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

by Cat Sebastian

his nose was rather too much of a good thing, to be honest.

“Sometimes I think fashion magazines are run by revolutionaries just to make the aristocracy look stupid.”

Are you sweaty?” “I was fencing.” And licking the thumbs of confidence artists.

“Take it from me, Jack, you do not want to get in bed with these fellows. Literally or figuratively.” “I’d really like to know who you and Sarah think I properly ought to sodomize,”

The sight of all those pointless urns and gilded picture frames almost made him nostalgic

for the days of the guillotine—even

“May I speak freely or should I invent a cunning code?”

Honor was a luxury item, like hair pomade and snuff. Its only purpose was to show the world that you could afford to be impractical, that you had enough money to behave in a way that was compatible with some ludicrous code instead of acting out of self-preservation like the rest of humanity.

“I don’t care to talk about it.” “Why in hell would you?” Jack’s tone managed to convey sympathy for Oliver’s experiences and scorn for anyone who expected him to talk about them, while somehow giving the impression that if Oliver were indeed looking to unburden himself he need look no further.

Jack wondered if they had already performed the British upper class ritual of listing everyone they knew in common or if he’d have to sit through that.

That was another thing

these rich bastards did, all these costume changes.

He climbed the stairs at the inn with little trouble from his leg. That was something surgeons never thought to suggest—the restorative properties of a towering rage.

He looked like a supplicant and sounded like a sinner.

With each stroke of his tongue he thought, This is

ours. It wasn’t something he was doing to Jack, or Jack was doing to him. Neither of them owned it. It was theirs. This was what he had wanted; as much as the physical pleasure he wanted the sense of shared desire, mutual longing.

Why should the housemaid have to empty a chamber pot when instead there was a perfectly

serviceable window? The fact that this sounded both highly reasonable and politically necessary was why he did his best to avoid dealing with aristocrats on any terms but his own.

Never had Jack tied a cravat more resentfully and with more confusion than he did that day.

He was doing it because he was happy and he wanted to share that with Jack.

I like to think that order overlaps with the law at least to some extent.” “It does, somewhat.” Barely. Sometimes. On a good day, and only if you squinted your eyes.

I don’t know how you manage to tie your cravat in a way that’s so . . . well, offensive to the very notion of cravats—”

Whatever fortune he had spent on that getup had been worth it, even if such a shameful expenditure ought to have Jack yearning for the guillotine.

“Between my wife and another man.” The word wife was the saddest syllable Oliver had ever heard, seemingly consisting of layers of sorrow and anger and disappointment held together by nothing but brandy.

What the hell would I have done with myself once I had figured out that you did it for me?” Jack forced himself to look directly at Oliver. “Then you would have known that you were loved in return.”

And you know that, because he helped Charlotte when nobody else did.” It wasn’t that nobody else could, Oliver realized, but that nobody else wanted to risk their neck.

What made people want to talk to you was never your breeding.” He said “breeding” like someone would say “syphilis” or “bedbugs.”

“This carpet is new as well.” Jack looked at the carpet, as if only now registering its presence. “So it is,” he agreed, in a tone that indicated that helpful elves had perhaps delivered it.