Improper Proposals

by Juliana Ross

  Improper Proposals

  By Juliana Ross

  Berkshire, 1870

  Newly widowed, Caroline Boothroyd passes her days writing a guide for young wives daunted by their housewifely duties. She takes it to publisher Thomas Cathcart-Ross, who makes the outrageous suggestion that Caroline should instead tackle the subject of marital relations—and, even more shocking, that she should tell women that sex with their husbands can be pleasurable and not a shameful necessity.

  Tom’s sisters were sent into marriage naive and unworldly. He’s willing to risk scandal to help women like them, and Caroline’s writing talent provides the means. Remembering her own newlywed nerves, she agrees, despite fears for her reputation.

  As Caroline thinks back on her own sexual awakening, she cannot help imagining a sensual future with her compelling publisher. Tom makes her want to write a second chapter of her sexual life. But lust could lead to love, and Caroline never wishes to feel heartbreak again.

  For more improper lords and ladies, look for Improper Relations and Improper Arrangements!

  37,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I know many of you have been waiting for the next installment of New York Times bestselling author Marie Force’s thrilling romantic suspense series. Fatal Jeopardy is finally here, and Nick and Sam are as good as ever!

  But that’s not all the great storytelling we have in store for you with the March releases. This month, we introduce debut author Matt Sheehan and a book that had the Carina Press acquisitions team in hysterics. Be sure to check out Helmut Saves the World, in which there’s magic, fistfights and one-liners with the best, most handsome and, of course, humble detective Helmut Haase and his apathetic sidekick Shamus O’Sheagan.

  If you’ve been longing for a great historical romance, we’ve got two this month. Juliana Ross finishes up her erotic Improper trilogy. In Improper Proposals, a lonely young widow learns to live—and love—again as she and her ambitious publisher, the most captivating man she has ever met, work on a forbidden guide to sexual pleasure. It’s An Heir of Uncertainty by Alyssa Everett and it’s also the answer to Colonel Win Vaughan’s prayers when he learns he’s the heir to the newly deceased Earl of Radbourne—but the beginning of a deadly mystery when he arrives to claim his inheritance, only to discover that the earl’s lovely widow is carrying a child who could displace him.

  If you’re looking for something hot, with an unusual hero, Solace Ames releases erotic romance The Submission Gift this month. A young husband offers his wife an unusual gift—to fulfill a fantasy she’d always set aside. But what starts out as a onetime session becomes something precious shared between three—one of them a male escort. Solace Ames brings something new to this story and if you love erotic romance, you’ll want to check this out.

  Also in the hot category is Up in Knots by Gillian Archer. Still bruised over the death of her boyfriend two years ago, Kyla Grant is determined to get back into the kinky dating scene, and bad-boy top Sawyer is just the man to help her. Joining Gillian, Juliana and Solace in the erotic romance category, Nico Rosso’s Slam Dance with the Devil, from his Demon Rock series, brings entertainment to a new level. Wild rock star Kent Gaol’s dark past goes back even further than private investigator Nona Harris could’ve imagined, and one night onstage surprises them both by slamming her into his supernatural world.

  March shapes up to be a good one for erotic romances because Emily Ryan-Davis brings us the follow-up to Ménage on 34th Street, which she coauthored with Elise Logan. In this next installment, Dial M for Ménage, it’s a new year and a new way of life for Katrina Holland, who started 2014 by waking up with two men in her bed. Now, she, Owen and Hunter struggle to define, and redefine, their relationships with one another after the first rush of newness fades.

  Paranormal romance author Lorenda Christensen follows up her funny, entertaining Never Deal with Dragons with the next in the series, Dancing with Dragons. If Carol Jenski knows anything, it’s fashion—and it’s in fashion to consort with dragons, even though they’ve coexisted with humans since WWIII. Still, she would never have agreed to take part in a plot against them. Now a dragon lord has called for her head, her boyfriend is MIA and she’s been abandoned in a foreign country.

  Stacy Gail’s paranormal romance miniseries, The Earth Angels, comes to an exciting conclusion in Dangerous Angel, where the heroes and heroines from all the previous books combine their efforts to avert a demonic apocalypse. In Kathleen Collins’s Death’s Daughter, Realm Walker Juliana Norris hunts a serial killer targeting Altered children while an enemy from her past closes in.

  This month we have two titles in the science-fiction genre. First, join the adventure At Star’s End! A galactic treasure hunter and an astro-archaeologist race across the galaxy in pursuit of the last remaining fragment of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in this space opera romance from Anna Hackett.

  And we’re pleased to welcome T.D. Wilson with his debut, The Epherium Chronicles: Embrace. Set in the mid-twenty-second century, Embrace is the first book of an exciting new space opera series where Earth’s newest warship, the Armstrong, must make contact with fledgling colonies in nearby solar systems amid the threat of an alien attack.

  If you’re ready for a cozy mystery to keep you guessing as to whodunit, look no further than Julie Anne Lindsey’s latest release. Most islanders celebrate the reprieve of summer tourism with cider, mums and cocoa, but sharks, birders and a possible serial killer seem intent on ruining autumn for Patience when Murder Comes Ashore.

  Anne Marie Becker returns with another suspenseful installment in her romantic suspense series. In Dark Deeds, SSAM security expert Becca Haney is hiding a past that could hurt her ex-lover, NYPD detective Diego Sandoval—but the true threat comes from a “fan” whose conscience urges him to kill.

  Coming next month: contemporary romance Taken with You from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Stacey. Also, sports week and six irresistible sports romances!

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  Dedication

  To my editor, Deborah Nemeth, for teaching me how to become a better writer, and for believing in me from the beginning. Working with you is a privilege and a constant delight.

  Acknowledgments

  To my editor, Deborah Nemeth, and the wonderful team at Carina Press, thank you again for ensuring the road from first draft to publication is so enjoyable. I am honored by your support for me and my work.

  To Kevan Lyon, my literary agent, I once again offer my sincere thanks. You make everything better!

  To my dearest friends (you know who you are), thank you for your love and support.

  To my sister, thank you for being the ultimate Reader of First Drafts and never holding back when criticism is warranted.

  To my beloved husband and children, thank you for all you do to support me, each and every day. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: you are everything to me.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter
Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  October 1869

  Aston Tirrold

  Berkshire, England

  I was in the parlor, the largest room in the rectory, together with every other inhabitant of the village. Old and young, highborn and common, they had all come to pay their respects to their vicar, dead of a fever three days earlier. Their vicar and my husband, my John, my beloved.

  To make room for everyone, nearly all the furniture had been cleared from the parlor and dining room. A chair had been set out for me in front of the big bay window, with a little piecrust table for my untouched cup of tea, and another chair pulled close so our friends and neighbors might directly relay their condolences.

  One by one they took their turn, a parade of the kind and good of our parish. John had sat with them, had held their hands, had offered comfort and wisdom when they suffered, and now that he was gone they sought to do the same for me. I was grateful, to my soul I was grateful, but their faces had long since begun to blur before me, their words of solace indistinguishable from the rumble of conversation that filled the room, and I longed for solitude and quiet so badly I could almost taste it.

  Mr. Thomson bid me farewell and was instantly replaced by Mrs. Petrie, a relative newcomer to the parish. She was young, no more than twenty, and nearing her confinement for her second child.

  She took my hand and grasped it tight, her eyes brimming with tears. “I never thanked him properly,” she said.

  “I’m sure he didn’t—”

  “He was so good to us when our dear little one died last year. He sat with me for hours, you know. Listening, and offering such comfort. I only wish I could help you as he helped me.”

  “Your presence alone is a great comfort,” I said, and it was true, for I would never tire of listening to stories of my husband’s many kindnesses.

  “I also want to thank you, Mrs. Boothroyd. I will never forget how welcoming you were when I was new to Aston Tirrold. Do you recall when you first came to visit me? I served you burned biscuits and cold tea and you held my hand as I wept and complained.”

  “You were simply overwhelmed by your new duties. Most brides are.”

  “Your advice was so helpful. I treasure the book of recipes you wrote out for me. Everyone goes on about Mrs. Beeton and her guide, but your advice was a hundred times more useful. And if ever I may do a kindness to you, or help you in any way, I pray you will come to me.”

  I can’t remember how I responded, but presumably I thanked her and said I looked forward to seeing her again in happier times. Soon she was replaced by another, and another, and it wasn’t until the sun hung low in the amber autumn sky that the last of the guests had departed.

  I retreated to my bedchamber, leaving the last of the tidying up to the housekeeper and maids, but once there I didn’t so much as kick off my shoes. Instead I lay on the bed, cocooned in my widow’s weeds, and stared at the ceiling. How odd that I had never before noticed the cracks in the plaster and the strange patterns they made.

  But then I had scarcely ever been in my bed after dawn. There had always been so much to do. Even now, after such a day, I yearned to make myself useful, to still my melancholic thoughts with the panacea of absorbing work.

  I really ought to begin a list of all that needed to be done before I vacated the rectory. The new incumbent, together with his wife and children, would arrive in a fortnight. I was to move into a cottage in the village, scarcely more than a stone’s throw away. It had all been arranged.

  I knew the cottage, for I had visited its previous occupant, Mrs. Moreton, many times. She’d been a dear old lady, and had kept her home in good order until her final illness last year. It was a pretty place, solidly built, with ancient brick walls that vanished beneath a curtain of fragrant damask roses each summer and a thatched roof that swooped low over deep-set windows.

  But it was terribly small, with only a sitting room and kitchen on the main floor and two small chambers above. I would have to leave behind most of the furniture, for there wouldn’t be room for it. I would have to leave behind this bed. My bride’s bed, my marriage bed. I had slept every night of the past eleven years in this bed. My husband had died in it, in my arms, borne away by a fever in a matter of days.

  What would I do without him? My entire life had revolved around John, around his work at St. Michael’s and the work I did as his wife. But that was over, done, and soon another woman would come to Aston Tirrold and take up my place.

  No one needed me now. My husband was dead and buried. I had no children. My parents were dead and my only brother lived in India. I was alone in the world.

  What would I do? What on earth would I do?

  Chapter Two

  July 1870

  London, England

  It had been a mistake to come here. What did I know of Thomas Cathcart-Ross, after all? Practically nothing. He and my late husband had been friends while at Cambridge, but I had never met the man. It was a slender acquaintance, to be sure, and one he obviously held in low esteem. How else to explain his having kept me waiting for more than an hour?

  His letter was in my reticule, but there was no need for me to read it again. He had been quite clear: he would be free to see me and discuss my manuscript on Tuesday, 19 July at three o’clock in the afternoon. If the clock on the wall were to be believed, it was now a quarter past four.

  For perhaps the thousandth time I resisted the urge to shift on my chair, to twitch at my veil, to dab at the drops of perspiration that were taking such an interminable amount of time to slide down my nape and dampen my collar. I had worn my best gown for the trip to London, the same one I’d had for John’s funeral last year, a black bombazine that looked almost new. It was very nearly stylish, with a modest bustle that was ever so much easier to manage than the wide crinolines of my youth. But the gown’s color—or rather stark absence of color—looked ill against my pale hair and even paler complexion. Not that it mattered, of course. All that was required of me, as a widow, was respectability.

  When would the wretched man appear? Never in my life had I ever kept anyone waiting, certainly not for more than an hour without so much as a cup of tea or a newspaper to read. His lack of common courtesy really was insupportable.

  “Mrs. Boothroyd?”

  It was the clerk again.

  “Yes?”

  “He’s ready to see you. Please come with me.”

  I gathered up my reticule and the leather folder that held my precious manuscript, shook out my skirts and followed him down a long corridor, past half a dozen offices filled with desks and overflowing bookshelves and serious men with furrowed brows. We came to a door at the end of the hall.

  The clerk knocked twice, opened the door and indicated, with a jerk of his chin, that I should go in.

  The room beyond was exactly as I had expected. As befitted the proprietor of a successful publishing house, it was bright and spacious, with one entire wall given over to bookcases that reached nearly to the ceiling. In the center of the chamber stood an enormous barrister’s desk so cluttered and piled with papers and boxes and leather-bound volumes that it was quite impossible to see if anyone sat on the other side.

  Most surprising of all was the dog, asleep on the floor next to the desk. It was an enormous creature, shaggy and gray, its paws quite the size of dinner plates, and as I stared at it, not daring to move
, it opened its eyes and lumbered to its feet. Although I liked dogs well enough, I was nervous around ones I didn’t know, and all the more when they were the size of a timber wolf. I took a step backward, then another. But the beast only huffed softly at my hand, then fell to the floor and presented his belly to me.

  “Is that you, Mrs. Boothroyd?” came a voice from behind—or perhaps beneath—the desk.

  “It is. To whom am I speaking? I had hoped to see Mr. Cathcart-Ross today, but—”

  “And here I am,” he announced, standing up so suddenly that I took a step back. “I see you’ve already met Grendel.”

  “He’s prettier than his namesake.”

  “But not as ferocious. Unless you’re a rabbit, that is.”

  Mr. Cathcart-Ross came around the desk and held out his hand for me to shake, and as his ink-stained fingers engulfed my own I was taken aback not only by the strength of his grasp, but also by the sheer size of his hand. A stevedore or lumberjack might aspire to such a hand.

  There was nothing particularly memorable about his appearance. Nothing, really, to distinguish him from the rooms of clerks I had just passed. He was tall, but then most men seemed tall to me. He was dressed informally, his tie hanging loose, his waistcoat wrinkled. He wore no coat and his shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows.

  His hair was brown and curling, the color of his eyes difficult to discern at a distance. He was smiling broadly, his mouth wide and mobile, and he sported a close-trimmed mustache and Van Dyke beard that suited him very well.

  “I do beg your pardon for making you wait. My fault entirely. I got caught up in making revisions to a manuscript and lost track of the time. Idiotic of me, really. May I offer you a cup of tea? A glass of sherry?”

  “No, thank you. Is there anywhere we might sit?”

  “Of course, of course. There’s a small sitting room just through that door.”

  There was an upholstered settee in the room we now entered, Grendel ambling behind us, but I instead went to the table at its center and waited for Mr. Cathcart-Ross to draw out my chair. He did so, the very soul of courtesy, and as he seated himself opposite I set down my folder, drew off my gloves and pulled back my veil.