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

by K.J. Charles

It wasn’t as if there was much of a view. Granted he had the best vantage point over Romney Marsh that one could ask, but the problem with that was it showed him Romney Marsh.

“Madam, your eyes are as brown as, uh. I don’t know. Bread?”

But there was still a kernel of him that was a desperate, lost, hungry thing, and no matter how hard he tried to starve it out, it was always there, poking its head out at a sniff of affection, howling for more, making him hopeful and vulnerable and stupid.

He knew it well; Gareth had taken him here a few times to look for beetles. It was called Hope All Saints. He was standing in the broken ruins of Hope in the rain, like the stupidest Gothic hero in the stupidest book.

“If you’re suggesting that a d’Aumesty, especially the earl, can’t behave in an irrational and arbitrary manner, you haven’t been paying attention.

He pushed back his chair and stalked out on that. He was still hungry, and would need to ring for food to his rooms, but it felt too good an exit line to waste.