The Housemistress (25 page)

The timestamp on the e-mail settles it: it was sent at eleven o’clock last night. At that time, Carriveau was two fingers deep in her, building her up to her third orgasm.

“What is this?” Carriveau tosses the paper back onto Missus Bursnell’s desk. “Rylie Harcourt didn’t write it.”

“It was sent from her student account,” the Headmistress counters.

“I don’t care.” Carriveau clenches her jaw. “Rylie
didn’t
send this.”

“How can you be so sure?”

For a split second, Carriveau considers telling a lie. Then, she remembers all that she said to Rylie in bed, and all the promises she’d made.

No denial.

No weakness.

Fuck Larkhill.

Fuck priggish Missus Bursnell.

The fear ebbs away and Carriveau relaxes, the tension in her posture dissipating. “Because she was with me when this was sent.”

Missus Bursnell fails to grasp the significance of that. “She was with you after lights out?” The perpetual lines on her brow deepen. “Why?”

“Because we were in bed together.” Carriveau locks eyes with her. “Having sex.”

Silence.

Missus Bursnell’s face turns an interesting shade of purple.

“Sorry,” Carriveau volunteers scathingly. “Was that not the answer you wanted?”

“How could you do this again?” The ascetic Headmistress crunches the printed e-mail in her fist. “I’ve tolerated your”—she searches for an inoffensive word—“sexual liberation thus far because you’re an exceptional teacher, and your parents are longstanding benefactors of this institution, but—”

“Sexual liberation?” Carriveau cuts in. “Are you referring to my being gay? Or my perfectly legal relationship with an eighteen-year-old woman that you deemed inappropriate merely because it bothered your delicate sensibilities?”

“This is scandalous!” Missus Bursnell brings her fist down upon her desk. “The Harcourt child is
not
eighteen!”

“Would it make a difference to you if she was?” Carriveau confronts the Headmistress’s prejudice directly. “The woman I loved killed herself because you couldn’t bear the thought of two women making love under your roof. You told the entire school that her feelings for me were a dangerous, childish infatuation. You insinuated that she was mentally ill and ought to seek psychiatric help.”

“The girl stood on top of a dining table in the refectory and swore her love for you. That behavior is not normal, Miss Carriveau.”

“She was defending herself!” Carriveau snaps. “She was being bullied, as I had mentioned to you some weeks before. Someone was sending her anonymous threats and taunts, calling her a whore and a slut, insinuating that she was prostituting herself to me. I asked you to help me get to the bottom of it, but you chose to ignore me.” Carriveau almost brings herself to tears. “She couldn’t take any more. She declared her love for me, and you called her damaged.”

Carriveau pauses to collect herself, determined to reach the end of her tirade without falling apart. “Do you know what the worst part of it is?” She sniffs. “You did all this, and I let you. I kept my mouth shut. I denied loving her because you convinced me that silence was the best policy, and that I had a professional loyalty and duty to my employer that came paramount to my romantic feelings.”

“It would’ve ended your career!”

“It ended her life!” A tear spills from Carriveau’s damp eyes, her hands trembling again, this time with anger. “Don’t you care at all?”

“I did what had to be done.”

“For whose benefit?” Carriveau digs a tissue out of her pocket and dabs at her eyes. “Not Kaitlyn’s. Not mine. Only your own.”

“For the benefit of the school,” Missus Bursnell barks indignantly, as if that in any way mitigates the loss of a life and the denigration that followed it.

“No. It was for
your
benefit,” Carriveau snarls. “For the
reputation
of the school, which you couldn’t bear to see sullied by the public acknowledgement of a romantic entanglement between two women.” More tears of anger fall. “You disgust me.”

“The feeling is perfectly mutual.” Missus Bursnell glowers at her. “And I’ve a good mind to call the police.”

“The police?!” Carriveau laughs.

“You spent the night with a student!”

“I did, and if you call the police, everyone will know about it. What do you think that would do for the reputation of your precious school?”

Missus Bursnell grits her teeth. “I think it’s time our professional association with one another was terminated. Don’t you, Vivienne?”

“
Docteure Carriveau, s’il vous plaît, Madame
.” Carriveau dries her eyes, her burden lifted. “And I quite agree: I quit.” She says that with a smile. “Now might I politely suggest that you put your prejudices aside and find the girl responsible for sending this e-mail. You may very well prevent another tragedy from occurring on your campus by punishing her accordingly, instead of brushing it under the carpet because the subject matter isn’t to your taste.”

Missus Bursnell swivels her green leather chair and consults her computer screen. “It was sent from a terminal in your house.”

“
Non, c’est impossible
.” Carriveau reverts to her first tongue accidentally. “That’s impossible. Rylie Harcourt is the only girl left in my house.”

“Not according to my register.” Missus Bursnell clicks buttons infuriatingly slowly.

Carriveau’s blood turns to ice. “What? Who?”

“One other girl.” Missus Bursnell turns the screen to face her. “Adel Edwards.”

Carriveau shakes her head, disbelieving. “No … she went on the trip with the others.”

“The coach sign-in chart says otherwise.” Missus Bursnell checks the e-mailed file on her phone. “She never boarded.”

“So she never left seclusion?”

“Seclusion?” Missus Bursnell frowns.

“I sent her to seclusion the night before last.” Carriveau tightens her fist around the wadded up tissue, irritation seeping through her. “She was misbehaving quite terribly.”

“You
sent
her there?” Missus Bursnell clarifies. “Or you
took
her there?”

Carriveau drops her head into her hands. “I sent her there,” she replies meekly.

“So if she wasn’t in seclusion, and she didn’t go on the trip …” Missus Bursnell leans on her desk, demanding answers. “Where was she last night? And where is she now?”

Carriveau reaches a thoroughly horrifying conclusion. “She’s in my house.” And that leads to an even more horrifying fear. “Rylie!”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Barefoot, clad in her cotton nightdress, Rylie sings to herself in the kitchen, making a quick piece of toast before going back to bed to laze in Carriveau’s sex-stained sheets for as long as possible before having to get up and head to the library.

She doesn’t bother to use a plate, and trails crumbs from the kitchen to the staircase, munching down the last bite before she hits the first step. Her body still flooded with endorphins, she skips up the stairs, singing softly all the while. She makes for the Lower Sixth dormitory to fetch her MP3 player, but stops short of the door, cutting off her singing mid-song.

When she got out of bed to grab some breakfast, she left the door to Carriveau’s rooms open so that she wouldn’t lock herself out, and now the unmistakable sound of running water is emanating from within.

“Vivienne?” she calls out, stepping closer. “Are you back already?”

No response.

“Vivienne?” She peeks her head inside and tiptoes to the bathroom, finding the tub dangerously full, steam rising from it. “Shit!” She turns off the taps. “Vivienne, where are you?”

Sensing movement in her periphery, she spins to face her lover, only to have the world cast into complete darkness. She barely registers the impact of the laptop against the side of her head, nor the slap of the cold tiles against her falling body.

She’s out cold.

Then, she feels a prick. Like a needle piercing her skin, it reminds her of an allergy test she once had. She was just a kid, but she remembers the sensation of a dozen needles being jabbed into her inner forearm, a few inches above her wrist.

Her wrist.

The sharp pain is centered there, and it brings some lucidity back. She’s wet. Very wet, and all over, her skin tingling from the heat.

She’s in the bathtub.

She opens her eyes, but her vision’s blurred. There’s a figure leaning over the tub, something glinting in the bright bathroom lights. Blinking several times, squinting against the glare, more detail comes to the shadowy mass above her.

Mousy brown hair.

A Larkhill uniform.

It’s Adel! And that shimmering thing in her hand … a razorblade!

“What the fuck?!” Rylie yanks back her hand as Adel drives the blade downward.

Blood surges from the wound. Dark rivulets run down her arm and into the tub, turning the water crimson, and her vision blurs again. The sight of blood has always made her woozy.

Summoning every bit of her strength, she pushes her hips up and uses her powerful legs to kick Adel away from the bathtub, sending her attacker flying backwards, the razorblade scuttering across the floor.

Adel falls on her backside, jarring her tailbone, momentarily disorienting her.

“I was right about you!” Rylie growls. “You’re mental!”

She tries to pull herself out of the bath, but she can’t bear her own weight, her sliced wrist impeding her efforts, even though she’s not cut as deeply as Adel had intended.

“All you had to do was keep your hands off Vivienne.” Adel gets on her knees, looking around for the lost blade. “I tried warning you,” she grumbles, “but you wouldn’t listen.”

Rylie anchors herself to the edge of the tub, holding her head above the water. “It won’t work, you know.” She curls her fingers around the cool porcelain, now slick with blood. “You think you’ll just be able to swoop in and take advantage of Vivienne, like you did when Kaitlyn died, but that’s not going to happen. She doesn’t want you. She’ll never want you.”

“That’s what Kaitlyn said.” Adel abandons her search for the razorblade and looms over the tub again. “Right before her neck snapped.”

Rylie clings to the slippery ceramic, numb and woozy, her fuzzy brain scarcely able to make the connection. “You killed her?” she rasps, her vision graying. “You killed Kaitlyn!”

“I had to,” Adel contends, easing Rylie away from the side of the bath with a sickening degree of coolness, as if this is little more than a chore. “She wouldn’t leave Vivienne alone either.”

Rylie sinks back into the warm water. She feels Adel’s hand on her forehead, forcing her under, but she’s incapable of exerting any resistance. She struggles and flails her limbs, clutching handfuls of empty air, reaching out for help. She holds her breath for as long as she can, but her lungs were almost empty when she was dunked, so only a few seconds pass before …

The pressure’s lifted.

Her ears submerged, she can hear dull thuds outside the tub.

Adel’s head hitting the ceramic sink.

Her unconscious body hitting the floor.

A moment later, Rylie feels something grasping at her chest.

She gasps, her torso pulled up from the water by her nightdress, her neck cradled in a small, gentle hand. In one swift motion, her upper body is flung over the side of the bath, her head down, and she’s able to cough a small amount of inhaled water out of her lungs.