Page 14 of Greed: The Savage (Seven Deadly Sins #7)

A ddien allowed herself to be escorted from the room by one of the baroness’s strapping footmen. Broad of shoulders, narrow of hips, oozing with muscles, he could have been any guard inside the Devil’s Den.

Which is no doubt the very reason she wanted her alone time with Malric.

An unpleasant sensation soured her stomach and left an even more sour taste in her mouth.

Leave the woman to him, Addien thought to herself as she walked a ridiculously long distance upon an even more ridiculously long, wide white Italian marble floor.

No doubt installed to further accentuate, as if any accentuation was needed, the garish wealth the baroness had been born to and married.

The two of them could have one another. They suited each other perfectly.

That was, except for one glaring distinction that she wanted to dismiss, but couldn’t.

He’d let her make the ultimate call about whether to end the meeting or not.

He would’ve supported her either way, but he’d let her, Addien, make that decision, and a man like the Marquess of Thornwick wouldn’t cede Satan’s throne to the Devil himself.

He craved power, and he celebrated his role as a superior at the Devil’s Den.

Nor did she believe he’d done so out of any sense of guilt for his earlier cruelty.

Say what she could about the Marquess of Thornwick, he wasn’t a man compelled to feel any sort of guilt.

No, his had been an acknowledgement she’d realized the minute he looked to her for the decision, an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and ownership of his transgression.

It had been an act far greater than any three-word, empty apology.

Addien looked at a nearby life-sized portrait of the baroness depicted as one of the Greek goddesses. Cloaked in diaphanous white silk and her long curls wreathed with a gilded olive branch, she slanted a come-hither glance in the direction of her admirer.

She sneered. This was the exquisite company he kept.

As her friends at the Devil’s Den aptly pointed out last evening, at the end of the day, Malric was a gentleman.

He didn’t belong in Addien’s world. He’d eventually marry.

If he were forced to choose a woman: inferior Addien of her street born heritage, or the high-born lady who was so busy preening she didn’t know the world was bleeding, he’d always go for the baroness.

That realization shouldn’t hurt the way it did.

“Ahem.”

Addien startled. She looked around and realized she and “Big Footman,” as she’d named him, reached the very last parlor at the end of the hall.

Ah, so she had been banished by the baroness.

“You aren’t to leave until the baroness calls for you,” Big Footman announced. “And if you do, she would like you to be informed she will bring a complaint to the Earl of Dynevor.”

She couldn’t stop herself. “Another one?” Addien refused to let him see the fear his warning provoked.

His lips revealed his displeasure. Without another word, Big Footman caught both gilded handles of the white-painted doors and drew them closed.

Addien sighed.

Alas, he’d deny her the pleasure of a good row.

Her ears caught the faint grind of the key being turned. Click .

Addien’s heart beat hard against her ribcage. He’d locked her inside. Every person born on the streets knew the peril posed by four walls and locked doors.

The primitive desperation inherent in all creatures sent her running towards those door panels.

She just managed to catch herself before she slammed her body into the unrelenting oak barriers.

Bloody hell, find your rage . And she did. Furious indignation rose up inside and Addien refused to give the shadowy fear greater space than it already occupied.

“You’re dealing with a vapid, vindictive peeress, not the likes of Diggory,” Addien muttered to herself. “She ain’t going to go locking you in a room for some nefarious reason.”

A chill scrambled along her spine, even before the nasally voice penetrated the stoning silence of the room.

“No, she wouldn’t. I, however, would.”

Addien faced the stranger attired in a garish, puce-colored satin jacket and tight-fitting matching trousers.

He wore a citrine stickpin of some ten carats at the center of his superfluous satin cravat.

The gentleman was better suited for a masquerade where guests were instructed to don costumes from a bygone decade, not any current ballroom or club in present-day England.

Addien sized him up pretty quickly. Four or so inches taller than her own shorter stature and even more painfully slender. She’d handled brutes on the street two times his size and ruthlessness.

More bored than anything by his presence and clear threat, she schooled her features, considering how fast she could disarm him and be gone from this room.

The fact remained, Baroness Darrow had no doubt sent the dandy to scare Addien and force a reaction that she’d then report to Lord Dynevor.

The baroness was so deucedly bad in her scheming.

Addien fought the urge to give her eyes an enormous roll.

His emaciated slender cheeks were a stark white, so pale as to suggest they’d been painted so as to merely highlight the bright crimson circles that infused that gaunt bone structure.

Addien swiftly corrected her misstep.

“Your lordship,” she greeted with a crisp clarity that Malric, on his worst day with her, would’ve never found fault with. Addien sank into a deep curtsy.

Oh, she resented having to show this bit of fluff such deference, but she did it because she knew the test at play.

“Forgive me, my lord,” she murmured. “I was unaware there was a gentleman present. As such, it’s hardly proper for us to be alone. My apologies for the door being closed.”

As Addien turned, she hid a smug smile. Oh, how she wished all of this Malric was present for. He’d have eaten a hefty amount of crow.

A gloveless, embarrassingly baby-smooth hand shot out past her shoulder. The gentleman slammed his palm against the panel, holding it firmly in place.

Addien stiffened.

This wasn’t necessarily a test being conducted in the hopes of her failing so she could be fired by the baroness after all.

Addien swiftly assessed the actual threat present before her. Addien took several slow discreet slides to the left. So minuscule were her movements as to not draw her potential assailant’s attention to what she did.

“My lord, I must remind you again that it is hardly proper for us to be here alone together.” Addien lifted a defiant chin. “Now I’d ask you again to please step aside.” It cost her nearly everything using a plea for this pile of shite.

“Ah, under ordinary circumstances, you would be correct,” he said. The still nameless stranger flashed a mightily crooked yellow-toothed smile that didn’t reach his rapacious, soulless eyes. “But there is one distinction. Do you happen to know what that is, Miss Killoran?”

Not unlike the baroness had earlier, he used Addien’s borrowed surname as a barb.

This time any worry about Dynevor’s response could be forgotten and damned. She wouldn’t comply with this toad or force herself to give this man of elevated station any sort of reply.

His rouge-red lips, so thin as to be non-existent and only accentuated by the paint smeared there, twisted with his displeasure.

“The difference being I am a gentleman, and you, Miss Killoran, are a street-born rat all done up in fine skirts and fake, fine tones.”

“And?” she drawled, wholly incapable of not baiting him.

His buglike eyes bulged.

Already knowing she’d gone too far, Addien dived farther right and reached for the door handle before remembering—

The dandy shot an arm out and caught Addien square in the solar plexus, robbing her of breath and briefly setting flecks of white light dotting behind her eyes. His blow was not strong, but it had been placed well enough to prevent her from drawing breath to cry out or shout for help.

Not that she intended to. Given her new role, Addien didn’t need to be a burden on these visits amongst the peers. She needed to extricate herself from whatever situation she found herself in.

Fighting to drag air into her lungs, Addien also fought to collect herself.

“I am a gentleman, and you will treat me as such,” he rasped against her ear.

Addien grew desperate for a breath.

Funny, for her earlier assessment of his size and stature, but now his ruthlessness changed his profile.

Still, she’d faced far worse threats and been handled by even more dangerous men.

She’d survived and escaped Diggory and lived to spit on his memory.

It’d be a cool, breezy day in Hell before some nob laid her low.

With her panic in check, Addien breathed. She continued to move away from him; this time, she didn’t bother with careful steps but moved at a quick clip. She’d underestimated the threat he posed. She knew better than to make the same mistake twice.

“Given you are maintaining that you are a gentleman, might I then suggest, my lord, you begin acting as such.” Her governess-like rebuke had barely left her lips when the gentleman backhanded her across the face.

The force of that unexpected blow sent her reeling backwards, painfully and violently, into the bucolic pastoral landscape painted upon the wall.

“Christ .” Addien flexed her jaw. It had been so bloody long since she’d taken a blow. She’d gotten weak if this man, a fellow with a feminine build and soft hand, could knock her wits around with only one hit.

Her chest heaving, Addien remained collapsed against the wall, borrowing support.

“You stupid slut,” he hurled. “I am Viscount Dunworthy, and you are nothing.” With that, he gripped her sharply by the arm and drew her to him. Her chest collided with his padded one.

“Now, let me have a taste,” he mocked.

The hell she would.