Fall For You [The Jane Austen Academy Series #1] (9 page)

Lizzie actually did like Rick’s mother, but she also knew she couldn’t pass up this opportunity to search the house and see if she could dig up who the new owners were.

* * *

Lizzie craned her neck, searching for Ellie in the crowd of girls having dinner on the quad for Jasta’s annual fall barbecue—although now they had a grill reserved just for tofu kebabs after Lizzie’s freshman feature on the lack of vegetarian options. Before that article, Ellie couldn’t eat anything.

It was weird to see boys dotting the green landscape. A few were tossing a football over some girls’ heads. Another couple were determined to climb one of the old apple trees.

She supposed she could admit it wasn’t worse having them here for the annual tradition. Just—different.

The same horseplay had been forbidden under the last administration when the student body had been all female, but student standards had been amended—for the boys, she was sure. She hadn’t liked the rules, either, and was glad they were gone, but it still made her mad that the rules had changed for boys and not for them.

Ellie usually saved her a spot under the biggest apple tree, but since it had already been staked out, Lizzie figured Ellie had moved somewhere else. She finally spotted her on a small green slope near the boys’ wing—with Emma camped out on her picnic blanket.

Under their tree. The tree where they were supposed to have their annual tradition, but hadn’t.

Lizzie fought a frown of annoyance and made her way to them, her sneakers dragging in the grass.

Ellie caught sight of her when she was halfway there and began waving comically, so Lizzie finally smiled.

“—got you a barbecue plate already so you don’t have to stand in line,” Ellie was saying as Lizzie approached. She dropped cross-legged on the blanket, so snugly between Ellie and Emma that Emma had to scoot over a few inches to make room.

“Thanks,” Lizzie said, taking a little pleasure in Emma wriggling across the blanket like a worm in her tight leather skirt. “I’m starving.”

“You should be.” Emma winked and her blond bob seemed to wink, too. “You’ve been busy.”

“Yeah, I have,” Lizzie said. “We’re gearing up the
Gazette
to cover Bergie’s announcement on the name change.”

“I already asked my mom to write in a letter of protest,” Ellie said, wolfing down a barbecued tofu cube.

“But where is she sending it?” Lizzie pointed out. “The new owners have yet to reveal themselves.”

“To Bergie. She’ll have to pass on the tons of letters.”

“I’m not so sure about tons,” Lizzie warned. Georgiana already had several dozen interviews under her belt from the afternoon’s work. “Almost none of the guys care about the name, so I doubt their families would write in. Neither do the incoming freshmen and about a quarter of the girls. That leaves a minority of us, many of whom are graduating, and even less who have parents who actually care. Besides, your mom writes a protest letter if someone drops a cigarette on the sidewalk.”

“Hey!” Ellie said.

“I meant it in a good way,” Lizzie said.

“That’s not what I meant about you keeping busy, by the way,” Emma said with another wink.

“What did you mean?” Lizzie asked, more than a little annoyed to be interrupted when she and Ellie were obviously in the middle of a conversation. It was just like Emma to yank back the spotlight.

Emma winked again.

Lizzie was beginning to think there was something in her eye. “Well? What did you mean?”

“I meant you were busy procuring an invitation to Rick’s house for the weekend.”

“You’re going to a boy’s house for the weekend?” Ellie asked, slack-jawed.

“Not like that,” Lizzie snapped. “His mother invited me—kind of as a thank you for doing the newspaper feature. I only said yes because his mother knows the new owners, and I’m hoping to find clues.”

“Oooh, subterfuge,” Emma said, leaning close. “I like it.”

Lizzie inwardly groaned. Had she really just spilled the beans on her grand plan to the master gossip? Maybe that was how Emma always got her information—people told her everything. If Emma had any sense of what constituted real news, she’d be Lizzie’s greatest threat at the
Gazette
. “It’s in the service of a greater good,” Lizzie went on. “It’s not like I’ll enjoy it. Dante will be there, for crying out loud.”

Ellie crinkled her nose as though she smelled something bad. “I still can’t believe what he said about you at the dance.”

“Me either,” Emma said. “But he stared at you half the time.”

“Glared, more like,” Lizzie said, although she bit her tongue before she explained that she’d taken Dante to task for his treatment of Georgiana. Although Emma probably knew from other sources. Emma knew everything.

“Hey, if Lizzie is running off to Rick’s for the weekend, Ellie, maybe you’d want to spend the weekend with me,” Emma offered.

Lizzie felt her heart drop to her knees.

“That would be great,” Ellie said.

“How about a road trip to Los Angeles?”

Lizzie listened to them—the two Blondies—hammer out the details of the trip, powerless to stop them.

Chapter Seven

Lizzie could have sworn that with each passing mile on the way to Rick’s family’s house, Anne turned greener and greener.

“Are you all right?” Georgiana asked Anne for the tenth time since the car service that Mrs. Wright had sent had pulled away from Jasta.

Anne nodded, turning to face outside.

“Is this driver making you sick? Maybe you should have driven in the other car with Rick, Dante and Edward,” Georgiana persisted. “We can call them, have them come pick you up.”

Anne looked even more sick as she groaned, settling her forehead against the glass.

“She’ll be fine,” Lizzie said. She dug through her backpack to see if she had an emergency plastic bag in case Anne’s sickness decided to make its way out. Something told her Anne’s weak stomach had more to do with spending the weekend with Rick than their driver’s skills.

“Cheer up,” Georgiana said. “I think we’re here.”

Lizzie pressed her nose to the window as the car passed through two large, open iron gates and up a long, landscaped driveway. She tilted her head to look up the driveway to the house.

Or
mansion
was a better word.

The home was four stories tall with enough windows that it must have had as many rooms as Jasta. The kind of house that would belong to the kind of people who would know the kind of people who would buy a boarding school. The kind of house with
wings
.

The car stopped at the top of the driveway by the steps to the front entrance. Lizzie noted neither Anne nor Georgiana seemed as impressed as she was. Her parents were by no means poor—they were both surgeons—but their money came from actually working and not by inheritance and they were constantly going on about their medical school student loans and the cost of housing in Chicago and the expense of having two cars instead of one not to mention the pricey ticket of The Jane Austen Academy and how grateful Lizzie should be that she had the opportunity for such a quality education.

She was grateful, which was why she intended to see the education stayed topnotch.

Lizzie dragged her backpack from the backseat—until she realized neither Anne nor Georgiana had taken their bags. Instead they stood at the base of the steps, their hands free to stick in their pockets. When the driver came around to grab their things, Lizzie self-consciously pulled her bag higher on her shoulder.

“Miss,” the driver said, holding out his hand.

“That’s okay, I got it,” Lizzie said. She slowly tiptoed up the stairs, with each step her ratty sneakers, faded jeans, and pilling sweater feeling more and more out of place in such elegance.

Anne and Georgiana did not seem similarly concerned as they passed her on the stairs to the front entrance. Even Anne, who seemed ready to puke from nervousness, was not out of place in the opulent surroundings.

Before they even reached the French doors that formed the front entry, they swung open and a woman in khakis and a beige turtleneck identified herself as the “secretary”—although Lizzie was certain she did not mean the typing kind—as she informed them that Rick’s car had not yet arrived and offered them a tour of the house on the way to their wing.

Lizzie could barely take it all in. The estate was nearly the same size as Jasta, but only for one family. Imagine that. They passed libraries and parlors and hallway after hallway of chandeliers and Turkish rugs and polished, elegant black statuary.

“It’s not theirs,” Anne said after a while.

Lizzie pulled her gaze away from a mid-hallway fountain as they continued their short, polite steps down the hall. Georgiana was locked in conversation with the secretary, asking about the origin of a gilt-framed painting hanging on the wall.

“What do you mean, it’s not theirs?” Lizzie asked. “This is Rick’s house, right?”

“Right, but his father inherited it,” Anne explained. “Exactly like this—decor and all—and while they were very uncomfortable with the surroundings, they never changed anything—out of respect.”

Before Lizzie could ask for clarification or even how Anne knew such a thing about Rick and his family, the secretary beckoned them ahead. “Your bedrooms are just around this corner,” she said.

Lizzie assumed they were all headed for the same room, but the secretary directed them into three different rooms. Hers had a four-poster bed with a robin’s-egg blue satin coverlet and a mattress so high she was sure to have to run at it just to jump in.

She swallowed, feeling a ball in her throat. No matter what Anne had said about this house not being to Rick’s family’s taste, it was theirs nonetheless. Likely the new owners of Jasta were similarly rich.

She began to doubt whether, even if she discovered their identity, she could win a battle to keep her school the way it should be.

As she set down her backpack, the secretary peeked her head inside. “Dinner will be served at the lake. Please do come prepared to swim.”

“I shall,” Lizzie answered, half-mocking, but in truth, she couldn’t help but enjoy trying on being so ridiculously rich for size.

* * *

Lizzie told Anne and Georgina to go ahead to dinner without her.

“I have to take care of some grooming,” she claimed, even though she had already changed into her swimsuit and had pulled a floral sundress over her head and slipped on sandals. Being in a swimsuit and sundress made Lizzie homesick for Ellie, who had taught her to swim—she felt a little sour at the thought of the Blondies off having a fun weekend.

She couldn’t help but think all her problems were the new Jasta owner’s fault.

“Are you sure we should leave you alone?” Anne asked, her voice sounding a little desperate, as if what she was really saying was that she was the one who didn’t want to be left alone.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” Lizzie said. “Let’s not all be late—it would be so rude.” At Anne’s hesitation, she added softly, “Just head straight for the lake. You don’t have to talk to anyone if you’re under water.”

Anne smiled with an assenting nod and walked away with Georgiana.

Lizzie waited until she heard the retreat of their footsteps down the hall, then counted to a hundred for good measure. She opened her door to peek into the hallway.

She retraced her steps back through the bedroom wing, down the flight of stairs past another set of bedrooms, back down the hall to another set of stairs, and finally, to the suite of rooms that the secretary had identified as “the offices.”

She heard a creak and spun around, her heart pounding—but no one was there. She held still, not even breathing.

Was it just that the house was old and creaky?

She hoped so.

She turned back to the suite of offices and slowly turned the doorknob to the first door, cringing with every squeak. As she released the handle, the door clicked open. She nudged her flip-flop’s toe into the opening so the door slowly swung in on its hinges.

The room was cavernous. A grand redwood desk sat in front of a floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window overlooking the circular driveway. As she expected, photographs lined the walls.

Photographs of Rick’s family with other families and friends and, Lizzie was certain, the current owner of her beloved Academy.

She need only step inside to study her suspects.

“Are you lost?”

She spun around at the voice, her heart pounding, and came face to face with Dante’s suspicious frown. “Ye…yes,” she stuttered. “I’m just looking for a way to the lake.”

“You can’t get to the lake from the second floor,” he said.

She blinked, forcing herself to take a hidden, deep breath and calm down. Was he teasing her? No—he had to be on to her. Of course he’d be the one to find her. He, who wanted to steal her Georgetown admission, who didn’t think her worthy of mentoring his sister, and who didn’t really want to be a student at the Jane Austen Academy.