Page 80 of Seduced

“A murderer,” Alexei couldn’t contain himself any longer, “if the state of your knees and your malnutrition are anything to go by. When I took you, you were close to…You were in a bad way.”

“You on the other hand,” Poppy said, “have done me nothing but kindnesses since I have known you.”

“What?” Alexei’s voice was a screech.I don’t screech.“Forgive me,” he added quickly, as her eyebrows shot up in surprise, “but to me, that sounded like an insult.”

She tried to smile, but her mouth would not oblige her, still trembling with more unshed tears.

“You shall have to bear it, I am afraid,” she said. “You, sir, are nothing but a rescuer. Since I have known you, I find that you do little more than rescue others all day long. Cats, broken boys with a taste for opium, and girls dressed as men, about to be drowned in the Thames.”

Alexei shuddered at the memory.

“That I did despite myself, I should remind you.”

Poppy shrugged. “You did it anyway. And Rania told me how you saved her as well, and I am guessing, countless others. I have a sudden vision of you visiting every whorehouse in London, and taking with you any girl that you found beaten, starved or struggling in any other way, to bring her here to your club to be fed and paid and dressed in silks.”

Alexei stayed silent.

“I think I am right,” Poppy said, “and that that is exactly what you did. Your silence condemns you, my lord. And now I find that you rescued me, as well.”

Alexei spread his arm around the room.

“You call this rescuing?”

Poppy looked him straight in the eyes, and his breath caught. He had looked at those clear, big eyes so many times, but he hadn’t realized it until now: they had rarely looked back. But now they did, and there was defiance in them, as if Poppy had to win some sort of internal battle in order to be brave enough to look directly at him.

The result was so beautiful, he couldn’t draw breath.

“I found my voice here,” she said, not taking those eyes off him. “I found a friend; two friends, actually. Rania and Dante. No one punished me or screamed at me here—well, you did, a few times, but it was not in anger. No one made me kneel on—”

“Please don’t say it,” Alexei cut her off, his stomach rolling again.

“Well, no one did that. My knees are being healed. I found freedom here and good things. How long had it been since something good happened to me? I cannot even remember. And I don’t know if this is supposed to be hell or not; all I know is that this is the place where I smiled again after years.This is the place where I found kindness; and, more importantly, this is the place where I found food.”

Alexei stood up abruptly, almost fainting in the process, and walked to the fireplace again. He had suddenly gotten lightheaded. Would the girl ever stop making him almost cry? It was embarrassing, annoying, and really quite rude.

One did not go around to people’s houses making them weep like little boys without a word of warning.

Well, Miss Wyatt hadn’t come around to his house: for one, he did not have a house, and for another, he had taken her away from hers.

The idea that this might have been a good thing was more than he could process at this time.

I need to get out of here. Now.

‘I find that you have rescued me too.’

I do not rescue people.

I harm people.

I am Hades, harbinger of doom.

I am by nature a disaster. I am rotten to my core. I am—

“Excuse me for a moment, my dear, will you?” was all he could say, before his voice betrayed him.

He practically ran out of his own rooms, as if the very devil was chasing him. He had barely reached the hallway and closed the door behind him, when he bent at the waist, and fell on the floor in a near-swoon, gasping for breath.

There, he thought, before darkness overcame him,at least you didn’t faint in front of her. Now, that was graceful.

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