Page 68 of Seduced

“Oh.” Poppy did not know how to respond. “You might actually be the best person I have met in my life.”

“Unless you have not met more than one person in your life,” Hades retorted, “that is impossible.”

“Why are you so…?”

“I am sorry for intruding on your privacy like that.” Hades was rigid and tall again, ready to make his escape. Oh, but the man was insufferable. “I was quite…distraught. If you are feeling more the thing in a few hours, you are welcome to join me in the great hall. If you can stomach it. I take my leave of you.”

He bowed quite formally, and left.

She was indeed feeling much more the thing in a few hours, after another soak in a warm bath and a few more hours of sleep. Rania took off to get herself ready, and Poppy was ready to visit the card tables once more, and see if anyone needed rescuing.

Before Rania left, she helped Poppy get inside a dress that was much too light in color and form-fitting in shape. It had no flourishes or embellishments, but instead fell across her body in a simple line, its high waistline right below her breasts, its material soft and silk-like. It had a wide neckline that reached to her shoulders, but was thankfully high enough not to make her feel exposed. It had been years since Poppy had worn anything other than gray.

“Dresses are meant to make you feel beautiful and powerful,” Rania said. “To help you celebrate your own beauty. If you feel comfortable in it, then you should wear it. If not, then no. It’s as simple as that.”

“But what about…?” Poppy stopped, not quite knowing how to continue.

“What about what?” Rania was busy doing up the million little buttons at the back.

“What about society’s opinions? And rules?” Poppy murmured, swallowing down the real question, which was: What if it’s a sin to feel so beautiful?

“Society can go hang itself,” Rania quipped. “If it can pick its jaw off the floor after seeing you look like an angel in this dress.” Her hands, warm and soft, wiped a few stray curls off the nape of Poppy’s neck. “But you do realize, there will be no society up there in the grand hall, don’t you?”

Poppy did.

After all, this was the Hell Club.

When had anything normal happened here? Not tonight, that was for sure.

Poppy walked into the card room, flanked by two of Hade’s guards on either side, at his insistence. She was trying to take deep breaths and remember Rania’s description of her dress, which went something like ‘it fits you like a glove and makes you look like a painting, so have courage and be strong, little one’, when she stopped short, her breath catching.

He was here, just as Hades had said.

The Viscount DeVere.

He looked extremely alive, dressed to the nines. His skin was a little pale, and there was a necklace of purple-black bruises around his throat, almost perfectly concealed by a snow-white cravat. As soon as Poppy entered the room, he jumped up from his chair with a clamor that made all the patrons look up from their tables, and started running in her direction.

The viscount, ignoring the daggers of the annoyed looks sent his way, crossed the entire room in three long stridesand fell on both knees in front of her, grabbing the hem of her dress. He fell to kissing it, his hands shaking.

“Thank you,” he kept saying, his voice thick with tears. “Thank you.”

He kissed her skirt some more, and then his hands were reaching for hers. She was about to snatch her hands away before he could grab them and cry over them too, when someone abruptly struck him down.

“No man’s hands on you,” a voice muttered above her head. Hades’ voice. “Nobody touch her! Get the bloody hell off!”

And then DeVere was being picked up bodily and thrown across the floor.

Poppy just stood there, watching the viscount fall on a heap on the carpet, and wished that the ground would open up and swallow her whole. She could not believe her eyes.

Hades stood over the viscount’s prone body, panting, like some kind of avenging angel. Except he had not avenged anything; he had merely accosted a poor, depressed viscount. Hades panted, his blue eyes dark and huge, as if he himself could not believe what he had done.

That’s it; this is too much.

Keeping her head down, Poppy pushed through the people who were quickly congregating around her, curious to see the spectacle, and fought against tears as she quickly made her escape.

“I’m sorry!” Someone was grabbing her elbow, halting her. She was close to the door now, but still not out. But Hades was there, holding her back, looking down at her with a desperate, drowning look on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, I lost my head. But I never—I never met someone good and pure before, and now I have no idea how to act around you.”

“Well, in that case,” Poppy moved to free her arm from his grasp, and he let her go at once, “let me help your lordship out. I am not good and pure.”

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