A Matter of Scandal

A Matter of Scandal by Suzanne Enoch Page A

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Authors: Suzanne Enoch
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to pay rent to Haverly, all the while playing dress-up and looking for rich husbands for your so-called students.”
    She advanced on him, looking angry enough to spit nails. “That is not the function of this Academy, and I will not tolerate your insulting these young ladies when they have worked so hard to—”
    “—to learn how to discuss the weather?” Grey suggested, folding his arms across his chest. “Name one practical piece of knowledge your girls acquire.”
    “As if you know how to do anything but bellow and order everyone else around. Ha! Who shaved you this morning, Your Grace?”
    “I shave myself, Miss Emma.”
    “Good for you. How many people helped you dress, excluding the servants who polish your boots?”
    Grey narrowed his eyes. “I believe we were discussing the uselessness of this school, not your fascination with my morning toilette.”
    “Your Gr—”
    “Quiet,” Grey snapped at the solicitor, not bothering to glance in Sir John’s direction.
    “You do not fascinate me in the least,” Emma stated in a loud voice. “I am making a point.”
    The idea that he didn’t affect her was even more annoying than her absurd stance in defense of females. “And just what do your students learn here that is more significant than the knowledge they could acquire from a fortnight in Whitechapel or Covent Garden? All you do isprovide a stamp of respectability for their seductions.”
    The solicitor stepped forward. “Your Grace, I must warn you—”
    “Get out,” Grey growled.
    “I will n—”
    “Please, Sir John,” the headmistress said unexpectedly, her voice tight. “I am quite capable of fighting my own battles.” To Grey’s surprise, she escorted the solicitor to the office door and ushered him out.
    “Close it.”
    “I intend to,” she said, complying. “I really didn’t think you wanted anyone else to overhear your ignorant prattling.”
    Despite the bold words and the closed door, Emma was white-faced. If not for the unmistakable fire and fury flashing in her eyes, Grey would have ceased his attack. That realization surprised him. The imminent collapse of his opponent was generally his signal to go in for the kill. “We were discussing the difference between graduates of a finishing school and…actresses, we’ll call them.”
    “Why not say what you think? I find innuendo tedious and the forte of simple minds.”
    So now he was a halfwit. Grey crossed the room toward her. “Whores, then,” he said distinctly.
    “Ha.” Though her cheeks flooded with color, she stood her ground. “You’ve destroyed your own argument again. Obviously, Your Grace, you don’t have enough people around you informing you when you’re not making any sense.”
    Grey couldn’t remember the last time anyone had dared insult him so directly. Anger coursedthrough his veins, accompanied by a darker, equally heated sensation. Good God, he wanted her beneath him. “Pray explain,” he ground out, wondering if she realized just how much peril she was in.
    “Gladly. You have several times insisted that the Academy’s only raison d’être is to produce wives, presumably for you and your peers. Men of your station, to be blunt, don’t marry whores. Ergo, my school does not produce whores.”
    “A flower, sweetly perfumed or rotting on a trash heap, is still a flower.”
    “I pity you if you can’t tell one from the other. A stinking bog and a fertile field are both pieces of dirt, yet I would think you, as a landowner, would find them more different than similar.”
    “As if a female would know the difference between mud and cow dung, if not for the smell.”
    Emma wrinkled her nose, though he couldn’t be sure whether the expression was for him or for his allusion. “Better than you could tell a whore from a lady, obviously.” She put her hands on her hips.
    Grey studied her for a moment, his lust for this assertive woman warring with his exasperation at her for daring to think she could

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