Free Taking Liberties by Jackie Barbosa

Chapter One
    London, 1795
    Lady Leticia Blake was accounted by her peers to be the most fortunate of debutantes, the possessor of an embarrassment of riches in the form of wealth, wardrobe, winsomeness and, most important of all, wedding proposals. Rumor held that in her first Season she had received—and declined—no less the five offers of marriage, and a similar number in her second. Now, as her third Season prepared to draw to a close, what everyone, including her parents, wanted to know was when she would decide to piss or get off the pot.
    Or so her father said as he paced the fine Turkish rug that graced the floor of his library.
    “Now see here, lass,” the Marquess of Avingdon huffed, wagging an accusatory finger at Tish, who sat with her hands folded in her lap in one of the oversize armchairs, “I won’t mince words. Your mother and I have seen fit to give you free rein for three Seasons, but even my pockets aren’t deep enough to bankroll a fourth, especially since you’re no closer to choosing a husband now than you were on the day you curtsied for the bloody queen.”
    His whiskered face had turned a rather unhealthy shade of red, and Tish experienced a pang of anxiety at the possibility he’d experience an apoplexy if he didn’t calm himself.
    “That’s not true, Papa,” she said, hoping to appease him with a dose of reason and hard data. “I’m much closer now than I was when I debuted. After all, I know I don’t want to marry any of the men I’ve turned down.”
    Unfortunately this observation seemed to have the opposite of the desired effect. “And a fine lot you’ve refused, too. Three earls, a duke’s brother and half a dozen other perfectly respectable gentlemen. Tell me, lass, of the ten or so you’ve still got trailing after your skirts, are there any you’d consider marrying?”
    Tish looked down at the floor and chewed her upper lip. “Well, yes, but…”
    Her father grabbed her chin and tilted her head so she was forced to look up into his angry blue eyes. “No buts. Choose one of them by the end of next week.”
    “Next week?” The words came out on a squeak.
    “Aye, lass.” His expression softened at her shock, however, and he gave her chin a gentle caress. “You’ve had plenty of time to decide what you want in a husband. If you don’t know by now, there’ll be naught for me to do but decide for you.”
    Tish stared at her father in horror and confusion. “But you promised you’d let me choose my own husband.”
    “And so I will, lass, provided you do so in the time I’ve allotted you.” He dropped a fond kiss on her nose and straightened. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m expected in the Lords in half an hour.” He turned and marched out of the room without so much as a backward glance at his supposedly beloved daughter.
    Tish wanted to argue that she knew precisely what she wanted in a husband, and that was exactly the problem. She wanted the kind of husband whose kiss would make her toes curl and her knees buckle, whose touch would cause her skin to tingle and her stomach to bottom out. One who could fulfill her deepest, darkest, most unladylike fantasies.
    And oh, she had so many of those.
    The trouble was that as a young lady of gentle breeding and good reputation, she faced the same dilemma as her sister: she had no means of testing the fitness of her candidates but talk. True, she could easily rule out those gentlemen who turned her stomach in entirely the wrongway, but it was quite impossible to discern whether any of the handsomer gentlemen who paid her court might be “the one” when she spent her entire life under the watchful eye of one chaperone after another. Not to mention that all of her suitors seemed regrettably determined to behave like gentlemen, which meant they made no attempt to spirit her off to some private alcove or darkened garden path for the purpose of taking liberties with her person.
    What she needed, she thought