Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous
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Authors: Christi Caldwell
Always Proper,
Suddenly Scandalous
By
Christi Caldwell
Copyright © 2014 Christi Caldwell
Cover Art by Lily Smith
Copy Edits by Lynn Crandall
Formatting by Aileen Fish
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
For more information about the author:
Twitter: @ChristiCaldwell
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Dedications
To my amazing niece, Emilia.
With your gentle heart, intelligence, and strength, you are a perfect heroine.
Acknowledgements
Tremendous thanks to Rose Gordon. Thank you for being my Obi-Wan!
And Aileen Fish. Thank you for your patience and support through everything. Literally everything. You are outrageously talented and always full of brilliant advice.
Table of Contents
Other Books by Christi Caldwell
A gentleman should devote his energy and efforts to the fruitful management of his landholdings.
4
th
Viscount Redbrooke
~1~
London, England
1818
A young lord in possession of vast holdings and wealth had to be very particular in all matters. It served such a gentleman to have his life well-ordered, without scandal, and properly plotted out.
When he’d been a young man, Geoffrey Winters, Viscount Redbrooke’s’ now departed father, had advised Geoffrey of his familial obligations.
Geoffrey had failed abominably in his responsibilities.
Until he’d assumed the title of Viscount Redbrooke, four years past.
Seated at the mahogany desk in his office, Geoffrey stared blankly down at the ivory parchment in front of him. His mind drifted back to a dark night, muddied roads, a sky streaked with lightening. He’d not always been above reproach…
The words upon the page blurred together.
Geoffrey gave his head a hard shake, and pushed aside his distracted musings before they took him down the path of old hurts and still-strong guilt.
Just a week shy of his thirtieth year, Geoffrey was minutes shy of selecting a young lady to make the Viscountess Redbrooke.
He picked up his pen and dipped it into the crystal inkwell.
The young lady must be of exceptional breeding.
He again dipped the tip into the ink.
The lady must
not
have seen more than two Seasons.
After all, the most marriageable young ladies would be successfully identified by those gentlemen in the market for a wife within the first Season. Anything beyond two Seasons was not to be countenanced.
The lady must possess delicate sensibilities, a polite laugh, and not be given to great displays of emotion.
Yes, his ideal match would not be a woman given to flights of fancy or possessed of any naïve visions of love. There had been a time when he’d believed the nonsensical emotion of love was more powerful than responsibility.
His lip pulled back in a sneer. That mistake had been a costly one.
Geoffrey tossed his pen down and pulled open the top drawer of his desk. He rustled through several sheets of parchment, and then pulled out another familiar list. His gaze quickly surveyed the names upon the sheet of young ladies who might admirably fill the role of viscountess.
Lady Diana Shorington
. An Incomparable of the Season, she would make him an excellent match. With her fair skin and golden hair, she well fit with Society’s standards of beauty. Given her status as the well-dowried daughter of the Marquess of Castlebury, Geoffrey expected she’d make a match relatively quickly that Season.
He drummed his fingertips along the top of his desk.
There was Miss Anna Adams, daughter to the Viscount Wethersfield, always very stoic and composed at Society events.
Or Lady Beatrice Dennington, the only daughter of the Duke of Somerset. She, too, possessed a delicate golden beauty.
Geoffrey’s gaze fixed on Lady Beatrice’s name, as he further contemplated her suitability. Demure, proper, and exceedingly polite, she would make an exceptional Viscountess Redbrooke.
All the prospective young ladies had one unremarkable trait in common—they were exceedingly dull…which was his first and foremost consideration of all the prospective ladies.
Geoffrey blew lightly on the fresh ink, drying the parchment.
He’d not be so foolish as to make the tragic mistake of being lured by a passionate, unconventional young lady. Not again. He’d sooner turn his fortune over to a stranger than turn his deadened heart over to a feckless creature.
Yes, Lady Beatrice would do very well as his viscountess.
He opened his top desk drawer and pulled out yet another, earlier compiled list that detailed essential components for wooing a respectable young lady.
Ices at Gunter’s.
A walk in Hyde Park.
Several waltzes.
A trip to the theatre.
“If we do not leave this instant, dear, we’ll be late.”
His head whipped up as his mother sailed into the room, a frown wreathing her plump, unwrinkled cheeks. She held her gloves in her hand.
Geoffrey neatly stacked the three lists and placed them back in his desk. “My apologies.” He closed the drawer with a firm click and, then rose.
Even if many members of the
ton
preferred arriving fashionably late to events, Geoffrey valued punctuality. The matrons of Almack’s had the right of it, barring those more than twenty minutes late from attendance. He mentally ticked punctuality onto his list of attributes for his future wife.
“Geoffrey,” his mother began as they started their walk toward the foyer and their waiting carriage outside. “You do know I’ve been patient. You are going to be one and thirty in three days.”
“Thirty.” He gave his head a rueful shake. Hardly endearing to have one’s own mother forget how many years he’d spent on this Earth.
She blinked. “Truly?”
He nodded. “Truly.”
Mother wrinkled her nose. “I was so very sure—”
“You’re wrong,” he interjected with a curt impatience.
“Regardless,” she began again, this time her tone less convincing. “It is time you take a wife.”
“I know.”
They walked down the long corridor; their quickened steps muffled by the long red carpet that lined the hall.
“You’ve not been to any events in nearly a fortnight. A fortnight.” She spoke as though Geoffrey hadn’t attended a single
ton
function all Season. “All the most marriageable misses have already received offers. Why, I heard from Lady Tisdale, who learned from one of her maid’s, that Miss Anna Adams is to receive an offer from the Marquess of Edgebury any day.”
Well, it was a good thing he’d not settled on Miss Anna Adams as his future viscountess. He silently inked her name permanently off his list. “I visit my clubs,” he groused under his breath.
Her eyes widened. “Your clubs? You will not find a marriageable lady at your clubs, Geoffrey,” she bemoaned. “It is time you fulfill your responsibilities as viscount.”
Geoffrey’s gut tightened as the familiar guilt licked at him, more painful than the biting sting of a lash. He knew well what his obligations were…to wed and propagate the Redbrooke line with male issues. His father, and his father’s father, and his father’s father’s father had done a rather deplorable job of producing sufficient spares to the heir.
Mother let out a little huff. “Do you know what will happen if you fail to marry and produce an heir?”
“I’ve not an inkling what should happen if I fail to wed.”
She continued on, ignoring the sardonic twist to his words. “The line will pass to a distant Scottish relation,” she said, as though he hadn’t spoken. She wrinkled her nose as though nauseated by the mere prospect of a Scott inheriting the title.
Yes, in the event Geoffrey failed to produce an heir, his solicitor had informed Geoffrey that he’d traced the next in line to great-great grandfather’s second cousin, once removed.
Mother paused, forcing Geoffrey to stop and look back at her. “Scottish.” The one word came out as slowly as if she were speaking to a simpleton.
Geoffrey widened his eyes. “Egads, never tell me a Scot?”
His mother narrowed her gaze on him. “This is not a matter to be taken lightly, Geoffrey. Can you imagine a man with the name of…?” She wrinkled her brow. “McTavish assuming the title?”
“McMorris,” he corrected, automatically.
She continued marching forward with a beat to rival a drum; as she walked she slashed the air with her hand. “McTavish. McMorris. It is all the same. The gentleman possesses Scottish roots. You must wed. Immediately.”
“I concur.” He forced the words out past gritted teeth.
His mother froze in her steps, and looked to Geoffrey. Her blue eyes wide like saucers. “You concur?”
A muscle at the corner of his eye twitched. “I do.” He’d spent nearly five years trying to atone for his past sins, and yet, it would appear his mother still didn’t trust that he’d reformed. “I know well my responsibilities, Mother.” He resumed walking.
She hurried along, and fell into step beside him. “I never imagined…” Her words trailed off.
Geoffrey waited. All the while, knowing she dangled that unfinished sentence before him in a paltry attempt at intrigue.
She tapped him on the arm with one of the white gloves she carried. “You are supposed to ask me what I’d never imagined.” A frown marred her lips.
The steady tick-tock-tick-tock of the long-case clock at the center of the hallway filled the stretch of silence until his mother glowered up at him.
He sighed. “As you wish. What have you never imagined?”
“That you would acquiesce and find a suitable bride without my prodding. After all, most gentlemen are forced kicking and screaming to the proverbial altar. Your father and I despaired of you doing right by the Redbrooke line. Especially after that…that…Emma Marsh woman.”
Geoffrey’s gut clenched in pained remembrance of that great mistake she could never forgive. How could she forgive him, when he would never be able to forgive himself?
His mother seemed oblivious to the inner turmoil raging through Geoffrey. She tugged on her gloves as they reached the expansive marble foyer, and dusted them against one another. "I should have known better to question your intentions. Not when you’ve become so very committed, so very dedicated to the title of Viscount Redbrooke.”
Mother prattled on with her high-praise even as the butler, Ralston, hurried to open the door.
