Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies Book 1) Read online

  Randal’s eyes slid down her slender, tightly corseted form. “I’m sure you were.”

  Flames danced in Miranda’s blue eyes. “What are you implying, sir?”

  That hand went to heart a second time. “Moi? Why, not a thing, my dear. Merely that perhaps you should have stayed in your blasted desert country where you were so greatly desired rather than emigrate to England with its deuced rain and fog. We don’t need a water witch in this country. We’ve enough wet blankets as it is.”

  Miranda stiffened. “I don’t see how a fire lizard could handle fog as well as I.”

  Randal’s left brow arched. “Don’t you?”

  Stepping beside her, the warlock placed his walking cane in the crook of his arm, fastidiously removed the glove from his right hand and wriggled his fingers. Miranda heard the whisper of a spell then a blaze of yellow heat spread out in a glowing orb from his fingers. As it grew, the fog fizzled away. The orb continued to expand, surrounding Miranda like the arid breath of the desert, but it faded the further it traveled until eventually it dissipated leaving most of the platform clear of fog.

  Randal’s lips twitched. “Voila, Miss Winters. In a murky country, a fire warlock’s talent is valued beyond price. I’m quite in demand, I assure you.”

  Miranda fumed at how easily the conceited prig had thrown her own words back in her face. She couldn’t abide the smug smile that curved his sensuous lips or the glitter of challenge in his eyes.

  He thought himself better than her! How dare he!

  She’d tolerated his overbearing attitude for too long.

  Smiling sweetly, she bowed as if in appreciation to the warlock. He bowed in return. Using the brim of her huge hat to hide her whispers, Miranda conjured another spell when Randal reached the nadir of his bow. The locomotive behind him suddenly belched a huge plume of boiling steam directly at his unprotected nether regions. Miranda danced backwards, flipping open her parasol to deflect the blast. Randal yelped and pranced in pain, his hands on his backside as he cursed her. Propping her parasol on her shoulder, Miranda sauntered away. From behind her, she heard Randal gathering another spell, but she was too quick for him. She gazed heavenward, spoke the second spell she’d prepared, and just as Randal readied to scorch her with hot magic, the skies opened up in a deluge.Miranda raised her parasol, gave one last, polite bow to the raging warlock, who was now both poached and steamed, and glided into the station.

  Damned conceited fire lizard, she grumbled. Thinking himself above a liquid enchantress. Humph!

  Putting one over on her rival hadn’t resolved her problem, however. Her brief moment of elation flitted away as Miranda climbed into a hansom cab and bade the driver to take her to Cleveland Row. The steady clop of the horse’s hooves should have calmed her, but Miranda was a coiled spring ready to break. The fate of Miss Augusta’s School rested in her hands. She couldn’t fail her girls.

  Miranda glanced at her hands, neither of which was dainty, regardless of Randal’s opinion. After three years in England constantly covered in gloves, her callouses had faded, but no one could mistake the strength Miranda possessed. No girl born on a Texas cattle ranch flaunted dainty hands or a delicate spirit. Miranda might have a heart that melted like ice cream for her girls, but cross her and watch out! She could strike with the viciousness of a rattlesnake.

  Encountering Randal, her perennial rival since she’d arrived in England, hadn’t helped settle her nerves.

  Stiffen your spine, she commanded herself as the cab clopped to a stop. This is for your girls!

  Clutching her satchel, parasol and bag, Miranda marched up the stairs to the nondescript Georgian-style building that hid amongst a row of similar such nonentities. The small brass plaque affixed beside the door proclaimed Inverness Group – Witcomb and Winchell; however, those in the know translated it correctly as the International Guild of Witches and Wizards.

  A sharp rap by her knuckles brought a footman in black livery who bowed, accepted her card, and ushered her inside.

  “I’m expected,” she stated.

  The footman gestured for her to follow him into the depths of the guild hall which, on that foggy September night, was quiet. Most of England’s witches and wizards were probably enjoying London’s night life. Miranda knew dancers flocked Almack’s while some pugilistic matchup at Jackson’s had the betting public in a twitter. Neither held Miranda’s interest. She needed to finish her business in London and hie back to York as swiftly as possible. Lord only knew what thirty-two little witches were doing while her back was turned.

  Sir Basil Pfisterbottom, the Grand Abracadabran of the Guild, didn’t even possess the manners to rise as Miranda entered his study. The corpulent gentleman sat with his belly saluting the portrait of the Queen, his feet outstretched to encompass the world, and his pipe belching smoke to equal the factories of the East End. His pink porcine eyes squinted in annoyance as the footman announced her.

  Although Miranda was well acquainted with Sir Basil and knew his views about women in the Dark Arts, she nevertheless planted a polite smile on her lips and curtsied.

  “Always a pleasure, Sir Basil,” she stated.

  “Harrumph!”

  The sound startled Miranda, and she froze, wondering if Sir Basil had voiced his displeasure or merely hacked up a ball of fur like a cat. Given the size of his stomach, Miranda wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to actually hack up a cat hacking up a ball of fur. Delightful image.

  “I can’t imagine this is a social call, Miss Winters,” he mumbled, never removing his pipe from his mouth. “Save your pretty airs for those little shrews you’ve been breeding up north.”

  Miranda couldn’t swallow her gasp. In fury, her grip tightened on her belongings, her lips grew thin and she stiffened her spine. Her blue eyes narrowed.

  Sir Basil read the signs and waved a lace encircled hand at her. “Now! Now! Don’t get your dander in a bustle! And don’t be throwing water around my study. Ruins the finishes.”

  Miranda wanted to ruin something. Instead, she pursed her lips, glared daggers at the man and remained silent. Holding herself under such control nearly choked her.

  “I don’t know why you bothered to come,” Sir Basil intoned. “The answer is no. You could have written a letter and saved yourself the journey.”

  From the outer hallway, Miranda heard male voices, and she suspected Randal had arrived. Determined to have her say, she strode to the door and shoved it closed before turning back to Sir Basil.

  “I felt this issue is too important to be handled via post,” Miranda insisted. “It is completely unfair that the Guild has been financing Dark Art schools throughout England but refuses to fund Miss Augusta’s School for Exceptional Ladies. Sir, I would have an answer as to why you will not provide grants to my school.”

  Sir Basil leaned towards her and sneered. “Because we’ve got no use for females in the wizardry industries, madam!” He punctuated his words with a slap of his hand on his desktop.

  “Why not?” Miranda shot back.

  “Because you’re flighty and unstable. You fly off the broom handle at the smallest slight and cause havoc wherever you go! What would happen, I ask you, if a child wished upon a falling star, and a female was dispatched to resolve the issue? Why, half the stars would probably fall out of the sky. Maybe even the moon! No…” Sir Basil shook his head as he paced. “It’s not natural for women to be involved in the unnatural. Look what happened when we sent a female healer to handle the King William business. He died! And we got stuck with Victoria for a queen!”

  “As far as I can tell, she’s a mighty fine queen.”

  “Oh, what would you know? You’re an American!” Sir Basil’s face had turned so many shades of purple, Miranda began considering what healing spells she possessed in her bag of tricks lest he fall into a fit of apoplexy. “Women,” he pontificated with his chest puffed out and his double chin quivering, “should not be dabbling in industrial wizardry. Your place is in the home,
raising the children, bending to your man’s every desire, tending the hearth. It’s all you’re good for.”

  Miranda couldn’t let that ride past her without a response. She glanced at the hearth where a fire blazed cheerily. A narrowing of her eyes, a twitch of her nose, and the fire bucket full of water rose and doused the flames.

  Sir Basil’s sputtering became a cough. Miranda gave him a solid whack on the back to help clear his latest ball of fur.

  He swatted at her in fury while he gathered his lungs together. “First, you’ll want witches in Industrial Wizardry, then typists in factory offices. Soon you demmed females will be what? Running your own businesses? Becoming police officers? Doctors, maybe! Oh, I know! Admirals in the Navy, by gad! It’s sheer lunacy.”

  “I can run a canoe through white water,” Miranda said.

  For a half second, Sir Basil blinked at her stupidly before her words sank in. “Damned Colonial!” he muttered. “Why don’t you go back to your heathen country and leave civilized people alone!”

  Miranda sighed. “Because Miss Augusta needs me.”

  “Harrumph!” stated Sir Basil with authority.

  “She’s ninety-five years old, sir. Too old to run her school anymore. So she advertised for a new headmistress, and I answered it.”

  “From America?” Sir Basil’s belly jiggled like jelly at his indignation.

  “She had the foresight to place her ad in the New York Times.”

  “Then she’s as stupid as the rest of you…” The mumble was so low, Miranda struggled to hear it.

  “Sir Basil,” she said, drawing a sigh of infinite patience. “I’ve come all the way from Yorkshire to petition you directly. The Guild possesses a fund from which it provides grants to witchery schools.”

  Sir Basil raised a finger. “Warlock schools.”

  Miranda drew another breath. “Dark Art schools.”

  Setting her satchel on a table, she rifled through it and withdrew a number of printed sheets. As she did so, she heard the door quietly open and then shut. Randal had slipped into the room and stood listening near the door.

  She proffered her proof with a steady hand. “Right here in the Guild Regulations it states ‘funds may be granted to established schools of Inherent Witchcraft (not to be mistaken for common street magic) based on need.’ Nowhere, sir, does it state that those schools are for boys only.”

  “She’s got you there, Basil,” Randal murmured from his corner. “She’s right.”

  Miranda’s lips parted in surprise as she twisted to stare at her antagonist. He quirked a smile that made her catch her breath. Damn if he wasn’t the finest looking warlock… fire lizard!.... in all of England.

  Sir Basil fluttered his hand at the papers, turning them into flies that buzzed away. “It says established schools of inherent witchcraft.”

  Miranda threw up her head like a horse fighting its reins. “Miss Augusta established her school in 1859. I believe thirty years qualifies as established. And the only girls accepted are Exceptional Ladies. Aka ladies possessing inherent magic, not to be confused with common street charlatans.”

  “True again, Uncle,” murmured Randal.

  “Oh, bottle it, you young jackanapes!” Sir Basil blustered. “I don’t need you to read me the regulations. I wrote them!”

  Miranda whirled around, her skirts flying. “Uncle?” she demanded. “Sir Basil is your uncle?”

  Randal’s lips curled into another of his preternaturally stunning smiles. “Quite. Did I fail to mention it?”

  Unable to catch her breath, Miranda stood gaping. His smile never wavering, Randal sauntered towards her and with two gloved fingers gently closed her mouth.

  “Lovely as it is to consider kissing those lips,” he murmured, “I suspect I might lose my tongue if I tried.”

  Miranda was so incensed she couldn’t even conjure a spell. Her hand bearing the parasol rose of its own volition and smacked the man across his too handsome face. He yelped and, holding his arm up to fend off the blow, backed away from her. He conjured his own spell, setting the parasol smoldering. Miranda ignored the warning. She hit him a second time, smoke and all.

  “I say!” Sir Basil protested. “This isn’t decorous at’all! Stop it, Miss Winters.” He waved his arms. “You’re fogging up the library!”

  “Keep it up, Randal,” Miranda growled as she threatened him further with smoldering silk, “and I’ll set the books aflame.”

  Randal was laughing too hard. He stumbled into a settee and flounced onto it gracelessly.

  The sight of the warlock sprawled on the settee, his stovepipe hat rolling across the floor, stopped Miranda’s assault. She stood above him, huffing, her parasol raised over her head like a smoking torch.

  Randal saluted. “All hail Lady Liberty!” he howled. “You’re a long way from New York harbor.”

  Sputtering, Miranda realized she was indeed standing like that newly-raised statue. She was also in danger of setting the building aflame. To put out her parasol, she batted it on Randal’s hip, using his frock coat to smother the fire. When the magical flames refused to die, with a curse, she flung the useless implement into the hearth.

  Sir Basil glared at her. “An excellent example of the inability of females to control themselves. The answer to your request remains no, Miss Winters. No, no, no, no! The only funding the guild will provide this year will be the usual annual stipend we grant to Randal’s Junior Warlocks Academy for operating expenses and, of course, scholarships for the truly gifted.” He stressed the words truly gifted with a disdainful glare at Miranda.

  “You’ll fund your nephew, is that it?” Miranda sniffed. “Have we come to nepotism in England?”

  “England’s always been about nepotism,” Sir Basil stated, unoffended. “Why do you think we have a queen?”

  Miranda’s lips tightened, and she gritted her teeth. Her fingers clenched her purse and satchel, knowing she was defeated, not by logic or good argument but old-fashioned misogyny. She should have known. Her blue eyes narrowed. She waited until Sir Basil pulled another deep draw on his pipe before she flashed a quick spell, converting his tobacco to juice. He inhaled the putrid green liquid, turned an awful shade of purple and coughed the brew onto his Aubusson carpet. A splat of sludge just like a cat’s hairball fouled the space between his legs, just missing his white hose and silver buckled shoes.

  “Damme, Miss Winters!” he shouted between hacks into a snowy kerchief. He pointed a shaking finger at her. “That’s exactly why I believe females should be banned from the Guild! Can’t control your emotions.”

  Miranda disproved him by merely lifting a brow.

  Sir Basil was forced to call for a footman to clean the mess. All the while he glared at his guest, silently willing her to vacate his office but not receiving his wish. He said nothing until the footman silently retired.

  Sir Basil stormed around the room. “The answer remains no. I’ll not place funds into the hands of a feckless woman. That is my final word.”

  “You, sir, are despicable,” she snarled.

  The old gentleman harrumphed but didn’t answer.

  Randal had righted himself on the settee and eyed her with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

  “As for you!” Miranda tossed her head, dismissing the warlock with a sniff. “There aren’t words.”

  “From you, that’s a miracle!” he chortled.

  Without giving either man another glance, Miranda stiffened her spine and marched from the room, willing herself with every step not to break down and cry.

  Cry she did. Shuddering sobs wracked her body as Miranda sat at her desk on the first floor of Miss Augusta’s School for Exceptional Ladies, her hopelessly unbalanced ledgers spread before her. For the past year, she’d thrown her heart and soul into her girls but it would all come to naught. Her accounts were threadbare, holding barely enough to see the school through the end of the current year. Then she would be forced to close. Miranda didn’t know how she could explain h
er failure to the fragile Miss Augusta who still lived in a garret room on the third floor. How could she explain that not only would the lady’s life-long obsession come to an end, but the old lady herself would be thrown into the streets when Miranda could no longer pay the rent?

  Planting her wet cheek in her fist, Miranda drew imaginary pictures on a ledger with her fingernail. Approaching Sir Basil had been her last resort after a year of bake sales, carnival fund raisers and outright begging from the local gentry. She’d mustered up every iota of mental fortitude she possessed to appear before the pompous ass with begging bowl in hand, asking for funding. Then, to have him turn her down flat, and rudely at that, had been the final blow. To have Randal see her ignominious groveling was the icing on the cake.

  Cake! I still owe Annabelle a cake for her birthday!

  Miranda buried her face in her arms.

  A tap on her open office door pulled her head up, her face puffy from crying. Mrs. Forester, her housekeeper and all-around aide-de-camp, filled the doorway with her austere black skirts and cold expression.

  Although the housekeeper wore the face of a turkey buzzard, her heart was a marshmallow. Seeing Miranda’s despair, that blob of gooiness melted, and Mrs. Forester raced into the room.

  “What’s happened now, dearie?” she asked, hovering over Miranda like the turkey buzzard she resembled. “It didn’t go well in London?”

  Hauling in a huge sniff, Miranda shook her head. “It didn’t go at all. He turned me down flat, the conceited, self-righteous, misogynous …”

  She caught herself before she blurted out the final insult. Movement in the doorway hinted that they weren’t alone. Jessica, one of her students, stood in the hallway peering around the door. She must have already heard enough because her eyes were huge, staring orbs.

  Hastily, Miranda tried to pull herself together. She couldn’t fall apart in front of a student. The news would ricochet around the school in five minutes, and pandemonium would result. Miranda found controlling thirty-two rambunctious witches difficult enough when they respected her authority. They’d become impossible if they saw their headmistress falling apart.