The Secret Prince by Violet Haberdasher Page B

Henry said. An awkward silence passed. Henry was painfully aware that Derrick and Edmund were standing there, waiting for him.
    “Anything else?” Henry asked coolly.
    “He said to invite your roommates as well. Good evening, Mr. Grim, Mr. Merrill, Mr. Marchbanks.” Frankie gave a pathetic curtsy, and then flounced away as though delivering the message had been some sort of traumatizing ordeal.
    “Ugh,” Henry said as they headed toward the common room. “
Girls
. They just stay mad at you, don’t they?”
    “I wouldn’t know,” Derrick said. “I’ve never been unlucky enough to upset one.”
    The maid frowned at Henry and Adam when she opened the door to the Headmaster’s house.
    “Is someone expecting you two?”
    “Yes, we’re here to see Professor Stratford,” Henry said.
    “Well, come on, then,” she said, and sniffed, actingrather put out. She marched through the foyer and made a sharp left, leading them up a servants’ staircase.
    Henry rolled his eyes, and Adam pulled a face at the maid’s back. There weren’t many students who turned up at the headmaster’s front door, and apparently Ellen didn’t appreciate the interruption—or the mud that Henry and Adam tracked in from crossing the quadrangle, no matter how carefully they wiped their feet. Hence her insistence on sending them up the servants’ staircase.
    With a satisfied grin Ellen straightened her apron and knocked on the door to Professor Stratford’s study.
    “Come in,” the professor called, but when he saw Henry and Adam, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Good heavens, is the cricket match over already?”
    “It just started,” Adam said. “Rohan’s playing.”
    Professor Stratford extracted his pocket watch from beneath an overturned—and, thankfully, empty—teacup on his desk, and frowned. “You’re two hours early.”
    “Frankie told us to come around noon,” Henry said, realizing belatedly that she’d given him the wrong hour on purpose, knowing that Henry would miss cheeringon his friends’ cricket match, and that Rohan wouldn’t be able to come.
    “We could, er, come back later?” Adam suggested.
    “No, no, I wasn’t doing anything of great importance,” Professor Stratford said, closing a thick book on his desk. “Thank you, Ellen, and if you could bring up the tea?”
    With an indignant sniff the maid slammed the door behind her.
    “She thinks I’m messy on purpose,” Professor Stratford said sheepishly. “Because she ruined my best jacket in the laundry.”
    “She thinks we track in mud,” Adam said, shrugging.
    “We
do
track in mud,” said Henry. Adam shot him a look.
    “Well, don’t just stand there,” Professor Stratford said, waving toward the two squashy horribly floral armchairs across from his desk. “Sit down and tell me everything.”
    Henry removed a stack of magazines from one of the chairs and placed them on the corner of the professor’s desk. Professor Stratford
was
messy, but it was an absentminded, endearing sort of chaos. He lost track ofthings—newspaper articles he meant to save, teacups, cuff links. Remembering these quirks, Henry realized that he missed his former tutor immensely.
    “I should have come round sooner,” Henry mumbled. “Nonsense, my boy. It’s only Saturday. Although I’d like to hear an explanation for that bruise.”
    Henry reflexively brought his hand up to the fading purple patch beneath his right eye. “It was an accident,” he said, shrugging.
    “An accident like what happened down that alleyway near the bookshop?” the professor asked mildly.
    “No!” Henry said. “She didn’t mean to …” Henry trailed off, miserable at having given away the identity of his assailant.
    “I see,” Professor Stratford said, the corner of his lip twitching as though he found the whole thing just as funny as Henry’s classmates had.
    “Did you know that we’re quite popular now?” Adam asked eagerly.
    Professor Stratford raised an