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

by K.J. Charles

“Lend me your book,” he said. “I clearly need it. This is the most effective way I’ve found to shut you up, and I will be using it in the future.”

“Don’t ruin my fun. I told you how I feel about Gothic earls in castles.” “I’m not a Gothic earl, and this isn’t a castle. It’s a Norman manor house.” “If I wanted accurate historical detail I’d fuck Mr. Odo, and don’t ever make me have that thought again.”

Luke wrapped his leg round Rufus’s thigh, and Rufus got a hand under his taut arse, felt Luke hold on around his shoulders, and hoisted so that he came off the floor.

“You anointed fucker,” Luke gasped, gloriously if incomprehensibly Kentish. “Oh God. Your hand, and kiss me. Rufus!”

“That would be extremely distracting,” Luke said. “I’d be sitting there trying to work, wondering what part you were reading and expecting you to make demands at any moment. It would be quite impossible to concentrate.” “Oh. Well, we don’t have to—” Rufus began. Luke grabbed his face. “Yes, we do. Read the book.”

“If you don’t care for this conversation, you’re welcome to find the money yourself. Otherwise, how much?” Fulk’s lips thinned. “Oh, around two thousand, five hundred.”

The problem was, he liked the bloody man. Rufus made him laugh, and laughed at him. He valued Luke’s thoughts, and gave him his head while never disavowing responsibility. He wanted to make things run properly, which spoke to Luke’s own love of organisation and control. And he was a magnificent lover, not because he was particularly skilled or experienced, but because he listened. He asked what Luke wanted, and then did it with force and enthusiasm. He was considerate in ways that made Luke feel stupidly soft and vulnerable and cared for; he was brawny and bulky and mouth-wateringly good to look at, and it was all so unfair that Luke could have cried.

He thought about those things at night, even while he prowled Stone Manor’s dark corridors pursuing his own midnight goals, ears twitching madly, because if Rufus caught him out of bed again he’d be in trouble he might not be able to fuck his way out of.

He’d almost cried with relief when Rufus had finally crooked a finger. Come here. Suck me. Bring yourself off while you do it.

The furniture had arrived, upholstered in peacock blues and greens with a thread of gold.

Rufus had hung the rainbow painting of the Marsh opposite the chair he’d designated as Luke’s, so he could sit and look at it as he pleased.

How was he supposed to do what he was here for, the important thing, when Rufus kept making other things matter?

Either Rufus was more perceptive than he’d realised, or one simply couldn’t be this intimate without being noticed, which was yet another reason he should never have done this.

Really, if I’m avoiding visiting, it’s because I don’t care to ride fourteen miles in order to be called a bettermy young rascal.” “A what?” “Bettermy. It’s a short way to say ‘you think you’re better than me’. I heard it a lot growing up although, in fairness, they were right. That and Goldilocks, which was what everyone called me until Sir Gareth made them stop.” “Also in fairness—” “No. I hated it.”

“Do I need to know anything about your relations with Sir Gareth?”

“What is this for?” Luke had to ask. “Lord Oxney said a painting of the god you mentioned?” “Mithras, the soldier’s god. Oxney’s the soldier. You’re the god.” “The—” “Turn your face a little. No, other way. Good heavens, you’ve superb eyebrows. I dare say Oxney won’t mind me casting you as his deity. It’s the hair.

He couldn’t even tell where he was at first, except that the bed felt oddly different and there seemed to be more of it, and the warm presence of a breathing body close to his… He’d fallen asleep in the great d’Aumesty bed last night. With Rufus. Naked.

An idiot, but a glorious one.

“You’re in an authoritative mood this morning.” “Does that suit you?” “It always does. I’m just pointing out your mask has slipped.” “I don’t—,” Luke began, but when Rufus grinned at him, he had to admit that, well, maybe he did.

“I want you to pleasure me,” Luke whispered. “I want you to suck me like this, with your prick hard. I want to fuck your mouth and spend in your throat, and then—we’ll see what next.” “I’ll tell you what next.” Rufus’s eyes were on his. “You take your pleasure now, exactly as you like best, as long as you like, and then I will turn you over and take mine, as long and slow and hard as I like. Think about that, you blasted apocalypse, and be aware that when it’s my turn, I’m going to make you know my rights.”

The Earl’s mouth, the Earl’s bed, the Earl’s domain, and he, Luke Doomsday, ruling it all for these few private moments.

He’d have liked to keep it going forever. The enforced passivity was driving Rufus wild: his hips were moving under Luke, fingers clutching, and he was making urgent noises in his throat, even as he pleasured Luke with lips and teeth and tongue, making him giddy with power and arousal and anticipation, and he didn’t want to wait any longer.

“It strikes me,” Luke managed, when he could speak. “It strikes me I could tie you to this bed and take three times as long over things.” “You could,” Rufus agreed. “The consequences might be three times as severe, though.” “Consequences? I haven’t seen any—” Rufus didn’t even release his hands. He simply moved with unexpected speed and strength, heaving Luke up, over, and down, so he thumped onto his back on the bed, hands still trapped.

It was ten o’clock before they set off for Dymchurch, and Luke found the riding wasn’t entirely comfortable. Not that he intended to complain. Rufus had been as good as his word, fucking him so long and slow that he spent a second time.

Nothing important, nothing meaningful, just casual words that the breeze whipped away as soon as spoken.

“Good. Damned sneaking scoundrels.” Luke bit back his immediate response. Rufus glanced round. “Offended? Don’t expect sympathy. I was fighting Napoleon while these greedy bastards were making a profit from the war.” “The biggest profits were made in London, and in Parliament,” Luke said. “Smuggling has been a way of life here for a long time. Not to sound like Mr. Odo, but owling—wool-smuggling—on Romney Marsh goes back to the reign of Edward the First.”

“Best behaviour. Right.” Rufus smiled at him, warm and affectionate. It felt like a kiss. “Have fun.”

Lord Oxney could not be asked to sit at a table with a Kentish-talking smuggler, even if that smuggler was the almost-respectable Joss: they both knew that. “I think they’d get on like a house on fire,” Luke added. “Metaphorically or possibly literally: Lord Oxney is quite explosive. But while I’m his secretary, it’s all a little too awkward.”

Gareth was watching his face. “I would love to see it. I don’t think I’ve seen you moved by art before.”

“It’s in Rufus’s rooms. He hung it there because he saw I liked it.” Luke dwelled on that little piece of generosity rather too often for his own good, but it was so very Rufus and he couldn’t help boasting of it, if only to Gareth. “Of course those are his private rooms, but we spend a certain amount of—what?”

“He doesn’t make me feel that at all. He’s a draper’s son and proud of it, and he has a very high opinion of me. Stupidly high. He thinks I’m marvellous.” The word was choking. There was a frown between Gareth’s eyes. “Why is that bad?” The urge to pour it all out was overwhelming. He’d always told Gareth, if not everything, more than he told anyone else: painful truths and little hurts and secret shames. He couldn’t tell Gareth, of all men, this.

“No, I am happy, some of the time. A lot of the time. I—” He was happy with Rufus. Happy scheming his way through the tangled mess of Stone Manor and upsetting the Conrads; happy as Rufus’s invaluable, valued right hand; happy beyond words when it was nothing but the two of them. As for the rest of the time, and the things he didn’t tell Rufus, or Gareth… But one couldn’t expect to be happy all the time; that was absurd.

It was important to be understood. That wasn’t something Rufus had ever considered before—he was himself, and other people were themselves, and one just got on with it. Whereas Luke thought about whys and wherefores, and what people wanted, not in the way one might find in a novel of sentiment, but like a man taking a clock apart to see how it worked.

Somehow the acceptance felt easier with Luke on his side, making it work.

Rufus had noticed that and hadn’t commented, and felt vaguely proud of himself for both.

“Odo told me so I got up to watch tonight and there he is,” Fulk concluded. “We thought you should see for yourself. Didn’t think you’d take our word for it.” He was right: Rufus would not have believed them. He felt oddly numb and he couldn’t stop looking: Luke, in the dim light of a lantern, methodically working his way through…

“God damn it, Luke! You must see what this looks like. I don’t care to believe that you’re a thief, and I will not assume it, but I need you to explain. Talk to me and I’ll listen.”

“Can you not understand what you’re doing? What is it you want to find that’s worth everything you’re throwing away?” Luke flinched again at that, but all he said was, “It doesn’t matter.”

Jonathan. That silly bit of filth carried such glorious memories, and Rufus’s feelings rebelled at the sight.

“He made the whole thing up,” Rufus said aloud, the words falling flat in an empty room. No secret marriage, no family mystery. Luke had invented it for his own purposes, given Conrad yet another stick to beat Rufus with, put his earldom, his future, at hazard, all to weasel his way into Rufus’s trust—and perhaps he hadn’t even meant to do that.

“I’ll get rid of him now. And I’d rather not hear any more about what a terrible lapse of judgement it was to employ a secretary. From anyone.” “Yes, shut up, Odo,” Fulk said. “He meant, tell Mother and Father not to gloat,” Berengaria said. Fulk glowered at her.

Why he’d had to lie, to pretend, to pose as a friend and a lover and an ally. Why he couldn’t have just stolen Rufus’s possessions, and left his heart and soul and self-respect alone.

“You’re a contemptible little shit. A thief, a traitor, a fucking liar, and a worthless bastard.” He said that last deliberately, knowing it would hurt, and felt the flinch Luke couldn’t hide. “Get out of my house. If I find you took anything from this house, if you involve yourself in my affairs or me in yours, I will break your neck with my bare hands. Don’t ever let me see your face again.”

So stupid, and not even the first time. He’d betrayed someone he loved before, and been punished for it hard enough that you might think he’d have learned his lesson. Yet here he was again, and for exactly the same reason.

“A’right, Luke.” Joss sat by him with easy grace. “Thinking of jumping?” “No, but you’re welcome to push me.” “Tempted.”

“What did Great-Uncle say about that?” “Not much. He never did. He’d just ask you questions till you reached an answer yourself.”

“No, he’d have talked to me about it and explained why it wasn’t your fault and made me be reasonable—” He broke off because he was starting to feel thirteen again.

“Always have been. Once you set yourself to something, you don’t think about the consequences, you don’t see anything but your goal. You chased a couple of murderers over the Marsh on your own at thirteen years old because you were determined to find Gareth. Chuckle-headed thing to do, and you saved his life with it.”

“Jesus Christ, Doomsday,” he said aloud, and wished he hadn’t because it was exactly what Rufus would have said.

He went into Tench House, found Gareth, and said, “Can I borrow a horse?”