Page 56 of Seduced

No. No one had.

“I thought your lordship said that no one could ever seduce you anyway,” she said quietly.

He almost kissed her again just to make the words stop coming out of her mouth.

“It is true,” he said instead, gritting his teeth. “Was.”

“I did not s—” Poppy interrupted herself. “At any rate,” she said, attempting to straighten her dress as she stood, “you won, Your Lordship. I cannot endure this any longer.”

“I’m sorry,” he turned away, suddenly gripped by a rage he could not explain.She cannot endure it, can she?“If I was insufficient.”

That was what always happened, wasn’t it?

No matter what he did, he was never bloody enough.

He hadn’t been good enough for his father to want him, he hadn’t been good enough for his country, he hadn’t been good enough for that bloody orphanage. And now he hadn’t been good enough for this angel of a girl. Then again, who could be?

But it still stung like the devil’s own dagger had been plunged into his chest.

“You were,” she answered immediately, before his thoughts had been allowed a chance to spiral further into the inferno. “Rathertoosufficient, if you get my meaning.” His heart gave a thud and he could swear that Poppy Wyatt was actually trying to kill him. Murder him dead. “And there is noneed to speak in this icy manner, you know. You were all fire before.”

“I am still,” he said quietly. “I apologize.”

“Stop bloody apologizing!” The words burst out of her with vehemence and he turned to look at her in surprise, only to find that she herself looked just as shocked at her own outburst, if not more.

A laugh escaped him.

“I’m…It somehow feels as if saying ‘I’m sorry’ right now might earn me a smack across the cheek,” he said.

“It well might,” Poppy replied, turning to the window, and pressing her hands against her flaming cheeks. “I wouldn’t attempt it, if I were in your lordship’s shoes. Now, do you or do you not want me to answer your burning question?”

“My…what?”

“Why I was here than night?”

“Oh, that.” He had entirely, completely forgotten about that. “Yes, please.”

“Right.”

Her tone was all business, although he could detect a small wobble in there somewhere. But she did her best to hide it, and to stand straight and tall, and he mentally took his hat off to her.

This might just be the bravest human being he had encountered in his entire life.

“Follow me,” she said, rather snappishly.

Or the stupidest.

“Are you ordering me, Miss Wyatt?” he said, crossing his arms, and refusing to budge an inch from where he stood. She was almost at the door now, swollen lips and disheveled hair and all, apparently waiting for him to follow. Absurd, that’s what she was, absurd. “I do not respond well to being ordered around.”

“You don’t?” she asked, feigning surprise. “What if I told you to kiss me, instead?”

He inhaled sharply.

Damn the chit. Too clever for her own good.

“Would you be more inclined to follow me, if that was your other option?” she asked.

Alexei felt the blood drain from his head.

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