The Next Duke

Seven

"Five term papers in two days? What the hell is going on?" Lillian demanded as she looked at their tsking board the following Monday afternoon. She looked at her students and all of them were wearing identical expressions of doom and exhaustion. Many of them have had very little sleep for the past week and none of them had managed to work in Stace Park.

"I only have one class tomorrow so I can work on mine. We haven't even discussed some of these topics," Trevor said with a groan.

"Of course, there is what we call self study. We'll start tonight after dinner," Lillian promised.

Joseph was reading the evening paper when he noticed the glum and energized atmosphere at the same time. He looked at Lillian and noticed there was fire in her gaze. And he knew for a fact there was nothing that sexual about it. He had to frown though, he needed to know what caused it.

"Your lordship, it seems we're going to take some time with your ancestral home. We're swamped with term papers, left and right it seems we won't be able to work on our timeline," Rachel said sadly.

Joseph looked at Lillian, she hasn't said anything, but he knew gears were turning inside her head. He knew there was going to be an intense study session tonight and he doubted Lillian will be able to help him fix his car and he was overdue already. After dinner, he opened the doors to the study and could see Lillian was giving them an outline on the white board and they were all furiously writing and working together.

"Anything I can do to help?" he asked.

Lillian looked up at him in surprise, it was a happy surprise, "Thank you, Joseph, you can help the boys with their research in the Library here, the actual books and of course through the internet."

He nodded, "Come on boys, we're going to the bigger library, one of your boys stay and continue making the outline with Betsy and the rest of you follow me."

They were all hesitant but they followed suit.

It was near midnight when everyone called it quits. Lillian checked in on the boys and was surprised to see Joseph typing furiously on the computer as the boys were nodding their heads one by one. Mental exhaustion did tire the body quicker than physical exercise.

"Hey, go to bed. We still have tomorrow afternoon to work on all of these. How many of you were able finish?"

Joseph looked up at her and was taken by surprised by how she looked. Her hair was down in waves, framing her face making her look younger. Her glasses was pushed up against her nose giving her that intelligent aura. The gentle smile on her face captivated him most as well as the twinkle in her eyes. He wanted to shake himself mentally. This woman was bewitching him. It was as though she had this innocent atmosphere about her.

"They were able to finish three of their papers. The outlines you taught them guided them mostly. They knew what they were looking for, I simply helped with the research."

She nodded and approached the boys, one by one, she gently shook them and sent them all to bed. She looked at Joseph, there was a frown on his face. "This isn't normal," he remarked.

Lillian's face hardened, "No, it isn't. I know my kids can do this and succeed, but this is wrong."

He looked down at her, "I'll have my father look in on this."

She shook her head, "Not yet, I think the school is trying to test out their mettle. If this continues, they will have to face their problem head on."

"Problem?" he asked. "What problem?"

"Me."

The following week, Lillian was with her students as they researched in the library. They were given the same amount of work again and they were all exhausted. One of them had just come from the infirmary after suffering from a severe head ache. Thankfully, the girl was doing fine now and was seated in front of a book. Lillian told the girl to stay away from computers for a while and can do her work with the help of the others.