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

by K.J. Charles

In my experience, powerful people take what they want from the less powerful, and they don’t put a great deal of thought into the consequences for their victims.”

Odo straightened. He had a scholar’s stoop, or possibly a younger son’s cringe, but when he stood properly he was several inches over Oxney’s height. It transformed his appearance from a surprised owl to a tall surprised owl.

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.

anyone can see he’s all the use of a glass hammer,

Doomsday was at the desk, caught in a shaft of morning light from the window. 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.

“Hmph. Nobody ever gossips to me.” “Well, they wouldn’t,” Doomsday said. “You’re a great deal too straightforward. Gossip requires a bit of give and take. Flexibility.

“Right. I see. That was the very devil of a briefing, Doomsday. I know you said you liked to be invaluable, but I didn’t realise you meant it.”

I never learned to dance—would you believe that’s all but demanded of officers? Bloody ridiculous cavalry twiddle-poop.”

If you want me to continue the d’Aumesty line, Christ knows what for, you’ll need to give me a list of instructions, or find me an etiquette guide or some damn thing.” “A nobleman’s guide to courting a countess?

He wasn’t going to say any of that. If he started blurting things out, God alone knew where he’d stop.

“What do you want the room to feel like?” “Feel?” “The mood that it has, or that you want it to have when you walk in. You don’t sit in that room at all; you only pass through it to go to bed. What should it feel like to make you want to stay there, with a book or a drink or a friend?”

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.

Luke knew exactly what he was doing, and 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.

God damn it, Doomsday, are you proposing to change your hand for me?”

He could. He shouldn’t. He should. He couldn’t.

Rufus didn’t lust where he didn’t like. But he liked Luke Doomsday so very much, and now lust was flooding him in a way he’d never experienced in his life.

“I know the law; I’ve broken it plenty of times. I know Romney Marsh better than you. And I will conduct my life as I please.” “Not under my roof!” “I was outside,” Doomsday pointed out. “You know damned well what I mean.” “I do, and no.” Doomsday folded his arms. “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.”

“Tell me you’ve thought of oil.” “In my pocket.” “Absolutely enragingly competent,” Rufus said. “I may have mentioned that.”

Luke’s fingers paused on Rufus’s right thigh, where gnarled scar tissue told its story of the musket ball and, far worse, the camp doctors. By comparison the various sabre-slashes were quite tidy. “You don’t mind this?” “I minded a great deal at the time, but 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.”

“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.” Luke’s dark eyes looked huge. “I believe that you would hear my ‘no’. Could I persuade you to hear my ‘yes’?” “I would take that with pleasure.” Rufus’s chest felt rather tight. “A lot of pleasure.” “Promise?”

“There’s no such thing as a right you can’t enforce.”

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

But he’d been pushed into a corner, he’d had no other way out— That wasn’t true and he knew it. He’d wanted Rufus so much, and when the temptation had been there in front of him, along with the perfect excuse to give in to it, he hadn’t resisted. If you could describe grabbing what he wanted with both hands as “not resisting”.

You’ll never fall in love in your life, one of his partners had told him. That or you’ll do it once and once only, and God help you if it’s a mistake because you’ll be stuck with it.

All right, I’ll tell you what I reckon Granda would say.” “What?” “He’d say, do you need to apologise?” “Of course I do. I told you, I can’t.” “You can’t apologise? Or you don’t think he’ll forgive you if you do?” “He won’t.” “Maybe not,” Joss said. “But the question wasn’t, can you get away with this? It was, do you need to apologise?”

“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.

“The idea is, a funeral is for the best in a man. You say he was a good soldier even if he wasn’t, that people will miss him even if they don’t; you wish him the best for where he goes next, even if you expect the worst. We all need that last charity; none of us look good on a close accounting. But sometimes you need to say other things too, so we had what the classics fellow called libations. Drinks for the dead.”

“Christ. My Doomsday. End of my world.” “Hold me,” Luke whispered. “Have me.”

“He means, I’m scared you don’t care, so I’m not giving you a chance to prove it,” Emily said. “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.”