Page 11 of Greed: The Savage
Addien curled her fingers tight as he opened his mouth and steeled herself for his jab.
“I know Dynevor has gone through your latest responsibilities at the Devil’s Den, however, it would be helpful for us to discuss them once more,” Thornwick said, all business.
Good. All business, she understood. That was safe. It was comfortable.
“As you said, Dynevor and I already spoke. I don’t need directions or instructions or anything else from you. Is that clear?”
Alas, this fancy fellow was determined to frustrate her at every turn. He didn’t take her bait.
“You’re to sit quietly in the corner,” he continued. “You are not to talk. You are going to gauge the lady’s reaction and get a read for her feelings about being part of the auction. You aren’t to weigh in. You aren’t to even discuss or ask questions in front of me, to me or anyone. Only when we are back in the carriage will we review the meeting. Then and only then, you’ll share your opinions. Are we clear?”
With his staccato orders and deadened tones, he’d missed his calling to lead the King’s army.
“I don’t—”
He cut her off impatiently. “You don’t answer to anyone?”
Odds bodkins, he’d known exactly what she’d been about to say.
“Yes,” he said jeeringly, “I know what you were thinking.”
She feared her flush gave her away.
“These are not my orders. They are Dynevor’s, Addien. As much as you would love to defy me and constantly do so at every turn, I also know you are not going to displease or do anything to threaten your position at the Devil’s Den.”
Flummoxed and wanting to throw her head back and howl with fury and frustration at how damned bloody accurate his read of her was, Addien plastered a smile on instead.
“I was going to say that all sounds reasonable,Malric.”
A ripple crossed his sharp, strongly defined features. Over the fact she’d thrown him off with her response? Or the fact she’d laid ownership to his name?
With this Highness of High Horses? She’d wager the latter.
“Nobody calls me Malric,” he whispered.
Ah, so it was the latter. It was all Addien could do to keep from smiling a genuine God’s honest smile at having shaken him and forcing him to lose some of his rigid control.
She let her lips form a pout. “Oh, come now,Malric.”
His expression tightened instantly.
“If we’re going to be working in close quarters, and you’ve given yourself leave to call me Addien, then turnabout only seems fair? Unless…” Addien made her eyes go big. “I never took you for one of the sorts to take offense at some street rat using your fine, fancy Christian name.”
“You being the rat?”
His somberly delivered question clashed with her biting banter and brought her up short.
Addien tried to nod or speak or serve some biting rejoinder.
“Let me share something about my feelings on rats with you, Addien.” His smooth baritone whispered like the softest satinshe’d ever had in her fingers, and it elicited the same shiver of awareness. “In the work I do? The term rat is reserved for the contemptible sort. Sneaks. Informers. The disloyal.”
It was hard to hang onto his lecture when his words washed over her like falling velvet. “Is that how you see yourself, Addien?” he asked quietly. “Is that howIshould view you?”
Was he…? Did the marquess mean…? In a fog, she shook her head. Malric inclined his head.
“Now that we’ve settled that, it is time to go inside.” The marquess, all icy-frost reserve once more, called her attention to the window.
They’d arrived.
