Page 112 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
He toyed with the sides of his glass. But he’d come to know Cressida. His doubts about her had cut as any knife.
His throat spasmed. Christ. He downed a long swallow and set the glass down hard.
Hell, an entire bottle wasn’t enough to drown his guilt.
A shadow fell across his table, and he peeked up at the unwanted intrusion.
“Wakefield,” the gentleman drawled with his usual charm, “we meet again.”
The Lord had teamed up with the universe to rightly punish Wakefield this day.
“Rothesby,” he said stiffly. He’d rather trade ten years of his life than keep company with the gentleman who’d hungered for Cressida with a ferocity to rival Wakefield’s, but he motioned for the duke to join him anyway.
“I’ve sent you several notes, old chap,” Rothesby remarked, the moment he’d sat. “I’d begun to think you were ignoring me, or that you’d perhaps taken offense to things said at our last visit.”
“No.” Wakefield hadn’t liked the call out, but he’d needed it.
Determined to punish himself, he pushed his bottle in the other man’s direction and further welcomed his company.
A serving girl with cat-shaped eyes and a feline smile appeared with a crystal snifter. Her shrewd gaze moved between the two men, and rightly assessing the situation, she left Wakefield and Rothesby.
Wakefield tossed back his drink, downing it in a long, slow, painful swallow with a grimace.
Wakefield’s current rage stemmed from an altogether different reason. In his head, all he could hear while the other man spoke was Cressida as she’d pointed at the point that it had been Rothesby who’d been willing to put up a fortune for just one night with her.
But Wakefield had been too damned terrified of all the out-of-control feelings she made him feel. At every turn, he’d sought to explain her presence in his life, and what had brought her to him, because it’d been too fantastical to land on the simplest and ultimately accurate answer and truth—she was meant for him.
Just as Wakefield had been meant for her.
He’d been searching all these years—Marcia and Miss Kearsley—when all along Wakefield should have been waiting.
He and Cressida had been fated for one another, ordained by the stars.
Dynevor had been correct in his condemnation of Wakefield, but the other man had been dead wrong about something. It hadn’t been her background that made Wakefield fight the pull Cressida had over him. It’d been the fact that Wakefield hadn’t been able to recognize for himself that love had found him at last.
A silly grin formed on his lips.
“Wakefield, old fellow,” Rothesby said worriedly. “Are yousureeverything is all right?”
“I…I…” Dazed, he looked to the other man for help.
Chuckling, the duke toasted Wakefield. “This here, chum, is why I do not dabble with respectable ladies,” he drawled.
What am I doing here?When there were so many things to say to Cressida. So many vows. So many apologies…
Wakefield tossed back the remainder of his drink and grimaced. “I fear this is where we part ways, Rothes—” Wakefield’s stare collided with his brother-in-law, Latimer, in a frantic exchange with—
“Burgess?”
The duke turned back to look at the action and followed Wakefield’s focus to the pair conversing at the front of the club.
An odd whirring filled Wakefield’s ears.
Latimer said something and pointed the tip of his finger. It landed upon Wakefield.
Wakefield jumped up, turning the table over in his haste to get to his butler. Dread fueled his every step.
“The miss has run off,” Burgess said, struggling to get in air as he gasped and panted.
