A Matter of Scandal by Suzanne Enoch

Author:Suzanne Enoch [Suzanne Enoch]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061747465
Google: Y5PFZJ31XnEC
Goodreads: 10621195
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2006-01-18T13:00:00+00:00

Emma was half asleep when she heard her office door open. Frowning, she pulled the blanket over her head and pretended not to hear. The books strewn around her on the bed shifted, and either her foot was asleep or a pencil was jabbing her in one toe, but she was too tired to care. Students did come to see her at odd hours from time to time, but it had to be nearly one o’clock in the morning, for heaven’s sake.

Something hit the floor in her office. “Blast,” she mumbled, sitting upright. She rubbed her eyes, yawning and then stretching. Oh, well. Peaceful sleep was fairly rare these days, anyway. When she did doze off, she always dreamed about the same thing: the Duke of Wycliffe.

Staggering into her robe, she shuffled to her bed chamber door and pushed it open the rest of the way. “Is everything all right?” she asked. Midnight visits only seemed to happen when something was amiss.

“I dropped your damned History of Farm Animals on my foot,” a low, masculine voice drawled.

Thankfully she recognized the voice even as she drew in a startled breath to scream. The sound caught in her throat, which was a good thing, or she would have roused the entire Academy with her shriek. “What—what in heaven’s name are you doing here?” she gasped.

The Duke of Wycliffe bent to pick up the fallen book. “Does it tell whether the chicken or the egg came first?” he asked, setting it back on her desk.

“I don’t know. I’m only…to goats.” It occurred to Emma that she might be dreaming, after all. Surreptitiously she pinched her thigh. “Ouch.”

He strode over to her. “Are you all right?”

Somehow he seemed even larger up this close and in the dark. “Yes, I’m fine. But you should go. Now.”

“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” He reached out and straightened the collar of her robe, tugging her a step closer to him in the process.

“Why…why are you here, then?”

“I came to invite you to a soirée at Haverly,” he said matter-of-factly. “On Thursday evening. I thought my class might benefit from an evening of dining and dancing with actual members of the ton.”

She fleetingly wondered whether he was drunk, but quickly dismissed the thought. He didn’t smell like liquor, and he spoke with his usual clarity. “Oh. You might have sent over a note to tell me that.”

For a long moment the duke looked down at her, though she didn’t know what he could see in the murky darkness of her office. “And I’m sorry if I upset you this afternoon,” he said finally. “I didn’t mean to.”

“We can discuss this tomorrow, Your Grace.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Which is no reason for you to break into the Academy and frighten me half to death.”

His teeth gleamed in the darkness as he smiled. “Then I owe you a second apology.”

“Will you please leave? I need to put in at least an hour of research in the morning, before breakfast.”

“I could help, you know.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.