Page 22 of Greed: The Savage (Seven Deadly Sins #7)

W omen were meant to be taken care of. Women needed to be taken care of. That law had been written into the marrow of England centuries ago, and as the eldest son and future duke, Thornwick had learned it bloody young.

It began with his mother.

He could still remember the day. It’d been on his birthday, no less.

He’d been just five years old. The morn began as it always did with the old duke browbeating the shrinking duchess for “coddling the boy like a lass,” then stalking out, no doubt to tumble one of the many whores whom he’d gotten a case of the clap from.

While the frail duchess wept copious tears, Thornwick climbed upon her lap, and did what he always did; he brushed away her tears.

That moment had stood out as different. Those tears had been different. Her weeping had been ugly, raw, and wet against his cheek.

The violent force of her sobs, too violent for Thornwick’s hug to heal, broke the duchess. No, Calderay shattered her, the same as if she’d been a marble bust he’d hammered too hard.

From then on, Thornwick became the one to care for her . It’d come so naturally, looking after another human being; there’d been purpose in the act and strategic thought required. His brother came next. And eventually in his service to the Crown, anyone who couldn’t defend themselves.

With time and a hard education in the filth of human nature, he’d learned the truth: women wanted to be cared for. Wanted to be claimed. Even the courtesans he’d spent a handful of nights with had leaned into it—none of them rejecting the attention, though he was no fawner. Those women didn’t last.

He’d known all kinds—from his broken, pitiable mother to manipulative temptresses and willing, compliant lovers. But never—not once—had he met a woman who could be manhandled the way Addien had been today, still carry the marks of it, and insist on looking after herself.

It was confounding.

Infuriating.

Admirable .

And there’d be no day on this earth, not as long as Thornwick prowled it, where Addien would be left alone to lick the wounds inflicted by another.

As Thornwick went about preparing the provisions which had been sent up upon his request, Addien’s direct gaze followed him at every moment.

The small, serviceable vanity reflected her focus as he rolled his bare, slightly damp sleeves up.

He didn’t say anything as he dipped his hands into the clean wash bowl, and soaked one of the small rags a servant had positioned on the tray.

With Addien’s pride, one wrong move or response from Thornwick would have her ordering him out.

Picking the scrap up, he wrang it out and twisted the cloth, wringing off excess water.

For all the ways in which he and Addien were discordant, they moved remarkably well together, each anticipating the other’s movements and intentions. Before he’d even brought the warm cloth up, Addien presented her injured cheek to him.

“I will be as gentle as I can,” he said gruffly. “But given the mark, I fear it will hurt.”

Addien gave a little smile that said, “No, it won’t. I’ve suffered far worse.” And he’d begun to have his eyes opened to not only the truth of that, but what it meant.

The moment Thornwick tenderly pressed the warm cloth on her injury, Addien’s eyes slid closed, and he studied her.

He’d kept files and reports on Mac Diggory, and every other gang, only so much as how those ruthless groups did and could affect the lives of the elite.

The moment danger crept outside its rightful place in the Seven Dials and encroached on High Society, it became a matter of official government business.

There’d been accounts of victims lost, but never by names. They’d inventoried bodies to use as a bellwether for the level of violence in various parts of London.

But they’d been people who lived in daily terror.

Men.

Women.

Children.

His stomach seized up.

Addien.

He’d spoken to her about her work and her responsibilities. He’d dangled the threat of her work over her. Time and time again reminding her if her work wasn’t to the standard Dynevor set and Thornwick maintained, she’d be out. Never once had he ever thought what that would mean for her.

His work hadn’t allowed him to see those around him as living, breathing, vital beings, but more as objects in need of safe-guarding—not unlike the wealth, lands, and heirlooms passed through time.

His late mother and exiled brother were the first and last he’d regarded in a human way. They were also the last ones he’d let himself close to.

Be it his kin or subjects of the kingdom, there’d been a constant—he’d never ceded his obligation to ensure safety and order, and he’d done a bang-up job of it.

Until today.

By Christ, how miserably he’d failed her.

“You’re quiet,” Addien observed.

Thornwick grunted. “I’m always quiet.”

Addien weighed that. “Yes.” She paused. “This feels different.”

It felt different because it was different. He was lost in his head, dwelling on the darker side of humanity and the strife knotted through the fabric of Addien’s life.

He didn’t want to talk about the thoughts inside his head. Thoughts he himself couldn’t make order of. “Should I ring for tea, Miss Killoran?” he drawled with his customary sarcasm to put her off.

Addien snorted. “A fine gent like you would want to summon tea. If you’re ringing, have them send me up either whiskey or brandy.”

Lips pressed flat, the hint of a smile tugged in spite of himself.

Her spirited, infuriating, fiery personality he now saw in a new light. Her mettle had been forged in hells no respectable lady—no woman, no person —should ever face.

She possessed the strength ascribed to those fictional Greek and Roman goddesses who, until this moment, until this woman, he’d believed the stuff of trifling legend and fiction.

What once drove him mad about Addien now proved a source of fierce admiration. How quick she’d gone from infuriating scourge to dauntless jewel.

Thornwick traded the warm compress for a cold one.

Ironically, when the cold fabric touched her skin, it wasn’t pain that sparked her reaction.

“Shite,” she hissed. “That’s bloody freezing.”

His lips formed a grin. “Only you, Addien, would express more discomfort with icy water than the injuries you su—” He quickly caught himself and corrected, suffered to sustained .

Addien would never take to having anything that happened to her described as suffering.

She didn’t say anything for a long bit. She just let him carefully tend her injury.

This time, she made no further grumblings about the temperature.

Granted, it was cooling. But even when he switched for a new cloth and brought the latest frigid linen to her cheek, she only slightly flinched but didn’t complain about the chill.

“Never knew water got this cold,” she marveled aloud.

Perhaps this was Addien’s way of acknowledging the pain of the compress without explicitly stating discomfort.

She added, “And I know a thing or two about the cold.”

His stomach drew tight.

“Do you?” He gave that prompting expecting she otherwise would’ve gone silent on him again.

And he wanted to know more. Maybe it was the job that he’d done for so long at the Home Office, extracting information and developing the systems to get information out of traitors and criminals.

But this, too, felt different. This interest, stemmed from actual interest, in what she had to say of her past origins.

“Yea.” Her gaze fell to the broken pieces of ice. “I shook myself loose of Diggory in the winter. Winters are known for the escaping time on account there’s less effort going to go into retrieving ye.”

She’d traded one peril for the next.

A deep wrench twisted through his core.

Had he even thought about the coldest winter’s night?

The question alone proved he hadn’t. He needn’t remember to know he’d have treated any frosty winter’s eve the same as all lords.

He’d have servants add logs to an already blazing fire and requested more of the thick, velvet-lined coverlets and that they be warmed.

“What did you do?” Where did you go? Who was there to protect you?

But he knew the answer to that latter question he didn’t pepper her with.

No one.

She’d had—

“I’d go between the London churches.” Her lips curled into a sardonic smile. “Knew the last place the Devil would go for me was in the Lord’s house. I’d sneak in through side chapel doors. Hide in bell towers. Choir stalls.” She hesitated. “I found a friend in one of the storage vestries.”

She’d had a friend. Until last night, he’d thought she kept to herself. Today, he grasped Addien craved company.

He’d stake every farthing he owned the proud beauty didn’t even know it. Or, if she did, didn’t realize just how much.

“Where is she now?” he asked.

If Thornwick could have snatched the bloody question back, he would.

A dark shadow flickered in Addien’s eyes.

“We got greedy. She got it into her head if we found a church parish just outside the rookeries, we’d be out of reach of Diggory and in finer quarters.”

Quarters.

A heaviness settled in his every limb.

“The walk was too far,” she said softly, sadly.

“Got stuck out in the cold. Curled up together in an alley.” The graceful column of her throat moved, but her voice did not waver when she spoke.

“Oi tried to keep her talking as long as I could, then kept talking when she couldn’t about all the places we’d run to better than this arse end of England. ”

Tintern Abbey where mist cloaked now storied lands.

“I told her of parts of England Diggory’s girls used to speak about,” she murmured softly.

Stowe Gardens, a Grecian Valley masterpiece cultivated by Capability Brown himself.