Teaching Their Omega novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Summons

Osmund stood on the porch with his cane planted between his boots and two Council members behind him.

One was a stout woman in a green coat with a folder.

The other was the clerk from the Grange, the quiet man who had written down every word Declan said in front of Osmund.

He met my eyes once and looked away at the hens.

I had put on jeans and my navy cardigan, and I had braided my hair, and I had not hurried.

Osmund had been knocking for five minutes by the time I opened the door.

"Miss Pascoe."

"Mr. Ingram."

"I am here on Council business," he said. "Where are my nephews?"

"Eating breakfast."

"I will speak to them."

"You can speak to me. I'm the lead instructor of the class you've come about."

His thin mouth tightened.

He tried to step past me over the threshold, and I did not move, and the cane scraped the boards.

"You'll wait on the porch," I said. "We weren't expecting guests."

"Madam, it is freezing."

"Then you'll want to be brief."

The woman in the green coat made a small noise in her throat that might have been a cough.

Behind me I heard a chair scrape and both brothers come to stand in the hall, one on each side of my shoulders.

I did not look round.

I could feel them.

Osmund looked at them.

He looked at Declan's rolled sleeves and at Rhett's bare feet, and a flush crept up from his collar.

He had read the room.

It smelled of three people who had been in each other's company for days.

"I see," he said stiffly. "I see how the term has been used."

"You'll see the term's results at the hearing," Declan said evenly.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Teaching Their Omega from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.