Page 104 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Cressida knew what she had to do. Her eyes slid shut. She had to tell him. Not only had she withheld the truth from him, but she’d also even evaded and dodged his questions when he was seeking the truth about her. As he’d reminded her a short while ago, they’d been intimate in every way, and he actually knew nothing about her. That’s how she’d lived her life. That’s just how it was safest.
“I have to tell him,” she murmured into the quiet, and hearing her voice utter those words aloud gave Cressida the courage to do just that.
She opened her eyes. The earlier unrestricted sun of before was now blocked and blacked out.
“What exactly is it you have to tell? And to whom?”
Cressida gasped and lost her balance. She would’ve went toppling on her face, but Benedict caught her by the arm with a firm, commanding but still gentle touch. He guided her up to her feet.
“Benedict,” she greeted warmly.
Her earlier cowardice and fears forgotten just being with him. His company alone left her with a buoyant lightness, or it usually did. Her smile wavered in a short while knowing him this intimately, she’d come to discover the nuances that made Benedict well…Benedict.
She had learned his warmth and humor was as vast and expressive as his fury and frustration, but this blank expressionless, unreadable Benedict she had no experience with and knew not how to be with him.
He winged one of those enigmatic blond eyebrows up.
“You were saying, Miss Alby?”
Cressida scoured her mind. What had she said? What had she been intending to say? Everything she had been thinking vanished in the presence of this cold-eyed stranger. And suddenly, what had seemed so easy just moments ago—telling Benedict everything—didn’t feel quite as easy. No, it felt truly impossible. Then what he’d said hit her like the force of one of Stanley’s meaty fists.
“Miss Alby,” she repeated blankly. He knew.
“That is your name, isn’t it?” The knife-like edge to his low baritone sent her shriveling inside.
Somehow though, Cressida managed to nod.
“How did you find…?” She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
“How did I find out?” he finished for her almost gleefully.
His false humor vanished, and he scoffed.
“Do you take me for a dolt, Miss Alby? Is that why you, your brother, the baron and baroness, set your sights on me?”
Cressida winced. She’d have preferred a physical blow to this. “I was going to tell you. I don’t know her… Stanley… I know…” Just like that, she found herself transformed into a stuttering, stammering, pitiable, voiceless girl.
“Which is it? You know them or don’t, Cressida? Though I am happy to know that you, in fact, did share your actual name with me. That was a pleasant surprise.” The snarl on his lips told a different tale.
Everything was happening so fast, spinning out of control.
“You were right earlier,” she said earnestly, willing him to believe her. “I should have been completely truthful with you, and I was intending to. You even heard me say as much when you came upon me.”
“Yes, but it begs the question whichhimwere you referring to? Me or your brother?”
She deserved his suspicions.
Cressida took a deep breath. “You are correct. I haven’t been forthright with you, but I haven’t been dishonest either.”
Benedict folded his arms across his broad chest, that same wide expansive blanket of muscle she’d cradled against earlier that morning, but he didn’t mock her or call her a liar. He stared mutinously, and she took faith in that.
“My name is Cressida Alby.” She started where she should have begun.
“Yes, I’ve gathered as much,” he said drolly.
This time, she managed to ignore the stinging bite of his sarcasm.
“Stanley, the Baron of Newhart, is my brother. He is a drunk, a cheat, a wastrel. He married Lady Marianne. The pair of them, to pay off my brother’s debts, made arrangements for me to marry.”
