Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) Read Online Free Page B

slumped back against the sharp wooden slats of his chair. “The choice of coffee.”
    Hades grunted. “I’ve found it clears the mind more than brandy. You can concentrate more, and you don’t get the confusion.” Although the headache could be just as severe. Especially if one was reading long into the night.
    Carter entered silently again through the door and steadily placed a silver tray holding a coffee urn and biscuits on the oval table. Hades swallowed, a sudden hunger gnawing at his stomach. How surprising—yet more biscuits. No matter what he asked for he always received biscuits, always different of course, of every shape and size, but most decidedly biscuits. Not that he complained—he supposed he must eat them; he had known disappointment when he had reached for the plate and found only crumbs.
    He threw a biscuit on the floor and picked up the coffee urn. “Coffee?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    As Hades poured, Granwich started to talk, but stopped, the coffee cup wobbling in his hand. He laid it on a side table and scratched his head before blinking and starting again. “The information that has been lost is a list of the spies who remain in many of the European courts.”
    Hades took a bite of one of the biscuits. That was indeed bad news.
    “A man called the Viper has let it be known that he can access the list, and he wants to sell it off to the highest bidder.”
    “Hmm, you have mentioned errr… him before. Viper… did we call him that?”
    Granwich shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. He seems to have emerged out of nowhere. Just like the viper snake appears, he takes on prey much bigger than himself. It seems he has professed he has no allegiance to England.”
    “You’ve tried the most obvious strategy?”
    Granwich shook his head, furrowing his brow. “No, what’s that?”
    “Cutting off the head of the snake of course.”
    Granwich glanced at Hades and laughed. Hades swung a foot and waited. They never took him seriously the first time. Granwich coughed to a halt at the silence and stared at the carpet where only moments before a biscuit had lain on the floor. Hades threw another one down.
    A small woof emanated from underneath Hades’ chair. Arturo rolled out, his expression firmly fixed in a lopsided grin. It almost always made Hades smile. But not on the days when Arturo decided to swap sides.
    Granwich raised his eyebrows.
    Hades sighed. “Lady Colchester gave him to me,” He didn’t reveal that he had kidnapped the dog after Victoria, Lady Colchester had asked the dog to bite his ankles. “Look, cutting the head off the snake is the well-known name of the military strategy whereby one gets rid of the head of an organization, and the rest of the group fall apart. I assume you have tried this already?”
    Granwich took a sip of his coffee. “Yes, we have. And all the men that we have sent after him have disappeared. Many of them have appeared in the river Thames with no discernible marks of violence on them, but their faces hold an expression of agony. It is just adding to the Viper’s armor. No one will go after him without a hefty payment.” He turned his face away as he put the coffee cup back down on the side table. “Their wives are also understandably anxious.”
    “And I don’t have a wife.” Hades bit into a biscuit. Did the Viper have a man waiting at home for her? “What about Anglethorpe? I thought he was your go-to man.”
    “Mmm, he has other things on his mind at the moment.”
    “Stanton?”
    “Him too.”
    Hades nodded. He knew all this already. Granwich had cornered him in the ballroom after Lord Stanton’s unusual wedding celebration and blathered on about the Viper, when all Hades had wanted was to ask Victoria to dance. She had finally become interesting, shown the intelligence that he had always known was below the surface. That and the fact he was avoiding Lord Anglethorpe’s new wife Agatha Beauregard. Attempting to seduce her under