Page 78 of Seduced

“Come here,” he murmured, fitting his chin above the top of her head. Her hair was soft as a flower’s petals and it smelled of soap. “I’m sorry,” he said helplessly, for the hundredth time. “I am so sorry, Wyatt, I’m sorry.”

Had he ever apologized so much in his life?

And it still was not enough. It would never be.

“Tell me everything, please.” Her voice was calm and normal, which took him by surprise. He had not expected her to be so collected. She lifted her head from his chest and he let her step away and claim as much space away from him as she wanted. “Please.”

Her eyes were swimming with tears, but they weren’t spilling any more.

Alexei ran a hand through his hair, flexing the fingers that had touched hers, that had been wet with her tears. They tingled down to the bone.

How can one woman affect me so much?

“My dear, I cannot…’Tis not fit for a lady’s ears.”

Finally, those eyes found his. They were not dead or unfocused now. There was fury in them, fury and pain. Alexei’s heart lurched.

“Tell me,” Poppy repeated in a queenly tone. “I’ll have the truth. All of it.” She lowered her eyes, but they snapped back at his. “And I am not your dear,” she added.

Alexei swallowed.

How had it come to pass that he was at the mercy, no, at the beck and call, of this girl?

He who held state secrets in the palm of his hand; he who decided the fates of nations by an invitation for a game of hazard; he who hid Greek princes in his club?

But a man should know when he was defeated.

And Alexei was utterly, completely destroyed. By her.

So he started talking, although the very telling of the story gave him so much pain he could almost feel its physical effects.

“It was like this, Miss Wyatt,” he said. “Your brother is—was—a regular at the Hell Club.” He felt her go still beside him, but she did not say anything; she just let him talk. “That night, he…He lost heavily at cards. He always did, but that night, he lost everything, Poppy. I am so sorry. He lost the house, his post, his inheritance, the tithes from the parish, everything he could think of. He gambled it all away, insisting that his luck would turn. But instead, he kept losing and drinking, and losing, and he could not be stopped. Finally, when there was nothing else left to gamble, he…”

Alexei stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he said stupidly.

“Yes, you said,” Poppy replied. Waiting.

“He gambled his sister. That was when I stepped in,” Alexei continued, bringing a fist to his mouth. “I had no idea who his sister was, you understand, but even I, depraved as I am, realized that what was happening was beyond vile. At that point, incidentally, it had been about a week since I had met you, in your boy’s clothes. It had struck me as so strange then, the way you had reacted at the card room’s door. You had fallen to the ground, barely able to breathe…”

“I had seen him,” Poppy said quickly, as if she wanted to be done with this subject sooner rather than later. “I had seen my brother through the open door. I had seen him at the gamblers’ table, and I knew that he was a liar and a hypocrite. That’s why I had fallen to the ground, gasping for air like a fish out of water. I had not…I had thought him to be quite a different person, you see, and seeing him here, like that…He had looked comfortable, as if he belonged here. As if he came often. It nearly killed me.”

Alexei brought a finger to his collar.Hewas the one who couldn’t breathe now.

“It still does,” Poppy whispered.

“Well,” Alexei said slowly. “I don’t know if you remember, but I caught you in my arms that night. You were not alone.”

“I remember.”

“And that was when I realized what a colossal fool I’d been. Right away, when I touched you, I knew this was no boy I was holding in my arms.”

“Took you long enough,” Poppy murmured.

“I am, after all, a fool,” Alexei agreed. She stayed silent and Alexei took a deep breath. “So anyway, that night when your brother was gambling everything away, when he finally came to…to you, I stepped in and said that I would pay all his debts, if he played against me and won. He didn’t. He lost you to me, instead.”

He licked his dry lips.

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