If I could find my laptop, that is. I glanced down at the trunks that held nearly all my earthly possessions, and sighed. Time to start unpacking.
Morning came far too quickly. Still in my pajamas, I winced at the sight of my bloodshot eyes staring back at me in the mirror.
“You’re going to miss breakfast if you don’t hurry and get dressed,” Cece said, eyeing me from across the room as she pulled on her shoes.
“I know. I just. I didn’t get much sleep last night. New bed and all.” I’d actually lain awake most of the night, only drifting off somewhere near dawn.
“I’ll wait for you,” she offered.
I weighed my options. I could go down now and face the crowd — get it over with. Or I could enjoy some quiet time alone and pull myself together.
Ultimately I took the coward’s way out. “It’s okay, you go on ahead. I just need some coffee.”
“There’s a coffee machine in the lounge. At least, they call it coffee. Personally, I think they’re using the term a little too loosely.”
I had to laugh at that. “The way I feel right now, just about anything will do. What time’s first period?”
“Eight forty-five. What’s your first class?”
I hadn’t even glanced at my schedule yet. “Let me see.” I grabbed my bag and rummaged through it till I found the sheet Dr. Blackwell had given me. “First period, Hackley Hall, Corridor A, Room 312. Culture and Society in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” Wow, that was a sophisticated-sounding course for high school.
“That’s an advanced-level class,” Cece said, wrinkling her nose. “You must be a brainiac or something.”
I just shrugged. I’d been called worse.
“Anyway,” she continued, “Hackley Hall is where all the junior- and senior-level classes are held, and it’s the building just behind us. Here, give me your schedule and I’ll show you on the map.”
I handed it over along with a pen and watched as she scanned my class list, turned it over and circled a big rectangle on the map, then drew a line from what must be the dorms to the circled building. “There you go,” she said, handing it back to me. “After that, you’re on your own. Your classes are all more advanced than mine. But I’ll save you a seat in the dining hall at lunch, okay?”
“That’d be great. Will I get lost trying to find my way there?”
“Nope. Just follow the hungry crowd.”
“Gotcha.”
Grinning, she stuffed some notebooks into a pale pink backpack. “I just know you’re going to love it here,” she said, pausing by the doorway.
God, I hoped she was right.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, I stepped into the classroom, my schedule still clutched in one clammy hand. Left and right, kids elbowed past me and took their seats. I glanced down at the page I held, reminding myself that it was totally normal to be a little nervous. New school, new kids. it was going to take some getting used to. Corridor A, my schedule said. Room 312. This was it. My gaze shot back up, toward the rows of seats before me.
And then I saw him. Second row, third seat back. Gorgeous eyes. He looked at me strangely, as if he were surprised to see me, a steady gaze beneath a baseball cap pulled low over his brow. Whoever he was, he was watching me so intently that I could barely breathe. For the briefest of moments I felt a flicker of fear. The hum of voices receded and all I could hear was the steady pounding of my own heart. My schedule slipped through my fingers and fluttered to the ground beside my feet in slow, swooping arcs.
Great. I hadn’t even been at Winterhaven a full twenty-four hours and already I was making an idiot of myself. My cheeks burning, I knelt to retrieve the page. And then they were there, not inches from my face — those eyes. Not quite blue, but not quite gray, either.
“I think you dropped this,” he said, completely derailing my train of thought. My gosh, that voice. deep and soft, with the hint of an accent.
British, maybe? I was definitely a sucker for accents.
My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the rumpled page he held in his outstretched hand. For some unknown reason, I took a step back, wanting to increase the distance between us. Reluctantly, I raised my gaze to meet his.
The first thing I noticed was that his face was pale, his skin perfect except for dark smudges beneath his eyes. His lips were full, his nose slightly crooked, as if it had been broken years ago and not quite set right. Beneath the baseball cap, wavy golden-blond hair peeked out, curling against his collar. And his eyes. I forcibly suppressed a sigh. More blue than gray, I realized, with thick, dark eyelashes. Most girls would kill for eyelashes like that.
My mouth went dry. I cleared my throat, afraid that if I met his stare I’d never be able to look away. “Thanks,” I managed to say, holding out one trembling hand for my schedule.
He placed it in my palm, somehow managing to brush my fingers with his own. “I’m Aidan Gray,” he said. “Welcome to Winterhaven.”
Before I even had a chance to reply, he was gone, slipping back through the aisles to his seat. Shaking my head, I found an empty seat in the front row and set my bag down beside the desk.
Sliding into the molded plastic seat, I pulled out a notebook and pen from my bag, keeping my gaze fixed on my desk while the whispers buzzed around me.
Aidan Gray. I fought the urge to say it aloud, to hear it slip off my own tongue. My God, I was losing my mind. Either that, or I’d suddenly become really shallow. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
I looked up just as a tall, balding man in a tweed jacket strode in, carrying a briefcase and whistling to himself. The teacher. At least I hoped he was, because another few minutes of sitting there waiting for class to start and I was sure to turn around and look for him. Aidan Gray.
The room got silent as the man in tweed took his place behind the desk, looking every bit the absentminded professor as he fumbled with a stack of papers. He pulled out a pair of glasses — wire-rimmed, of course — and put them on while he studied a small slip of paper. With a nod to himself, he looked up, his eyes quickly scanning the room before settling on me.
I swallowed hard, nervously fiddling with my pen.
“We have a new student,” he said, inclining his head toward me. “You must be Violet McKenna.”
I cleared my throat, my cheeks suddenly hot. “Yes, sir.”
“It says here your mother was just appointed assistant secretary-general for Legal Affairs at the UN. Hmm, impressive,” he grunted. He eyed me over the top of the page, his bushy brows raised in what looked like disbelief. “And you’ve moved here from.?”
“From Atlanta,” I answered, wishing a hole would open in the floor and swallow me up.
“Well, we’re glad to have you, Miss McKenna. I’m Dr. Penworth,” he said, removing his glasses. “Miss Patterson, will you see that Miss McKenna finds her way to her next class?”
“Sure,” the girl sitting to my immediate right chirped out, startling me. “Hi,” she whispered, leaning across her desk toward me. “I’m Sophie.”
I mouthed “hi” back and tried to smile.
Apparently done humiliating me, Dr. Penworth finally got on with business. “Shall we pick up where we left off? I believe we were discussing the laws of primogeniture, were we not?”
His voice settled into a lecture-mode steady drone, and I opened my notebook, realizing I had a lot of reading to do to catch up with the class.
The hour passed quickly. My hand was cramped from taking so many notes, but it kept me focused.
Suddenly what sounded like church bells ringing startled me so badly that I dropped my pen. Everyone else snapped shut their notebooks and began to stuff their things back into their bags, so I retrieved my pen and did the same. Standing up, I looked entreatingly to my neighbor, ready to follow her around like a lost puppy. But then I sensed him, standing just behind my right shoulder.
“Mr. Gray,” Dr. Penworth called out, his voice jolly. “You’ve a firm grasp of the class material. Would you see that our new student gets caught up?”
Oh, please, no. I almost groaned aloud. Never had a guy made me feel so flustered, so completely tongue-tied, so. so hyperaware and selfconscious as this one did. I didn’t want to be alone with him, afraid I would humiliate myself, afraid“ Of course, sir,” he answered, and I felt my stomach drop. He was so close now that I could feel his breath against my neck, and I was sure he saw me shiver in response.
“Very good.” Dr. Penworth nodded to himself and began the task of returning his sheaf of papers to his briefcase.