having had enough of being barreled over, made an impatient gesture that looked like a royal wave, and despite her earlier exuberance and clear, complete disregard for her boss’ position, George immediately fell silent.

“Now that there is some quiet and less insolence in here... Ms. Threadneedle, Ms. Leroy is indeed my secretary, and will be replacing former Headmistress Fenway’s staff.”

“You’re firing Roger, sight unseen?”

Sam’s outrage could have probably been more honest if she herself had not felt that Roger should have gotten the boot a long time ago. Lazy, slow, and utterly derelict in his duties, Roger had departed the Academy the second the last bell signaling the end of the school year had rung. Come to think of it, Sam had never seen him stay until the actual end of his workday or come to work on time. While all of the above was bad, it was his sloppiness that grated on Sam the most.

She peered around George and saw the small space outside the Headmistress’ office. As usual, Roger’s desk was piled high with papers and files, and even a couple of undoubtedly dirty mugs. Clearly, he had been in too big of a hurry to clean up before he left for his vacation. Not for the first time, Sam wondered how many of her own carefully written and absolutely urgent requests were lost in the quagmire of Roger’s nonexistent filing system. Was this why she had never gotten approval for the trip to MIT that she had wanted to take with the juniors? The probability was pretty high that her request and estimates were simply lost or had coffee spilled over them, as half the papers on the desk seemed to.

She turned around, thinking her move had been stealthy enough, but Magdalene was regarding her with that all-knowing expression, clearly having followed her gaze, and probably reaching pretty much the same conclusion. She raised an eyebrow. Sam bit her lip. The eyebrow climbed just a touch higher and the corner of that sensuous mouth twitched.

“Yeah, I guess some things do need an overhaul,” Sam admitted.

“Well, I’m glad you approve, Ms. Threadneedle.” The words were infused with sarcasm, and really, it should not be as attractive as it was, but Sam couldn’t help but find it alluring. She had a war to fight. She had a school to protect. Yet here she was being swept up in the scents and sounds and the sheer elegance of the presence of Magdalene Nox. George gave her a long look before winking at her, obviously having caught Sam staring. Sam closed her eyes and prayed that that was the extent to which the other woman had figured her out. Because if anyone could glean her true thoughts, she’d be in deep trouble indeed. Her closet was getting more transparent by the minute with Magdalene’s presence on the island.

Magdalene, seemingly already having dismissed Sam from her mind if not from her sight, proceeded to slowly peruse the equally messy desk in front of her. Sam suddenly felt embarrassed for Orla. Couldn’t she have left the school’s affairs in better shape? She spied a half-eaten donut among the student files and could feel her cheeks catch flame. How was Sam supposed to defend anything when she was faced with things like this? As if on cue Willoughby raised his head, stretched, and with deadly precision honed in on the donut on the desk, coiling for the leap from the windowsill. At the last moment, as if sensing that he was in the presence of a much bigger predator, he turned his head to Magdalene, giving her a beseeching look and a rather pitiful meow. The Headmistress simply raised the file that was half obscuring the donut and nodded, her face a grimace of disgust.

One heavy leap later and Willoughby proceeded to loudly chew on his stale prize. He did not seem to mind. Sam could feel her cheeks turn an even deeper shade of crimson, her humiliation on behalf of her mentor complete.

Magdalene shuddered and turned to Sam who was nearly shaking with embarrassment, and to George who looked positively joyful, hiding her snicker behind a cough.

“Now that we’ve dispensed with small talk and disgusting pastry, George, you’re here, does that mean that those troglodytes are here as well?”

“If by troglodytes you mean the trustees, you would be right. All nine arrived with me on the ferry. Sorry to tell you though, they are all sorts of disgruntled and disheveled. The waters were a bit choppy.” But George’s voice did not sound regretful at all, in fact, there was a lot of schadenfreude mixed in, and it looked like she was holding back another snicker.

Sam looked questioningly between the two women, and George moved closer to murmur conspiratorially.

“This one’s ex-husband is among the crowd. Good times ahoy, matey.”

“George!” And this time the tone was sharp as a whip, brooking no argument and leaving no doubt about how upset Magdalene was. Whether at the fact that George was disclosing decidedly personal information and being cavalier with a complete stranger, or at the presence of her ex-husband on the premises, Sam could not know. But the remark still left her slightly lightheaded with relief. Ex-husband.Ex. Sam breathed with her whole chest for the first time since she’d realized she might have inadvertently participated in a rather sordid act of adultery. Or was it because she still had all this absolutely obvious attraction toward Magdalene and it was disconcerting to her that she would lust after a married woman? If Sam was honest with herself, it was more the latter than the former, but she thought that it was good of her to cling to some morals under the circumstances.

George’s tone was suitably chagrined when she spoke up again. “Apologies, Madam Headmistress. I believe there was talk of assembling at the Mess Hall and waiting for the faculty to gather as well. I’ll join you in a jiffy, as soon as I find the restroom in this labyrinth.”

“The Headmistress’ personal facilities are right there on the left.” The words were out of Sam’s mouth before she could think about them. “I mean, ah, if Headmistress Nox doesn’t mind you using them...”

With a wave of her hand and a little nose twitch, that, as Sam was coming to understand, indicated dismissal or displeasure, Magdalene made to exit the office. Sam stood rooted to the spot, exchanging a ‘what in the hell just happened?’ look with the now sated cat, who’d resumed his place on the lingering sunspot on the windowsill.

“I assume you still want to be part of the faculty, Ms. Threadneedle? Then I advise you to join the rest of that rag-tag bunch in the Mess Hall, and not at your convenience but preferably immediately.” Sam jumped guiltily and hurried after the departing Magdalene, who simply strode away as if she had not spoken. She could swear, if Willoughby was capable of laughing he’d be doing it right now, as he looked at her with a distinct twinkle from his bicolored eyes.

* * *

By the time Sam and Magdalene had made their way back through the winding corridors, the Mess Hall was full of people. On the stage normally reserved for the Headmistress and her closest faculty members, sat nine people. The differences among them were rather grotesque in their starkness. Sam thought that if she wanted to pick a group who looked or acted nothing alike, she’d be hard-pressed to look any further than the Three Dragons Board of Trustees. Young, old, sickly, in perfect health, the group couldn’t have been more diverse in looks. Their only similarities, she knew, lay within how rich and powerful they were. Usually, the trustees were bankers, trust fund managers, and heirs or heiresses, most of them ran multi-million dollar empires during the day and played at charity on the weekends.

Sam assumed that being a trustee on a board of a private school was somewhat of a chore, rather than a gainful and prestigious occupation. Sure, it looked good on their resumes, that they volunteered their time to oversee the finances and the smooth running of one of New England’s oldest and proudest, if recently shabbiest, schools—although Magdalene’s revelation of the state of ruin of the endowment still floored Sam. But it also must have proven to be a bit of work for them, especially lately, and most of their faces showed they wanted to be anywhere but on this piece of land torn from the continent by the rebellious ocean thousands of years ago.

Sam took a seat next to Joanne, with Orla very demonstratively sitting next to one of the oldest and most distinguished trustees. Stanton Alden, whom Sam knew to be a direct descendent of one of the passengers of the Mayflower, looked particularly weary. Sam was better acquainted with him than with the rest of the board members since he was the longest-serving trustee. He had been there when they had decided to keep a child that had been found on the steps of the Academy during one of the worst winters on record, that had cut the island off the mainland for months. He, along with Fredrick Tullinger, who’d passed away last year, had served as her de jure guardians throughout her childhood and teenage years. De facto, Sam was raised at Dragons with Joanne—and later Orla—acting as her actual guardians and minders. It pretty much took the proverbial village, but she’d made it. From a foundling on the steps of the school chapel to Math Chair in a little under thirty years.

Since Sam had never gotten into too many scrapes and exceeded the seemingly meager expectations that were placed on her by her guardians—she remembered Tullinger once telling her that Alden and he only wished for her to stay out of trouble—there’d been no need for either of her de jure guardians to interfere in her life. She’d gotten birthday cards from both the Alden and Tullinger families, as well as some kind of present for Christmas each year, but that had been the extent of their interactions.

With Fredrick Tullinger’s passing, his son Joel had taken his place on the Board. Looking nothing like his cheerful and ever-merry—if not always sober—father, Joel sat imposingly to Alden’s left. Sam had really only spoken to him at length once before. They’d gotten into a bloody fistfight the one time a then-teenaged Sam had been invited to spend Christmas with the Tullinger family on their massive estate in Cambridge. She’d broken Joel’s nose back then, and their relationship had not improved over the years. They mostly stayed out of each other’s way when they had to cross paths, which was extremely rare.

Sam did not know most of the other trustees, some of them never showing their face on the island. Still, they looked distinguished and polished. She thought that the cost of their getups and jewelry alone could probably solve the school’s funding problem for the next year. The person who drew Sam’s eyes the most was the man in his forties sitting at the very end of the row. She’d have noticed him anyway, as he had an extremely elegant bearing and a kind of hauteur that people of certain breeding had about them. But the fact that Magdalene took a seat next to him caught Sam’s attention right away.

Handsome, blond and draped in a bespoke suit that Sam thought was probably worth more than her monthly salary, the man did not seem to care for the crowd in front of him; he had eyes only for the woman to his right. And if Sam was completely honest, and she tried to be—at least with herself—he had beautiful eyes, damn his hide. Deeply blue, they rivaled the sapphires sparkling on the cufflinks on his wrists. Of course, he had sapphires on his wrists,of course.He said something, and even from her seat, Sam could tell that he did it deliberately quietly enough for Magdalene to lean closer to hear. Then he laid a regal, well-manicured hand on the Headmistress’ forearm in a gesture that spoke of possession and prior intimacy, and Sam had to grit her teeth. Next to her, Joanne chuckled, clearly following Sam’s gaze.

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