Page 39 of Greed: The Savage
The primitive desperation inherent in all creatures sent her running towards those door panels.
She just managed to catch herself before she slammed her body into the unrelenting oak barriers.
Bloody hell, find your rage. And she did. Furious indignation rose up inside and Addien refused to give the shadowy fear greater space than it already occupied.
“You’re dealing with a vapid, vindictive peeress, not the likes of Diggory,” Addien muttered to herself. “She ain’t going to go locking you in a room for some nefarious reason.”
A chill scrambled along her spine, even before the nasally voice penetrated the stoning silence of the room.
“No, she wouldn’t. I, however, would.”
Addien faced the stranger attired in a garish, puce-colored satin jacket and tight-fitting matching trousers. He wore a citrine stickpin of some ten carats at the center of his superfluous satin cravat. The gentleman was better suited for a masquerade where guests were instructed to don costumes from a bygone decade, not any current ballroom or club in present-day England.
Addien sized him up pretty quickly. Four or so inches taller than her own shorter stature and even more painfully slender. She’d handled brutes on the street two times his size and ruthlessness.
More bored than anything by his presence and clear threat, she schooled her features, considering how fast she could disarm him and be gone from this room. The fact remained, Baroness Darrow had no doubt sent the dandy to scare Addien and force a reaction that she’d then report to Lord Dynevor. The baroness was so deucedly bad in her scheming. Addien fought the urge to give her eyes an enormous roll.
His emaciated slender cheeks were a stark white, so pale as to suggest they’d been painted so as to merely highlight the bright crimson circles that infused that gaunt bone structure.
Addien swiftly corrected her misstep.
“Your lordship,” she greeted with a crisp clarity that Malric, on his worst day with her, would’ve never found fault with. Addien sank into a deep curtsy.
Oh, she resented having to show this bit of fluff such deference, but she did it because she knew the test at play.
“Forgive me, my lord,” she murmured. “I was unaware there was a gentleman present. As such, it’s hardly proper for us to be alone. My apologies for the door being closed.”
As Addien turned, she hid a smug smile. Oh, how she wished all of this Malric was present for. He’d have eaten a hefty amount of crow.
A gloveless, embarrassingly baby-smooth hand shot out past her shoulder. The gentleman slammed his palm against the panel, holding it firmly in place.
Addien stiffened.
This wasn’t necessarily a test being conducted in the hopes of her failing so she could be fired by the baroness after all.
Addien swiftly assessed the actual threat present before her. Addien took several slow discreet slides to the left. So minuscule were her movements as to not draw her potential assailant’s attention to what she did.
“My lord, I must remind you again that it is hardly proper for us to be here alone together.” Addien lifted a defiant chin. “Now I’d ask you again to please step aside.” It cost her nearly everything using a plea for this pile of shite.
“Ah, under ordinary circumstances, you would be correct,” he said. The still nameless stranger flashed a mightily crooked yellow-toothed smile that didn’t reach his rapacious, soulless eyes. “But there is one distinction. Do you happen to know what that is, Miss Killoran?”
Not unlike the baroness had earlier, he used Addien’s borrowed surname as a barb.
This time any worry about Dynevor’s response could be forgotten and damned. She wouldn’t comply with this toad or force herself to give this man of elevated station any sort of reply.
His rouge-red lips, so thin as to be non-existent and only accentuated by the paint smeared there, twisted with his displeasure.
“The difference being I am a gentleman, and you, Miss Killoran, are a street-born rat all done up in fine skirts and fake, fine tones.”
“And?” she drawled, wholly incapable of not baiting him.
His buglike eyes bulged.
Already knowing she’d gone too far, Addien dived farther right and reached for the door handle before remembering—
The dandy shot an arm out and caught Addien square in the solar plexus, robbing her of breath and briefly setting flecks of white light dotting behind her eyes. His blow was not strong, but it had been placed well enough to prevent her from drawing breath to cry out or shout for help.
Not that she intended to. Given her new role, Addien didn’t need to be a burden on these visits amongst the peers. She needed to extricate herself from whatever situation she found herself in.
