A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel (The Doomsday Books, #2)

by K.J. Charles

I’m not a smuggler, Lord Oxney, I’m a secretary. I have letters of reference from Mr. Acheson Wood, Viscount Corvin, and Sir Gareth Inglis.” Rufus had met Sir Gareth, a tall, thin, pale-haired fellow with a peculiar hobby. Beetles, that was it: he’d written a book about the beetles of Romney Marsh or some such thing.

“And why this pussyfooting? You must have realised it was important. Crucial, damn it!”

They ran to thin height; Lord Oxney was about five feet ten, and thus notably taller than Luke, but no towering presence. His build made up for that, though: broad-shouldered and very solid, with arms that looked like they were used to, or for, hard work, and powerful thighs made for riding. Luke certainly wouldn’t mind riding them, a thought he put firmly aside.

In his loosely cut and carelessly worn practical clothing, he looked more like a farm labourer than an earl. Luke, who liked a strong man, was all in favour of that.

He was clearly used to giving orders, and very much not to tact or circumlocution. Luke liked that too. In fact, he liked a lot about Oxney.

He’d gone to the main entrance. Secretaries could do that, but the butler, a very grand fellow, looked at him with bleak contempt. “You’re to go to the study. And I’ll thank you to use the back door, as befits your sort.” Well, that was a flag planted. Conciliate or clash? Luke weighed it up and chose a middle path. “I have orders from his lordship, Mr. Pauncefoot. Thank you very much.”

He led the way up the broad flight of stairs. Luke lagged slightly, because the Earl’s back view was really very impressive.

“My Aunt Sybil,” Luke said. “She chased the Aldington gang off Dymchurch turf outnumbered two to one, and broke their leader’s arm with a fence post. I grew up in her house. Do you have an idea of what you’d like for the room?”

“I had an unusual upbringing,” Luke admitted. “And I tend to be quite, uh—” “Cocksure?” Oxney suggested. “Confident, perhaps.” “Overbearing?” “Helpful. Competent. Invaluable.” “And unquestionably modest,” Oxney concluded, with a grin. “What would you do with the room, given your head?”

“Are you looking to make changes? A new butler or valet?” “I won’t dismiss people unless I have to.”

humour, and a very close eye on what people wanted. In Oxney’s position, Joss would probably have won his new family’s hearts already. Luke might have tried to do the same himself, as the smoothest route. He rather liked that Oxney wasn’t trying.

“I will have to request this be absolutely confidential, my lord.” Oxney waved a hand. “Thank you. The difference was that Sir John felt my duties included bedding his wife while he watched, and I did not.”

“That is an outrage. Absolutely disgraceful. The man is a villain. Good God. Very well, I see you can’t explain that widely. But you told me?” “Yes,” Luke said. “I had an idea you might listen. And, to be frank, I don’t have many options left. I will work for you to the best of my ability, Lord Oxney, if you give me the chance.”

Lord Oxney was so obviously a man who gave people chances: there was a very kind heart under the thick muscle and temper. It made him staggeringly easy to manipulate. Luke made a silent vow that nobody else would be doing that while he was here.

As for salary…what did your last employer give you?” “Two hundred a year.” “Are you worth that?” “No, Lord Oxney,” Luke said with absolute assurance. “I’m worth twice that.”

Doomsday was an excellent secretary. He couldn’t help how he looked, or smiled, or the way his shameless insubordination tickled Rufus’s…call it, his fancy.

And he just bowed the knee and let the senile bedridden avaricious old fool do as he pleased!”

“Mr. Smallbone had a great deal of respect for your grandfather, and was badly affected by the change in his character. If you approach this, not as repairing your grandfather’s gross neglect, but as restoring his life’s work, I think you’d have Mr. Smallbone’s enthusiastic support.”

“A nobleman’s guide to courting a countess? Step one, take the lady’s hand and praise the delicacy of her skin with a salute.”

Doomsday adopted a decidedly effete upper-class voice for that, simultaneously turning his hand and arm in a wonderfully elegant manner, offering Rufus his palm just like a lady. Rufus took it, bowed over it, and kissed it. He hadn’t intended to do that.

“That would be a compliment on the radiance of her complexion, or perhaps the lustre of her eyes.” “Madam, your eyes are as brown as, uh. I don’t know. Bread?” Doomsday’s downswept eyes swept right back up. “Bread?”

He went through tasks and put things in motion as though he lived to get them done. If he’d been Rufus’s aide-de-camp in the war, they’d have been unstoppable.

He had at least resisted the temptation to describe Doomsday’s eyes as they deserved, although in fairness their deep brown was more than anything the shade of a cup of long-brewed tea, which probably wouldn’t sound any better than ‘bread’. The colour didn’t matter: it was their expression, the laughter and intelligence and occasional wariness, the life and light and just sometimes a flicker of something that Rufus could very easily persuade himself was desire.

“Ridiculous. She’s your mother. How can one lose one’s mother?” “Careful, Fulk,” Rufus said. “You sound like you’re asking for tips.” Matilda’s mouth opened in silent rage.

“Be silent!” Conrad snapped. “My secretary, Conrad,” Rufus said. “Not yours to rebuke or insult: mine.

“Who the devil would want to? Every fucking one of you is worse than the next, you arrogant, whining, inbred pack of scrounging cu—What?”

And if there is anything I can change in the way the books are kept—wider lines in the ledgers, or writing in capitals—” “That makes it worse.” “Noted. I’ve seen you with a newspaper: is there something about type that helps?”

“I don’t want bloody help. I want to be able to read with the fluency of an average schoolboy,” Rufus snapped. “Or, failing that, not to be the object of contempt because I can’t.” “I can’t mend the first. For the second, you could throw the Conrads out.”

You could ask him to write a history of the family.” “I don’t want a history of the bloody family.” “But you have an excellent excuse not to read it.” Rufus turned on him, caught his eye, and threw his head back with a crack of laughter.

He felt better for this. Better for being outside; better for speaking frankly about his incapability at last, instead of avoiding the subject in the vain hope it hadn’t been noticed.

Rufus wondered if lovers touched the scar, if they ran their fingers over it when they cupped his face. He wanted to know how the devil a boy—he must have been a boy—had got his face sliced open, and how many flinches he masked behind the cocksure facade.

That was not a problem, he told himself. He was running a long race, not sprinting. He’d had plenty to do to establish himself, to learn his master and the house and the situation. There was no point rushing to his goal: he’d be more likely to misstep.

Or the riding. Oxney insisted Luke should have plenty of exercise and fresh air, and demanded he ride most days.

The realisation only hit home at occasional moments, such as when he found that he’d been daydreaming of Oxney at his desk, and realised his prick was thick and heavy with it.

Worst of all, he had nobody to blame but himself. (And Oxney, if one could blame a man for being too protective, smiling too much, and possessing an excessively nice pair of forearms.)

“I get lost when they’re close. God damn it, Doomsday, are you proposing to change your hand for me?”

He had discovered tupping in due course, but he also discovered he only cared for it when he liked his partner, when you could share a laugh and you both enjoyed yourselves. He couldn’t see the point of putting his prick in someone for whom he had no affection, as a merely physical act.

He wanted to touch, to stroke his hair and find out if it was as satin-smooth as he imagined; he wanted his name, not his title, on Doomsday’s lips.

He’d been unable to resist quite a lot of speculation over what Doomsday might like to do in bed, preferably in this bed, ludicrous carved nonsense that it was.

He took up the candle, went out into the hall, and saw Doomsday’s door was open. That was odd. Needed checking. Nothing to do with a sudden urge to see how he looked asleep:

“I realise we didn’t spell out my working hours,” Doomsday said, “but they end. Or at least, I consider them to. I don’t think I owe you my time at two o’clock in the morning.”

“I don’t accept your authority in this. I told you the truth; if you don’t like it, dismiss me. But the only say you get in who or how or when I fuck, my lord, is—” He still sounded calm, but his chin went up a fraction. “If it’s you fucking me.”

“You heard. Sack me, fuck me, or leave me be. Pick one.”

“Specifically, I hoped you might get over your moral scruples and give me the tupping we both want.” His lips curved suddenly and irrepressibly, a painfully familiar, lovely sight. “I’ve been waiting for you to exercise your droit du seigneur for weeks.”

“I’m not a man for hints. If there’s something—something particular—you want of me, spit it out.” “Spitting it out is the last thing I’m going to do. I want you in my mouth. Like this, now.”

Luke’s tongue and lips were greedy on him, straining. “More,” he mumbled around his mouthful, and Rufus leaned forward, felt his secretary take him deeper.

“I mean, nothing to it, for me. I see it as a useful reminder, that’s all.” “Reminder of what?” Rufus shrugged. “To stand a foot to the left next time.” Luke burst out laughing.

“Yes. Fuck. Will you exert your damned rights before I die of waiting?” “You are blasted insubordinate,” Rufus told him. “I don’t know how to handle this level of shameless insolence.”

“Luke. Say my name.” “Rufus.” It came out on a breath, almost a whisper. “Rufus.” His damn fool name had never sounded better, and particularly because it came out decidedly Kentish, with a rolled R and rounded vowels.

“Jesus,” Luke said again, after a moment. “If that’s how you do your rights, I can’t wait for wrongs.”