The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates #1 (2 page)

Where Virtue Blossoms
OFFICE OF THE HEADMISTRESS

Dear Miss Westfield,

We would like to extend a warm welcome to you as you prepare to join the Miss Pimm's community. It is highly unusual for Miss Pimm's to accept a new student so close to the beginning of term, but you are clearly talented: our games mistress is eager to recruit you for our water ballet team, and your interest in knot tying will serve you well in our beginners' macramé course.

We have received a generous sum from your father, so no further payment is required. Enclosed in this package you will find:

Two (2) green cardigan sweaters embroidered with our dancing-sheep logo,

Two (2) gray woolen dresses (petticoats not provided),

One (1) gray woolen bathing costume,

One (1) white bathing cap with green chin strap,

One (1) copy of the textbook
A Young Lady's Guide to Augustan Society,

One (1) copy of the pamphlet
Waltzing for the Eager Novice,
and

One (1) sterling silver crochet hook engraved with your initials.

Please bring these items with you when you report for the start of summer term next Saturday.

Be well, and remember: “A Miss Pimm's girl is a virtuous girl!”

Sincerely,

Eugenia Pimm

Headmistress

E
VER SINCE THE
letter had arrived from Miss Pimm's, Hilary had spent more and more time talking to the gargoyle.

Her parents disapproved, she knew perfectly well, but she much preferred the gargoyle's company to theirs. Hilary and the gargoyle did not always see eye to eye, but she found his opinion of finishing school to be thoroughly refreshing.

“A bathing cap!” said the gargoyle as Hilary packed the clothing from Miss Pimm's in the gold-plated traveling trunk her mother had dragged out from some attic or another. “No self-respecting pirate would be caught dead in a bathing cap.”

“I know,” said Hilary. “And look what Mother's done to it.” She held up the bathing cap so the gargoyle could see her name embroidered in golden thread around the edge. “She says it's fashionable.”

“Fashion!” said the gargoyle. “Pirates don't care about fashion! Although,” he added after a moment's thought, “I've always wanted one of those pointy black hats—you know, the kind with a feather coming out the top. . . .”

Hilary closed her trunk and climbed on top of it to reach the gargoyle, who was carved into the stonework over her bedroom door. Before he could protest, she draped the embroidered bathing cap—very fashionably, she thought—over his stone ears.

“But you're not a pirate,” she reminded him, “and I have a horrible feeling that I won't get to be one either.”

“Don't say that.” The gargoyle squirmed and wiggled his ears but couldn't manage to free himself from the bathing cap. “Just because that dumb One-Legged Whoever said—could you get this thing
off
me?” The gargoyle sighed. “I wish I had hands.”

“Oh, all right,” said Hilary. “But you do look awfully dashing.” She plucked the bathing cap from the gargoyle's ears and tossed it onto her bed, where it landed on top of the seven white eyelet nightgowns and twenty pairs of gray stockings her mother had picked up in town that morning. “You're lucky, gargoyle. No one can make you do anything you don't want to do.”

“Ha!” said the gargoyle. “And I suppose you think protecting Westfield House is all sunshine and spider legs? Living on a wall for two hundred years isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know. How would you like it if people kept leaping up to grab your snout and ordering you to protect them?”

Hilary had to admit that she wouldn't like it one bit. “I suppose neither of us likes being ordered about,” she said. “At least Father hasn't ordered you off to finishing school.”

“And he'd better not try,” the gargoyle said darkly. “I'd bite him.”

Hilary's father was an admiral in the Augusta Royal Navy, which meant, as far as Hilary could tell, that he was required to eat every Sunday dinner with the queen and spend the rest of his time in his study at Westfield House, tossing out sharp and hurried orders at any captains or commodores who happened to be visiting. Even though he hardly ever went to sea anymore, Hilary saw her father rarely and spoke to him even less. Half of the time, when Hilary was dressed in old uniforms handed down from former naval apprentices, her father would mistake her for a staff member and urge her to “fetch me the Northlands file” or “polish that sextant, and be quick about it!” The other half of the time, when someone had been nimble enough to lace Hilary into a dress, her father would kiss her on the forehead and say, “Run along and be a good little girl.” Hilary intended to be a great many things, and a good little girl was not one of them, but she had not quite worked up the courage to tell this to Admiral Westfield.

Hilary's room was practically bare now—most of her things had been packed in the golden trunk or sent off to Miss Pimm's by train, as Hilary herself would be the next morning. She was not looking forward to the journey. “Six hours in a private compartment with a governess,” she said to the gargoyle as she folded the dancing-sheep cardigans, “and I'm sure Miss Greyson will make me do lessons the entire time. And she'll pack those little sandwiches without crusts that young ladies are supposed to eat, and she won't let me look out the window because young ladies aren't supposed to smudge the glass.”

“Yes, yes, that's all very sad,” said the gargoyle. “Little sandwiches, et cetera. But let's focus on the real tragedy here.”

“The VNHLP
is
being terribly unreasonable,” said Hilary, “and as for Father—”

The gargoyle sighed. “I was talking about
me
! What's going to happen to me when you're gone? Who will read me
Treasure Island
? What if your parents host noble guests in this room? What if the guests don't want to talk to me? Or what if there are no guests at all, ever again, and I get cobwebs in my ears? Oh, Hilary,” said the gargoyle, “what if I'm
renovated
?”

The gargoyle looked so earnest that Hilary could tell he was really concerned. “You mustn't worry,” she said. “I'll come home and visit you between terms; I won't let anything bad happen to you. You know I'd take you with me if I could.”

The gargoyle wrinkled his nose and let out a noise halfway between a sneeze and a landslide. “I don't think I'd enjoy that,” he said. “The pirates in
Treasure Island
didn't have to go to finishing school, did they?”

“No,” said Hilary, “they most certainly didn't.”

“Then I'm not interested,” said the gargoyle. “And if you really want to be a pirate, you shouldn't go, either.”

Hilary sat down hard on top of her traveling trunk. “Of course I want to be a pirate,” she said. “I've wanted it all my life.” And why shouldn't she be a pirate? She was already a better sailor than most of the boys in her father's Royal Navy, and she cared far more about sword fights and treasure than she did about stitching petticoats and minding her manners. Surely even Admiral Westfield could see that finishing school was no place for her. He disapproved quite heartily of piracy, of course, but perhaps if she had a word with him—if he could only see how fine a pirate she'd be—he might be impressed. He might even convince the VNHLP to reconsider.

“Oh, good, you're all packed up.” Hilary's mother poked her head through the doorway. “
Must
you wear those wretched cabin-boy clothes? They're far too large for you, and that shade of blue does nothing for your eyes. Something in green, perhaps; a nice new dress—”

“I can't climb ship's rigging in a dress, Mother,” Hilary said, “and you
know
I hate green. Besides, two horrid woolen dresses from Miss Pimm's ought to be enough for anyone.”

“Mrs. Westfield,” said the gargoyle, bending his head over the door frame to address her upside down, “when Hilary's at school, do you intend to dust me?”

Mrs. Westfield flicked her hand through the air as though she were swatting away a small and persistent fly. “Ship's rigging!” she said to Hilary. “I've never heard such nonsense. They shall teach you how to dress properly at Miss Pimm's, and perhaps they'll take your hair out of that silly braid once and for all.” She patted her own carefully sculpted curls.

“Ahem,” said the gargoyle, who was still hanging upside down. “About the dusting . . .”

But Mrs. Westfield charged on. “I always dreamed of being a Miss Pimm's girl myself, you know. Miss Pimm is quite choosy about her students. You'd do well to remember that not every girl is as lucky as you.”

“If being sent to Miss Pimm's is lucky,” Hilary said, “then I don't much care for luck.”

But her mother just laughed. “Don't be a silly goose,” she said. “It's very generous of your father to give you this experience.”

Hilary sighed; there was no point in arguing any further. “Do you know if Father's busy right now?” When Admiral Westfield wasn't in town on naval errands, he was locked away in meetings; the question hardly seemed worth asking. “There's something I need to discuss with him—something important.”

Mrs. Westfield looked down the hall. “You know your father can't abide discussions, dear, but his study door is open. If you hurry, you just might catch him.”

Hilary waited until her mother had wandered away, no doubt searching every inch of Westfield House for a servant to pester. Then she reached under her bed, grabbed her sword, and strapped it to her waist.

“Planning to run your father through?” asked the gargoyle. “It's certainly a traditional solution, but I wouldn't recommend it.” The gargoyle swished his tail. “It makes an awful mess.”

“Don't be silly,” said Hilary. “I don't want to run anyone through.” Although she wasn't about to admit it to the gargoyle, carrying the sword made her feel a little bit braver, and walking into Admiral Westfield's study required every ounce of bravery she could gather.

E
VEN WALKING DOWN
the main hall of Westfield House was a fairly grand and intimidating experience. The hall was lined on both sides with elaborate stained-glass windows depicting the great heroes of history. Good King Albert, Augusta's first ruler, peered out from the window nearest Admiral Westfield's study, looking noticeably more emerald green and rose pink than he had in real life. King Albert's neighbor in the next window over was Simon Westfield, a long-ago ancestor who had explored the kingdom in his hot-air balloon, and his across-the-hall companion was the Enchantress of the Northlands.

The Enchantress had ruled over the kingdom's magic ages ago, when magical objects were as common as cooking pots in the households of Augusta. In fact, the gargoyle was fond of telling anyone who would listen that he had been carved by the Enchantress herself. In her window, she wore a long gown and a small, amused smile, though Hilary had always thought the window maker had gotten that part wrong: after all, the Enchantress was holding a heavy-looking wooden chest filled to the brim with magic golden coins, and Hilary suspected she should look less amused and more exhausted. But her window was Hilary's favorite, swirling with oranges and golds like a furious sunset. Admiral Westfield, on the other hand, referred to the Enchantress as That Meddling Old Biddy and kept threatening to have her window removed.

As Hilary passed by the Enchantress's window, a tall boy in a blue naval-apprentice uniform stepped out of her father's study and blocked her way. He glanced down at Hilary and sneered, although because he was the sort of person who sneered at everything, it was hard to tell whether this particular sneer had been created especially for her.

“Hello, Oliver,” said Hilary. “Are you feeling all right now?” The last time she had seen him, he'd been dangling upside down from a navy ship's rigging. It was entirely his fault, of course: he'd proclaimed that no girl could tie a knot he couldn't undo, and surely no one could have blamed Hilary for tying two such knots around his ankles. She had finally cut him free with her sword, although she'd genuinely regretted having to do it. On the bright side, she had discovered the interesting, hollow sort of noise that a forehead makes when it connects with a boat deck.

“I'm perfectly fine, no thanks to you.” Oliver brushed his hair forward to cover the purple lump above his eye. “What do you want?”

“I want to speak to my father.”

“Can't.” Oliver's sneer looked triumphant. “He's busy.”

“No, he's not.” Over Oliver's shoulder, Hilary could see Admiral Westfield tying bits of rope into intricate sailor's knots.

Oliver shrugged. “Sorry. Can't help you.”