As soon as Mr. Spaulding was safely out the door, Dahlia collapsed against the other side and tried to catch her breath.

Good heavens, the man could dance. But she would be fooling herself if she tried to claim her runaway pulse was due to anything but the man she’d been dancing with.

Unlike most men of her acquaintance, Mr. Spaulding was impossible to figure out.

Most men of the ton fit into one of several broad categories. The rakes, the dandies, the Whigs, the Tories—whatever principal characteristics a man held were usually quite apparent from the first. Conversation tended to center solely on horseflesh, or politics, or gambling, or fashion, or any number of topics Dahlia cared very little about.

With Mr. Spaulding, however, she could not help but feel she had barely scratched the surface of the complex man beneath.

On the one hand, he was a Bow Street Runner. There was nothing he hadn’t seen. All of London’s sins and dark corners surrounded every moment of his life. Depravity and wickedness surrounded him every day.

On the other hand, Mr. Spaulding was so rigidly proper that it took little effort at all to put a stammer in his words and a blush to his cheeks. The comical expression of horror on his face when he’d first glimpsed her wearing trousers…

Was nothing compared to the breath-stealing heat in his eyes when he realized she’d taken them off. Her pulse still pounded at the memory.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d pushed him with her flirtations. She’d been poking a sleeping lion. Playing with fire. But the moment had been too perfect to pass up. He was so gentlemanly. So proper. The only reason he’d danced with her at all was because he’d been too flustered to say no.

If pushing him a little bit further got him to agree to be dancing-master, what was the worst that could happen?

Besides panting for breath in the vestibule of her school because a simple moment in his arms had robbed her of the ability to stand on her own legs.

A sudden knock rumbled against Dahlia’s shoulder blades.

She flung open the door. “Mr. Spaulding!”

Dahlia’s best childhood friend stared back at her with raised eyebrows and a bemused smile. “I’m afraid it’s merely Faith Digby. The woman you sent for. Arriving as requested.”

Dahlia burst out laughing and dragged her best friend into the school before Dahlia could embarrass herself further.

“Is Mr. Spaulding expected?” Faith asked. “Or was he just here?”

“Just here. He stopped by to…” Dahlia pressed her fist her mouth in horror. She’d flustered the poor man so much, he’d forgotten to mention why he’d come by in the first place. “Heath can no longer be dancing-master, I’m afraid. Mr. Spaulding has kindly agreed to take his place. At least on a trial basis.”

Faith hung her pelisse on a hook. “I’m sure you can think of better uses for Mr. Spaulding’s time. Why bother with dancing lessons?”

Dahlia cut her a sharp look. “You mean because these girls are unlikely to be sent invitations to any balls? I’m not grooming them for an official come-out. I just think that everyone deserves a little fun. If only for one hour per week.”

Faith sighed. “I suppose I would feel more warmly about dancing as a pastime if anyone had stood up with me. I did have lessons and I did attend public assemblies, but no one ever asked. It was as much a waste of my time as finishing school was.”

“This is not a finishing school,” Dahlia reminded her. “It’s a boarding school that teaches girls practical skills they’ll use the rest of their lives.”

“That’s what my teachers said when they forced us to gad about balancing books on our heads to improve posture,” Faith grumbled. “I can think of a hundred better uses for books. Like reading them.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have any,” Dahlia said. “If we did, I could teach the girls to read. I’m sure they would love books as much as you do.” She looped her arm through Faith’s and steered her toward the stairs. “Come on up to my office. I have a proposal I hope you’ll like.”

She smiled. “Where are the girls?”

“Resting in their rooms. It’s been quite an exciting day.”

Faith wiggled her eyebrows. “Mr. Spaulding?”

“Mr. Spaulding,” Dahlia agreed reluctantly as she shoved her best friend into her private office and shut the door behind them. She’d mentioned him to Faith after he’d chased off Molly’s attacker. And then mentioned him again after he’d surprised her with crumpets. “He’s…”

“Mm-hmm,” Faith murmured with a knowing smile. “I can see what he is.”

“It’s not what you think,” Dahlia protested. “We have a…professional relationship.”

Faith nodded. “I could tell by the way you flung open the door and almost kissed me.”

“Mostly professional,” Dahlia amended. Her cheeks heated at the memory of being in his arms. “He’s just a dancing-master for the girls. I don’t have time for anything more and neither does he.”

“Does he have time at all? I thought he was a Bow Street Runner.”

“He’s a Bow Street Runner and a dancing-master for indigent girls. It’s all the crack,” Dahlia said with a straight face. “You should read the papers more.”

Faith stretched out on an ancient chaise and locked her fingers behind her head. “He’s a paragon, and I absolutely must meet him someday. But I assume you didn’t summon me here to talk about Mr. Spaulding?”

Dahlia sobered and dropped to the worn carpet beside the chaise. “No. I need you, Faith. I can’t do this alone.”

Faith closed her eyes. “You need me, or you need my money?”

“Both,” Dahlia answered baldly. “I’ve spent every penny of mine, and I’m hopeless at managing those details. My strengths lie with the students. I’m good at teaching, and motivating, and encouraging, and building excitement. I’m happy to knock on every door in London to beg for more funds, but the truth is I can’t do it all anymore. I never could. I need help.”

Lots of help. Dahlia’s sister Bryony was too busy with her own affairs to take on another obligation. Faith’s love of children was Dahlia’s last hope.

“I hated boarding school,” Faith said with a sigh. “I’ll donate money, but why on earth would I want to help manage one?”

“To make it a good boarding school,” Dahlia said passionately. “To make it a refuge, not a punishment. To make it an experience to cherish. To create an environment where the students are thrilled to take part, where every lesson truly prepares them for a better life.”

Faith did not reply.

Dahlia leaned the back of her head against the chaise. “I’m trying to be the best headmistress I know how. My girls aren’t debutantes. They’re orphans and runaways and vagrants. Even if the school doesn’t last a year, I don’t want them to have to go back to the streets. I want to give them skills. Choices.”

“Like what?” Faith asked after a moment.

“Everyone has maid duty two weeks per month,” Dahlia said quickly. “They rotate through the abbey so they know how to clean bedchambers and hearths and chimneys.”

Faith nodded slowly. “Not bad.”

“Rather than French class, we have cooking class,” Dahlia continued. “The girls take turns in both the scullery and the kitchen, where they learn to make breads, soups, tea cakes, pies—anything they could possibly sell on the street, or that might find them work in a bakery, if only washing dishes.”

“I assume they do wash dishes?”

“They wash everything. Windows, floors, glasses, vegetables. The school has no servants. We have students. They take six-day shifts being everything from footmen to chambermaids. And in their free time, I try to give them a little fun. Music. Dance. Everybody deserves some pleasure.”

Faith turned to face her. “What do you expect from me? I like what you’re doing here. I didn’t think I would, but I do.” She took a deep breath. “But it’s not my calling. It’s yours. And my family hasn’t had money for long enough to make me prepared to tie it up in a risky investment.”

Dahlia realized the pain in Faith’s voice had nothing to do with the donation, and everything to do with where the money came from.

Faith’s parents were nouveau riche. Wealthy enough to send their daughter to exclusive finishing schools, but not blue-blooded enough to be accepted by the ton. Their money didn’t just come from trade—it came from volatile trade in the much-derided textiles industry.

Today, it was here. Tomorrow, it could be gone.

“I should’ve known this day would come,” Faith muttered with a sigh.

Dahlia sat up straight. “You should’ve known one day you’d be lying on a chaise longue in a rundown abbey serving as shelter to homeless girls?”

“I should’ve known you would be,” Faith clarified. “From the moment we first met.”

Dahlia grinned. Her mother’s worst memory was one of Dahlia’s favorites. The day she’d met Faith, twelve-year-old Dahlia had been lugging a bucket of food scraps out the servant’s exit of Lady Upchurch’s house party in Bath.

Thirteen-year-old Faith had been outside the townhouse walls, peeking into another world from the hedgerows. Not at the fine ladies and gentlemen conversing in the main parlor, but the children her own age playing battledore and shuttlecock in the rear garden.

Most of the girls attended the same finishing school as Faith did. Yet no one had invited her to the multi-day house party…even though her family lived next door.

The Digbys could afford to live in a fashionable address. They just didn’t deserve to, according to polite society Good money came from one’s ancestors, not from trade. Faith would never be mistaken for one of their own.

“You would have been lost without me that day,” Dahlia informed her.

Faith grinned. “I was without you, after barely a minute. Your mother flew out the side door and all but dragged you off by your hair.”

That was also the night that Faith had met Lord Hawkridge. Back when he was a dashing young buck on the cusp of graduating from Eton to Oxford.

But Dahlia knew better than to mention his name.

“I’m not just looking for donations,” she said instead. “Or volunteer work. In your case, it really would be an investment.”

Faith raised a brow. “Investing in a school that doesn’t make any money?”

“I own it,” Dahlia said simply. “You could, too. Agree to help me manage it, just for thirty days. If, at the end, you don’t believe in the project, you can simply walk away. But if you think we’re doing the right thing… I’ll sign fifty percent ownership into your name and make you a full partner.”

Faith sat upright. “Why would you do that?”

Because Dahlia was desperate. Because Faith was a wonderful friend. Because if there was any way at all for the school to keep itself afloat, Dahlia could finally stop stealing trifles to pay for cheese and bread.

“You would be the perfect partner,” she assured her skeptical best friend. “I know you’re still angry that your finishing school counted ‘seaside bathing’ as an educational pursuit. You hate anything that’s superficial or pretentious. That is an asset. You won’t let our school waste its students’ time. I have no doubt that the two of us together can do far more good than I can do alone.”

“It’s not my money,” Faith reminded her. “It’s my father’s money. I have a small allowance, not his purse strings. I may not be able to donate anything at all.”

“You have your brain. That’s even more valuable. With you managing the school’s budget, the funds should last much longer. You can help me decide what’s worth continuing and what isn’t.”

Faith twisted her lips, then nodded. “Thirty days?”

Dahlia sagged with relief. “Thirty days.”

With luck, the two of them would figure out a permanent solution to keep the school open.