Page 42 of Seduced

“It’s really getting bad, if they are employing young girls, don’t you think?”

“I do.” Nikolaos was frowning. “Is it true? Did you really discover a woman spy in your club?”

“It is quite true, I’m afraid. I am so sorry, Nikolaos. I vow to you that I shall get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes. I shall find out who the girl is, who sent her, what she knows…I’ll find a way to make her spill all her secrets.”

“Thank you,” Nikolaos said. “I cannot imagine what would induce a human being to be as kind to me as you have been. You haven’t known me for that long, and I…”

“I first heard about you,” Alexei interrupted him, “from your stance on the French Revolution. I imagine it was your thoughts on that that led you to take the Greek cause as close to your heart soon thereafter. When I heard that you were in need of a hiding spot, the decision to offer you the use of my club was instant.” Nikolaos lifted a hand to wipe his face. “Also, contrary to what people say, assisting people to their death or observing them being killed while I do nothing, is not really my style.”

“I can only thank you once more,” Nikolaos said.

“You would do the same were my life in danger,” Alexei bowed to him. “Now. I’m afraid I must be on my way. Is there anything else I can do for you? Something to help you pass the time?”

Nikolaos had already begun shaking his head, but suddenly he stopped. Looked up.

“One of the servants let it slip,” he said, his eyes finding Alexei’s in the semi-darkness, “that this place….that…”

“Out with it, Your Highness,” Alexei urged him when he hesitated, thinking that the prince was after some form of carnal pleasure, of which there was an abundance offered at the Hell Club. “I should think we have no secrets between us.”

“Quite right,” Nikolaos smiled, “we do not. My life is in your hands, in every possible way. What I wanted to ask, was this: Are there any spare cats in the club?”

twelve

Poppy

Poppy woke up feeling refreshed and fed, a completely unfamiliar feeling. The smell of fried eggs and bacon reached her nostrils, and she realized, as soon as she was awake enough to get a good grasp of her surroundings, that she was neither cold or hurt: life could not get any better than this.

Heaven, it was pure heaven.

It did not last long.

She was seated on the carpet in front of the fire, with Dante and Rania, each of them wrapped in fur, eating their millionth toasted bread with jam for the day, when the door was flung open and Hades stood at the opening.

He looked, to put it as politely as one might, like death warmed over.

And just as rested as if he had spent the night ferrying souls to the other side.

“Have you eaten your fill yet, Miss Wyatt?” he asked in that hard, arrogant tone of his, leaning his tall frame against the threshold in a completely devastating way.

Wait, why did I just think that?

“Or should I employ His Majesty’s armies to keep you in a constant supply of bread and strawberry preserve throughout the day?” he went on. He seemed to draw a perverse enjoyment from finding clever ways to insult her, even though his sculpted face was entirely expressionless. “Ihear the Prince Regent serves a luxurious spread in his palace, but I doubt it would be enough to quench your needs.”

“What do you want, Alexei?” Dante asked rudely with his mouth full.

“I want this one,” Hades replied, indicating Poppy with a jut of his chin. “So we can start.”

“Start what?” Poppy asked, her mouth equally full, if not much fuller than Dante’s. “My lord,” she added belatedly.

“Your cross-examination,” Hades replied, in his most unpleasant tones. “Until you spill all your vile secrets.”

“Ba wabn’t sbaing,” Poppy said. It was supposed to have been ‘I wasn’t spying’, but there was butter in the way.

“Up, Miss Wyatt,” Hades said, turning to leave. “The first part of your torture is going to be a tour of the Underworld.”

Dante stopped eating so abruptly, a scone fell from his open mouth onto his lap.

“Oh no,” he said, and then he said what Poppy’s brother would call ‘a rude word’ and would assign three hours kneeling on the rice to atone for. “Mikailoff, no.”

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