The Soldier's Scoundrel (The Turner Series, #1)

by Cat Sebastian

For years, Jack hadn’t needed anybody, hadn’t wanted anybody. He trusted Sarah and Georgie, at least most of the time, but had always known it would be ruinous to trust anyone else. That principle had been implicit in everything he had learned from his father, mixed in with how to nick a pocket watch and how to cheat at cards. But Jack had trusted Oliver. Call it love, call it want, call it whatever you please, but the plain fact of the matter was that Jack Turner had abandoned what had always been a core tenet of his life. Which was why he was not only miserable but also lost and stranded in a strange place. To make matters worse, the countryside he was walking through was appalling, almost jeering at him with its completely unnecessary cheerfulness. Birds sang, fluffy little sheep dotted wildflower-strewn hillsides, all of it so goddamned charming and picturesque. Oliver would love it. Jack hated it all, not only for his usual reason of hating the countryside’s failure to be London, but for the more pressing reason that on a day like today there ought to be nothing around him but fire and rocks, an outrageous hellscape mirroring his state of mind. He stopped to take his coat off, not even sure why he had put the blasted thing on in the first place. He had nobody to impress right now. His job was done, Oliver was gone, and Sarah would never hear about any of today’s sartorial transgressions. He could wear a nightcap and ball gown. He could wear pantaloons and dancing slip...