Angel in Scarlet by Jennifer Wilde Read Free Book Online Page A

could say I was trespassin’, but the sod still didn’t ’ave—have—any right to blister my backside.”
    â€œI would imagine you were quite taken aback,” he remarked, shoving one of the books into a space much too small for it. “First time you’ve ever been spanked, I assume. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
    I sighed and gave him a carefully expurgated account of the event, leaving Clinton and Laura out completely, embroidering the rest of it quite a bit, presenting a most satisfactory drama with myself as wronged heroine. Father continued to put up the books, apparently giving me only half his attention. When I finished he sighed and lifted a long, graceful hand to shove an errant pale gold lock from his brow.
    â€œThat’s done,” he remarked wearily. “One of these days I’m going to be forced to do something about all these books.”
    â€œDon’t you care that he spanked me?”
    â€œI’m sure you deserved it, Pumpkin.”
    â€œI guess I was awfully cheeky,” I confessed. “I—strangely enough, I didn’t—I didn’t really mind it, not—not afterwards. For some reason I felt—felt kinda sorry for him.”
    â€œHugh’s lot has not been a pleasant one, Pumpkin.”
    â€œYou—you know him?”
    â€œQuite well, though it’s been a long while since I’ve seen him. He’s a very intelligent young man, polite and mannerly, far better bred than Master Clinton. Offhand I would say young Hugh was far and away the most satisfying student I’ve ever had.”
    I was dreadfully shocked. “Surely he didn’t attend cla sses,” I exclaimed.
    â€œI fear the good people of our region would never tolerate anything so unseemly,” my father replied. “Righteous fathers would have yanked their sons out of school posthaste—there would have been a mass evacuation, I assure you. No, I tutored young Hugh privately, after hours, when everyone assumed I was grading exams. I saw him hanging about the schoolyard one day, looking sullenly but longingly at the fine-scrubbed, fine-dressed young gentlemen trooping out after classes. He must have been eight or nine years old at the time, unkempt and dirty, quite the young ruffian. No shoes, if I recall, a wretched looking specimen indeed.”
    â€œAnd?” I prompted.
    â€œAnd I noticed him several more times during the weeks that followed and I saw the hunger in his eyes, hunger for knowledge. Late one afternoon I was alone in my classroom—the school was quite empty—and I saw him outside and went out and brought him in.”
    â€œWhat did he do?”
    â€œHe kicked my shin.”
    â€œSounds just like him,” I said, plopping down on the low round leather stool near the fireplace. I was still holding Captain Johnson’s book on highwaymen, and I cradled it against my nonexistent bosom, watching Father wedge the last book onto a shelf.
    He sighed and moved back over to the desk, idly peering at the piles of paper, seeing instead a dark, dirty little boy with a sullen mouth and brown eyes hungry for knowledge.
    â€œI sat him down at one of the desks and gave him a severe lecture on behavior and he scowled fiercely and looked as though he might hurl the inkwell at me. Lad reminded me of a cornered animal—I was quite touched, I must confess. When I saw him eyeing the books longingly, I became very brusque and asked if he would be willing to come in every afternoon under the others had gone and help me tidy up the room—sweep the floor, clean the chalkboard, straighten the books and papers. It was a ploy, of course, but I knew the lad was far too proud to accept any kind of charity.”
    â€œHe agreed?”
    â€œAnd in return I gave him private lessons. He snuck down the alleyway in back of the school, came in through the back entrance so no one would see him. He tidied up the room