“As you can well imagine,” Eddings said without preamble, “I am decidedly unhappy that, rather than enjoying the half holiday, like everyone else at this sodding school, I am instead consigned to supervising you five miscreants.”
Not once in his life had Seb been called a miscreant. Bookworm, perhaps. Misfit was favored by his brothers and cousins. But to be lumped into the same category as the lawbreaker Theodore Curtis? Appalling.
Clair must have also taken offense to the term, because he raised his hand. “Sir, I don’t think I belong here.”
“You most certainly do, Lord Clair.” Eddings sighed. “Like the others in this library today, you have committed serious offenses, and like the others, you will accept your punishment with grace. Can you guess what that punishment might be, Holloway?”
Everyone looked at Seb, and a choking panic clutched him. Self-consciousness grabbed hold as he struggled to put words together. It was as though he was back at his family’s dining table, with his father’s sneering words ringing in his ears.
“You can’t get respect in this world if you’re scribbling in that notebook all the sodding time. Always watching. Never taking charge. What do you have to say for yourself? Speak up, boy, or you’re hardly fit to call yourself my son.”
Then, as now, Seb found himself struck mute. Each word was weighted, and he couldn’t heft them to construct even the most basic sentence. He’d been thrown from all his prepared scripts, and he didn’t know what to say.
“Gone dumb, Holloway?” Eddings jeered.
Clair glanced sharply at the senior boy. “Give him a chance to speak.”
“It’s all right, Holloway,” McCameron said with surprising gentleness.
To Seb’s utter surprise, Curtis added, “Take your time.”
Rowe nodded encouragingly.
Heat prickled Seb’s eyes, and he blinked back surprised tears. These four boys whom he barely knew offered him patience and acceptance—exactly what he could not find within his own blood family.
Finally, Seb managed to ask, “What is our punishment?”
“The house captain felt flogging was rather clichéd, so he decided that the five of you are to spend the next—” Eddings consulted his timepiece. “Eight hours and fifty-four minutes contemplating what brought you here today.”
Clair and McCameron groaned, while Curtis snorted in derision. Both Rowe and Seb remained silent.
“In addition,” the senior boy continued over the sounds of protest, “you will each pen an essay, the topic of which will be your thoughts on who you believe yourself to be. Said essay shall be no fewer than a thousand words.”
Seb felt a little lighter. Essays were his forte. He could write an essay, and it wasn’t uncommon for other boys to pay him to write papers for them. Such an endeavor helped to pay for books he ordered from the shop in the village, books his father would never buy him since they had nothing to do with the British iron industry—the only topic John Holloway considered worthwhile.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Eddings said. He walked briskly to the door.
“You’re not staying?” McCameron asked.
Eddings paused on the threshold. “God, no. Like hell will I imprison myself in this library until nightfall. But I will check on you—at irregular intervals so you cannot predict if it’s safe to leave. Anyone caught by myself or the ground staff will be subject to more severe punishment. Flogging will seem delightful by comparison.” His lips curled into an acrid smile. “Enjoy your day, gentlemen.”
The door closed, and Seb and the other boys were alone.
Curtis surged to his feet and regarded each of them with his habitual smirk. “My, my. How droll. Trapped in the library with”—he looked at Clair, McCameron, Rowe, and Seb—“Lord Perfect, the Honorable Corinthian, Sir Bedlam, and Professor Lanky.” He chuckled at his sobriquets.
“A poet as well as a criminal,” Clair drawled. “Well done, Curtis. Or should I call you Mister Newgate, since that’s where you’re headed.”
“Shut your goddamned mouth.” Curtis stalked to the young nobleman, who jumped up with fists at the ready.