Her
Wicked
Libertine
(Imperious Lords 2)
Lisa Torquay
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
From the Back Cover
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
PREVIEW OF HER WICKED DUKE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connect with Lisa Torquay
Other Books by Lisa Torquay
Copyright
Her Wicked Libertine
Copyright 2019 Lisa Torquay
Published by Lisa Torquay
Edition 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 it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Editor
Maz Loton
Cover Art
Jo Singleton
Dedication
Einar Kristian, through the years and the oceans, my love will always be with you.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my beta-readers and reviewers who make this book something of note.
From the Back Cover
When a prudish spinster…
Miss Edwina Whitman had a repressively religious education. For her, a woman must endure a gentleman's attentions. But when she sees herself face to face with a dark angel proposing the most wicked deal, she accepts it for her sister, who deserves a future. But the blasting libertine won't allow her to think of king and country in his presence. In fact, she forgets even her own name when he touches her.
Meets a shameless libertine…
Harris Darroch is no hero. Not a romantic one in any case. His libertine reputation puts his heroic prowess exclusively in the bedchamber. And he will bed any and every willing woman in sight. But when a prudish lady approaches him begging him to write off her father's debt, he sees no reason not to enlist her buttoned-up person to his bed for the trouble. Living in close quarters with her is building up a desire, the likes of which he's never seen before. Though wanting him, the little shrew remains aloof. Practising his 'convincing' skills on her will be an utter delight!
Love will lurk in the shadows to catch them!
CHAPTER ONE
London, 1816
A carriage flew past at great speed the moment Edwina placed a foot on the street to cross it. Startled, she clambered back to the safety of the too narrow pavement, blaming her distracted thoughts for the near miss.
Ever busy, London clattered, rushed and elbowed around her. It usually did in the familiar places she frequented. Here, it seemed to increase ten-fold. The risk of wandering the unfamiliar area of the docks did not daunt her, but it should, she knew it. A glance around was all it took for her to realise how few women circulated on the dirty streets. Few women who did not sell their bodies as a last resort of survival that is.
Edwina adjusted her cloak closer to her throat, though she understood it did little to make her safer. Any illusion of safety had already shattered in her world, so it didn’t matter one way or the other. In the last months, her world quaked and crumbled and then crumbled some more. Nothing had remained upstanding. The death of her parents while at sea had seen to that.
A gust of late winter wind blew on her face. Her alert eyes checked her surroundings in search for the address scribbled on a piece of parchment which she didn’t need to read again as the content burned in her retinas. The number where she headed flashed ahead, guiding her purposeful steps in that direction.
That she had to be in this foul-smelling place at all infuriated her for the unfairness of the situation. She and her sister Philippa drifted out in a sea of uncertainties. Her proud and strong-willed sister hadn’t taken their predicament well; which was why Edwina suggested she travelled to the country to stay with their grandmother, Charlotte, while Edwina tried to sort the mess out.
The warehouse she looked for loomed ahead, her task becoming more daunting than hopeful. The place’s appearance was equal to every building lining the docks, and the fact that it belonged to one of the biggest shipping companies in England did not show. That she was about to enter it and demand to speak with its proprietor injected her nerves with tension and distrust in equal parts. The fact that said proprietor possessed no qualms in being the most famous—or should she say infamous—libertine in London disgusted her.
As she drew near, she wondered where the entrance was. The concrete structure resembled more a stronghold with closed doors and shuttered windows. Bewildered, she observed the building to decide upon which entrance to use. One door seemed more used than the others, so her decisive steps led there. About to lift her hand to knock, the sturdy panel burst open as a dock worker stumbled out carrying a heavy crate on his shoulder. The weight he hunched under swayed him to nearly clashing with Edwina. Her legs ducked to the side to avoid disaster. Well, now she knew where to go.
Before the warehouse became a fortress again, she slid through the opening. Landing on some sort of mezzanine, she found herself inside a vast space that bustled with activity. On the ground floor, men shouted orders while others scrawled in notebooks and crates crashed against one another; all while the air floated with dust and sweat. She wouldn’t feel such a foreigner if she travelled to another country. To one corner, a lone desk lay with piles of paper. It strived to hide the clerk sitting behind it with a pencil on one ear and another in his right hand.
With no other option available, Edwina approached the wiry man. “Excuse me, sir.” But the noise inside the premises was such that the clerk didn’t even move. “Sir,” she said louder. Thick glasses lifted to her, behind which lay abstracted eyes.
As his focus cleared on her, she continued. “I’d like to speak to Mr Darroch, please.” Her tone was imprinted with authority, even if fake.
“Do you have an appointment?”
Appointment? Who did the man think he was, Prinny himself? “I don’t,” she admitted. “But I’m sure Mr Darroch will see me.”
The employee in a wrinkled, cheap suit looked her up and down, a wicked glint behind the glasses.
Fantastic! Now he thinks I’m one of the doves who flutter around the blackguard.
“Certainly, madam.” Standing up, he showed her to a room hidden in the corner.
Rapping on the door, the clerk entered. “Lord Darroch, someone here to see you,” he announced with a hint of malice.
“Send them in, Miller,” a rough, bass voice commanded.
Miller motioned for her to pass and closed the door behind her.
Silence enveloped Edwina as she stood in the middle of the room, waiting for the man behind a sturdy desk to lift his head to her. All she could see was a head of ink-black hair bent over a book with rows of numbers, if her visi
on didn’t mislead her. It wasn’t as if she had never seen him or met him. Her father had had dealings with Darroch for years. Even though she had no inkling he was a lord. What she did know was that he came from Scotland. During her father’s days, he didn’t even live in London. As his company grew, he probably needed to move here.
Suddenly, his head snapped up and dark eyes arrowed on her. “What can I do for you—” he paused as those irises raked her from hat to booted feet and back. “Miss.”
Edwina froze as at the same time a tide of heat churned in her. Her prudish attire of a high-neck, high-waist dress under a thick winter cloak didn’t shield her from the effect he caused. Planted to the spot on the wooden floor, she never moved, their stances hooked. The impact of his rugged face and stubble-lined square jaw hit her like a boulder. Her intake of air caused a deafening noise in the silent room, making her bosom constrict against the dark-grey fabric of her dress.
He didn’t remember her. No surprise there, as her mother always shunned her and Philippa to their chambers whenever he came to visit. His fame preceded him by miles, and her mother would not have risked one of her girls falling prey to this man. A fact that hadn’t prepared her to stand face-to-face with the darkest of angels.
With a Catholic mother that took her daughters to church every single Sunday, Edwina recognised a fallen angel when she saw one. And this one surely took many a naïve girl with him in his downfall.
“My name is Edwina Whitman.” She saw fit to introduce herself properly, even if inappropriate for a woman to do so.
His dark glare flashed with recognition. “Lawrence’s eldest chit if memory serves.”
Edwina bristled. Twenty-six, plain, and on the shelf, she could hardly call herself a chit. Her lips twisted as she darted him a stony look to which he merely responded with a side-stretch of his mouth.
Good gracious, his mouth! Thin slices of flesh surrounded by the darkest stubble that her attention clasped to, unable to let go. She bit the inside of her cheeks to force herself to focus, and when she looked at him, his gaze had lowered to her own lips. They tingled, and she couldn’t help wondering at the taste of his.
“I received a letter from your solicitor.” She made her tone brittle but didn’t believe she had deceived him from her reaction.
Her father’s solicitor should be taking care of this, but he found himself busy with other more pressing matters. Edwina was assisting him in whatever manner she thought useful.
“So, you’re here to pay your father’s debt to my company.” He laid back on the chair, arms on the armrest, displaying a vast expanse of chest clad in a fine white shirt, black waistcoat and coat. The perfect attire matched his midnight looks.
Brows pleated in vexation, her hands braced her waist. “You must know we cannot pay it.” The near hiss seemed not to affect him.
“In which case, you’ll go to the debtors’ prison.” The velvety tone did not hide his determination to receive what belonged to him.
“I came here in the hopes of negotiating the debt.”
Lawrence, her father, had put it in his mind to become a tradesman. A second son, he would hardly inherit his brother’s marquisate. He’d been to Oxford to study law but didn’t have an interest in being an attorney, believing in making his fortune importing goods from the confines of the empire. For a time, it worked. His family lived in comfort. Not a year ago though, he contacted an Italian merchant who promised a shipping of silk at a very advantageous price. Lawrence signed a contract with Darroch Shipping to bring in the cargo. The silk he had already paid for never arrived. In its stead, crates and more crates of rags made their appearance in what proved to be a horrible fraud. Without the expected sale, he had no capital to pay for the shipment. Reluctant to accept bankruptcy, he and Frances, her mother, travelled to Italy to meet the merchant and solve the problem. But their ship got caught in a storm and sank. There were no survivors.
“By asking help from the Marquis of Mandeville, I reckon.”
There resided the trouble. Her uncle didn’t possess so much money to give his nieces succour.
“He has no funds for that.” Her chin tilted up as she met his gaze with a hard one of hers.
Her family’s house was put in a trust for her and Philippa. Edwina wouldn’t sell it for all the money in the world. Her most precious memories lived there together with herself and her sister.
He straightened in the chair, powerful shoulders filling her view. “And how do you suggest paying what is owed to me?” Quizzically, his brows lifted. The movement caused a wavy lock of ebony to fall forward. Her eyes traced the loose lock as it undulated from his scalp to his forehead as if it were an ocean wave rolling in the night. The waves in his glossy hair twisted and turned like a sea in a storm.
Practical, dull Edwina had never waxed poetic in her entire life, and she decided she wouldn’t start at that moment. Nor with that man. Briskly, she ceased these fancy, useless thoughts.
“I make lace,” she said, pride ringing in her voice. “And sell it to seamstresses. The income is enough to pay you in small amounts, say, monthly.”
The piece of information made him unfurl from the chair, an adamantine expression on his rugged features. “Do you take me for a fool?”
This man was huge. Her neck cricked back to stare at him as he darted arrows from the top of his six-feet-four frame of pure fierceness. Her mouth fell open as she gawked at him in undisguised amazement. Something swirled low in her abdomen and it left her gasping for more air and scraping for her scattered wits.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be in this place.” Haughtiness entered her tone, but she did not care. She was doing her best to find a solution for her predicament. Nobody could blame her for that.
“Good, because I’m not about to accept the scraps you offer for decades on end until they complete the amount owed.” Thick arms crossed while he perched on the edge of the desk.
It did nothing to make him less monumental, the view wreaking havoc with her concentration. Feet still fixed to the wooden boards, her eyes wandered like a lost pilgrim. From that stray lock of hair, her gaze designed the blade of his nose, the sculpture of his jaw, the hardness of his neck. The pilgrimage would have gone further had she not shaken herself inwardly. The man before her was an abject reprobate. Why, just last week, she heard of one of those decadent functions taking place in his seemingly luxurious mansion in Mayfair. Whispers had him gathering the finest whores from the finest brothel in London, Madame Lafond’s, and his acquaintances in what had been dubbed the most debauched soiree in the history of England. Food, drink and carnal pleasures flowed through the night.
He did not deserve that she admired the starkness of his obscene form. Or feel anything about it.
Her chin tilted higher as she forced herself to look at him without chugging on his perfection. “In this case, there’s nothing more to say.” The coldness of her answer bellied the bile rising in the depths of her. The feeling of impotence clawed at her as the ground under her feet slipped to throw her life into the deepest hopelessness. “Have a good day.” She wouldn’t call this cad Lord Darroch, a title possibly coming from one of those god-forsaken wilds of his home country. No curtsy either before she turned towards the door.
“Though there may be a way you can pay the debt.” His hoarse voice halted her. She swivelled to see him crossing one foot over the other, his intent eyes upon her. Only now did she detect a slight brogue to his speech, which made his baritone even more insidious.
Harris Darroch scrutinised the woman before him intrigued by the mixture of hauteur and determination. The moment he lifted his gaze to her, something stirred in him. Her drab attire made it nearly impossible for him to see her properly. Not tall, the worn cloak hid her from him. All he saw was the dark-brown hair pulled in a prim knot under the small grey hat, not a shiny wisp out of place. The daylight coming from the windows illuminated her rather plain face. A high forehead, a slightly too-long n
ose and a prominent chin gave her an air of prudishness he would not normally look at twice. But between the nose and chin, there was a mouth that contradicted the rest of her face. Pouty and lush in its rosiness, it made him wonder at the whole of her.
She faced him full-on, a hint of disdain, a pinch of loathing on her unremarkably remarkable front. The chit didn’t care for him, or for the stories circulating about his excesses, he reckoned. Though he hadn’t missed her covert glances at him since she entered this office. She might despise him, but she wasn’t indifferent.
“I don’t think so. I’ve thought this through.” Even crisp, her voice crept up his veins to heat his blood.
A sudden image of him laying her on his desk and thrusting deep while her moans melted that prissy composure of hers flashed in his mind. The urge to divest her of every strait-laced layer and have her begging for more screamed in his guts.
“Take off your cloak,” he demanded, uncaring that she came from nobility, that she was a lady. He didn’t give a damn for noblewomen; they were all made of flesh and blood and heat and passion. The woman before him didn’t fool him for a second. She hid more fire in her dainty finger than all the ton ladies combined.
Her creamy forehead pleated as she cast him a glance that said she thought the request ludicrous. “I beg your pardon?”
He jerked his jaw in her direction. “I’m waiting.”
A battle of wills ensued. Hardened, her eyes fought him as if she was Boudicca herself. Hardened below the waist, he bided his time.
“You’re going to wait forever, sir.” She motioned to leave.
A woman who didn’t fall at his feet for his looks or the pleasure he could give her deserved attention. And she had all of his. Even more because his obvious wealth didn’t seem to sway her.
Her Wicked LibertineEDIT Page 1