Page 7 of Seduced

“Poppy,” he said in tortured, long-suffering tones, “eavesdropping is a sin. You know that, yes?”

“Yes.”

Oh, right.Thatwas what she had done.

Eavesdropping was a sin.

She knew that now.

It was a sin worthy of a few hours of kneeling on seeds, and having them ingrained in her skin. It was a sin worthy of unbearable pain, and of not being able to walk. It was a horrible, horrible thing.

“Good girl.” Her brother smiled. It was more of a wince, but Poppy’s heart fluttered. Sudden tears threatened, shedidn’t know why. “Come here, you poor girl,” her brother’s voice was all kindness suddenly, as he opened up an arm for her to crawl into his embrace. “Oh, how you suffer against the temptations of your flesh.”

Poppy fought the tears, but it was hard to resist, because every single bone in her body hurt, and she was so cold that her brother’s reluctant touch was warm enough to reduce her to a blubbering mess.

“There there,” he said, and the warmth in his voice was such a huge contrast to the coldness of it before, that she suddenly was consumed by the fierce want, no,need, to keep that warmth there.

Longing overwhelmed her until she could barely breathe.

“I would do anything for you,” she said, and meant it. Anything to keep that frosted tone away, anything to stop the hurt. “Anything.”

“I know, my dear,” her brother said gently. “It is to God you have sinned, not to me.”

“Of course,” she replied, because that was what he would like her to say.

“Good girl,” he passed a hand lightly over her long hair. She hadn’t even had a chance to braid it. “You won’t ever eavesdrop again, will you?” She shook her head fiercely. “I know you won’t. Not after seeing the consequences today. It’s not worth it.”

She had overheard—and then proceeded to eavesdrop on—a conversation in the library between her brother and one of his parishioners.

That is what she had done.

“He…” she hesitated, then stopped altogether.

Her brother’s hand stilled on her hair and she froze, absolutely froze, bracing herself against another bout of frostiness. Surprisingly, it didn’t come.

“Tell me,” her brother said gently, resuming the motion.

Relief made her so weak she could barely think.

“The man you were speaking to,” she said, hardly knowing what she was saying, “in the library, he was shouting. I hadn’t meant to overhear, I really hadn’t. But he was shouting that he was about to kill himself.”

“He was,” her brother sighed again. “Sin pushes people to destruction. This was nothing more than the fruit of his own depraved actions. I don’t know where the surprise lays.”

“I wanted you to save him,” Poppy said.

“I wanted that too,” her brother said. “Or rather, for God to save him. I am but a mere mortal.”

“Yet it was to you that he came to ask for help and guidance.”

“Indeed.” She heard a smile in his voice. Her words had pleased him. She felt as if she had won a prize. “And he did find it, praise be to the Almighty.”

“Indeed,” Poppy replied, although secretly she wasn’t so sure that the man had found help.

The man had ruined himself at a gaming hell, and had come to her brother desperate, begging for a solution other than suicide. But in lieu of help, the ruined man had found a lecture which had lasted more than two hours, a diatribe on the vices of gambling and sin, and then had been sent merrily on his way in the small hours of the morning, whereupon Poppy had been discovered listening at the door.

The rest of her brother’s night, or rather his early morning, up until now, had been taken up by disciplining Poppy.

But the question in her head remained.

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