Lessons in Sin - Pam Godwin Page 0,30

do with me and more to do with the paper on my desk.

Pressing a finger against it, I slid it across to her. Then I laced my hands on the wooden surface and watched her.

She bent forward, glanced at the page, and little lines of disappointment knitted across her brow, there and gone by the time she straightened.

“Explain this to me.” I kept my tone light, conversational. “According to your enrollment paperwork, you’ve never taken a standardized test for university admissions. Why?”

“You would have to ask my mother.” She shrugged.

Her blasé attitude set my teeth on edge.

“I’m asking you.”

“If my mother has it her way, I’ll never see the inside of a university. An educated woman doesn’t make a good trophy wife in a loveless marriage with a man who’s twice her age. It’s best to keep me dumb, unambitious, and subservient.”

“And if you had it your way?”

“I want to go home.”

“How would that change your mother’s plans?”

“It changes everything. At home, I was well on my way to living my own life. I was exploring universities, experimenting with guys, figuring out who I am and what I want. That’s why she sent me here. To put a big fat stop on my voyage of self-discovery. She’s essentially locked me in a cage, secluded me from everyone and everything. I can’t even choose my own clothes.”

I couldn’t dispute any of that. Caroline held the reins of Tinsley’s life, which made the matter of the paper on my desk increasingly moot. But I wasn’t letting it go.

“The tests you took are proprietary assessment exams, created specifically for this school to place students on an appropriate individualized learning path.”

I was intimately familiar with the structure and intensity of the test questions because one, I used to own the corporation that designed the exams, and two, I’d taken the tests myself. Multiple times.

“In all the years I’ve been running this school and the hundreds of tests that have come across my desk…” I tapped the paper. “I’ve only seen test scores this high one time.”

My scores. But I kept that to myself.

She hadn’t cheated. I’d sat behind her the entire time, watching her fly through the exercises.

“Academic aptitude of your caliber doesn’t go unnoticed.” I pressed my fingertips together in a steeple against my mouth, thinking. “Your high school grades are average. You weren’t in any advanced classes. Have you not been applying yourself in school? Or has something else been holding you back?”

“I’m not smart, if that’s what you’re asking.” She strolled alongside the desk, letting her hand trail the surface’s edge. “I remember things. If I hear it or read it, I can recall it later. It’s just memorization. Nothing special.”

Her intelligence went way beyond memorization, and whoever had told her otherwise should have their tongue ripped out.

“The exam measured a range of cognitive abilities.” I studied her over the steeple of my hands. “That includes mathematical skills, spatial perception, and language. Your scores in science and logic are especially impressive, which has more to do with problem-solving and less to do with memory.”

“Whatever. So are you going to put me in advanced classes or something?”

My initial concerns had been that she wouldn’t keep up in those classes. Now that I knew she was ahead of our curriculum and every student here, I had to adjust for that. “I teach Advanced Placement Calculus after lunch, followed by Econometrics and Statistics. You’ll take those classes and spend the mornings with me in individualized instruction and religious training.”

She seemed to perk up at that, and I could guess the reason. She thought I was her ticket out of here.

I spread out my elbows on the desk, leaning forward. “Spending every day with me does not open opportunities to sabotage your graduation from Sion. Furthermore, any feelings you may develop for me—be it contempt or desire—will be squashed. Our relationship will remain professional, and any efforts to defile that will be punished.”

“Will my clothes be removed for these punishments?” She fluttered her eyelashes, straight-faced.

“Depends on your on-going issue with urinary incontinence.”

“I do not have incontinence.” She made a scoffing sound. “I hadn’t gone to the bathroom since before church.”

“Find a solution for that, Miss Constantine. You’re far too old to be reminded to use the toilet.”

“That’s not…ugh!” She paced away, clawing her nails along her scalp and pulling at her hair.

I rubbed a hand across my mouth, wiping away my amusement. She was way too easy to rile, and I rather enjoyed it.

Now that