Page 7 of The Sound of Seduction (Miracles on Harley Street #4)
A fter he’d spoken with Alfie and Andre again, Stan turned to leave for the Langley’s—but paused mid-step, one hand in his coat pocket. A voice cut through the corridor behind him.
He didn’t need to turn. That clipped edge, sharpened by Prussian disdain, could only belong to Baron von List.
Sometimes speaking of the devil does indeed conjure him up.
Stan’s pulse surged. Cold tension threaded through his shoulders, knotting at the base of his neck. He hadn’t seen List since that cursed card game, but just the sound of him—here, this close—tightened every muscle into readiness.
So it begins. The one man who could unravel everything—Transylvania, Harley Street, the Klonimuses, Wendy.
He glanced left, toward the misty glass door of Alfie’s apothecary. Inside, only shadows and streaks of light. But Stan didn’t need to see. His instincts already screamed that whatever List was doing here, it wasn’t by chance.
Stan stepped back, his heel brushing against the hallway runner and slowly leaned closer. A faint scuff of indistinct footsteps echoed from somewhere—farther down the hall or perhaps above.
The Baron’s voice cut through again, low and deliberate. “So, you believe this to be only temporary?”
There was a pause—just long enough for Stan to crouch slightly, feigning an adjustment to the buckle of his Hessian boots in case anyone found him—but he angled his head slightly toward the frame of the door.
“Entirely temporary,” came the reply, Nick’s familiar tone casual and breezy. “With due care and some chamomile compresses, I imagine it will improve soon.”
The scrape of a wooden chair rang faintly through the threshold, followed by the tired groan of a floorboard.
Stan held his position, an outer calm in sharp contrast to the twist in his gut.
What fleeting ailment could List need curing here?
What ailment at all, for that matter, when the man had the arrogant confidence of one impervious to such vulnerabilities?
And what nerve did he have to seek advice from the doctors he was trying to ruin?
He was the worst sort of hypocrite and no better than so many noblemen Stan knew all too well.
The door clicked softly, startling Stan upright.
It opened with an insistent push, flooding the hallway with the menacing presence that List carried like a foreboding storm cloud.
Stan barely had time to rise from his crouch and straighten his coat.
Baron von List stepped out with the sharp discipline of a man accustomed to commanding attention, his frame creating a lean silhouette in the light.
Stan met his gaze—a steely, pale blue diluted further by disdain. The Baron’s mouth curled faintly at the corner, his eyes drifting momentarily to Stan’s hands near the Hessians, as though to silently comment on the awkwardness of his position.
“ Prinz Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was für ein Zufall, nicht ? What a coincidence, isn’t it?” the Baron said, with a throat-clearing precision that seemed to rid the syllables of any warmth or sincerity.
Stan forced a flat expression, pulling his gloves from his pocket with deliberate slowness. “Baron,” he said with a Germanic baritone in acknowledgment, giving no indication that he respected the man in the least but was a match to him regardless.
Von List lingered where he stood, motionless save for one quick movement.
Stan caught it—the subtle way the Baron’s hand curled around something as he reached toward his coat and slipped something into a pocket.
It was small and brown, catching the light briefly before vanishing from sight.
A vial. Glass. The kind with droppers Alfie often used for exacting measures of tincture.
Stan’s chest seized with suspicion; every nerve honed with sharp awareness.
His face, however, betrayed nothing. He nodded once, tugged his gloves over his fingers, and pivoted to leave.
But his steps—as even and precise as he made them—were slower than before.
Each step made him painfully aware of the soft padding of boots behind him as List headed in the other direction.
Nick appeared at the doorframe, leaning casually against the wooden edge as von List left through the front door. Despite his rolled-up shirt sleeves, his easy manner contrasted with the keen sharpness of his worried tone.
“List’s audacity to come to you for treatment is stunning,” Stan said.
“Well,” Nick said, his voice low but edged with significance, “that man’s about as welcome as a fox in a henhouse.
But if we turn him down, it might be worse.
” He crossed his arms, nodding toward the direction von List had gone.
“No good’s going to come of whatever he’s plotting. You feel it too, don’t you?”
Stan nodded, his gaze level and unreadable, but his brow slightly furrowed. “He wouldn’t have come here without a reason. Whatever it is, it bears watching.”
“It does.” Nick exhaled heavily, some of his usual lightness returning as he straightened and took a step closer to Stan.
He smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“He’s the worst sort of patient, always threatening with his connections—as if he could pull a lever to ruin our practice at his whim. ”
“Yes, I know the kind. It doesn’t behoove the nobility to threaten honest people who work for a living, hmm?” Stan frowned. He feared he’d be no better and deserve his title even less if he couldn’t resolve the threats List meant for Transylvania, his home.
But then Nick’s grin softened, and his voice lowered.
“You can frown all you like, Stan, and even if you don’t acknowledge it, I will.
You might be a prince, but no one’s more down-to-earth than you.
” He paused, shaking his head as if marveling at the thought.
“It’s not all men who’d get their hands dirty when they don’t have to—you’re a man of honor who happens to have a title. ”
Stan shifted uncomfortably, his mouth opening slightly as if to protest, but no words came.
Instead, Nick clapped a firm hand on his shoulder and continued, completely undeterred.
“And don’t go forgetting this either—you’ve earned our loyalty not because of what you were born into, but because of the man you’ve chosen to be.
If von List tries anything, you won’t face him alone. You’ve got me, and more besides.”