The Housemistress (22 page)

She plays it down, but truthfully, she knows she wouldn’t be able to back away from Carriveau’s physical affections any more than she could turn from a slice of her favorite cake. It’s too irresistible: the sight of it … the smell of it … the taste of it.

Coming to the same conclusion, Carriveau takes Rylie by the hand and leads her backstage, pausing briefly to glance up at the rigging.

“What’re you looking at?” Rylie plays dumb.

“It’s nothing.” Carriveau shakes her head, slaps on a smile, and tugs Rylie down a dimly lit passage toward the dressing rooms.

She flings open the last door and steps into a tiny room filled with one of the piles of discarded costumes, all lazily dumped over the floor. The only light is one singular bulb around the dressing room mirror, the others either missing, burnt out, or broken.

“We can do as much or as little as you’d like,” she says, letting down her hair and lowering herself onto the pile. “I’m content just to be alone with you.”

She leans on her elbow, propping her head up on the heel of her palm, waiting to be joined by her lover, wanting only to feel the warmth of another body lying next to hers, their arms and legs entwined in an embrace.

Wanting distinctly more than that, and with as much calm deliberation as she can muster, Rylie shakes her own hair out, then sheds her ugly Larkhill cardigan … and then the shirt beneath it … and then the bra beneath that, leaving her topless, soon shivering against the cold.

“I’ll warm you,” Carriveau offers, welcoming her onto the makeshift bed.

As soon as Rylie’s on her back, Carriveau begins trailing her fingertips over the teen’s skin, around her breasts, down to her stomach, and back again, letting her fingernails drag, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“You’re so beautiful.” She takes her time admiring Rylie’s body. “
Très, très belle
.”

Minutes pass.

When she’s had her fill of ogling, she maneuvers on top of her young lover, sharing her body heat, mashing their breasts together, careful not to place any pressure on Rylie’s bruised ribs. In this position, she reaches between them and delves a hand up Rylie’s school skirt, finding that the mere anticipation of sex has her drenched.

Tendering smooches aplenty, she tickles Rylie’s cunt with her fingertips, teasing the teen with faint caresses. “There’s something I haven’t done for you yet,” she whispers, flicking her tongue against Rylie’s ear before laying a kiss there.

Putting that mouth to good use, she begins kissing down Rylie’s body, working her way between those alabaster thighs … and then …

Her phone starts ringing.

Carriveau blows her hair upwards out of her face and rises from Rylie’s crotch, checking the call display. “It’s Miss Ansell.” She shuffles up Rylie’s body, settling above her. “I must answer.” She puts a finger to Rylie’s lips, preventing a protest and ensuring silence as she takes the call, which proves to be short and sharp.

There’s an annoyed “What?” followed by a “Still?” and a string of muttered French expletives. It ends with “I’ll deal with it,” and she hangs up.

“Adel?” Rylie guesses.

Carriveau nods. “She didn’t go back to the house.”

“So what do you have to do?”

“Find her.” Carriveau scrambles up off the fabric. “I am still the Housemistress after all.” She straightens her clothes. “
Pour le moment
.”

For the time being? Rylie would question her on that off-hand comment, but Carriveau barely pauses to draw breath before she dives into another thought.

“Not to worry.” She scoops Rylie’s clothes off the floor, helping to dress her. “We’re about to have almost two full days together.” She buttons Rylie’s shirt. “The other girls are leaving tomorrow morning on an overnight trip.”

“Not me?”

“Nope.” Carriveau pulls the cardigan around her shoulders. “You joined the school too late.” She yanks Rylie in for a kiss. “I’ll have you all to myself.”

As it turns out, they need not have cut their intimacy short. By the time they get back to the house—where Carriveau gathers the girls in the kitchen, intending to question them on Adel’s last known whereabouts—Adel’s already there. Miss Ansell is in the midst of apologizing profusely for needlessly drawing Carriveau away from her work in the performance hall when Adel snorts and laughs.

“Work? Miss Carriveau sent all the volunteers away ages ago.” She scowls at her arch nemesis. “She was alone with Rylie Harcourt.”

Silence drops.

Looks are exchanged among the students, Miss Ansell shifts uncomfortably in the corner, keeping her lips tightly buttoned, and Carriveau takes a deep breath, refusing to crack.

“I want everyone up to the dormitories immediately,” she says coolly, expecting compliance.

“But it’s only nine thirty!” one of the Upper Sixth girls dares to grumble.

“
Allez
! Go,” Carriveau barks. “This instant.”

“Come on, girls,” Miss Ansell rallies them, herding them out. “You heard her.”

Adel is one of the last to get a move on, attempting to push between Carriveau and Rylie on her way out of the room.

“Not you.” Carriveau holds her back. “Collect your overnight things and check yourself in to one of the seclusion rooms. After that stunt you pulled in the performance hall, and your unapologetically poor attitude, you’re not welcome in this house tonight.”

Adel tugs herself free. “Fine!” She stomps up the staircase, thundering into the dormitory.

Rylie hangs back, wary of getting in her way. “Where are you sending her?”

“We have a seclusion ward in the main school building,” Carriveau explains, her arms folded, her expression grim. “A student may be excluded from her house for up to forty-eight hours as a punishment for antisocial behavior.”

“What about the sixth form trip tomorrow? Will she be gated? Prohibited from going?”

Carriveau shakes her head, massaging her temple, a headache blossoming. “That’d be within my rights, but no.
Je ne veux pas d’elle ici
.”

She hides her true feelings behind the softly spoken French: I don’t want her here.

“In the morning, Edwards will be rousted by the matron on duty,” she goes on. “The coach driver will pick her up from the main building, along with all the other sixth form naughties, if there are any.” She gives Rylie a light nudge. “Now you get upstairs with the others.”

Disinclined to end the night on such a miserable note, Rylie lingers. Risking a telling off, she places a hand on the small of Carriveau’s back, rubbing gently, and presses a peck on her cheek. She chances more—makes a bid for lips—but Carriveau turns away, indicating ‘no’ with a subdued shake of her head.

Adel stomps back down the staircase a few seconds later, her arms laden with nightclothes and toiletries. In the doorway, she stops, looking over her shoulder at Carriveau.

“Fuck you!” she yells loud enough for the whole house to hear, then slams the door on her way out.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Rylie sets her own alarm and wakes up half an hour before Carriveau is due to do her morning rise-and-shines. Having slept in her clothes to save time, she rolls out of bed, wrangles her hair, and makes a quick stop in the bathroom to brush her teeth before going on a hunt for her Housemistress.

She expects to find the usually predictable French woman in her study, gathering up her things for the day ahead, but she appears to have broken with routine this morning. She’s not anywhere to be found, but the kitchen smells like freshly brewed coffee, betraying her recent presence there. Rylie can’t hear any movement, but the faint stench of cigarette smoke is drifting in through an open window.

Following her nose, Rylie steps quietly into the laundry room and sneaks up to the back door, flinging it open with a playful “Boo!”

Carriveau, sitting on the back step, leaning against the door, nearly falls backwards onto Rylie’s legs. After emitting a muted shriek, she rights herself and makes a weak effort to hide the cigarette she’s holding, simultaneously brushing a packet of cigarettes and lighter off the top step and onto the one below, knocking them into an empty coffee mug that she’s using as an ashtray, moving them out of sight. Only then does she look up and see that it’s Rylie.

“
Dieu merci
!” She relaxes, fishing the cigarettes and lighter out of the mug. “I was afraid you were Miss Ansell,” she mumbles, pinching the cigarette between her lips.

Rylie takes pause to enjoy this moment. For once in her life, she wasn’t the one hurriedly extinguishing a cigarette and struggling to dispose of the evidence.

“Are you all right?” She closes the door and sits next to Carriveau on the step, feeling the chill of the concrete going straight through to her bones. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t.” Carriveau blows a lungful of smoke into the crisp morning air.

“Neither do I.” Rylie takes the cigarette from her, finding the ring of her red lipstick around the filter oddly sexy, the sensation only amplified—becoming borderline erotic—when she puts her own lips to the cigarette, feeling the tacky residue of the crimson paste transferring onto her baby pink mouth.

Reaching between them to tip ash into the makeshift ashtray Carriveau had so pointlessly tried to conceal, she notices the cigarette packet and lighter, recognizing them immediately.

“Wait a minute, are these the ciggies you confiscated from Gabby?” She laughs.

Carriveau doesn’t bother to deny it. “You’d be surprised how much contraband gets snatched up by the faculty.” She nabs her cigarette back. “You students always think you’re so hard done by, but the rules apply to us just as they apply to you: no alcohol or cigarettes on school premises, no public displays of affection, the conservative dress code.”

Rylie flashes her a cocked eyebrow.

“I take some liberties with that one,” Carriveau admits, tugging on the hem of her mid-thigh length skirt. “Missus Bursnell disapproves, of course, but …
je m’en fous
.”

Rylie frowns, the meaning lost on her. “
Qu’est-ce que tu as dit
?” she asks, needing a translation on this rare occasion.

Carriveau draws more poison into her lungs. “That’s something you don’t learn in the classroom, huh? How to curse.” She passes the cigarette back to Rylie. “
Je m’en fous
: I don’t give a fuck.”

“
Je m’en fous
,” Rylie repeats, trying it on for size. “I like it. Will you teach me how to talk dirty to you in French? I know a few things, but I want to know more.” She slides her hand over Carriveau’s thigh, scrunching up the yielding Housemistress’s skirt till the top of her stocking is bared. “I want to
do
more.”

“Mmm.” Carriveau leans back, resting her head against the door, her eyes closed. “If only we had the time. I have to be upstairs in”—she checks her watch—“ten minutes.”

Despite her words, she lets Rylie wriggle a hand all the way between her legs, accepting the cigarette as it’s passed back to her.

“I’m such a dreadful teacher.”

“No, you’re not.” Rylie presses her middle finger into the cleft of Carriveau’s sex, over her underwear, teasing her puffy labia.