The Wicked Guardian

the long version

**A Not So Proper Young Lady.** "I wish I were dead!" was Clare Penryck's impassioned reaction upon hearing that Sir Benedict Choate was to be her guardian. She had know this elegant aristocrat for but one London season -- but that time had sufficed to show her how insufferably arrogant he could be. Benedict made it clear that he expected Clare to be a very proper young lady, to remain safe on her secluded country estate, to wait for a decent match -- in short to be all and do all that Clare found intolerably boring and detestable. Both Benedict and the law said she must obey him. But the exasperatingly headstrong Clare had no intention of accepting any such odious arrangement. First her outrageously independent mind, and then her scandalously impetuous heart, told her it was time to rebel. Sir Benedict Choate was clearly unprepared for the lesson in love he was about to be given -- by a maddeningly willful young girl who had so much to learn herself!