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Wild Pen Carrington
ISBN #978-0-85715-968-7
©Copyright Sophie Angmering 2012
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2012
Edited by Sue Meadows
Total-E-Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.
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The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2012 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Total-e-sizzling and a sexometer of 1.
This story contains 47 pages, additionally there is also a free excerpt at the end of the book containing 13 pages.
Wicked Wastrels
Wild Pen Carrington
Sophie Angmering
Book one in the Wicked Wastrels Series
Penelope Carrington has a reputation for being wild. Now she’s about to have the opportunity to be wicked...
Mrs Penelope Carrington, widow of the late Mark Carrington, has been banished to the family estates by her high-handed brother—in—law Sebastian. He has instructed her that she will have to contemplate her reprehensible behaviour and apparently mend her ways before she is allowed to return to London Society. But Pen Carrington has other ideas, and sets off back to London in disguise.
A woman in love with a man she cannot have, Pen deliberately disobeys Sebastian Carrington only to cross the path of Lord Julian St John Arden. A man with a taste for a wager and, it would seem, Pen…
Dedication
To all my family and friends. There have been a few raised eyebrows at the way I choose to spend my time, but also lots of support. Thank you everyone!
Chapter One
Red Lion Inn at Handcross Hill, West Sussex
The sun was finally attempting to break through the humid midday cloud when Hugo Burrows decided to stop travelling for a bite to eat. His mood seemed to have eased, and a somewhat chastened Mrs Penelope Carrington gratefully seized on the tankard of ale, and bread and cheese, that he’d sent out of the taproom for her.
Hugo was very, very angry at her for blackmailing him into returning her to London. Pen could not resist an impish smile at the memory of his face when he had discovered her sitting in his curricle armed with a bundle of rather indiscreet letters to her Russian friend, Countess Griaznova. Pen was determined to escape her enforced rustication by returning to London with her old friend and his current courtship of a rather plain heiress was too fragile an undertaking for him to risk Pen making the contents public.
Pen Carrington was here because she was making a hasty escape from the home of her brother-in-law Sebastian Carrington. He had collected her from London not a week go, after it had been brought to his attention that the widow of his brother Mark had managed to set the tabbies of the ton by the ears once more by taking part in a carriage race through St James’.
It would appear that this had been the final straw.
As the head of the family, Sebastian took a very dim view of any behaviour that reflected badly on the Carrington name.
Furious, he had simply turned up during her morning ‘At Home’ and had removed her from her comfortable house in Half Moon Street without so much as a ‘by your leave’, and on the way out had informed her that her beautiful phaeton was to be sold!
Mr Sebastian Carrington was a superior, arrogant bastard.
Sebastian was as handsome as hell, but capable of totally ignoring her womanly wiles. And by God, she had tried both sweet persuasion and spoilt tantrums to get the freedom she wanted, and all he had done was stare down his nose at her as if she was a troublesome child.
He had done precisely that after explaining in icy tones why he was forcing her to ‘rusticate in Sussex’, where she was to ‘contemplate her reprehensible behaviour’ and ‘mend her ways’ before she was allowed to return to London.
Ha, thought Pen, still smarting from Sebastian Carrington’s treatment of her.
As Pen sat there, debating whether he should jump down from the carriage and revive her sleeping limbs, a curricle pulled by a team of four chestnuts swept into the yard, scattering dogs and fowl as it went.
The four-in-hand shuddered to an elegantly controlled halt, with a cry from a smartly liveried tiger to the incumbent ostlers to“Get t’er it”
The man at the reins of this impressive team looked about him with the air of an individual who missed nothing.
He was obviously a serious man of fashion, with a beaver hat set over dark locks, carefully brushed into a semblance of disorder, and tousled further by the activity of handling the reins of the four horses. His cravat of starched muslin rested neatly under his chin in an immaculate series of folds; his driving coat of drab cloth bore twelve capes and a double row of magnificent buttons, silver, not fastened, obviously due to the oppressively warm summer weather. Pen had to admit that this gentleman was a handsome creature. But his striking looks were marred by a decided air of self-consequence, his eyes surveying the inn yard with a sharp ironic gaze, at odds with the weary lids that shielded them. They were matched with a beautiful nose, as straight in its line as his mouth, which was set firm, and, worse than that, when he spied her sitting in Hugo’s curricle, Pen could almost swear that the corner of his lips lifted in a sneer.
The object of her scrutiny stood up and threw the reins in his hand to the tiger without even a backwards glance, before descending from the curricle with a lean, economy of grace.
To Pen’s utter horror, he walked over to where she was sitting on Hugo’s curricle, his face set in uncompromising lines, like scored granite.
“You…”
Pen glanced about, and pretended to be absorbed in looking to see who he meant in the yard, while her mind raced like a firedog trapped in a wheel with a fresh coal.
What could he want? Had he somehow seen through her disguise?
Such thoughts seemed to tumble wildly through her head.
“You… Boy.”
The voice was one of such command that it brooked no opposition. Pen felt compelled to turn and face him, vastly reassured that he seemed to think her male.
His cold, grey eyes swept over her. Their intensity made her aware of the shabbiness of her borrowed clothes, the scrubby tufts of deliberately knotted hair on her head, all set against the dusty backdrop of Hugo’s carriage.
“Are you Hugo Burrows’ tiger?” he asked sharply.
“Er, yes…sir,” stuttered Pen in reply, at a loss for what else to say. An involuntary glance and a shift of her body towards the door of the inn seemed to tell him all he needed to know. His gaze simply followed hers.
He studied her, briefly, his hard, grey eyes narrowing slightly, before he span on his heel and marched towards the taproom with long, purposeful strides.
“Without even a thanking you,” fumed
Pen at his back as he went. Then she remembered she was posing as a servant, a servant he probably considered so far beneath him she should count herself fortunate he took the trouble to walk over to her, rather than roar his question across the inn yard. Her only meaningful function to him was to provide information about the whereabouts of her employer, not to expect thanks.
A tide of resentful anger started from somewhere deep inside her and grew as Pen sat there atop a dusty curricle in that Sussex yard. Anger that rose and aimed itself at Hugo and her brother-in-law.
Not that I am at all interested, Pen told herself haughtily, whilst staring with as much ill will as she could muster in her exhausted state, towards the inn door. I know a popinjay of a man when I see one!
She looked down at her woefully grubby hands, having fast acquired suitably chipped and dirty finger nails from scaling the curricle at each tollgate that morning. Pen reflected glumly that she was soon going to have the hands to match her new station in life.
“Damn you, Sebastian,” she grumbled to herself. “I should be enjoying my first year out of widow’s weeds with men like that fribble, writing sonnets to my eyes and declaring me the unparalleled beauty of the season.”
And securing a line of daring handsome lovers if I had my way, just to show that wretch Sebastian Carrington that I can .
Her brother-in-law was an authoritarian figure who described her previous activities as unladylike and hoydenish, and levied any number of draconian measures under the guise of attempting to restrain his brother’s young widow from her wild, impulsive ways.
Pen suddenly felt a great curiosity as to why the Abrupt Gentleman was so interested in Hugo Burrows. She turned her mind towards the door to the tap, and without further thought, her feet followed suit.
Initially she was forced back out of the way by two very brawny fellows as they walked out of the taproom, but undeterred she ducked out to one side then slipped through the doorway. Pen blinked at the comparative darkness, before looking about, narrowing her eyes in an attempt to recognise a familiar face.
Neither Hugo Burrows nor the Abrupt Gentleman could be seen anywhere in the taproom, although there seemed to be plenty of nooks and crannies where men were talking, smoking their pipes and drinking tankards of Sussex brew.
“Can I help you, young sir?”
A large-breasted woman stood staring at Pen from by the taps.
“I am looking for a gentleman who entered earlier,” Pen replied.
The woman continued to stare, no reply forthcoming, and left Pen feeling a little foolish. She realised almost as soon as she had said the words that there had been several gentlemen through that taproom within the last hour to even her certain knowledge.
“He had a tankard of ale and some bread and cheese sent into the yard…” she went on to say helpfully, then realised that her voice sounded unnaturally high, and female, in the dark taproom. The voices therein were starting to fall ominously silent as she spoke. Pen coughed loudly, and somewhat theatrically, before finishing her sentence with ‘earlier’ in a deeper tone.
She could feel a dark flush creeping up the back of her neck, but thankfully, in the dimness, nobody seemed to have noticed and the noise made by the customers in the tap resumed.
“He’s gone through to a private parlour with the other gentleman. You want me to take a message to him?”
The woman gave her a somewhat condescending look as she started to dry the tankards before her. She regarded the figure that Pen presented to her in a speculative manner, swinging her hips as she tapped one foot.
“A message?” She asked Pen.
Pen’s mind went blank for a moment, then her quick wits came back to her. “A message! Quite—no, it is a very important message that I am to deliver to my employer personally.”
Pen started moving towards the doors that obviously led to the private rooms. “Don’t worry,” she hastened to add as the woman made as if to follow her. “I will find them myself.”
Pen most certainly did not need any further directions to be able to discern that her target must be the next room, as a muffled conversation was clearly audible, albeit through the closed door.
One raised voice in particular alerted Pen to this fact, and it was voice Pen had no difficulty at all in identifying. It was Hugo. And he was angry.
“Damn your eyes, man. And damn you to hell! Can you not see that you cannot play with people in such a fast and loose manner without running the risk that they will leave or punish you? I was perfectly entitled to take Miss DeLacey under my protection. She was most distressed and in real fear that you were about to drop her for some opera singer you had been recently seen escorting down the walks of Vauxhall, Arden!”
“Marianne DeLacey is no newcomer to this game, Burrows, whatever her simpering affectations. She is a woman of the world, our world, and she knows the score when a protector loses interest.”
“This woman may well be a demi-rep, but she is an articulate, intelligent creature with very real concerns about her immediate future and means of support. It was Miss DeLacey’s understanding that your liaison was at an end, and she was most appreciative of the terms that I made.”
“Of that I have no doubt!” was the snapped reply, in a voice that was most definitely not Hugo’s. ”Miss Marianne DeLacey is a skilled negotiator, that much you will become well aware of in the future.
“No, the problem that I have with this entire episode is that you have felt entitled to take something of value that was mine, Burrows.”
The voice dropped slightly and acquired an ominously smooth quality that meant Pen had to really strain her ears to hear the next sentence.
“And, as you know, Burrows, nobody simply takes what is mine. And if they do, there are always consequences.”
Hugo Burrows laughed nervously. “What are you trying to say?”
Pen was suddenly aware of a note of uncertainty in her old friend’s voice—and she could not be surprised.
The underlying threat of violence in the newcomer’s softly spoken words was quite distinct.
Pen felt her heartbeat start to race and her feet fidget. She could not believe that the subject of their argument appeared to be Hugo’s mistress, a member of the demi-mondaine, and there she was thinking Hugo had been indulging in an affair with her friend, the Countess Griaznova! Hugo Burrows is a faithless womaniser.
Pen should have been totally ignorant of such things as a gently bred young lady, but it was a fact of life that being Wild Pen Carrington had exposed her to plenty of behaviour that would far outdo that of poor Hugo, who, Pen knew for a fact, was certainly no monk. The Countess could attest to that.
“What I am saying to you, Mr Burrows”—Hugo’s name was made to sound more like an insult—“is that I should damn well call you out for this.”
Pen did not think twice. With the timing and resolve worthy of a military strategist, she opened the door and marched into the private parlour.
* * * *
The scene before Pen’s eyes as she walked into the small parlour seemed to still, momentarily, into a picture worthy of Mr Rowlandson’s satirical eye.
The two adversaries stood facing one another, virtually toe to toe in the middle of the room, frozen mid argument, each one clearly reluctant to give the other the advantage of breaking eye contact, as Pen looked at them.
“What do you want?” The Abrupt Gentleman finally swung about to stare at Pen with a steely gaze, his face, to say the least, was forbidding.
Pen stared at him for what seemed like an age before she managed to utter anything. “Er…”
Then, it seemed, Hugo noticed her presence.
“Good Lord, Pen, what are you doing here?” he burst out, his face flushing a most inglorious shade of red before he snapped his lips shut with an audible smack.
Pen glared at him in what she hoped was a particularly quelling way, all her instincts telling her that at this precise moment in time the Abrupt Gentlemen should know nothin
g of her business.
“I was coming to tell you, sir,” she announced clearly, with a very firm emphasis on her mode of address, “as instructed, that the blacks are now rested sufficiently to resume your journey at your convenience.”
“Ah.” Hugo’s colour remained high as he studied Pen’s face, obviously searching for an appropriate response. But for once the usually loquacious Hugo Burrows seemed totally at a loss for words. “Ah yes…the horses.”
Pen pressed her lips together, almost willing the unfortunate Hugo to spit out something sensible, but was forced instead to watch as he seemed to struggle for words like a fish struggles helpless on the riverbank.
A slight noise made Pen turn sharply to regard Hugo’s adversary, who appeared to be in the process of removing his beaver hat and stripping the very fine York tan driving gloves from his hands.
The man simply stared right back at her.
* * * *
Lord Julian St John Arden, otherwise known as Viscount Arden, had been watching this exchange with an interested gaze as the scene played out.
The entrance of Burrows’ tiger had provided a welcome diversion from the increasingly boring topic of Miss Marianne DeLacey and her defection from his well-financed protection. If he were to be brutally honest, boring was a more than suitable adjective to describe every aspect of his relationship with Miss DeLacey lately. Had Hugo Burrows not happened along somewhat conveniently to relieve him of his particularly fragrant and capricious burden, he may well have had to talk terms with his mistress.
Viscount Arden’s eclectic tastes were already drawing him in other directions in an effort to find satisfaction.
Burrows’ tiger had not deceived him for one moment. As soon as he had pulled into the yard at the Red Lion he had known that the favour asked of him by Sebastian Carrington was almost in hand. On seeing the lone figure sitting on top of the curricle, it became swiftly apparent that he had found Mrs Penelope Carrington before Sebastian. And now the infamous Pen Carrington stood before him with her delightful derriere squeezed most improperly into a pair of the worst-fitting breeches he thought he had ever seen.
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