The Questioning Miss Quinton

The Questioning Miss Quinton
Kasey Michaels

Patrick Sherbourne, eleventh Earl of Wickford, had been unwittingly charmed by the feisty Miss Victoria Quinton.Her bespectacled appearance belied her femme fatale persona–one he almost dared to covet, until the vixen accused him of her father's murder! Not one to allow his good name to be sullied, Patrick found his only recourse was to aid Victoria in uncovering the real criminal. But the earl had to act fast. For not just his family honor was at stake…spending a prolonged period in Victoria's company might mean the end to his beloved bachelorhood.

THE TRANSFORMATION

“It is you,” the earl said, as if confirming his own assumptions. Holding out his right hand, he advanced toward her, smiling widely. “Miss Quinton, I have to own it. Please perceive me standing before you, openmouthed with astonishment.”

Immediately Victoria’s back was up, for she was certain this smiling man was enjoying himself quite royally, pretending that she had overnight turned from a molting crow into an exotic, brilliantly plumed bird.

“Oh, do be quiet,” she admonished, furious at feeling herself blushing as he continued to hold out his hand to her. “Now, if you have done amusing yourself at my expense, I suggest you take yourself off on your usual immoral pursuits, as I have more than enough on my plate without having to stand here listening to your ludicrous outpourings of astonishment.”

Dropping his ignored hand to his side, Patrick merely smiled all the more as he unabashedly quipped, “Now you’ve gone and done it, Miss Quinton. Just as I was about to search out your uncle and thank him for having brought about a near miraculous transformation, you had to go and open your mouth.”

Kasey Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than sixty books. She has won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for her historical romances set in the Regency era, and also writes contemporary romances for Silhouette and Harlequin Books.

The Questioning Miss Quinton

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Dorothea Sandbrook, librarian and friend, who thirty years ago took the time to introduce a restless teenager to the fascinating world of books—and set off a love affair with the written word that goes on and on

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“HOW COMPLETELY and utterly boring.”

Victoria Quinton, feeling no better for having voiced her sentiments aloud, shifted her slim body slightly on the edge of the uncomfortable wooden chair that was situated to one side of the narrow, badly lit hallway, a thick stack of closely written papers lying forgotten in her lap as she waited for the summons that was so un-characteristically late in coming this morning.

Raising one hand, she stifled a wide yawn, as she had been kept awake far into the night transcribing the Professor’s latest additions to his epic book-in-progress on the history of upper-class English society; for besides acting as secretary, sounding board, and general dogs-body to him for as long as she could remember, Victoria also served as transcriptionist to the Professor, transforming his, at times, jumbled and confusing scribblings into legible final copies.

The Professor would not allow Victoria to recopy his notes into neat final copies during the daytime, and since her evenings were not known for their hours spent in any scintillating pursuit of pleasure, she could find no convincing reason to object to his directive that she fill them with more work.

As for the Professor, his lifelong struggle against insomnia made his evenings a prime time for visiting with the countless people he was always interviewing—all of them contenting themselves by prosing on long into the night over some obscure bit of family history of concern to, probably, none other than his subjects, another scholar, or himself.

Victoria had never been introduced to any of the Professor’s nocturnal visitors, nor did she harbor any secret inclination to learn their identities, which the Professor guarded like some spoiled child hiding his treasured supply of tin soldiers from his mates. After all, if the Professor liked them, they would doubtless bore her to tears.

Hearing the ancient clock in the foyer groan, seem to collect itself, and then slowly chime ten times, she tentatively rose to her feet, torn between acknowledging that every minute that ticked by made it one minute less that she would be expected to sit in the gloomy library writing page after endless page of dictation until her fingers bent into painful cramps, and dreading the certain sharp scolding she would get for not rousing him when the Professor finally awakened on his own.

In the end, realizing that she wasn’t exactly spending the interim in a mad indulgence of pleasure—seeing as how she had been sitting in the same spot like some stuffed owl ever since rising from the breakfast table—she made for the closed door and gave a short, barely audible knock.

There was no response. Victoria sighed and shook her head. “He’s probably curled up atop his desk again, afraid that the trip upstairs to his bed would rob him of his drowsiness, and taking his rest where he can,” she decided, knocking again, a little louder this time. Then she pressed her ear against the wood, thinking that the Professor’s stentorian snores should be audible even through the thickness of the door.

Five minutes passed in just this unproductive way, and Victoria chewed on her bottom lip, beginning to feel the first stirrings of apprehension. She looked about the hallway, wondering where Willie was and whether or not she should search out the housekeeper as a sort of reinforcement before daring to enter the library on her own.

But Willie was always entrenched in the kitchen at this time of the morning, industriously scrubbing the very bottom out of some inoffensive pot, or shining an innocent piece of brass to within an inch of its life. She had her routine, Wilhelmina Flint did, and Victoria was loath to interrupt it. Besides, Willie had a habit of over-reacting, and Victoria didn’t feel up to dealing with the possibility of having to dispense hartshorn or burnt feathers at this particular moment.

Also, the Professor might be sick, or injured in a fall from the small ladder he used to reach the uppermost shelves of his bookcases. What a pother that would create. For if the Professor was hard to deal with when healthy, as an invalid he would be downright unbearable!