Free Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) by Pearl Darling Page B

time in big households such as theirs, his .
    Although, there was the old adage about poking a nest full of vipers. He stopped, watching Melissa’s unmoving form in the chair next to him. She had picked up a book and started to read. He had wanted to believe so very hard that he had the Viper. But it wasn’t true. He ran a hand tiredly over his face. Invading his house and now his mind.The Viper was meant to have been at the cross in St. Giles for a reason, and that reason was he was meeting someone. Melissa .
    Hades turned and narrowed his eyes at her. She regarded him innocently over the top of the book from behind her silver framed glasses. What did the Viper want with Melissa?
    Was she the reason the kitchen boy had died?
     

CHAPTER 10
     
    “I want to know what the Viper means to you.” Hades frowned at her, dark and forbidding. He leaned against the doorway of Melissa’s bedroom and watched as she struggled with yet another high backed gown.
    “Where is that maid that Carter said I would get?” she snapped. She really couldn’t continue the conversation. It was blindingly clear. The more Hades knew, the more he would be able to toy with her like a marionette on a string. The way he had looked at her earlier in the study had sent an uncontrollable flush of heat rising through her body that she’d only managed to quell by fleeing the room.
    “Maid? What maid? Why are you contorting yourself?”
    “Because I’m trying to do up these blasted buttons. Even a monkey would be able to see that.” Melissa turned again and tried to reach the two buttons in the middle of her shoulder blade. “Pea brain,” she muttered.
    “I heard that.”
    Melissa shivered as Hades’ warm breath spilled onto her back.
    “If you stand still, I’ll do them up for you.”
    “No! I—” Melissa stepped away as if she had been burnt by a fire. Anything not to feel his red hot touch on her skin again. Once he touched her she would be under his thrall and then…
    She sighed as his fingers caressed the nape of her neck. They traced a light figure on her back. She gasped as he nipped at her ear. His fingers continued to tease at her skin, running themselves under the fabric and under her arms. She couldn’t help shifting slightly to lift her arms up. She turned slowly.
    Hades trailed his fingers across the fabric stretched across her breasts.
    “What do you know, that I don’t know?” he said softly into her ear. “You were there to meet the Viper, weren’t you? There in St. Giles?”
    Melissa gasped as one of her hooks come apart. Hades was unbuttoning her, not buttoning her up!
    “Please don’t,” she said softly. She could only think of one way in which this would end, and it would be badly. She was desperate for his masterful fingers to continue stroking lower and lower, and yet she would end up like so many of those poor ladies who came to her as customers that could not say no. Their amours and darlings disappearing into smoke. Just as she knew that Hades would when he had found what he wanted.
    She hadn’t found it hard to understand what Hades did, having spent all the time in his study, reading. Book after book was dedicated to military strategy and warfare. Books detailing how to use human hostages, how to gain the advantage. How never to be defeated.
    She was just an example of his activities. He wanted the Viper and he had not stopped at taking her prisoner in order to get what he wanted. The man could not possibly feel anything for her. To him it was all the means to an end. Why couldn’t this man that made her feel so strongly, be similarly bewitched?
    Melissa looked longingly up at the underside of his chin. “If you stop unbuttoning me, I will tell you.”
    Hades paused. She used the opportunity to step away.
    “I received an anonymous note. It said to bring thirty thousand pounds and the book to St. Giles.”
    “Thirty thousand pounds?”
    “Payment for my mother’s gambling debts. But they had all