The Unblushing Baronet's Burden

By @john1208

Alistair Finch, a scholar more accustomed to dusty manuscripts than dazzling ballrooms, finds himself plunged into the cutthroat social battlefield of Regency London’s Season. As the new, impecunious Baronet of Finchley, his sole objective is to secure a respectable, financially advantageous match to salvage his family's dwindling estate. But his carefully laid plans are obliterated by the awakening of the ‘Oracle of Affectation’ – an ethereal, maddening force that compels him towards a series of increasingly scandalous and absurd romantic entanglements. From accidentally compromising a formidable Dowager Duchess to inciting a duel over a misinterpreted compliment to a notoriously sharp-witted heiress, Alistair must navigate the treacherous waters of high society. He has to satisfy the Oracle's indecent demands, gather an unwitting 'harem' of London's most powerful and dangerous women, and somehow preserve his precarious reputation, all without revealing the humiliating truth of his curse. Survival hinges on becoming the most notorious gentleman of the Season, a role for which the unassuming Baronet is spectacularly ill-suited.