Free The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke by Jillian Hunter Page A

sister’s feet like a girl. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m of a mind to finish what I started. Where does Sir William reside?”
    Heath shook his head. “Drake and Devon were already planning to have breakfast with him when Emma pleaded for mercy. She’s not as scandal-prone as the rest of us. Let this go for her sake.”
    “I don’t need anyone else to stand in for me,” he said heatedly. “I could have challenged him myself. Or not.”
    Heath laughed. “Actually, friend, I’m afraid you’re not quite capable of even
standing
by yourself, let alone fighting a duel.”
    “Damn it all to hell,” Adrian said mildly. “Are you going to insist I stay?”
    “I think you need another spoonful of that sedative.”
    “I think I should take the whole bedeviled bottle.”

Chapter Six

    Emma ascended the flight of stairs in what had become a reassuring nightly ritual. Heath had generously reopened the uppermost floor of his town house as a private dormitory for her boarding pupils. For a brief time, her younger brother Devon had also allowed her the use of his home for her school, but Heath could provide more spacious lodgings, and as he and his wife Julia traveled often, this was a more convenient arrangement. Naturally, Emma hoped one day to settle into a proper place for the academy. Now that her siblings had found their own loves, well, it was time. She hoped that by the end of the summer she would decide on a country locale.
    For once the thought of her pupils and their fresh, hopeful, sometimes impertinent, faces failed to rally her fighting spirit. She had betrayed them with her lapse tonight. She had become that most hideous of all society entities, a hypocrite, and perhaps she would become something even worse.
    She dared not put a name to it. However, what was done was done. The most perplexing thing was how easily she had lost herself in sensual pleasure. She had not realized herself capable of such physical enjoyment.
    She paused on the threshold of the tidy atticchamber to gather her wits. There were thirteen girls now. Enough, she thought distractedly, for a witch’s coven. Truly they did brew up enough mischief to befuddle their headmistress.
    Four other young ladies who lived outside London had made applications to the academy in the last fortnight alone. One of her current students claimed royal ancestry. Another was betrothed to a cousin of a French marquis. Mademoiselle’s parents, naturally, wished to give their daughter’s deportment a certain flair before she took residence in Burgundy. To be entrusted with the improvement of young gentlewomen who would influence the world was a duty sacred to Emma’s heart.
    That an acquaintance from her own school days, Lady Clipstone, had become her archenemy by setting up her own struggling academy only a month ago made Emma all the more determined to succeed.
    And now, after today—tonight—
    What of her indiscretion? The unspeakable event that she was supposed to pretend had not happened.
    I’m dying of desire for you.
    Desire. For her. An unbidden smile crossed her face.
    She knew what others said of her. The Dainty Dictator. Mrs. Killjoy. No one would believe she was the woman who only a half-hour ago had all but succumbed to a mercenary’s seduction. Not at all herself, and yet, well, she
had
been herself. Her veins bubbling with all the wretched passion of her Boscastle ancestry.
    To think she hadn’t been different at all. She might end up even worse, in fact, than her brothers. At least they sinned openly and made no excuses for it.
    Emma had committed her transgression in secret. Or so she hoped. At any rate, she would be less forgiving of herself than anyone in her family should her conduct be brought to light. She had been a hard judge of her brothers’ misdeeds. Perhaps they really were all cut from the same cloth.
    A soft snore erupted from the bed of one of her sleeping pupils. Sighing, she walked slowly across the room.
    She