Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance)
Page 1
PRAISE FOR
Not Wicked Enough
“Brilliant, poignant…and just plain fun. I loved it!”
—Courtney Milan, New York Times bestselling
author of Unraveled
“Intense, sexy, and emotionally satisfying.”
—Jennifer Ashley, USA Today bestselling author of Wild Cat
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF CAROLYN JEWEL
“For the reader who wants fresh settings, for the reader who likes traditional Regencies, for the reader who likes character-driven stories, and for the reader who likes adventure and a larger scope in Romance…A wonderfully satisfying read.”
—Dear Author
“I cannot wait to see more historicals from [Jewel] in the future.”
—All About Romance
“Very entertaining…Hard to put down.”
—Night Owl Reviews
“Dazzling.”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick, 4 ½ stars)
“A fast-paced, attention-grabbing, action-packed hell of a ride.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Utterly radiant…and [the] characters are so bloody brilliant!”
—Deborah MacGillivray, award-winning author of One Snowy Knight
“A wonderfully emotional story…packed with adventure and danger…This is one of the best books I’ve read all year.”
—Fresh Fiction
“A unique take on historical romance; it is an unusual and pleasurable tale.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
Berkley Sensation titles by Carolyn Jewel
SCANDAL
INDISCREET
NOT WICKED ENOUGH
NOT PROPER ENOUGH
Not Proper
Enough
CAROLYN JEWEL
BERKLEY SENSATION, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
NOT PROPER ENOUGH
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / September 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Carolyn Jewel.
Cover art by Jon Paul. Hand lettering by Ron Zinn.
Cover design by George Long.
Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-58959-5
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ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
To my son for being wonderful and amazing.
Acknowledgments
As ever, a big thank-you to my agent, Kristin Nelson, for all her help, advice, and assistance. Another thank-you goes out to my editor, Kate Seaver, and the entire team at Berkley. My thanks as well to Nyree Belleville, Jacquie Yau, Julie McDermott, and Robin Harders for everything done over dinners and European Sipping Chocolate. You guys keep me sane.
Table of 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
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter One
No. 25 Upper Brook Street, London, October 1817.
GRENVILLE FOXMAN TALBOT, MARQUESS OF FENRIS and eldest and only son of the Duke of Camber, always slept the sleep of the innocent.
As a child, he’d never had nightmares, because even then he’d possessed the power to stop any terrifying developments that appeared in his dreams. If there were dragons about to roast him in flames, he slew them. He vanquished monsters with one stony glare, sprouted wings and flew off high cliffs, and conjured swords or other weapons when faced with threat of attack. He transformed enemies into slugs or simply stopped an unpleasant dream entirely.
He was dreaming now, and it was one of those dreams in which he was both participant and observer. As was so often the nature of dreams, the subject was both fantastical and sexual. He was naked, and in front of him, her back to him, was Robert Bryant’s widow. The part of him that was observing his depravity commented that this was absurd. Eugenia Hampton Bryant would never consent to be alone with him and certainly never in his private quarters. This observation was followed by the suggestion that it would be a thunderingly good thing to discover where this dream would take him.
On no account would he wake up until he
knew. He fell into his dream in a way that he had not before. Not in any dream. He was immersed. Submerged. Colors were more intense, his senses exquisitely acute. In the context of a dream that involved his most frequent sexual fantasies, this was an excellent development.
She wore blue and gray silk, sumptuous and cut like something from the previous century. The gown or robe or whatever it might be called was open at the back, all the way to the top of her derriere, and sliding off her shoulders. Because she wore no undergarments, which was not at all ludicrous to him, he feasted on the sight of her bare skin, the curve of her shoulders, back, and hips. Her hair was unpinned and swept over her right shoulder. Her head was turned to the left, as if she were about to look at him.
He walked to her, stopped behind her, and trailed a finger along the top of her deliciously bare shoulder and then the length of her spine. A sigh escaped from her lips. He slid his palm to her lower back, then underneath her gown and over the swell of her bottom. In his other hand, he gathered a handful of her bodice and watched while he pulled the fabric down to expose her breasts.
Beautiful. Luscious. Delectable. His body, already tense with desire, went taut. He released her gown so that it fell, with a rustle of lace and silk, to the floor. She leaned back, and he cupped one of her breasts in his hand. She sighed again and whispered something too low for him to hear.
What did it matter whose name she whispered so long as she was soft and willing in his arms? But it did matter. He wanted Eugenia to moan his name when he slid into her. He needed her to long for him, to cry out his name when he brought her to her crisis, which his irritating, observing self pointed out she never would do except in this dream. In which case, he had damn well better enjoy this, hadn’t he?
With her back pressed against his front, he caressed her, drew a fingertip along her hip to her rib cage, along the top of her shoulder, down her upper arm, and then slowly from the top of her thigh across her stomach. Such smooth, soft skin. He kissed the side of her throat, and she melted against him.
In his dream, she did not hate him.
“So beautiful,” he whispered. “My beautiful Ginny.”
She turned in his arms and clasped her hands behind his neck. Her eyes caressed him, and when he cupped her bottom and drew her closer, she let out a trembling sigh of desire.
He carried her to his bed, pushing aside the heavy red curtains around it, and placed her on the mattress. Eugenia wore nothing but a gold medallion on a ribbon the same shade of azure as her eyes. He joined her on the bed, touching, his fingers gliding over her, his mouth and lips tasting. Beneath his hands and fingers, her skin was soft, so soft. She lifted one knee, and his pelvis settled between her legs. He took her nipple in his mouth, swept his tongue over the peak, and she arched toward him on the end of a soft moan. He did the same to her other breast with a similar, satisfying result.
By the time he pulled himself over her, he was halfway to climax. She parted her thighs, and he slid inside her. Her body accepted him, soft and slick around him. Ready for him. Eager for him as she would never be in reality. Their eyes met, connected, knew each other. In his dream, she knew what he liked and wanted that from him. True, he could be tender and gentle. He often was. But there were times he wanted an edge, and right now he wanted that edge with her. Hadn’t he always?
She wore a wedding band, but it wasn’t the one Robert had given her. No, this ring was one he’d put on her finger himself. They were married, he realized. She was his wife now. Not Robert’s.
Eugenia, God, so willing and passionate, put her arms around his shoulders, holding him close, moving with him exactly as he needed. Hard. Fast. Pushing them both to surrender. Her breath came in short bursts, and he was both masterfully making love to her and aroused almost beyond his endurance.
“I love you.” She gazed into his face, besotted, trusting, while he thrust into her. Her fingertips slid over his skin. “Fox. Oh, Fox, I love you more than life.”
“I love you, too,” he said, and his heart dissolved into her. “Forever.”
His observing self remarked, “You are deluding yourself.” To which his dreaming self replied, “Sod off.”
Eugenia wrapped her legs around him, and his body wound up tighter than ever. She whispered his name and then encouragement. More. More, Fox. Please. His climax shattered him to pieces.
Immediately, even before his orgasm had faded, she was asleep beside him, sated, and there was Robert at the foot of the bed where he and Ginny lay tangled in each other’s arms. Had he been there the entire time? Fox slid out of her embrace and gazed at his best friend. Robert stood unevenly, as he always did, one hand on one of the bedposts so he would not lose his balance. His hair was shorn close to his head. He’d never been a handsome man, but no one who met him cared. Intellect, that beady-eyed genius, burned in him fever-bright.
“Robert.” The apology he’d owed Robert from nearly the day Ginny had entered their lives paralyzed him. The words were too big, yet they must be said even though it was too late. He wanted to apologize, to confess what a damned fool he’d been to allow their friendship to founder, but the words remained jammed up in his throat. In any event, Robert lifted a hand to stop him from saying something else he could never take back. Eugenia’s medallion, or one very much like it, dangled from his fingers.
“You’re to take care of her, Fox.”
He sat up, naked, one arm wrapped around his upraised knee. His other hand held a lock of Ginny’s hair. “You know I will.”
Robert leaned forward with that crooked grin of his. “I miss you, you old fool.”
“I, too.”
“There’s nothing you could have said that would have stopped me from marrying her. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
From the moment Eugenia met Robert, she’d not cared about anyone else. Robert, whom Fox had always assumed would never marry, had fallen just as fast and just as hard. The connection between Eugenia and Robert took root so quickly there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do to stop it. Not that he hadn’t tried.
“Good.” The medallion slowly turned in Robert’s upraised hand.
“That’s no excuse for the things I said to you.”
Robert glanced at Eugenia. “She is the love of my life, Fox.”
“I know.”
“Keep her safe.” Robert let go of the bedpost and took an uneven step back. The shape of his body wavered. “Make her happy. If it takes your last breath, see that she’s safe and happy. Swear it.”
He swallowed hard before he could manage words. “I swear it, Robert.”
Robert’s body wavered, thinned, then vanished as if he’d never been there. Which, seeing as this was a dream, he had surely never been.
Fox came awake, momentarily unsure of where he was. Wherever he was, he had no company. A chill permeated the air. A damn arctic wind.
He was at home. Not at Bouverie, but at his private residence. The one his father had never been in and never would be in. He pulled the linens and covers over his chest. London in October could be bitterly cold. His bedroom was silent, but his heart raced, and Robert’s voice echoed in his head as if he’d really been here, speaking to him.
Make her happy.
He’d made Robert a promise.
Oddly enough, even though he had sworn to do so in a dream, he intended to keep that promise.
Chapter Two
The next day. London.
JUST WHEN EUGENIA THOUGHT THINGS COULDN’T GET any worse, they did.
He was here. That awful man, the Marquess of Fenris. Awareness of his arrival jumped through the room like a pestilence picking off the weak and unwary. The orchestra played a few more notes then petered out, bringing a lively country reel to a halt. No one, Eugenia included, could believe the Marquess of Fenris was here at a ball given by Mrs. Wilson. Plain Mrs. Wilson, who was merely gentry, who had no connections one might research in the peerage. The man did not attend any parties but thos
e given by the very upper reaches of the British aristocracy, yet here he was.
Whatever the reason for his appearance, his timing was impeccable. The room fell silent as guests realized he was here, and that meant everyone in the room heard the tail end of Mr. Dinwitty Lane’s comment, uttered in horrified tones as Lane stood not five feet from Eugenia.
“Another country chit? My God they’re coming out of the woodwork this season.”
The remark, though not intended as a direct insult to Eugenia, nevertheless hit a glancing blow on its way to its intended target, which was the young woman standing beside her. If Mr. Lane had been within arm’s reach, Eugenia would have slapped him, she was that angry. It was fitting, horribly, awfully fitting, that Lane’s barb was universally heard because of that man.
One of the members of Dinwitty’s band of supporters laughed, and that, too, carried through the nearly silent room. That man, Fenris, remained near the door, expression cool because there was nothing but ice in his veins. Eugenia was unnaturally aware of him even as she turned her attention to the odious Mr. Dinwitty Lane.
A great deal depended on her reaction to Lane, and she fought her temper. No good would come of anything she said in anger. She could not afford to give Lane or the Marquess of Fenris ammunition against her.
Fenris’s social standing went without saying. Only son of a duke, after all. The Lane family had a page in Debrett’s, and this particular Lane was not without influence. He fancied himself the Beau Brummell of the sporting world, and Eugenia had hoped to avoid meeting him until Hester had made a few friends. He had questionable taste in clothes but was held in awe by many for his ability to ride, race a phaeton, and shoot the dots from a playing card. As far as Eugenia was concerned, he’d wasted his time at public school and at Oxford. An intellectual giant, he was not. He was, however, one of the Essex Lanes. More, he was wealthy and generous with a loan. Friends and debtors of Dinwitty Lane were legion.