by Darcy Burke
Improper
Darcy Burke
Zealous Quill Press
Improper
Copyright © 2021 Darcy Burke
All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 9781637260074
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Book design: © Darcy Burke.
Book Cover Design: © Erin Dameron-Hill at EDHProfessionals.
Editing: Lindsey Faber.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Improper
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Also by Darcy Burke
About the Author
Improper
Society’s most exclusive invitation...
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Welcome to the Phoenix Club, where London’s most audacious, disreputable, and intriguing ladies and gentlemen find scandal, redemption, and second chances.
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Dissolute rogue Tobias Powell, Earl of Overton, has just inherited a sheltered, proper young ward for whom he must find a husband. And that is only the start of his problems. His father’s will demands Tobias marry within the next six weeks, or he’ll lose his mother’s house, a treasure so dear that Tobias can’t consider defeat. Surely he can rehabilitate his scandalous reputation, secure a match for his ward, and find the sophisticated woman of his dreams before it’s too late. Except his ward is a hellion who cannot behave. She can, however, make him laugh.
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Provincial Miss Fiona Wingate is eager to swap her boring small town for an exciting London Season. Until she realizes her new guardian, a dashing earl, plans for her to wed with the utmost haste. Fiona has no interest in marriage—she’s only just been liberated from her lifelong isolation! But when she causes a near scandal and Tobias comes to the rescue, an unexpected attraction sparks between them. Except romance between a guardian and his ward would be most improper…
Don’t miss the rest of The Phoenix Club!
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Chapter 1
London, February 1815
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Tobias Powell, fifth Earl of Overton, smiled faintly at the brush of his mistress’s fingertips along his shoulder. He didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he pressed himself into the bedclothes as if he could hug the cozy softness of the bed. He was particularly tired today, but then it had been a viciously late night.
“What time is your ward arriving?” Barbara, his soon-to-be-former mistress, asked from behind him.
Bloody hell, his ward. His eyes shot open as he pushed himself to a sitting position, the bedclothes falling away from his nude body. “What time is it?”
“Three.”
“In the afternoon?” Of course, in the afternoon. They hadn’t even come back to Barbara’s lodgings until the sun was rising over London.
Tobias scrambled from the bed and ran about plucking up his carelessly tossed clothing. Foregoing smallclothes since he couldn’t seem to find them, he pulled his breeches on. Then he threw his shirt over his head and haphazardly tucked the ends into his waistband.
From the bed, Barbara held up the missing smallclothes, her wide red lips parting in a teasing smile. “Don’t you need these?”
“You kept those from me on purpose.”
She shrugged, her elegant shoulders arching, which made her rather large breasts also move.
Tobias groaned. “I have to go. My ward could already have arrived.” This was not how he’d intended things to happen. He was supposed to be on his best, non-scandalous behavior, both to support his ward’s debut and to find his own wife. “You are far too tempting, Barbara.” He narrowed his eyes at her as he tugged his waistcoat on.
“Your buttons are not aligned.” She laughed softly as she leaned back against the head of the bed, making no attempt to cover her exposed upper half.
Tobias looked down and saw that she was right. Cursing softly, he started over. “This is your fault. You’re a terrible distraction.”
She stretched one arm up over her head, which again accentuated her breasts. “You like me that way.”
“I like you every way, but you know this is our final meeting. It has to be.”
Lowering her arm, she at last pulled up the bedclothes to cover her chest. Pouting, she said, “Because you must marry. Immediately.”
Flinging himself into a chair, Tobias began to don his stockings and boots. “Within the next five or so weeks, yes.” Because his father had decreed it in a surprising change to his will before he’d died in December.
Tobias had to wed within three months of the former earl’s death, or he’d lose the one property that was not entailed—Tobias’s mother’s house, the only true home he’d ever known. He would do anything to keep it in his possession. Which meant he had to find a wife with nearly impossible haste.
And it was only nearly impossible because of his own behavior the past two years. While there were many who would gleefully accept an earl’s suit, he didn’t want just anyone. He wanted a wife of sophistication and wit, one who was kind and caring.
Someone he could love, even if he didn’t at the outset. Because he had no bloody time to fall in love. He needed to find a suitable woman, settle the betrothal, have the banns read, and complete the marriage ceremony within five weeks. All while any woman worth having would likely turn her back to him.
Reformation was the plan, and so far, he was failing. He’d tried to break things off with Barbara the other day, but he’d encountered her last night, and she’d been incredibly persuasive.
Finishing with his boots, he stood and drew on his coat. His cravat was also lost, apparently. No matter. It would have been a horribly wrinkled mess. He grabbed his hat and gloves from the top of her dresser and went to the bed.
“This really was the last time, Barb. You know it has to be.”
She exhaled, her dark eyes meeting his with a shadow of sadness. “I’ll find someone else, but they won’t be you. They’ll be serious and boring, and they won’t know me at all.”
Tobias brushed a dark blonde lock from her cheek and bent to press a kiss to her temple. “They’ll come to know you, and you’ll cure them of their dullness.” He straightened and set his hat atop his head.
“Perhaps I’ll take your generous settlement and just wait for you to change your mind.” She
smiled up at him, and Tobias suffered a moment’s regret. He didn’t love Barbara, but she made him feel good and that was a lovely thing.
He turned and left her rooms, then practically sprinted down to the street where he hailed a hack. Three in the afternoon! He really hoped his ward had not yet arrived. It was a long journey from Shropshire, and the winter weather could have delayed her. Yes, he’d hope that was the case. Hadn’t that been one of the arguments Barbara had used the night before to persuade him to go home with her? She’d cooed that his ward was likely stuck somewhere due to a washed-out road.
Not that it had taken much to sway him. He’d fallen eagerly and completely into debauchery without a shred of regret. That his behavior would have frustrated his father—and did while he was alive—only made it more attractive. After Tobias had failed to wed two years ago, his father had harassed him incessantly about taking a wife. Hence, his dying decree that Tobias marry or suffer—by losing the one possession that meant something incredibly dear to him.
And so his father would win as if this had been a game the past two years. It hadn’t been, not to Tobias. He thought he’d fallen in love, only to have the lady in question turn on him and make him doubt everything he’d felt. Was it any wonder he was not inclined to court anyone else?
It was, however, time he did.
The hack stopped halfway down Brook Street, and Tobias leapt from the vehicle. He dashed through the gate and up the steps to his house, rushing inside as Carrin opened the door.
He stopped abruptly, facing the butler. “Is she here?”
“Miss Wingate?” Carrin shook his head. “Not yet, my lord.”
The stress rushed out of Tobias’s frame, making him feel as if he might slide down to the marble floor. “Thank God. I’m going to take a quick bath.” He removed his hat and strode through the archway into the staircase hall.
“I believe she’s just arrived, my lord,” Carrin called just as Tobias put his foot on the stair.
Closing his eyes, he gripped the railing. “Bollocks.”
“Oh my goodness, that’s Hyde Park!” Fiona Wingate pressed her nose to the window of the coach, her pulse racing.
“How do you know?” Mrs. Tucket said without opening her eyes from beside Fiona.
“Because I do.” Fiona had studied maps of London for as long as she could remember. Indeed, she’d studied every map she could get her hands on. “It’s so big and wonderful.” She splayed her gloved palm against the glass as if she could somehow reach through and touch the trees, their spindly limbs still bare.
Mrs. Tucket leaned against her, and a quick look showed she’d opened one eye long enough to peer past Fiona at the park. “Harumph. You can’t see anything of import.”
No, she couldn’t see Rotten Row or the Serpentine or any of the ton’s ladies and gentlemen who would be out and about during the fashionable hour. She doubted they’d be out today anyway. It was quite early in the Season, with Parliament just starting their session a few days earlier. And it was too cold to promenade.
At that moment, raindrops splattered the window. Certainly too rainy.
Fiona didn’t care. She’d take London in the rain, the snow, even in a hurricane, if such a thing were possible. The point was, she didn’t care about the weather or that the park was not yet in full bloom. She was in London. Most importantly, she was no longer in Bitterley, where she’d spent the entirety of her almost twenty-two years.
Mrs. Tucket exhaled loudly as she worked to push herself into an upright sitting position. She’d slumped rather far down in her seat since their last stop some miles back. “I suppose I must rouse myself from the travel stupor.”
Fiona kept her face to the window until they reached the corner of the park. Even then, she craned her neck to look back at it, marveling at the archway leading inside. She would get to promenade there or mayhap even ride. Perhaps her guardian would drive her in his phaeton. Assuming he had one. Surely all earls had phaetons.
The coach continued along a bustling street—Oxford Street, if she recalled the map correctly. And she was certain she did. Shortly they would turn right down Davies Street into Mayfair, the heart of London’s most fashionable neighborhood.
They passed stone and brick-faced houses, some with elaborate doorways and others with wide windows. Some were narrow while others were twice as wide. When they turned left onto Brook Street, the houses became quite elegant, with fancy wrought iron fencing and pillared entrances.
At last, the coach drew to a halt in front of the most glorious house yet. An iron gate with a large O worked into the design at the top guarded the walkway leading to the front door where a pair of pillars stood on either side. The door of the coach opened, and a footman dressed in dark green livery rushed through the gate to help her descend.
Fiona tipped her head back and counted four stories stretching into the gray sky. A raindrop landed on her nose, and she grinned. Then she glanced down at the part of the house below the street. Five stories in all.
“I think my legs have completely gone to sleep,” Mrs. Tucket said, grasping Fiona’s arm to steady herself.
The footman held the gate open and indicated Fiona and Mrs. Tucket should precede him. Holding her head high, Fiona made sure Mrs. Tucket had a good hold on her before moving through the gate onto the short path that took them to five steps. Fiona went slowly so Mrs. Tucket, who had an aching hip, could keep up. This was more than fine since Fiona’s heart was beating even faster than it had been in the coach as she contemplated how her life was about to change.
She was the ward of an earl in London on the brink of her first Season. It was, in a word, unbelievable.
The door stood open and another man in dark green livery was positioned just inside. “Good afternoon, Miss Wingate, Mrs. Tucket. Welcome to Overton House.”
“You’ve arrived!” The booming masculine voice sounded through the marble-floored, wood-paneled foyer before Fiona could see the man himself. But then he, presumably the Earl of Overton, was there, striding through a wide archway directly across from them.
Fiona stared at him, surprised at his youth. No, not his youth, for he was likely almost thirty. No, she was surprised to see that he was…handsome. She’d expected someone like his father, whom she’d met a dozen or so times over the course of her lifetime. But where the former earl had been dour-faced and without any exceptional physical traits, the current earl possessed a dashing smile and eyes the color of pewter. His dark hair was damp; artful waves contrasting against his light forehead. He tugged at his coat and fidgeted with his simply knotted cravat as he came to stand in the center of the foyer.
Recalling her practice with Mrs. Tucket, Fiona sank into a deep curtsey. Unfortunately, her arm was still in her maid’s grasp, so her descent was a trifle awkward. She hoped the earl didn’t notice. “My lord.”
“Well done,” he said, grinning. “You are nearly ready for your presentation to the queen.”
Fiona had started to rise but she nearly toppled to the floor. “My what?”
“You’re to be presented to the queen?” Mrs. Tucket began to breathe heavily, so much so that Fiona feared she would faint.
“Can she sit?” Fiona asked, searching wildly for a chair.
Lord Overton’s brow creased as he hurried forward to take Mrs. Tucket’s other arm. “In here.” He ushered them to a sitting room to the right of the foyer. Decorated in warm yellow and burnished bronze, the room welcomed them like a sunny afternoon.
Together, Fiona and the earl brought Mrs. Tucket to a chair near the hearth where coals burned in the fireplace. “Better?” Fiona asked.
“A drop of sherry would not come amiss,” Mrs. Tucket said, untying her bonnet beneath her chin.
The earl stalked back to the doorway and asked someone to fetch sherry and tea. “Carrin will be along presently. That’s the butler. He was standing just in the foyer when you arrived. I’ll introduce you to the household a bit later, if that’s all right.”
Mrs. Tucket coughed. “Were you jesting about my Fiona being presented to the queen? Surely you must have been.”
“Not at all,” Overton said with a smile. “It is expected that young ladies entering upon their first Season are presented to Her Royal Highness.”
Now it felt as if Fiona’s heart might actually leap from her chest. The queen!
Mrs. Tucket’s dark eyes widened, and she stared at Fiona in something akin to horror, which was just a wee bit annoying. “She doesn’t know a thing about how to do that!”
The earl continued to smile placidly. “Do not fret, for Miss Wingate shall have ample opportunity to prepare. Her presentation is not until next week.”
“Next week?” Mrs. Tucket squeaked as she drooped in the chair. She pressed the back of her hand to her cheek and muttered something unintelligible.
Moving to stand near Fiona, the earl murmured, “Er, is she all right?”
