Page 108 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“No, he’s going to be furious,” she whispered to herself.
But that appeared to be the most familiar of the emotions he extended to her. He already didn’t trust her. What reason did she have to sit and pine and wait for him to come and intervene if intervention was necessary? Something within her, a corner of her soul that knew all too well the evil that existed in this world and in her brother, however, told her what she would find. Nay, who she would find.
She set her jaw stonily. She’d extract Trudy, but she knew in doing so, it would come at a heavy price.
Cressida barreled up the steps without breaking stride. She threw the door open and stormed inside her townhouse.
“Trudy,” she shouted, shutting the door behind her. “Trudy!”
“Come girl, you’re going to bring the constables down upon us.”
Gasping, Cressida whipped around looking as hale and hearty as she did, despite her thinning, stringy, gray hair. The old woman smiled, revealing her two front-cracked teeth. With a sob, Cressida flung herself into her nursemaid’s arms, and it was as though a dam broke loose and all the sorrow, the fear, the misery, and joy she’d known these past days came flooding out.
It had been so long since she cried. She’d been but a babe, a small girl of maybe seven or eight, and only after her mother’s passing. Trudy held her the same way now that she had then. She wrapped two, thin arms about Cressida and cradled her, stroking her back, whispering nonsensical murmurings against her ear until Cressida cried her very last tear.
She gave a watery hiccup.
Trudy gave her one final, firm pat on the back and then released her.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, gel,” Trudy said gruffly.
Using the pads of her thumbs to wipe away Cressida’s tears, this time what emerged from Cressida was a half-laugh and a small sob. “You’ve been looking for me?”
“I’ve been searching every…”
“A touching reunion.”
Icy tentacles of dread tripped all along her spine and neck.
“It was only a matter of time before you both returned to the bosom of your family.”
Filled with a sickening dread, Cressida looked to where a corpulent Stanley stood like a bulwark. His arms folded over his enormous chest, he was an enormous human obstruction that stood between her and Trudy’s freedom. Impregnable walls of terror came closing in, siphoning air from her lungs and simultaneously pressing down on her chest.
Cressida caught her nursemaid’s hand and turned to lead them towards the kitchen exit. Her brother’s goon stood with a snide grin on his fleshy lips. He cracked his knuckles.
For years, she’d struggled to find her voice with these two men, and where there’d been an occasion where she’d gone toe to toe, she’d otherwise been overly cautious, knowing that Trudy paid the price for her insolence.
“Move out of the way, Stanley,” she said coldly and with remarkable calm. Cressida positioned herself between Trudy and the two soulless men.
“Did you hear her?” Stanley drawled. “Someone lands herself a fine protector, and suddenly thinks she doesn’t have to answer to me.”
“I heard her, I did,” Fellowes said, giving a chuckle of his own.
From the corner of her eye, she caught the way Trudy’s eyebrows came together at the mention of a fine protector. Questions and answers would come later. First and foremost, Cressida had to get them out of here. “I don’t have to answer to you, Stanley, and certainly not to your dull-witted lackey over there.”
Rage sent her brother’s nostrils into a full flare. “What did you say to me?” he whispered.
“Apparently, there’s something as wrong with your ears as there is with your brain and your soul.” She felt ten feet taller for standing up to him. “You act as though I’m a child who answers to you. Your child. I’m not, and I’m not your prisoner, so get him out of my way now because I will see you pay a price.”
Stanley’s mouth moved and he sputtered, “You are going to regret your behavior, and you’re going to see who’s really in charge here, Cressida.”
Cressida steeled herself. “Go upstairs and lock the door,” Cressida said to her maid.
“The hell I will, gel.”
“Please. I cannot do this unless you do,” she entreated.
Indecision warred in the old woman’s eyes. This time, however, she must have seen something different, something that had her listening to Cressida and giving up her place at her side. And maybe if Cressida had asserted herself more and displayed that she didn’t need Trudy to be at her side, Cressida would’ve settled it with Stanley long ago—like she was going to settle it now.
