Page 11 of Charming the Headmistress (Spinsters and their Suitors #3)

CHAPTER EIGHT

F our days. Four long, quiet, agonizing days.

Eleanor Langford sat behind her desk, a half-filled ledger open before her and a cup of lukewarm tea beside it.

Outside her window, early spring mist curled through the hedgerows and danced along the path to the main school building.

The girls were between classes, their laughter and footsteps muffled by the thick glass, but none of that reached the quiet hum of Eleanor's thoughts. Her pen rested idle in her hand.

Miss Moreland had been at Greenbrook Academy for four full days, and Eleanor could not claim even a sliver of progress.

The girl had barely spoken beyond the occasional stiff reply, hadn’t engaged with the other girls beyond necessary civility, and spent most of her time sketching alone by the pond or in the far corner of the classroom, her expression unreadable.

Each day, Eleanor had summoned her to the office for a short meeting under the guise of handing her a new book or giving a gentle reminder about school routines.

And each day, Miss Moreland had come, quiet and unflinching, offering little more than a nod or shrug before retreating behind her walls once more.

It wasn’t the silence that troubled Eleanor. It was the absence of spark.

The other girls had softened with time—even the most guarded ones. They asked questions. They bristled, even argued. But Miss Moreland did not bristle. She folded inward like paper, crisp and closed.

Eleanor sighed and leaned back in her chair, her mind drifting to her first meeting with Lord Camden. There had been a moment—brief but revealing—when he had spoken of his niece with a kind of frustrated tenderness.

“She draws constantly,” he had said, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “But she never shows anyone what it is. Sketchbooks full of scribbles, but if you ask, she clams up like a fortress.”

At the time, Eleanor had tucked that detail away. But now, staring at the blank afternoon stretched ahead of her, she returned to it.

Drawing .

Perhaps words would never be Miss Moreland’s first language. Perhaps art was.

She rose from her chair, crossed to the small table near the window, and pulled out a sheet of parchment. She fetched a charcoal pencil from the drawer, its end worn but still usable, and sat with it in hand. She hadn’t drawn in years. Not seriously. Not since she was a girl herself.

But she remembered enough. And she could try.

The shape came slowly: a bird in mid-flight. A swallow, perhaps. She sketched the body first—small, sleek—then the curve of a wing, the suggestion of movement. But the left wing refused to cooperate. It looked wrong. Stiff. Not at all like the light, effortless sweep she imagined.

She was still fussing with it when there came a knock at the door.

“Come in,” she called.

The door opened, and Miss Moreland stepped inside, her expression as guarded as ever. Her uniform was neat, her dark hair pulled back, her sketchbook tucked under one arm as always.

“Ah, Miss Moreland,” Eleanor said, gesturing toward the table instead of her desk. “Come in. You can distract me from the horrible job I’m doing on this drawing.”

That earned her something: not a smile, but the smallest flicker of curiosity. Miss Moreland stepped forward slowly, her gaze dropping to the parchment.

Eleanor slid the sheet toward her. “I thought it might be a swallow, but I can’t seem to get the wing right. It looks more like a crumpled handkerchief than a wing.” She gave a self-deprecating smile.

Helena stared at the sketch for a moment, then leaned slightly closer. Her fingers twitched near the edge of the page but didn’t touch it.

“You’re starting your line too high,” she murmured, her voice low but clear. She reached a finger toward the page. “Try starting it here, lower.”

She pointed to the midpoint of the wing, tracing a subtle arc in the air.

Eleanor lifted the charcoal pencil again and adjusted the angle. She sketched the line exactly as Miss Moreland suggested.

It worked.

The wing curved naturally now, the motion captured with grace. Eleanor blinked in surprise.

“You’re right. Thank you,” she said softly. “I appreciate the help. I could not figure out where I was going wrong.”

Helena gave the faintest nod. She glanced down at the table, then reached for the book Eleanor had set aside earlier. As she took it, her gaze returned to the sketch one more time.

“You draw often?” Eleanor asked casually.

Another small nod.

She wished she could ask to see some of Miss Moreland’s sketches, but she decided against such a personal request. “I hope you are adjusting to our school and schedule that we keep here.”

That earned her silence.

At least it wasn’t an outright no.

Eleanor didn’t press. Instead, she said gently, “Thank you for the help. Perhaps next time, you might show me how to draw a better bird entirely.”

Helena didn’t reply. But she didn’t leave immediately, either. She stood there for a long moment, the book pressed to her chest.

“I’m glad you came in,” Eleanor added. “We’ll talk again tomorrow, if you’re willing.”

There was no answer, but she didn’t refuse.

Then, without a word, Miss Moreland turned and slipped from the room.

Eleanor watched the door close behind her, her heart both heavy and hopeful. It wasn’t much. But it was something.

And with girls like Miss Moreland, something could become everything.

Eleanor returned to her drawing, trying to at least finish it.

As she lifted her pencil for the final time, she scrutinized the drawing.

It was an inferior piece of art. Perhaps she should pay more attention to the lessons the girls were given.

It may improve her own skill. She had no real desire for the medium—her only object that it might help her connect with Miss Moreland.

She pondered the challenge she had before her.

She’d made a small measured amount of progress, but she couldn’t devote the entirety of each day to any one individual student.

It was a quandary to figure out her next steps in helping Miss Moreland to open up.

Eleanor had no doubt that given enough time she was up to the task.

But so far, her efforts had yielded very little progress.

Eleanor sank into her chair. A few minutes later, Mrs. Carter knocked and entered without waiting. She held a folded letter in her hand, sealed with dark green wax.

"From Haverton House," Mrs. Carter announced, her tone neutral. "There’s a servant waiting for your reply."

Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "He expects an immediate response?"

Mrs. Carter handed over the letter. The handwriting was slanted and difficult to decipher—hastily scrawled, as though Lord Camden had written it with more impatience than care.

Miss L.,

A brief report on Helena would be appreciated. Has she settled?

- C.

Eleanor blinked. That was it. No salutation, no signature, not even a proper closing. She folded the note and set it aside. "He’s not much for pleasantries," Eleanor remarked dryly.

"No," Mrs. Carter said with a smirk. "But he is paying the school handsomely for Miss Moreland’s tuition. And I suspect he feels it his duty to remain informed."

"Even so," Eleanor muttered, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper. "I do have a school to run. I cannot spend my days dashing off updates to guardians too impatient to wait for the monthly report."

Mrs. Carter sat primly in the chair across from her. "Then keep it brief. But send it."

Eleanor took up her pen and dipped it into the inkwell. Her reply was precise and unrevealing:

Lord Camden,

Miss Moreland is adjusting to her new environment. There is no cause for concern at present. Further details will be included in the monthly report.

- Miss E. Langford

She sanded the letter, folded it, and sealed it with Greenbrook’s crest.

"Give this to the footman," she said, handing it to Mrs. Carter.

Mrs. Carter took the letter and paused at the door. "You didn’t mention the books she selected, or that she sat beside you today."

"No," Eleanor said, her gaze already back on the stack of lesson plans. "Let him wonder."

And with that, the matter was settled—at least on paper.

The note had long since been sent, its contents sparse and deliberately unremarkable, but Eleanor found her thoughts returning to it far more often than she liked to admit.

It was not the brusqueness of the Marquess’s handwriting that lingered—though truly, his scrawl bordered on criminal—it was the gall of it.

A mere slip of a note, dashed off without so much as a proper greeting, yet sent with the expectation of immediate reply.

As though she had nothing better to do than soothe the conscience of a man too stiff-necked to speak plainly and too proud to admit concern.

And yet, he had asked.

Has she settled?

Not, is she behaving. Not, is she difficult. But has she settled .

Eleanor turned that word over in her mind.

For a man who seemed to prize economy in his correspondence, it was a strangely gentle choice.

And therein lay the trouble. If he had been completely indifferent, she could have written him off entirely—just another aristocrat shirking familial duty. But he wasn’t. Not quite.

She had seen it in his eyes the day he left Helena in her care—that shadow of guilt, the stiffness not of disdain, but of restraint. As if he did not trust himself to say more. As if he felt too much and refused to show any of it.

Eleanor leaned back in her chair, her gaze drifting toward the tall windows. The late spring sun slanted across the desk in golden ribbons, warming the edge of her papers but doing little to soften the chill that sometimes settled in her chest.

She had a school to run. Girls to teach. Parents and patrons to manage. And yet here she was, wasting thoughts on a Marquess who couldn’t be bothered to write her name properly.

Still … he had asked.

And she, drat the man, had answered.

Perhaps not with warmth—but she had answered all the same.

She told herself it was duty. Professional obligation. Nothing more.

But even as she turned back to her work, the image of his dark green seal lingered in her mind longer than it should have.

Rain had chased the girls indoors for the third day in a row, and the corridors of Greenbrook rang with the murmur of voices and the occasional burst of laughter. Eleanor, however, had excused herself from her afternoon lessons and crossed the west corridor to the conservatory.

The glass-paneled room was a quiet sanctuary filled with life, though not in any showy or ornamental way.

Neat rows of potted herbs—rosemary, thyme, and mint—lined the lower stone shelves, while climbing vines stretched up toward the glass ceiling in gentle defiance of the rain beyond.

A few early spring blossoms peeked out from the geraniums, and tucked along the back wall were several young citrus trees, small but hopeful in their terra-cotta pots.

The air inside was rich with the scent of damp soil and greenery—a faint promise of warmer days to come.

Miss Moreland stood near the far end, fingers gently brushing the slender, fragrant needles of the rosemary plant. She didn’t startle when Eleanor entered, but she did glance up—her eyes alert, not wary.

“I come here sometimes when the rain makes everything else feel too loud,” Eleanor said, keeping her voice soft. “No one ever thinks to look for me here.”

Miss Moreland nodded once and returned her gaze to the plant.

Eleanor moved closer, not too near, and sat on the edge of a low stone bench. A tiny puddle had formed in a groove on the surface, and she traced the rim with her fingertip.

“Mrs. Carter says you’ve been attentive in your lessons.”

Miss Moreland didn’t respond, but her shoulders didn’t tighten the way they had the first few days.

Eleanor tilted her head. “You’ve taken to reading quietly in the library each afternoon. That window seat near the history shelves—my personal favorite.”

A flicker of surprise crossed the girl’s face. It faded quickly, but not completely.

“Did you know this conservatory once grew jasmine and orange trees?” Eleanor asked. “There’s a gardener’s log in the archives. It notes that the last orange harvest yielded twelve fruit. They were rationed carefully among the staff.”

Miss Moreland ran her finger along the rosemary’s stem.

“You may come here whenever you wish,” Eleanor added after a pause. “We don't mind students having quiet corners, as long as they return to lessons on time.”

The silence between them was not cold—it was companionable, almost.

Eleanor stood and walked a few steps toward the window, the glass streaked with rain. “It can be strange, can't it? To be surrounded by others and still feel quite alone.”

That, at last, earned her a glance.

“I don’t wish to pry,” she said gently. “I only want you to know you’re not invisible. Nor are you alone, even when it feels that way.”

Miss Moreland said nothing, but she didn’t leave. She stayed, her hands still resting on the leaves of a plant that had weathered many seasons in its pot.

After several minutes, Eleanor made to go. At the door, she paused. “Would you mind helping Mrs. Carter tend the conservatory plants later this week? They respond well to gentle hands.”

Another pause.

Then Miss Moreland gave the faintest of nods.

Eleanor nodded in return and stepped back into the corridor, the warmth of rosemary still lingering in her senses.

It wasn’t a conversation. But it was a step in the right direction.