Page 2 of Greed: The Savage (Seven Deadly Sins #7)
The earl nudged his chin at her vacant chair, and Addien took his silent command. She reclaimed her seat. As she did, she curled her shaking fingers into her lap and gripped the fabric of her dress hard.
Addien felt his gaze on her white-knuckled grip and made herself stop.
“You always were befitting your name, Snap,” he drawled in what was the closest he ever came to actual humor.
“You know you’re not always in trouble. I don’t even think you could find it with a map with a magnifying glass,” he said.
“You’re good, Snap. You’re good at what you do. It’s why you deserve a promotion.”
What?
“A promotion?” she repeated dumbly.
“You’ve got too much skill to be dressing ladies.”
Addien opened her mouth, but he anticipated her next words.
“You do a fine job of it, Snap. But you’ve got an eye for danger. You can spot it. You can sense it, and you’re strong. Not afraid of any person.”
That wasn’t true. There was one man who’d set terror loose in her body, and even dead, serving his penance in hell, his ghost still had the ability to haunt her.
Taking an inhale from his cheroot, Dynevor stared at her.
This was where she was supposed to speak.
Anyone else would’ve jumped for joy at an advancement in one’s station. Not Addien.
As one who dressed the patronesses here at the Devil’s Den, the stakes were low. And for someone like her, who craved security, the last thing she wanted was an elevated position at the club.
When all was said and done, the greater one’s position, the more attention one drew. It didn’t take much to pick a fine gown out for some lady. In a higher position, any mistake made could cost Addien her place at the Devil’s Den.
Still, Addien couldn’t find words.
Dynevor smoothly exhaled another puff of white smoke.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he said.
“I’ve been searching for the right replacement for you, and I finally found the one.
” His face shadowed with anger. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t the circumstances I’d have preferred to find out a shortfall with the club. ”
“The circumstances?”
Dynevor flicked the excess ashes from his cheroot into a small, empty silver plate. “Wakefield’s new countess.”
Ah, yes. As if she could forget. The current Lady Wakefield, wed to one of the proprietors, had been sold against her will for an auction at the Devil’s Den. It was that kind of error which had the potential to take down a seedy gaming hell—even one run by a future marquess.
“I’m pulling you from the floors starting today.”
He was talking, but her thoughts were spinning as she tried to inject a word in every other statement he uttered. Only a bit of what he said penetrated her careening thoughts.
“…higher pay…”
“…better hours…”
“…close new rooms…”
At some point, Addien registered he’d stopped speaking and stared at her.
“I don’t want any of that,” she blurted with her usual honesty. She’d never been able to shut her mouth.
The earl sat back in his chair and looped his left ankle across his right knee. He took another draw of his cheroot.
Addien wrinkled her nose. She knew what was expected of her here. She didn’t even bother to muster a false face, not even for the head of the club.
“I don’t want it,” she said shaking her head. “Thanks, but no thanks, Dynevor.”
Addien stood.
“Sit your arse down, Snap.”
She instantly fell back into her chair, but did so with a mutinous set to her lips and a glower for the all-powerful proprietor.
“Anyone else would be thankful.” Dynevor sounded more amused than anything.
“I ain’t thankful. I am annoyed,” she bit out with all the force and power behind the monicker he’d given her.
Dynevor took another pull from his cheroot, and then, leaning over, he set it on the edge of that plate. “You don’t like change, Snap. I understand that. I know about it.”
The words he was speaking were all the right ones, meant to give an unsettled person the assurances and reassurances they needed in a charged moment. Coming from Dynevor, however, they emerged more as a cataloged list Cook might take with her to the market.
“This is good for you, Snap.” He’d decided and there was no swaying him. “And you’re doing it. Lady Wakefield had no place being here. She was sent here by her brother.” Dynevor scowled.
“Cut to the bone, Dynevor,” she said bluntly. “What is it you would want me to do in this new role?”
“Not ‘would do,’ Snap. Rather, what you will do. What I’m laying out for you isn’t a proposal, it’s a demand.” The proprietor’s hard mouth formed something between a smile and a sneer that set off a warning. “Am I clear?”
Addien had to bite the inside of her cheek to get her tongue under control. She’d nearly pushed the hard-as-coffin-nails earl too far. He’d been patient, but even he could be pushed too far.
“In your new role, Snap,” he continued, “you’ll enter homes belonging to London’s finest, most respectable lords and ladies, who have a fancy for the most Bacchanalian revels.
” The cynical twist of his lips said clearer than the slight emphasis exactly what he thought of London’s finest, most respectable citizens.
She’d be forced into the company of quality vermin.
Addien gritted her teeth.
Bleedin’ hell. It didn’t get any worse than—
“You’ll be joining Thornwick.”
Addien strangled on her spit and broke into a paroxysm of coughing. As in the Marquess of Thornwick and second-in-command of security at the Devil’s Den.
The last person she’d work with was Thornwick . That smug, self-righteous, pompous swell looked down at all those in the club. That was, all those patrons at the Devil’s Den who were not fellow toffs.
“ Fuck no.” She used every last bit of air in her lungs to make her point clear.
Any other one of the Quality would’ve taken offense.
Dynevor erupted into a guffaw, grainy as a rasp.
Some said those coal-scuffed tones were a product of all the cheroots he’d consumed.
An even many more whispered his voice burnished like smoke over stone came from all the years he’d spent burning down successful businesses, fine townhouses, and vacant and occupied warehouses and buildings for the late gang leader, Mac Diggory.
She agreed with the “many more.”
In a twinkling, Lord Dynevor’s office iced over.
An invasive, marrow-deep shiver wracked Addien’s frame, from nothing more than a thought of her dark master from long ago.
His name didn’t even need to hit the air.
The Under-King lived in the heads, memories, and nightmares of all who’d sold their souls for his protection.
The fact he’d sat at the head of the same organization now occupied by the earl himself meant Addien, and everyone else who’d been part of Diggory’s gang, were visited daily by the memory of his evil and cruelty.
Dynevor’s humor faded to a quiet chuckle.
Why should he feel the same frost of The Under-King? When he’d been a lad, Stephen Warwick, né Killoran, the Earl of Dynevor, had been selected by Mac Diggory, kidnapped, and chosen as the heir apparent of the Devil Diggory’s kingdom of the cobblestones.
Dynevor grabbed a sheet from the table and passed it over.
“All right, Snap, to review your current role here at the Den.”
In quick order, Lord Dynevor ran through a list of her responsibilities, expectations, and every other last detail in between.
Be not just prompt, but early to appointments. Easy.
Dress and conduct herself as a lady . She’d rather die.
Gauge whether women were being coerced or truly wished to partake in the debauchery. Easy enough.
Accompany Thornwick . Horrific.
When he’d finished, he brought the session to a close by standing. “We’re done here, Snap.”
His meaning couldn’t be clearer. She’d either do the job or leave the club, and they both knew that wasn’t an option.
Not only would he distance her from Roy—the only man, aside from Dynevor, that was—whom she’d ever felt comfortable with, but he’d stick her with that silk-swaddled parasite marquess.
It wasn’t enough Thornwick had been born with a title, lands, and a fortune to his name, he had to come to the Dials and take work from hardworking men in the streets.
Addien growled. “Your Lordship,” she said tersely and excused herself. Who’d have known there were different kinds of hangman’s nooses?