Page 41 of Depraved Boys

“Thanks,” I whispered. Right now, I couldn’t imagine anything but having to struggle for money. Even when Mom and Dad were alive, their paychecks didn’t provide us with luxuries.

He placed a hand on my arm, and the warmth of his touch filled my heart. “I should thank you for understanding. And for the record, I wasn’t thinking about that stupid bet when I asked to come into your room.”

I nodded, even though a nagging voice in the back of my head told me to be careful. What did I really know about Sebastian, and how was he connected to Corrine? Cormac hated the kings with such vehemence, there had to be something I was missing.

“Now,” he leaned close and whispered in my ear, making my nerve endings zing. “May I please take you out on Saturday night?”

My heart stilled, and a breath caught at the base of my throat. Time alone with Sebastian sounded like trouble. Even if he wasn’t playing pull-a-pig, I couldn’t entrust my heart with a guy who melted my resolve with a mere kiss.

Until I’d uncovered the mysteries of the months leading to Corrine’s death, I couldn’t let myself fall for Sebastian. Maybe it was time for me to read the diary.

I shook my head. “Sorry. I have a ninety-eight percent average to maintain. All my free time goes to prep.”

Sebastian drew back, his face shuttering into a blank mask.

A tight fist squeezed at my heart so hard that tears filled my eyes. Clutching at my chest, I leaned against the wall, watching him walk away.

After dinner, I lay back on my bed, cracked open the leather diary, and leafed through the pages. Corrine had written a simple code of numbers to represent letters and translated certain key words into Latin, making it difficult to skim.

I jotted down numbers that represented common names. For example, Brittas was 2-18-9-20-20-1-19, but she’d written it as a string of numbers like 21892020119. Benazir was 2514126918, Cormac was 315181313, and Sebastian was 1952119209114. Most pages were about prep or naughty limericks about members of staff. I continued reading and deciphering, even memorizing the code for pull-a-pig to see if it came up. So far, she hadn’t mentioned the game or Sebastian.

One entry caught my attention, and I wrote it out in longhand:

Benazir is running a scam. Everyone with an ounce of sense can see it. The wealthy want their precious spawn at one of the Elite Schools, and right now, Brittas is at the top of the Register. But there’s nothing elite about Brittas, except for the brilliance of our headmistress. She’s the biggest con-artist since the Spanish Prisoner.

I had to look up what she meant. It was a confidence trick that predated the Nigerian Prince or the 419 scams. The passage continued.

Pay eight impoverished scholarship students zero to twelve grand a year to push up the grades.

Charge forty reasonably intelligent students forty grand a year to bask in the glory of the above.

Profit before overheads = Over one point five million pounds, mother fucker. One point five million.

And that’s just for the third years!

Gulping, I re-read that passage. It was no wonder that Mrs. Benazir had given into all our demands. She needed people like me to prop up the grades so the academy could stay at the top of the Elite Register. With Corrine gone, she urgently needed a replacement. Corrine worked all of this out at the age of thirteen?

I let out a long whistle. None of this had occurred to me weeks ago. All I had cared about at the time was getting an income to cover the costs of the house. Maybe that’s what Sebastian and Prakash were hinting at. I shook those thoughts out of my head and continued to another paragraph.

Someone winked at me today. He might be the most beautiful boy in the world, and I think I might be in love.

CHAPTER TEN

Weeks passed, and I spent most evenings after dinner alone in my room, scanning Corrine’s diary for keywords. Ashley hadn’t returned since the incident with the portrait, but I would catch glimpses of her in the hallways with Bruce and the auburn-haired twins.

Sebastian stopped glowering at me, but Leopold continued his pranks by proxy. Yesterday, I found a note on the back of my blazer that said, COCK BREAKER.

Late one Monday morning, Miss Claymore marched Bruce, Ashley and the twins to breakfast. The older woman turned to my table and raised her brows.

Michelle leaned over to my side of the breakfast table. “Why’s Claymore giving us the death stare?”

“She’s looking at me,” I muttered. “I’m supposed to be tutoring my sister.”

“How’s that going?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

Cormac shook his head. “It’s all very well for Bruce Wilmington and the others to slack off. Members of the football team only need to maintain an eighty-five percent average to retain their places at the academy.”