Enemies with an Earl: A Steamy MM Enemies to Lovers Regency Romance (E-book)

He’s protective, composed—and hiding a dangerous secret.

Felix Jennings, the Earl of Bentley, has spent his life guarding his family's safety—and his preference for men. Now, he’s stuck with the man of his dreams for an entire week, and it’s threatening to shatter every last shred of his carefully cultivated control. Not even playing the part of unbearable arse can mask his attraction, especially when Felix swears he sees desire in the heated glares Thorne throws his way. But if he’s wrong, it’s his family’s livelihood and his life on the line.

He’s cavalier, sarcastic—and he’s hiding a dark past.

Samuel Thorne, valet and best friend to the Duke of Devonford, despises aristocrats—pompous, self-absorbed scum, the lot of them. And the maddeningly handsome Earl of Bentley is no exception. Sam was forced to valet for him once before and that brief stint was more than enough. Now, his best friend has dropped a bombshell: he’ll be serving Bentley for an entire week. It’s shaping up to be pure torture—one where Sam isn’t sure if he’ll end up kissing the man or killing him.

It’s a volatile affair, where love and hate blur into one.

And just when they each start seeing with more clarity, Sam’s past comes back to threaten everything.

Enemies with an Earl is a sizzling, emotional rollercoaster male/male historical romance with equal parts heartbreak and heat, ending with the most satisfying of happily ever afters. Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, "Good Boy", Hurt/Comfort, Grumpy/Sunshine, Class Differences, "I like when you're mean to me." Please note, this story contains adult language and EIGHT scenes that are deliciously scandalous.

💙 Enemies to Lovers
💙 Arrogant Earl vs Snarky Valet
💙 Hurt x Comfort
💙 Forced Proximity
💙 Hate Sex
💙 "I like it when you're mean to me"
💙 Praise Kink
💙 Touch Starved Hero
💙 Traumatic Pasts
💙 Found Family
💙 Mature Mains (41 & 32)
💙 Innuendo Galore
💙 "Good Boy"

This book contains explicit adult content between consenting adults. This book contains mature themes and elements that may be distressing to some readers, including:
– Homophobia and societal bigotry, including internalized shame and negative self-perception
– Betrayal and entrapment involving intimacy used as a means of conviction, leading to emotional trauma, including depression and PTSD symptoms
– Mention of a parent’s death (death prior to the story), along with depictions of the character’s grief

Prologue

1805

London, England.

Men sat in each other’s laps. Kissing. Fondling.

For everyone to see.

And they didn’t have to hide. Not here.

Excitement, and a fair bit of nerves, thrummed through Felix as he watched the revelry in the alehouse, the men openly dancing with other men. It would never cease to amaze him, watching all these men—people—be free.

“You ready for tonight?”

Felix turned to his best mate, Benedict, whose eyebrows were lifted knowingly. A huff of laughter escaped Felix. He was more than ready. Just needed him to arrive. William. Felix’s heart gave an extra-hard thump.

Felix'd had his share of trysts once he and Benedict had started perusing the cruising grounds, once they’d found their favorite molly houses—and Christ, what a surprise it had been that there were so many. An entire world of others like him.

Felix’s exploration had made one thing extremely apparent: what sort of man he attracted. He’d inherited his father’s height and breadth. Men saw him and wanted to be thrown around, liked his size.

And while he was loving finally exploring the pleasures of the flesh, he’d begun to discover what sort of man he wanted. Felix wanted that, too—a large man to toss him around. To make him feel small. But there weren’t many men larger than him. And just because a man fit everything Felix wanted in the physical sense, didn’t mean they’d be compatible. But he’d finally found someone last week when he and Benedict had been hunting in the Moorfields. William.

“I’ll admit, I'm a mite jealous. That man is a delectable specimen,” Benedict murmured.

Felix’s lips curved. That he was. Benedict had the same taste in men that Felix did. Which was actually how they'd met. Because Felix was Benedict’s ideal type.

Benedict was an actor and incredibly attractive—with rich brown hair that somehow always looked sex-tousled, and striking green-blue eyes that promised devilry. When he was on stage, he was captivating. A little over a year ago Felix might have…started attending every performance Benedict was in.

Felix hadn’t been as subtle as he’d thought, because one night after a performance, Benedict had ambled past Felix, and bold as you please, had murmured in Felix’s ear: I've felt your gaze for weeks. Follow me and I'll give you the kind of performance they'd never dare to put on stage. Felix had stood there in shock. Because men didn’t just approach men like that. Did they?

Apparently, they did. That was when Felix realized how different it was for him versus men of a lower-class. If he did something like that and approached the wrong man, it’d be all over the scandal sheets. As the heir to the Earldom of Bentley, his every move was watched, scrutinized. But for Benedict, he had an element of invisibility that made it easier to move around.

Felix hadn’t been able to resist the invitation—not as a nineteen-year-old who hadn’t ever even kissed a man. The curiosity, the bone-aching want, had been too much. And while Benedict and he had quite a bit of fun—Felix had also found Benedict fun as a person—there was a physical attraction, but nothing more. They’d quickly fallen into a fast friendship, where Benedict exposed Felix to the underground world that existed for people like them. Like this alehouse, a place designated for men like them. Mollies.

Some men seemed to own the term proudly. Felix didn’t think it quite fit him. He was just a man who enjoyed men. A sin, whispered through his mind. Unnatural. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. That’s what the world was determined to believe.

But Felix was extremely blessed. He had a family who knew of his preferences and loved him despite his defect. He could almost hear his mother’s voice, scolding him for thinking that way.

She was a dainty slip of an angel. But one did not cross Lydia Jennings or her family. She was firm in her stance that she believed society were the ones that were defective in their beliefs. And being in this room, full of other people like him? It was a little easier to believe his mother. Because surely there was nothing wrong with this: happiness, joy, love.

Benedict’s elbow dug into Felix’s side. “He’s here!”

Felix’s heart rate picked up, and he scanned the room. His gaze instantly found him, taller than nearly every other man here. Dark brown hair. Wide shoulders. Square jaw. A shiver stole down Felix’s spine.

“You’re giving yourself away.”

Felix caught Benedict’s eye, whose gaze flicked to Felix’s breeches and then back up. Felix’s cheeks heated, but a grin spread across his face. “Can you blame me?”

Benedict let out a wistful sigh. “No, I really can’t. What I wouldn’t give to be the meat in your sandwich.”

Felix snorted. “Maybe with a different man. But I want this one all to myself.”

“Yes, yes. I know. Salt in the wound.” Benedict gave Felix a small nudge. “Go get your man, Perce. And I want all the details after.”

Felix disappeared into the crowd, heading for William. Normally, he and Benedict shared stories—sometimes shared men. But this time? Felix thought he’d want to keep this one for himself. Because as he dragged the man toward one of the private rooms in the back of the building, he knew tonight was the night he’d finally experience what it was like to have a man inside his body. And there was no one more perfect than William to be his first.

***

William’s nose grazed against Felix’s and then he dusted a kiss over Felix’s lips. Felix’s body melted further into the bed. He'd been slightly afraid he’d built William up too much in his mind. That the reality would fall short of his fantasies. But he’d had nothing to be nervous over.

William went to roll off, and Felix quickly pulled him back. “Not yet,” Felix murmured, and William smiled against his lips.

“You like me on you, do you?” William pushed up slightly and grinned down at Felix before settling heavier on top of him. “Like my weight pressing you down.” He flicked up a brow and then thrust his hips gently. It was a tease without any true intent behind it. It was clear William wasn’t ready for another round. But his eyes stretched wide when he felt the very obvious evidence that Felix very much was. “Already?” William’s lips parted, and he glanced between their bodies.

Felix rocked his hips and grinned. “Trust me when I say I’m full of surprises.”

William’s lids lowered, and the heat in his gaze was scalding. “That you are, Perce.”

Felix fought a wince. He never used his real name—no one could find out who he truly was. Only Benedict knew because he trusted Benedict implicitly. Benedict even visited his family’s country home in Kent on occasion. Once Felix's mother had learned he had a new friend, she'd insisted on meeting him. There were no secrets in the Jennings family. It was safer for everyone that way.

“If we’re going to go again, I need sustenance. I’ll get us refreshments.” William’s deep voice rumbled over Felix’s ear, sending a shiver through his frame.

William chuckled. He rolled off Felix, pressed a firm kiss against his lips, and hopped out of bed.

Felix watched boldly as William pulled on a pair of breeches. Urgh. The man was glorious. Felix didn’t know what the man did for work, but it had to be something active. Because the legs on that man? He barely held back his groan.

William opened the door and turned back to Felix. “I’ll be right back.” And with a last smile, he disappeared from view.

As soon as the door clicked shut, a grin swallowed Felix’s face. His stomach was a fluttery mess, and his heart wouldn't calm down. He really liked that man. And the way William kissed him, the way he’d touched Felix. Even when he’d been rough, dominating, there had been a tenderness to the way his hands had roamed Felix. It had Felix feeling all kinds of hopeful that perhaps this was going to be more than just a casual tryst. That it could be more.

They’d only known each other a week, but William had given every indication he was interested in Felix for more than just physical dalliances. Christ, Felix wanted to tell the man his real name. He didn't feel right withholding it after what they'd shared.

He picked up his pocket watch for the umpteenth time. And frowned. It’d been close to thirty minutes since William left. How long did it take to get refreshments?

A muffled bang shook through the room. He fisted the coverlet as the bed shook slightly.

Then yelling and screaming started.

And didn’t stop.

Felix shot off the bed and scrambled for his breeches. Thuds and pounding mixed with the shouts. Glass breaking echoed, and the thud of stomping boots grew louder.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Felix hurried for the door and barely jumped out of the way when it crashed open. The men were on him before he had a chance to react. His arms were pinned behind his back, but Felix wasn’t a small man. He shook and twisted, driving him and the men on him into the wall. Their grips loosened just enough he was able to snake free and dart out of the room.

But he only made it a few paces before more men were on him, shoving him into wall, surrounding him with the stench of sweat and foul breath. The hall was a cacophony of shouting, grunts, and the occasional scream of pain. Others like Felix were being thrust against walls and apprehended by constables and men with truncheons.

Bow Street Runners.

Cold metal pressed against Felix’s wrists, followed by a sharp click. Escape was becoming less and less likely. But if he could escape, even handcuffed, he could try to get to his townhouse. Oh God. Benedict. He needed to find his friend.

He was abruptly thrust forward, and he stumbled, just catching himself before he fell. When he righted himself, his gaze clashed with a man escorting a fellow reveler down the hall, the man's truncheon pressed tight against the poor cove’s neck.

Felix’s gut dropped. The blood in his veins froze. The gaze was steely hard, glinting with something sadistic that had bile creeping up Felix’s throat. And with a slowness at odds with the chaos surrounding them, those lips—lips that had so gently dusted over Felix’s earlier—slid into a sneer.

All fight fled Felix. An odd vacant buzzing stole over him, everything growing distant, hazy, as he was herded toward the exit at the end of the hall. He was trapped in William’s stare. All the softness that had been there earlier was gone, replaced by a thick, ugly contempt.

Felix couldn’t take it any longer and finally looked away. He barely saw where he was being shepherded, barely heard the ruckus surrounding him. Like he’d been submerged in the Thames.

It’d all been a lie.

A scheme to entrap him.

Father had warned Felix that some men would pretend to be like him in their quest to eradicate sodomites. But there was a far greater threat. Internalized shame. That was a volatile, dangerous thing. There were men who might share Felix’s desires, but because society had taught them to loathe themselves, they were compelled to punish others like them—the real deviants. A sick form of atonement. Never in Felix’s darkest imaginings did he ever believe any reformer would go as far as William had.

Felix’s eyes slid shut, realization flooding his lungs, stealing his breath. He was the one who had told William about this alehouse.

He’d led the enemy here.

He knew he should be afraid. Of the consequences. Of what happened next. But all he could feel was…nothing.

Cold, numbing betrayal.

***

“You.” A man pointed at Felix, where he sat on the floor in the cell in the watchroom—Felix and at least twenty other men from the alehouse.

Two constables entered, yanked Felix to his feet, and ushered him out of the cell. He had no idea how long he’d been detained; he’d lost all sense of time. It had been long enough that quite a few men hadn’t been able to hold their bladders any longer. He drew in a cleansing breath as he was finally greeted with air that didn’t hold the sharp stench of urine.

He had no doubts as to where he was headed. They’d slowly been taken away from the holding room one by one. To be set before the magistrate.

Felix’s gut tightened so hard he had to clamp his mouth against a gag. He had to hope there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge him of anything warranting more than a fine. Or imprisonment. Dear God.

But that was better than hanging. They wouldn’t hang him, would they? A peer had never been hanged for sodomy. Everyone always fled before it reached that extreme. The only small positive in this nightmare was Benedict had never joined him in the cell. Which had to mean he got away. Felix's eyes drifted shut for a breath. At least one of them had.

He was brought into the courtroom, and his knee bounced erratically as the magistrate droned on, words Felix couldn’t hear over the panic buzzing in his ears. They had no proof. The only thing he could truly be charged with was attempted sodomy. He tried to take a calming breath. A fine. A short imprisonment. That was the worst of it. He had been alone in his room. No one witnessed anything. They had no proof. He chanted it over and over in his mind.

A witness was called to the stand, and Felix’s head jerked up. A witness? Witness to what? There had been nothing to witness.

And that was when everything grew so much worse. The air turned cloying, too thick to breathe. Because William approached the stand. Felix watched as the man who'd just been intimate with him earlier that night, went on to inform the magistrate that he witnessed Felix committing a most “unnatural and heinous crime” with another man. That if Felix was inspected, they would have sufficient proof of Felix’s crime.

Felix hadn’t realized a person’s body could hollow out, like someone had taken a scalpel and sliced out each one of his organs until he was left nothing but an empty bleeding mess. He shifted on the hard wooden bench where he sat, the uncomfortable sensation of the evidence William had left behind drying on his skin. A glaring mark of the man’s betrayal. And Felix was helpless to do anything about it because if he said anything, it would only implicate him. So, he had to sit in silence, while the first man he’d ever allowed inside him condemned him to the gallows.

A clerk approached the magistrate and slid a note before him. The magistrate’s eyebrows lifted infinitesimally as he scanned it, but then he nodded. “Charges are dropped. The plaintiff is dismissed.”

William’s mouth dropped open, and he sputtered in outrage.

“Order!” the magistrate barked, cutting through the man’s tirade. “This hearing is concluded.”

A heavy silence fell over the courtroom. The clerk approached Felix and beckoned him to follow. What on earth was happening? All eyes in the courtroom burned into his back as he followed the man. His body shook, as though the chaos of the night had eaten away at his muscles, leaving them weak and ineffectual. Why would the magistrate dismiss his charges, him, so swiftly—for no apparent reason?

Once in a back hall, the man paused and lifted a key. “Let me help divest you of those, my lord.”

My lord. Elation and panic surged through him. Which the man must have noticed. “No one besides myself and the magistrate knows.”

How? Who? What did…? Felix couldn’t form a single question, his mind a discordant echo of disorientation.

“He’s awaiting you in the carriage just outside.” The man pointed toward the discreet exit.

Felix sucked in a breath, hoping he was going to see who he thought he was going to see when he stepped out of the building.

Please, please, please.

He passed through the exit and froze, gaze landing on his father sitting in the carriage in the back alley of the courthouse.

In the next moment he was at the carriage’s opening, yanked into his father’s arms, tight, warm reassurance wrapping around him in a painfully fierce grip. The kind only a father could give. One that said if he squeezed Felix hard enough, held Felix close enough, he could ward off all harm, all threat from his son. God, Felix hoped his father could.

Felix sank into that unyielding hold, and the agony of the night finally broke free. Sobs wracked his body, violent, consuming, choking off his air. He let it all out, one convulsing cry at a time—the betrayal, the fear, the helplessness—until all that remained was the quiet, steady belief that he was finally safe in the protection of his father’s arms.

“H-How did you know? How did you f-find me?” he said hoarsely, his words muffled in his father’s neck.

His father rocked him softly, fingers tightening in Felix’s hair where he held Felix to him, the same way he had when Felix had been a small child. “Benedict came to us. Reckless lad stole a horse to get to us. Told us of the raid.”

Felix deflated slightly. Benedict was safe. And he had saved Felix.

He pulled back from his father and settled against the squabs at his father’s side, his head falling on his father’s strong shoulders.

“What about the rest of them?” he whispered.

“There is only so much I can do, son.” Felix met his father’s gaze. “Without drawing any more attention to this than I already have.”

Felix’s heart sank. “We were set up,” he said quietly, chin dipping in shame. “He—they—fooled us. Pretended to be one of us like you had warned me of. And now… Will those men back there hang?” Because of me.

His father tilted Felix’s chin up. “Most will end up with a fine and imprisonment for a brief period. But it depends on the charges. Charges like yours…with proof and witnesses…” His father swallowed. “A time in the pillory, and if they survive that, then the gallows.”

Felix’s eyes slammed shut. “It’s my fault, Father. The man I was—I think I drew them to this molly house. Because I told him of its existence. Brought him there. They’re going to hang because of me.”

“What do you mean?” Father’s sharp words snapped Felix’s attention to his.

Felix swallowed. “I had been discreetly seeing a man, and tonight we arranged to meet here to finally… He led me to believe—” He broke off and the muscles in his face contorted as the pain of William’s betrayal washed over him.

His father’s large, warm hand settled on Felix’s and squeezed.

“The charges he laid against me,” Felix whispered. “They were his doing. He said he caught me in the middle of the act.” Anger, anguish, and shame rose inside him like a wave in a turbulent storm. “He left our room for refreshments after the heinous act he participated in,” Felix spat. “And then the raid happened. He was amongst the reformers apprehending us.” He met his father’s gaze. Something hard and unreadable flashed there.

“Do you have his name?”

Something uncomfortable slithered over Felix’s skin at the threat in his father’s tone. It wasn’t often Felix heard his father sound anything but jovial and light-hearted. But there was a reason the Earldom of Bentley had the reputation it did. A legacy built on power, prestige, and an unwavering command that few dared to challenge.

“I doubt it’s his real name,” Felix finally murmured.

The carriage rolled to a stop.

“Your mother is waiting for you with your siblings. Benedict as well. The coach is ready. You’ll depart for Thornfield Hall forthwith.”

Felix’s eyes widened. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“You need to be far away from tonight’s events. I want there to be no way to place you anywhere near this. Now go. All staff has been informed we left for the country two days prior. And that is what happened. Understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

The carriage door opened, and Felix hurried down the steps to the pavement. But his father didn’t follow. “Are you not coming?”

“There is more that needs to be dealt with. A name, Felix.”

“William Minton.”

His father nodded. “Now go. I’ll follow when my work here is done.”

Felix turned and swiftly made his way into his family’s townhouse. This proved, more than anything, the only people he could trust were his family and Benedict.

Felix would never make that mistake again