by May, Soraya
Professor Trouble
Soraya May
Contents
Dear Reader
Professor Trouble
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
About the Author
Dear Reader
Thank you so much for reading my book! I have the best job in the whole world, and I owe it to you; without your help, I wouldn’t be able to go on telling the stories I love, and sharing them with everyone.
If you’d like to give me any kind of feedback at all, I’d really be grateful to hear from you: you can email me at [email protected], or contact me on Facebook.
All the best,
Soraya.
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Copyright © 2016 by Soraya May. All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, brands, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Professor Trouble
Emily thinks her new class with a visiting professor is going to be pretty dull: Latin Literature taught by some old British fuddy-duddy. Except Will Spencer isn't what she expected: he isn't old, and he isn't a fuddy-duddy...
* * *
Stay out of trouble, they said. But Emily Masterson, sitting in the front row of my class, was the kind of trouble I didn't see coming.
I bet I’m the only college professor in all of Britain who’s punched his boss for being an asshole. But he got up again, and hit back pretty good—he knocked my ass three thousand miles across the Atlantic. Now I'm in exile for a semester, teaching bored college students in New Hampshire.
It’s only a semester, they said. It’ll blow over, and you can come back to your real job.
All I need to do is stay out of trouble.
Especially the kind of trouble that comes in a cute little package, with red lips, and round hips, and little polka-dot skirts.
Especially when that trouble is in my class looking at me as if I’m the most important thing in her world.
Especially when she's my new student, and all the things I want to do to her are completely forbidden.
Stay out of trouble. Right.
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Prologue
Do you remember the part in The Godfather where Michael Corleone shoots two people, and he has to go and hide out in Sicily for a bit until it all cools down? Well, it’s pretty much like that for me. Except instead of Sicily, I get the eastern seaboard of the United States, and instead of shooting someone, I punched my boss, the Dean of Bailey College.
In my defense, he really deserved it, but as Career-Limiting Moves go, it was a big one. It was a good punch, too—a crisp left hook, and it connected with a thump that echoed around the Great Hall. Without false modesty, I’d say it was the best damn punch ever thrown within the hallowed walls of that great English institution.
The consequences for me, however, were severe. After getting back up, and straightening his bow-tie, Dean Holgate lurched toward me, although I noticed with some satisfaction that he stayed out of range this time.
“That’s it, Spencer! I’ll have your job for that!” Hissing with triumph, his eyes gleamed venomously at me across the circle of cap-and-gown-wearing academics that had suddenly formed around us.
I shrugged, trying to sound more carefree and brash than I felt. “Frankly, Holgate, you deserved it. I trust that’s the last time you’ll pass that kind of comment about the female students in the College.” The Dean had been getting steadily more offensive all night, and after his last comment—a particularly unpleasant joke which I won’t repeat here—I saw the looks on the faces of the students at High Table, and decided I’d had enough.
“Dean Holgate, that’s quite enough. I insist that you stop this talk immediately.” I had invested the word ‘insist’ with as much force as I could, but it didn’t seem to get through his conical skull. Holgate was a bully, and until now he hadn’t met anyone prepared to stand up to him.
He sneered. “I think, Spencer, you misunderstand your situation. This is an institution of higher learning, and while we might be required to admit women as students, we are not required to pander to them. Unless, that is, you have something…personal…to gain by doing so?”
Now I really was irritated. “I’m not joking, Holgate. You’ll stop. Now.”
Holgate stood up from the table and came to stand over me, glowering. “Spencer, I am the Dean of this college. That means I can do and say precisely what I like. Do you really think there is a single thing that you, or this group of second-rate weak-minded females who only got to Bailey by playing on their gender, can possibly do to stop me?”
That was when I punched him.
* * *
“You’ll have to leave, you know. As sympathetic as I am to your situation, Will, you simply cannot go around punching the faculty. That just isn’t the reputation we want Bailey to have.” Sarah Kensington, the Dean of Chapel, stood in front of me. “Holgate is my equal—I can’t overrule him—and in any case my job is largely ceremonial. For me to oppose him directly would create a huge rift, and would be very damaging to the college.”
Holgate had been led away, casting furious glances in my direction from beneath a rapidly-swelling bruise on his jaw. Sarah looked at me and shook her head. “You’ve committed a serious misconduct offense, Will. You do understand that, don’t you?”
In a moment, I was swamped with regret. “I’m sorry, Sarah, I’m a damn fool. I’ve let you down, and I’ve let the College down. I’ll resign tomorrow.”
Her face softened. “Will, you’re a fine teacher, and a fine man. But your hotheadedness will be the ruin of you, I swear. Look, let me see what I can do—I
know that Lowell College is in dire need of someone to teach Latin Literature, and I’m sure they’d love to have someone with your credentials. If I were to arrange it, they’d take you on within the month. It’d just be for a little while. Then, when people have forgotten what’s just happened, you can come back.”
“Lowell College? I can’t say I’ve heard of—where is it?”
“Well, let me put it this way, Will—have you considered a semester teaching in the United States?”
1
“Late on your first day of class, honey?”
Trying my best not to ignore Mrs. Tanner, I burst through the main doors of the Languages building. She’s an ideal receptionist, with a cheerfulness that borders on the pathological at times, and she’s been kind to me, but right now I don’t have time to talk, or indeed slow down. Self-defense class says that the best way to run in heels, even kitten heels, is to take them off, but this is only good advice if you’re running away from something. If you’re running toward it, and you need to arrive looking presentable, things get more complicated.
I clatter up the stairs and make the turn for the Medium Hall. Stupid name. If there was a Small Hall and a Large Hall, fine. But there isn’t. At least name it after some old dead guy. As I do, I feel an ominous click in the buckle of my left shoe. Two more strides, and the problem is clear; my shoe buckle is coming undone, and like a race-car running with a bald tire, that’s going to end badly.
Hiking my bag higher on my shoulder, I bend to fix it without slowing, turning my movement into a sort of crab-wise hop. This works better than I’d expected, although it gets me funny looks from the few students who aren’t already in class. I feel a surge of irritation for them - not only are they not in class, they don’t even seem to be worried about it. Assholes. The least they could do is feel guilty.
The furious hopping continues until I twist the strap and shove it into the side of my shoe, where my foot ought to keep it pinned until I can get to class. I increase my pace again, and wonder briefly if this is all really worth it just so I don’t make a bad impression with some wizened elderly Brit. William Spencer. Talk about an old dead guy name. Still, that’s what I get for taking Latin Lit.
Only one more semester stuck here at Lowell, then I’m done—twelve weeks, then I’m out into the world. I took this because I needed a General Studies course to finish my degree, and I‘ve always loved ancient history, but the reading list looks daunting—Juvenal, Ovid, Horace, Virgil. A vision of being drilled on verbs and tenses in a dusty classroom springs to mind, and I shudder.
Maybe I’ll get lucky, and he’ll be like Dumbledore, all kindly with sparkling eyes. And a robe. Yeah.
Getting to the hall, I slide to a halt and consider my options. There’s no-one around, and I can hear a voice talking from inside. Hell. He’s already started.
I’d like to say that I don’t turn up late to class often, but unfortunately that would be a massive lie. The truth is that it happens so often, I’ve invented my own word for the process of getting into class with minimal embarrassment: I call it latesneaking.
Now, the trick to latesneaking when you have a lecture hall with two side entrances is to pick the correct one, and that’s the one furthest from the person speaking. Get it right, and you stand a reasonable chance of being able to slip inside with minimal embarrassment. Get it wrong, and you’re standing directly in front of a pissed-off old person with an audience, inviting them to make fun of you.
College lecturers are creatures of habit, and they tend to stand in the same spot—so once you’ve been to class a few times, you learn which entrance is the best one for latesneaking.
But the first time with a new lecturer? Yeah, you gotta guess.
I take a deep breath and walk to the left entrance. Putting my hand on the door, the noise inside pauses, and then swells into laughter. That's a good sign—if he's making them laugh, maybe this class won't be so boring after all.
I push the door. Nothing happens. Locked? You are freakin' kidding me. I push harder, but not too hard—another rule of Latesneaking 101 is 'never rattle a locked door', because nothing attracts attention like rattle-rattle-rattle.
The door shifts a little under my hand. So, not locked, but stuck. This is the worst situation to be in, since you've got no idea how hard to push, and no idea what's on the other side of it. For all I know, there could be five hundred freshmen staring directly at this door right now.
Another deep breath, shove my stupid foot back into my stupid shoe which is coming loose again, and push. The door shifts a fraction, and the talking inside resumes. Good, that means they're not looking at the door. Here goes.
Sadly, there's no real patron saint of lateness—I’ve checked—so there's no-one specific up above I can ask to intercede on my behalf. I lean all my weight on the door.
Crunch.
Click.
Clop, clop.
Whoompf. Things happen in rapid succession.
'Crunch' is the sound of the door giving way after I lean just a bit too hard.
'Click' is the noise the toe of my shoe makes as it catches in the little frame on the edge of the door. I keep moving forward, but my stupid shoe and my stupid foot stay where they are.
'Clop, clop' is the noise I make as I stagger into the lecture hall. At that moment my shoe comes free. I lose my balance.
And, yep, you guessed it—'whoompf' is the sound of me tripping, backwards, about to fall on my ass in front of the entire class. My right leg goes out in front of me, and my shoe goes flying.
As I start to fall, I see a figure out of the corner of my eye, and I realize that in fact this was the wrong door to pick. I am directly in front of the lecturer, and I’m going to land right next to him.
Suddenly, there's an arm behind me, and I'm not falling any more. With weird clarity, I turn my head and get a glimpse of the owner of the arm.
Well, he's kindly alright. And he’s got sparkling eyes. But he damn well doesn’t look much like Dumbledore. Holy. Shit. He’s gorgeous.
And then, my shoe lands with a gentle 'clunk', right in the front row of students.
2
I come really close to making a joke about women falling at my feet, and stop myself just in time. Bad Will. Bad. Not in front of the students. Still, catching the poor girl feels like the first damn thing I've done right for—well, I don't know how long.
Halfway through the course introduction, I'd heard the telltale rattling and shuffling which indicated a late student. I'm not the sort of fellow to humiliate a student for being late, but I'm also not going to cut them any slack, so I kept talking.
"Now, at the time Juvenal was writing, the patron-client relationship was an important part of Roman society, and you'll see it reflected in a number of his works. He addresses it directly in Satire V, and we'll be reading this extensively, so—"
Then, well, boom, in she came. Talk about making an entrance. I only got a glimpse of her— hair tied back, skirt, heels—before it became apparent that she was heading for the floor, so I lunged, and got my arm underneath her.
She's so light, so little. Her cheeks are flushed red, and she looks at me in horror. At least I think it's horror.
Her shoe lands in the front row. I can tell the class are about to laugh, and I need to do something to distract them. Give 'em a show, Will. If they're looking at you they're not laughing at her. With my free hand I raise my index finger, requesting a brief pause in the lesson. That's it. Keep them looking at you.
I raise my arm up, bringing her slowly back to her feet. My other hand stays in the air, finger raised, holding the class where I want them.
"Are you okay, Ms., ah..?" For a moment, I get to look at her properly. Little turned-up nose, lips pressed tight, and deep expressive eyes.
"M-M-Masterson, Professor. I, uh, yeah. Th-Thanks."
"Good. Take your seat, please, Ms. Masterson. You haven't missed much." She scurries to the last seat in the front row, trying to make her
self as small as possible. Wordlessly, her shoe gets passed along the row of students and returned to her. I'm pleased about that.
I launch back into the lesson to keep people distracted. "So, Satire V concerns the patron-client relationship as its central topic, and it takes place in the context of a dinner party given by a patron to which his clients are invited. Juvenal writes about the hypocrisy on show in the way that the patron's friends are served better food than his clients, and he concludes that the whole exercise is basically a demonstration in superiority. Next, we're going to go on and talk about Satire VI, which is about feminine virtue, and from which we get the famous quotation quis custodiet ipos custodes. Can anyone translate this, please?"
Silence. C'mon, guys and girls. I know it's the first class, but don't leave me hanging here. Didn't any of you ever read the Watchmen comic?
Shoe Girl puts up her hand. I call her Shoe Girl, because it's the hand still holding her shoe. I honestly don't think she's noticed she's holding it.
"Ms. Masterson?"
"Who guards the guards themselves."
She's staring at me so intently, I almost don't hear what she's saying. "Yes, Ms. Masterson, that's correct. What do you think was the point being made here?" She tenses, and screws up her nose. I smile to make it sound a little less like a cross-examination.
"Well, he's asking how it's possible to enforce morality when those responsible for the enforcement can become corrupted themselves."
Well done, Shoe Girl. You may have come in late, but at least you looked at the reading. "Yes, that's a good way to put it. Anything else?"
Warming to her subject, she gestures with her hand, still holding the shoe. She still hasn't noticed. "In essence, he's saying, here and in other satires, that morality can only spring from without, and can't be imposed from outside. Attempts to impose external morality are doomed to fail if they aren't accompanied by an internal moral compass, and this is what Juvenal believes is wrong with the Roman Empire of his day—a loss of moral compass."