To Seduce an Angel Read Free

held.
    â€œI came about the position,” she told the angel. She had no idea what his place on the household staff was, but the boys around him must be her intended pupils.
    He leaned his folded arms on the hilt of his great sword and regarded her with frank interest, a sardonic lift to one brow. “I don’t remember advertising for anyone with your qualifications.”
    â€œI beg your pardon. You placed the notice in the paper?”
    â€œ You are hardly the expected result.”
    Emma blinked. “ You are Daventry?”
    â€œNone other.” He bowed slightly. “You are E. Portland?”
    Emma tried to pull her wits together. She was talking to a man, not an angel, a dangerous man who was hard to kill. She found herself babbling her qualifications, real and false. “Emma Portland. I speak French, German, and Italian. I know Latin, maths, and geography. Do you wish to see my credentials?”
    â€œCan you teach?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œLet’s find out.” With an effortless sweep of his bare arm, he brandished the sword in the air. Emma retreated a step before she realized the sword was made of wood. “To the schoolroom, lads.”
    The ragged cherubs erupted into motion and noise, surging around her. In a blink they had snatched her reticule and letters of reference and whisked them away. She could see her bag bobbing from hand to hand above their heads as they disappeared up the dark, narrow stair.
    â€œAfter you, Miss Portland.” The warlike angel lord, whatever he was, grinned at her discomposure. It was not a good start. Her escape plan was not in place. She could not go back to Aubrey’s man at the inn. She needed this man to hire her, not to mock her.
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    THE girl turned an assessing gaze on the schoolroom. Dav had held no proper lessons there since his old tutor Hodge had left. The books he’d purchased for the boys lay in a heap in one corner. Their slates were scattered about the floor. He had continued to read to them a tale of exploring the great pharaohs’ tombs. The result of that tale dominated the room—a dark pyramid built of desks and chairs that nearly reached the ceiling. A tunnel led to the interior of the structure, where the boys had disappeared.
    Dav doubted she would last the afternoon, and a stab of disappointment accompanied the thought. He needed someone to take charge of the boys. They could not play games forever as if time would stand still for perpetual youth. But his idea of a tutor was nothing like this girl. From the letter he’d received, he had expected E. Portland to be a shabby scholar with his mind on the ancients. He should have told her at once that she wouldn’t do for the job and arranged her escort back to wherever she came from. Even now he should stop her before his band ate her for luncheon, but it would only be polite to offer tea before he sent her away.
    He righted a chair in the back of the room, straddled it, and waited to see what she would do. The sword had startled her, but now she ignored him, her brow puckered in a little frown of concentration, as she removed her plain black bonnet and gloves. She was thinking, stalling for time, he suspected.
    Her hair, gold as sunbeams and springy as waves, was pulled back from her face with only a few curls escaping. A part of him just wanted to look at her. She undid the strings of her cloak. He hadn’t seen the style, but he recognized an old, secondhand garment when he saw it, like the velvet coat he had in his wardrobe, a garment with a past. The cloth was faded rose wool, and the collar had a fringe like the petals of a wilted rose. Her gesture in removing it spoke of pride even when necessity made one bow.
    He imagined helping her undo it, a missed opportunity. Gentlemen did such things, didn’t they? And he was a gentleman now. The courts had made him one in spite of his grandfather’s opposition. Daventry.