Lessons After Dark

For years, Gareth St. John put his supernatural talent for healing in service to the British Army. Now he's the doctor at a very unusual new school that helps people with special "talents" learn how to hone their abilities. Olivia Brightmore became a fake medium to support herself after her husband died, but she never expected to discover real magic as the school's newest teacher. Olivia tries to keep the handsome doctor at arm's length, but she can't resist the urge to get under his skin. He's no proper gentleman, but she's No Honest Woman.

<p><b>Chapter 1</b></p><p>When Olivia Brightmore arrived at Englefield, there was nobody to meet her.</p><p>That wasn't absolutely true, she told herself as she stood staring at the house, bag weighing down one arm. There had been the carriage when she got off the train, and the elderly and taciturn coachman who was even now driving it back out of sight. Someone had sent him. Someone was expecting her, and it wasn't as though she could expect Mr. or Mrs. Grenville to come out and greet her. She was a new teacher, not a weekend guest. She'd just have to go inside, find someone appropriate, and give him the letter Mr. Grenville had sent when he'd hired her.</p><p>Very simple, really.</p><p>Olivia swallowed hard, smoothed her free hand down the side of her best skirt, and still couldn't make herself move for a minute or two.</p><p>Englefield was a pleasant country house, square and red brick and Georgian. She'd lived eighteen years in one much like it, before marriage and widowhood and London. There was nothing Gothic about it, but just for a minute it seemed to loom against the cloudy evening sky, full of unpleasant possibilities. If they hadn't sent for her at all and it had been some kind of horrible mistake—if she was too young or too soft looking now that she was here—if they'd changed their minds and that letter had reached her rooms too late—</p><p>She started forward with all the dignity of a rabbit bursting from cover. It took until the foot of the curved set of steps to bring her feet under some sort of control, and none of the meditation she'd learned managed to slow her heartbeat a jot. When she knocked, her hand looked very small, the gray leather of her good pair of gloves startlingly pale against the varnished wood of the doors.</p><p>You absolutely must get hold of yourself, my dear.</p><p>The voice was a memory: Lyddie, the woman who had taught Olivia most of what she knew, speaking before Olivia's first night performing on her own. Olivia's hands had been shaking so badly she'd spilled one glass of water already. Lyddie had gripped them in hers, her black eyes as calm and pitiless as a raven's. You're not asking them for anything they don't want to give you. Remember that.</p><p>Olivia sent silent thanks to Lyddie, wherever she was in the Silent Land or beyond, and managed to put a proper and distant smile on her face just as the door opened.</p><p>It helped that the maid on the other side looked rather flustered herself. She was young too, perhaps eighteen at the most, and she started talking as soon as she saw Olivia. "You're the new teacher, aren't you? The one from London?" Before Olivia could reply, the girl put a hand to her mouth. "Oh—I'm dreadfully sorry, ma'am!"</p><p>That phrase was certainly on the list of things Olivia hadn't wanted to hear. If she'd actually faced the icily composed butler or suspicious housekeeper she'd been expecting, she might have frozen again, but the maid's youth and confusion let her get the words past the sudden tightness in her throat. "Sorry?"</p><p>"Well, there's nobody at home, just about. Mr. Grenville's gone to see his sister off today, and he won't be back until nightfall at least. And that would've been fine, only Mrs. Grenville's just gone out to have a word with the builders, and Mrs. Edgar's...talking...with Cook."</p><p>"And the butler?" Olivia asked, surprising herself with the laughter in her voice.</p><p>"Quit a week ago, ma'am. Said no decent man would put up with—well, never mind." The girl seemed to abruptly become conscious of her place, or that Olivia was still on the doorstep. She stepped back. "Why don't you come in, then? We can take your bags—oh—well, we can put them somewhere until Mrs. Grenville and Mrs. Edgar can say which room you're to have."</p><p>She looked at Olivia's bag dubiously and didn't ask where the others were. Olivia knew she was blushing and smiled quickly to cover it up. "I try to travel lightly," she said.</p><p>Very lightly: two shirtwaists, a skirt, underthings, her other pair of gloves, two books, and a few magical tools. The rest of her clothes hadn't been worth seeing. In any case, the books lent some weight to the bag. Olivia thought the maid might have been truly shocked, otherwise, when she handed it over.</p><p>"What's your name?" Olivia asked once the girl had closed the door.</p><p>"Violet, ma'am."</p><p>"I'm Mrs. Brightmore."</p><p>Violet bobbed a curtsy, Olivia's bag tucked under one arm. "I—" She bit her lip and stopped. Olivia saw the question in her face and knew what it was. Even such a raw servant as Violet would know her place better than to ask, even of someone who'd been as informal with her as Olivia had. It was far too personal.</p><p>Besides, there really was no polite euphemism for witch, even for a woman who was coming to teach at a school of the occult.</p><p>It was to her and Violet's mutual relief when a door on one side of the room opened and a head of neatly cut auburn hair poked out of the doorway, a little less than six feet up. The gentleman behind the door glanced around the hall, frowning, and then frowned more when he saw Violet and Olivia.</p><p>Violet, on the other hand, broke out in a smile. "Oh, I'd forgotten the doctor! Dr. St. John, sir," she said with another curtsy in his direction, "this is Mrs. Brightmore, the new teacher. She's just come from London, and—"</p><p>"Simon isn't back yet, I suppose? Or Mrs. Grenville, from wherever she's gone?"</p><p>"Just down to the new building, sir, and I'll send someone for her directly." Violet looked from the new arrival back to Olivia. "I was just going to show you to the drawing room, ma'am."</p><p>With, to some credit, only a very faint sigh, Dr. St. John stepped fully out of the room. "I'll escort the lady."</p><p>"Thank you, sir," said Olivia as Violet nodded and sped off. "You're very kind."</p><p>Now that she could see him entirely, Dr. St. John proved to be on the thin side, perhaps more so than he should have been by nature. His features were strong but a touch drawn, and a fading tan didn't quite mask the faint shadows under his eyes. His eyes were a rather striking green, and while he was dressed for practicality rather than fashion, his clothing was neat and well cut. Handsome, in his way. Not that it particularly mattered, since this was a school and not a ballroom, but it was no bad thing to have an attractive man about the place.</p><p>"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Brightmore," he said, looking down at her as they headed through another of the doorways. "I'd apologize for the improper introduction, but I wouldn't wish to raise your expectations for the school."</p><p>"I had no impression this was a precisely regular establishment," Olivia said, trying a hint of a smile on him and getting no response. She glanced around the drawing room. "Although it's certainly looked unexceptionable so far."</p><p>It was a nice enough room: blue paper, dark wooden furniture with blue cushions, plenty of windows, and a small piano in one corner. It could have been a dozen others she'd seen. Olivia realized she was surprised, and inwardly shook her head.</p><p>"Doesn't look precisely like a school for magic, does it?" asked Dr. St. John, who probably couldn't read her thoughts.</p><p>Like witch, magic sounded more than faintly ridiculous. Olivia had never used the word in her previous profession. It put the customers in the wrong frame of mind. And Mr. Grenville's letter had thrown around lots of camouflage. "Talents of a certain nature" here, "a singular variety of human service" there: enough for any reasonable person to get the hint, but still never coming right out.</p><p>Still, there it was, and one could only dance around the subject for so long.</p><p>"No," she said and glanced over to find Dr. St. John studying her face almost as intently, if somewhat less subtly, she hoped, than she'd been regarding him earlier. Curiosity about a colleague was natural. Nevertheless, Olivia could have wished he'd been less curious, or she'd had time beforehand to freshen up from the journey. "But then," she said, "I suppose it wouldn't. Not the public rooms. One so rarely sees busts of Pallas in the best houses these days."</p><p>She hadn't known Dr. St. John nearly long enough to expect anything from him. Even now, it was something of a surprise when he grinned. He looked surprised too, and Olivia wasn't sure that was any compliment to her. "Quite right," he said, "and I suspect keeping eye of newt in the pantry would lead to a number of catastrophes."</p><p>"You might encounter—" Olivia was going to go on and talk about problems keeping servants but stopped as Dr. St. John suddenly turned back toward the door. It was a second or two before she heard footsteps running toward them, and only a little longer until a boy burst into the doorway.</p><p>He was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, dark haired and well dressed. He was also quite alarmed. At first, "Sir—" And then the words nearly burst out of his mouth. "Sir, Dr. St. John, you've got to come upstairs. It's Elizabeth. She's..." Only then did he seem to notice Olivia, and his face turned red even as he went on. "She's on the ceiling, sir, and she can't get down."</p>