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

by K.J. Charles

His hair glowed like an angel’s halo in an illuminated manuscript, the savage scar just a misplaced scratch of ink, and Rufus felt the breath stutter in his lungs.

He knew. He had to know, because that was close as dammit to Shall I read it out to you?,

Doomsday actually flushed, his cheeks reddening with pleasure. It was delightful.

“A nobleman’s guide to courting a countess?

He went through tasks and put things in motion as though he lived to get them done.

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.

Doomsday must have felt like a bird let out of a cage. Rufus felt like a bear inside one.

“Just, I think you are a very good-hearted man, my lord.”

in the past, and that can cast shadows.”

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.

the fear of power, and hostility. Knowing you have been abandoned and could be again. Feeling you should be a part of something but you aren’t.”

“When people are frightening, you want to please them.” Doomsday sounded a little distant. “Certainly, it’s harder to oppose them.”

It’s very hard to be out of your accustomed place.”

“I was the first in my family to have more than dame school and my great-uncle’s tutoring. My father hated the idea of my education; he thought it was an insult. Treachery. My great-uncle pushed for it, but in the end it was Sir Gareth who found a school and paid for me to go. A lot of things were easier outside the family.”

something, anything, that would tell his secretary that he had indeed made himself indispensable, that Rufus was relying on him to an alarming extent, and not just for paperwork. That it meant everything to have a true ally, a loyal lieutenant, an irrepressible, confident, cocky little bastard of a rat-catcher by his side. That he did not want him to leave.

not a friend or even a relative, but a man with no obligation at all—had stood up for him as a child. To have Oxney do it for him now was quite unnecessary, but Luke liked it all the same.

Luke didn’t want him to smile any less. He might even be wasting his time solving Oxney’s problems because he wanted him to smile more.

I don’t know why you have to sit so close when we work, and watch me the way you do, if you’re not going to reach for me.

He was energetic and huge-hearted and a force of nature, and he ought not be trapped in the miserable grinding atmosphere of Stone Manor. No wonder such an extremely vibrant man liked these extremely vibrant paintings. No wonder he was flailing in this cobwebbed and stifling place. He looked entirely different waving his hands and talking at the same time as Berengaria, whose stiff, reserved features were lighting up. They could hardly not: Oxney’s enthusiasm was a near-physical force, and Berengaria would have to be made of stone to not be delighted. Luke wondered what it might be like to be the undivided focus of all that energy.

Like friends; like people together, learning each other, taking pleasure in one another’s company— Oh God, he was making such a bad mistake.

That was why he’d fucked him: because for all his vaunted brains, Luke was painfully aware that he did not love intelligently.

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.)

He was more than his surname, or his service, or his scar, and he was damned well going to prove it, and when he did, it would make up for a lifetime of sneers and dismissal. That mattered. It was all that mattered.

couldn’t come up with a riposte when two words had pulled the air from his chest.

He wasn’t sure how you went about worshipping a man in bed but he wanted to find out and do it.

More like the Sun King, waiting impatiently for his pleasure.

He was delightfully warm, a little sweat-damp, slightly sticky, and this was the best Rufus had ever felt in the earl of Oxney’s bed.

It didn’t occur to him that he should have asked any more questions.

Rufus had at least a minute of pure, unbridled satisfaction when he woke the next morning before the second thoughts arrived.

but he wanted the man, because he was irresistible and he laughed, and last night had been a joy. He didn’t want to choose. He might not be able to choose, because it wasn’t up to him.

All the power is on my side—” “It really is not.” Luke said that with a smile, but not one that looked quite right, and it gave Rufus a prickling sensation, as though there was the hint of a threat.

“As your friend, I don’t want to hurt you. As your employer, I don’t want to lose you. As the man whose bed you adorned last night, I’d very much like you back there, but not at the expense of the rest. So tell me what you want, and I will do my best to do right by you, which includes taking your ‘no’ with all the grace I can muster.”

The fallen-angel curve of Luke’s lips

!!!!

“You are unjustly lovely. Your eyebrows are an offence in themselves. It’s distracting.”

If you want to drive to the devil, pay for your own horses.”

Whereas you were being both practical and kind, and merely happened to be so in a very effective way.

You care so much, Rufus. I don’t think I quite realised how much you care, and—and you deserve better. That’s all.”

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;

would once again forget all the reasons he shouldn’t be doing this in the pure glory of doing it.

A painting on his own walls for Luke’s pleasure, and nothing about that was fair.

He had a very light touch for a forceful man,

couldn’t be this intimate without being noticed,

his father’s anger which he’d soaked up until it filled him, his own poisonous resentment.

“I don’t think I or anyone should be excessively blamed for the dreadfulness of youth.

because he wanted Luke to let go of the past, whereas Luke wanted to put a stake through its angry, miserable heart.

The true history was, in Luke’s view, ugly, inconvenient, and cold.

as he would if he wasn’t lying to anybody at all, as if he were what Rufus thought him to be, and nothing else.

you blasted apocalypse,

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

entirely mastered, entirely cherished.