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

by Cat Sebastian

It was dark but the streetlights were lit, and when he reached Piccadilly, it was crowded with carriages. Young ladies and lordlings headed to their evening’s entertainment, he gathered. If he got a peek into one of the carriages he could have instantly told where the occupants were headed—the theater, the opera, a ball, a dinner. Before beginning in his present line of work he had served as a valet, first for a barrister, then for a gentleman who had since gone to India, and finally for Mr. Rivington’s brother-in-law, Lord Montbray. He had spent more evenings than he wanted to remember selecting precisely the right waistcoat and ensuring that his gentleman’s cravat was exactly as it needed to be. The fact that he had also spent some of that time pocketing silverware and whatever trinkets he could fence was not something he liked to dwell on overmuch. That was how he had first seen Rivington. Lord and Lady Montbray were spending a few weeks at the lady’s father’s estate as part of a hunting party. Rivington had been home on leave. One evening Montbray hadn’t turned up in his bedchamber after dinner, so Jack went to see whether he had fallen drunkenly into the well or whether he was imposing himself on one of the housemaids, the latter being a situation he had to actively work against in their London household. He had heard some rustling in the orangery and slipped inside, intending to defend the virtue of whichever servant his master was accosting. Instead he found Rivingt...