Page 60 of Greed: The Savage
The small, serviceable vanity reflected her focus as he rolled his bare, slightly damp sleeves up. He didn’t say anything as he dipped his hands into the clean wash bowl, and soaked one of the small rags a servant had positioned on the tray. With Addien’s pride, one wrong move or response from Thornwick would have her ordering him out.
Picking the scrap up, he wrang it out and twisted the cloth, wringing off excess water.
For all the ways in which he and Addien were discordant, they moved remarkably well together, each anticipating the other’s movements and intentions. Before he’d even brought the warm cloth up, Addien presented her injured cheek to him.
“I will be as gentle as I can,” he said gruffly. “But given the mark, I fear it will hurt.”
Addien gave a little smile that said, “No, it won’t. I’ve suffered far worse.” And he’d begun to have his eyes opened to not only the truth of that, but what it meant.
The moment Thornwick tenderly pressed the warm cloth on her injury, Addien’s eyes slid closed, and he studied her.
He’d kept files and reports on Mac Diggory, and every other gang, only so much as how those ruthless groups did and could affect the lives of the elite. The moment danger crept outside its rightful place in the Seven Dials and encroached on High Society, it became a matter of official government business.
There’d been accounts of victims lost, but never by names. They’d inventoried bodies to use as a bellwether for the level of violence in various parts of London.
But they’d been people who lived in daily terror.
Men.
Women.
Children.
His stomach seized up.
Addien.
He’d spoken to her about her work and her responsibilities. He’d dangled the threat of her work over her. Time and time again reminding her if her work wasn’t to the standard Dynevor set and Thornwick maintained, she’d be out. Never once had he ever thought what that would mean for her.
His work hadn’t allowed him to see those around him as living, breathing, vital beings, but more as objects in need of safe-guarding—not unlike the wealth, lands, and heirlooms passed through time.
His late mother and exiled brother were the first and last he’d regarded in a human way. They were also the last ones he’d let himself close to.
Be it his kin or subjects of the kingdom, there’d been a constant—he’d never ceded his obligation to ensure safety and order, and he’d done a bang-up job of it.
Until today.
By Christ, how miserably he’d failed her.
“You’re quiet,” Addien observed.
Thornwick grunted. “I’m always quiet.”
Addien weighed that. “Yes.” She paused. “This feels different.”
It felt different because itwasdifferent. He was lost in his head, dwelling on the darker side of humanity and the strife knotted through the fabric of Addien’s life.
He didn’t want to talk about the thoughts inside his head. Thoughts he himself couldn’t make order of. “Should I ring for tea, Miss Killoran?” he drawled with his customary sarcasm to put her off.
Addien snorted. “A fine gent like you would want to summon tea. If you’re ringing, have them send me up either whiskey or brandy.”
Lips pressed flat, the hint of a smile tugged in spite of himself.
Her spirited, infuriating, fiery personality he now saw in a new light. Her mettle had been forged in hells no respectable lady—no woman, noperson—should ever face.
She possessed the strength ascribed to those fictional Greek and Roman goddesses who, until this moment, until this woman, he’d believed the stuff of trifling legend and fiction.
What once drove him mad about Addien now proved a source of fierce admiration. How quick she’d gone from infuriating scourge to dauntless jewel.
