Amazon.com Amazon.com's Best of 2001 (ISBN 0380818507, Mass Market Paperback)

Lovely Emma Grenville is the headmistress of Miss Grenville's Academy, a contented spinster, and firmly on the shelf--or so she believes until Greydon Brakenridge, the Duke of Wycliffe, arrives in west Hampshire and threatens to raise her rent and close down her school. He's handsome, intelligent, and thoroughly exasperating, for he believes the academy is nothing more than a "marriage factory" to train young girls to become simpering, clinging ninnies without an original thought in their heads. Greydon is determined to seduce the lovely Miss Grenville, and Emma, although powerfully attracted to the Duke, is just as determined to teach him a lesson about the intelligence of women. Before Emma and her students are done with Greydon Brakenridge, he will have an entirely new respect for educated women. And before Greydon is done with Emma, he will have stirred up a scandal that even his powerful position may not be able to resolve.

A Matter of Scandal is a delightful Regency romp, sprinkled with charming secondary characters both hilarious and endearing, and with a hero and heroine whose romantic escapades and witty dialogue add up to an excellent tale that will please readers everywhere. --Lois Faye Dyer