“Elizabeth.” Ed, no, Dr. Thurston—Elizabeth was certain she would never again address this man by his common name—exhaled another sigh and looked back down at his clasped hands. The top of his head glowed redder than ever. As Elizabeth stared at it, she prayed he didn’t keel over while she was sitting in his office, lest she become not only the teacher who’d tried to extort money from parents, but also the one who’d killed the headmaster.
He looked back up, still alive. Thank God. “There will be an investigation, of course.”
“An investigation?” This should have been good news, of course. What could an investigation turn up when she’d done nothing wrong? For some reason, it failed to put Elizabeth at ease.
“The investigation will be handled internally.” Dr. Thurston tugged at his shirt collar, causing the knot in his tie to tilt crookedly.
Elizabeth fought the urge to straighten it, a quirk she’d acquired during all those years she’d spent at Scott Bridal while she was growing up. She could recognize a perfectly crafted Windsor knot from a mile away. Dr. Thurston’s was far from perfect. “Internally? What does that mean, exactly?”
“The board of directors will be looking into the matter.”
The board of directors.
A sinking feeling settled in Elizabeth’s stomach. Grant Markham’s wife was on the board of directors. So were nine other people the Markhams had likely had over to dinner, probably on their yacht or something, throughout the years. Elizabeth’s fate was in the hands of the alleged victim’s wife and her high-society friends.
It was over. She was finished.
Elizabeth sat quietly, trying to absorb it all. “So what happens now? Do I need to get a lawyer?”
“No. A lawyer wouldn’t be able to help you, anyway. As your contract states, your position here can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In a few weeks, perhaps this will blow over. For now, your suspension stands until the conclusion of the investigation. At that time, the board will determine a permanent outcome.” He released a heavy sigh. “Elizabeth, you’re a wonderful teacher. I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m not saying that at all, but the financial stability of this school hinges on how we handle this situation. The Barclay School is a private institution, and it depends on tuition payments to keep the doors open.”
So it all boiled down to money. Didn’t everything? “How long should the investigation take?”
“According to the bylaws, four weeks.”
Four weeks. Approximately three weeks longer than she could afford her Manhattan apartment without the benefit of a regular paycheck.
Perhaps it was a good thing Elizabeth still possessed the skills she would need at Scott Bridal. Because, come next Monday morning, she’d probably be clocking in bright and early. Her head was already itching for a veil.
Dr. Thurston urged her to take advantage of her time off—to go on a vacation, enjoy some downtime. Elizabeth barely heard a word he said. She was too distraught to concentrate. Before she knew what was happening, he was finished with his speech and had steered her by the elbow out of his office, across the marble floor with the fancy school seal, directly to the big carved double doors.
She glanced up at her boss before walking through those doors for what she fully expected was the last time. At some point he’d straightened his tie.
“Goodbye, Dr. Thurston,” she whispered.
And then she was out the door, standing on the busy Manhattan sidewalk, as though the school had purged itself of her.
The sounds of honking horns and sirens wailing in the distance, ordinarily so familiar and comforting to Elizabeth, were a shock to her system after the stillness of the headmaster’s office. She stood motionless, trying to get her bearings as New Yorkers, clothed in standard black, wove around her as if she were a statue. She found it odd that no one stopped to stare at her, the teacher who’d been accused of extortion. Surely such a damning accusation was somehow visible, even to strangers. A scarlet letter of sorts, only shaped like a big fat dollar sign.
Elizabeth turned in the direction of her apartment. It took all her concentration to put one foot in front of the other. She felt faint, as if she were about to disappear. She focused on her shoes—sensible black ballet flats—and each step they took, making sure they made contact with the asphalt.
She narrowly collided with a pair of black, square-toed boots and teetered perilously close to the curb. No sooner had she managed to get back on track than she found herself toe to toe with a pair of men’s loafers—black, of course. Beside the loafers was a pair of ballet flats not unlike her own. Only these were quilted, with interlocking C’s on the toes. Elizabeth had seen those same flats on the girls at the Barclay School. Chanel.
Elizabeth paused and waited for Loafers and Chanel to sidestep so she could pass. They didn’t.
“Excuse me.” Elizabeth looked up and in a heart-stopping moment discovered that her day, which had been far from stellar thus far, had just taken a turn for the worse.
The loafers didn’t belong to some nameless, faceless New Yorker. They belonged to none other than Mr. Donovan Darcy.
He knit his perfect brows and said her name as though it were a question. “Miss Scott?”
Elizabeth panicked for a moment, as if she didn’t know the answer. She looked over at the woman standing beside him, the owner of the Chanel flats, and recognized her as his companion from the restaurant in New Jersey. Zara.
Good grief, she looks even younger than I remember.
“Hi,” Zara said and gave a little wave.
Elizabeth was struck with the nauseating thought that she didn’t look a day older than Joe Markham.
This realization brought with it a fresh wave of annoyance. How was she the one in trouble when Donovan Darcy was dating a girl barely out of high school?
“Mr. Darcy,” she spat. She turned to Zara and pasted on a smile. “Zara.”
“What are you doing here?” To Mr. Darcy’s credit, he didn’t come off as rude when he asked her this. He sounded befuddled, in an oh-so-charming-Hugh-Grant sort of way.
Elizabeth wasn’t fooled. She remembered the Hugh Grant scandal of the nineties with perfect clarity. Not pretty. “I live here.”
“In New York City? Alone?” He looked at the empty space around her own non-Chanel ballerina flats, as if he expected someone to materialize.
Alone? Who did he think he was? Her mother? “Yes, alone. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I didn’t mean to pry.” He crossed his arms, and Elizabeth caught a glimpse of his cuff links. Silver this time, like the ones that were always on display in the windows at Tiffany’s.
As at the dog show, everything about Mr. Darcy’s appearance was resplendent. From the polished sheen of his loafers to the narrow cut of his suit. And Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice his tie was folded into the most perfect Windsor she’d ever laid eyes on. Of course.
Given the many bridegrooms Elizabeth had seen at Scott Bridal who didn’t know the top end of a cummerbund from the bottom, she’d always found men who dressed well particularly sexy.
Damn.
“Miss Scott, I think you misunderstood me. I was only wondering about your charming little dog, the Blenheim Cavalier. Bliss, right?”
Despite the warning bells going off in her head reminding her that this was Mr. Darcy of all people, she found herself softening toward him. Just a little.
How many dogs did a dog-show judge see in a weekend? Hundreds, at least. Maybe even a thousand.
And