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

by K.J. Charles

Conrad was waiting for him in Stone Manor’s drawing room, along with the pretender, who Rufus was now inevitably going to call Perkin at some point.

“I don’t work for you, sir.” This seemed to stagger Conrad. Doomsday went on before he found his voice. “With the utmost respect, my concern is to find another post and I cannot take the time to hunt for a woman I have never met. Or, at least—” “Wasn’t formally introduced to?” Rufus suggested.

Pfffffffffffft!

She had an excellent figure, an air of such aristocratic authority that Rufus occasionally felt the urge to salute,

Doomsday rubbed a hand over his face in a thoughtful manner that hid his mouth. It did not hide the malicious amusement that brimmed in his eyes, and Rufus looked at him and thought, This man likes trouble.

He gave himself a mental kick anyway. Stop flirting. You tried that and look what happened.

“Which are her paintings?” “No idea. Unless she’s the one painting all the Normans. Christ, I hope not, we’ve got enough of those.”

I’m sure Odo will explain it in detail if you ask. Do it when I’m present and you’re sacked.”

The painter John Raven had once spent half an hour trying to explain art to him, then told him he was a philistine and thrown him out of the room.

Oxney’s enthusiasm was a near-physical force, and Berengaria would have to be made of stone to not be delighted.

he couldn’t seem to stop himself, justifying every intimate moment, every smile, every casual touch with Just one more, and This won’t hurt, like a drinker eyeing the last inch in the bottle.

Damned if he cared if the house was being burgled. Good luck to the bastards finding anything worth taking: he hoped they liked paintings of Normans.

Rufus couldn’t think of a thing to say. There were things, he knew, important ones; there was common sense to be exerted, and an entire array of second thoughts and warning signs to be taken into account.

Like blackmail.

there’s no shame in scars.” Christ, could he not say anything right tonight? “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.”

The blackened, twisted posts and the heavy canopy of the bed were closing in around them both, or possibly his vision was failing.

“Any other problems to report?” “I know you want me to say the chair is strangely uncomfortable, and I won’t be giving you the satisfaction.”

“If I wanted accurate historical detail I’d fuck Mr. Odo, and don’t ever make me have that thought again.”

“You want me to use your name? Make me.” “God damn it,” Rufus said. “I am going to find out if this bloody place has a dungeon. Come here.”

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.”

“Some might call that a rather mercantile approach,” Fulk remarked with a curling lip. “Don’t think of it as a transaction,” Rufus assured him. “It’s a bribe.”

If you could describe grabbing what he wanted with both hands as “not resisting”.

“What was wrong with you?” “Loud. Always fighting. Broke everything.” “Sounds right.”

“If you were about to say that I take a lot on myself, I hope you paused to recall how often I have said that to you.” “That doesn’t make it less irritating.” “Now you see why I keep threatening to sack you.”

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

you couldn’t reduce someone else to a pile of jelly while they were doing it to you.

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

One might think a man who made things so clear might be easy to understand. Luke wasn’t, quite. Or, mostly he was. Mostly he was the cocksure, clever, outrageously competent man who was Rufus’s friend and ally and lover, and that was marvellous. There were just those other moments, when something twitched behind his eyes, when the confidence slipped and he looked almost furtive. Almost afraid.

“Hurt me? How the devil would you do that?” “Easily, if I were careless.” Luke sat up, disengaging himself. “And you wouldn’t deserve it, because you’re a good man. You wouldn’t deserve it, and I don’t want to do it.” “Is something wrong?”

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuugh

Rufus gave brief consideration to strangling him and leaving the body on the floor,

“You tried apologising? Sometimes works, if you mean it.” “How? ‘I’m sorry I lied to you from the start and threatened to make you illegitimate and burgled your house and let you trust me and even shared your bloody bed while I was doing all that to you’?” “That…might take a while to get over,” Joss allowed.

“Think about it. Come on, let’s go back. Catherine’s baking. You eat something, stretch your legs instead of hiding in your room, and we’ll work out what to do when you can think a bit clearer. But for now, you’re home and you’re safe. Hear me?” Luke hauled himself to his feet, and wiped a hand over his wet face. “Yes, Joss.”

[Sobs uncontrollably] YES JOSS

The chapel was Norman, or possibly Angevin, and he wished he wasn’t aware of the difference. It was barely worthy of the name anyway, just a few pieces of masonry wall jutting around a mound in a field, like the stumps of teeth in an old man’s mouth. 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.

“Mmm. Have you considered not letting this ruin your life?”

“Oh, come on, this is an actual treasure-hunt. It can’t just be lying around in the Cathedral, surely. Why aren’t you looking for it?” “I…was? That’s why you sent me away. This is what I lied to you about. You’re angry about that, remember?” Rufus waved his hand in impatient dismissal. “Balls to that. You didn’t say it was a sodding fortune!”

God love our two idiots.

“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. Are you seriously expecting me to work with Odo again? What kind of bastard are you?”

Rufus groaned aloud. Never mind his heart: this was making his head hurt.

“You must have infinite patience. If we simply burned the place down, would we find the guineas in the ashes?” “That’s the third time you’ve suggested setting fire to your ancestral home.” “Only the third? I’m amazed.

“How many dead men was it, how many adults fighting over gold, and you think a thirteen-year-old boy made the difference? What, your father wouldn’t have been a stupid greedy prick in your absence?”

He has a very valid point.

A fellow officer of Rufus’s on the Peninsula had had a knack for bloodcurdling campfire tales, including one about a sorcerer who raised men from the dead. Rufus wished that such magic was possible. He’d give anything for ten minutes with Elijah Doomsday.

"I'd bring him back... just t'kill 'im again!"

Rufus stepped forward to the thorn tree, fishing out a hip-flask from his pocket. “Elijah Doomsday.” He spoke formally, in a carrying voice. “You were a disgrace, as a father and a man. You failed your son in every way; you took what wasn’t yours to take; you had a dog’s death and deserved it. I thank the man who snapped your neck because he saved me soiling my own hands. It’s a good thing you’re gone, and past time you were forgotten. Here’s your drink, now sod off.”

Rufus said, “Don’t you dare deny me this. I want to find it. I’d prefer if there was a map, of course, ideally written in dried blood.” “You’re ten years old at heart, aren’t you?” Luke muttered, and Rufus took the casual jibe like a gift.

Odo had been watching with his head turning from side to side. Now he swallowed noisily and said, “I want to get married.” That landed with the thud of a mortar.

“Always had other people clear ‘em up, too, Joss and Sir Gareth and me, even. And now you’ve got his lordship clearing this one up. Nice for some.” “It’s not like that!” “Sounds like it is.” “It isn’t. I’m doing what he wants.” “That right? Funny how what he wants sounds an awful lot like what’s good for you.”

“You really are an unforgiving son of a bitch. Do something about that. You might start with yourself.

he didn’t think Pagan was troubled so much by memory as by a profound lack of interest in other people.

“Do you need to move?” He needed to run away, except that he was pinned on a medieval bed under fifteen stone of earldom and also, there was nowhere else he wanted to be. “No.”

For one thing, he might finally find the gold he’d been dreaming of for thirteen years, in sufficient quantity to weigh down his father’s ghost for good. For another, there was that fraction of a chance he’d find Adam Drake’s body, which he’d long discounted, but which came back to him now. For a third, it was the subterranean temple of an ancient cult and he read too many Gothic novels.

If, on the other hand, he climbed into the altar… Luke took a moment to reflect on how little he wanted to do that.

DO NOT GET IN THE STONE COFFIN FFS

“He’s that way, Luke. Aunt Sybil says he’s hard to love but it’s not true. What’s hard is making him see it when you do, because he’s already decided you don’t.”

already lost you over it, so to discover I was going to die for it—Joss was right. It’s ill-omened.” “Nonsense,” Rufus said. “You never lost me, and you’re not dead. You read too many novels.”

“Is this right?” “I don’t see what else we can do. It’s so long ago and we can’t prove anything.” “I was thinking of how I’m foisting them on some other unfortunate town.”