Page 21 of Greed: The Savage (Seven Deadly Sins #7)

But in Addien’s dark society, there was no such code. No men looking after women, no women shielding children. Only survival. Every soul for themselves.

In the time she’d come to know him here at the club, Addien picked up the nuances that were strictly Malric’s. The grim set at the corners of his mouth. That slight twitch beside his left eye when he’d been upset.

He didn’t show it, but the courtesan’s words deeply affected him.

Addien cleared her throat. “If you’ll excuse us?”

With a grunt, a fiery-eyed Delilah favored the marquess with one last black glare and let herself out.

For all the earlier resentment she carried, and jealousy, she didn’t want that on her account.

This guilt was like he had bathed in it, soaked his skin until it got in there good and deep, and wore it now like human flesh.

Maybe it was because he had saved her. Maybe it was because he had possibly beaten the viscount to death.

Either way, the gentleman was going to be wishing he died after the beating he’d been dealt.

Maybe it was because he’d cared when Roy hadn’t even given her a glance upon her return.

And perhaps that was also why she hadn’t much cared when Roy called her by her given name.

So many questions. So many maybes. Perhaps as so much unknown.

When they were alone, Addien spoke on her friend’s behalf. “I am sorry. She is protective of—”

“Do not apologize.” His eyes like storm-dark glass revealed the dark storm clouds gathering before a tempest. “I deserve that and more,” he said between teeth clenched so tight it was a wonder he didn’t crack those neat, pearly white, even rows.

“I should have been there. You shouldn’t have been alone. ”

He was torn up with guilt.

She’d been petty enough to want him to feel like a bastard—and she had succeeded more than she’d ever intended. What a hollow victory.

She didn’t want his guilt. She wanted…more. Things she couldn’t even put a name to.

Oh, in the immediacy of the attack, she’d been seething with jealousy, but when the day was said and done, Addien didn’t expect anyone to take care of her. Certainly not a man. Her resentment had been rooted in something far baser—insufferable jealousy over what he’d been doing with the baroness.

“What ’appened today, Malric? It wasn’t your fault.”

“It absolutely was,” he said quietly, cutting her off—back to his usual self-control, the way she’d always known him.

Bristling with indignation, challenging her at every turn, but master and commander of himself in an instant.

“I had an obligation to protect you. You deserve to be protected.” His words made her warm all over.

“That was my fault.” Malric thumped a fist against his chest. “I own my transgression.” His arm dropped uselessly to his side, his grimace deepening. “Though that brings you no relief.”

Addien wasn’t a woman who blamed one man for another’s evil. “You were meeting with the baroness.”

He flinched. “I’m well aware,” he said tonelessly.

She gave him a half-smile. “You fail to understand my meaning.”

His gaze sharpened. “Your meaning, madam?”

Addien stepped closer, and he instinctively mirrored the movement. “You weren’t the one attacking me.”

Her assurances made it worse—his eyes went dark and ravaged.

Addien winced. Perhaps there’d been a better way to say that.

She pressed on, determined to make him see reason. “The viscount—and the viscount alone—did what he did. The guilt is his. Consider yourself pardoned, Malric.” She managed a smile, though it trembled at the edges.

Her attempt at levity faltered against the storm in his eyes. He did not soften. If anything, her words seemed to weigh heavier on him, not lighter.

“Thank you again,” she said quickly, unwilling to let him wallow. As much as he was a master at tipping her about, she had learned how to throw him off balance as well. And before his dark brows even snapped together in that rigid line of confusion, Addien beat him to it. “For the bath,” she said.

This time, her efforts to keep him off-kilter proved effective.

Malric grunted. “What reason do you have to believe it was me?”

“Am I wrong?” she riposted.

And wonder of wonder that innocent quality reared itself once more, this time in the form of a small smile.

Smiling!

Days ago, she’d have thought a sneer or snarl were the only movements his mouth could make.

Some cosmic shift had happened in the short span they’d spent together. The volatile plane they’d inhabited together, of sharp disapproval and disgust, had since shifted. Addien hovered in her night shift, finding her way to exist in this new foreign unchartered universe with him.

Compelled—by him, the moment, the nearness—Addien found herself drifting closer, bare feet whispering against the floor. She halted before him. He did not move. Neither did she.

They simply stood, silently taking the other’s measure. Her gaze wandered—hesitant, searching—over the hard, chiseled planes of his face. His hooded stare traced her features as though he beheld her for the first time, yet knew her from some long-forgotten place and strove to place her.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

They both started, stepping apart.

Addien’s mouth went dry; she made to speak, but Thornwick had already turned. Striding to the door with the air of a man expecting interruption, he pulled it open.

A newly hired girl—one of the strays rescued from the streets—entered shyly, balancing a tray. Addien’s brow furrowed at the assortment of items upon it. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the servant moving to depart. As the girl passed the marquess, he dipped his head in a brief bow.

And in that instant Addien discovered the greatest defect in her nature—she did, in truth, possess a heart that could be lost. A small corner of it shifted, startled awake in a way it never had with Roy, nor from anything he had ever done within these walls.

The door closed with a quiet click.

Malric remained.

With his arms clasped behind his lean hips, he stood as steadfast and formidable as a centurion of old—as though, after the day’s events, he had resolved to stand as her guard for all time.

Addien gave a small cough into her fist, several, in fact—pretending some obstruction lodged in her throat.

Something other than raw emotion. It was too much. She had to look away.

Her gaze landed on the items that’d just arrived.

Crisp white folded linens. Two bowls of water. One steaming. One not. Cubes of ice. A pair of scissors.

She looked up.

“I considered you might not wish to speak on the day’s events,” he said.

He’d had them sent to preserve her dignity. Tears welled in her throat.

She couldn’t speak.

Malric filled the silence. “I shared only the most essential details with Dynevor.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll be compiling a report to put forward security measures to prevent any repeat occurrences in the future.” He paused. “I’m requiring Dynevor revoke Darrow and Dunworthy’s memberships.”

Addien lifted her head fast; her eyebrows scrambled to her hairline. He’d see two of his peers cast out because of—

“For all the ill opinions you’ve drawn about me in our time together, Addien,” he said somberly.

“And you are, in fact, right about most.” He paused and seemed to consider.

“Nearly all opinions about my character. But there is no more love lost between me and the peerage than between you and the peerage. I have little respect for men who find their fortunes not in their own efforts, but from ancestors whose good fortune and luck established their place in this world.”

“That’s why you worked for the Home Office,” she said softly.

He briefly squeezed his eyes shut, like the first friend she’d allowed herself in the street who had been stuck with a blade by Mac Diggory for some perceived slight.

She’d hurt him greatly. It didn’t bring her any sense of satisfaction. It didn’t bring her any at all.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” she murmured.

It seemed important. He knew that she didn’t know why.

Just that it did. She may as well not have asked the question.

In fairness, hers had been more of a pronouncement, a startled revelation.

She’d blurted it aloud more than anything.

Maybe it was just she’d wanted him to maybe share something about that loss… something about himself.

This time he proved as unobliging as ever.

“Have a seat,” he directed, heading for the tray.

Bewildered, Addien stared at his tall, broad soldier’s figure as he marched past. Malric stopped beside the bed at the nightstand, where the little servant had rested the provisions.

“Wat da ye think yer doin’?” she blurted.

“Tending you?” he said, his lips slightly twisted with annoyance, as though he were agitated by the fact that his intentions here hadn’t been already figured out by Addien.

“Tending me?” Addien laughed despite the pain it wrought on her slightly smarting head from where she’d taken a hit.

It was only after several prolonged seconds of her amusement and his silence that she registered his sincerity and whistled.

“You’re bloody serious.”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life. Sit,” he commanded.

Strangely, she didn’t rebel. Strangely, his quiet order drew her like a snake she’d once seen, teased from a basket by the sound of a flute while a naked girl danced behind it during one show at the Devil’s Den.

Still, Addien reached the side of the bed but couldn’t immediately bring herself to sit.

A wry smile tipped his lips in the corner, in what was another of the first real smiles she’d ever seen from this man.

“You have a real problem with allowing people to help you.”

Her back went ramrod straight. “I don’t need anyone taking care of me.”

“There’s a difference between being taken care of and letting yourself accept and welcome help.” Malric grunted. “Now sit.”

And this time Addien complied.