Page 123 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“Benedict,” she said, her voice quavering and her hands shaking frantically. She dusted and wiped at her cheeks, this time ignoring the pain. Self-preservation was all that mattered. “You came back.”
“I came back.” He didn’t join her, however. The gentleman that he was and always had been and always would be remained at the doorway.
“May I come in?” he ventured quietly.
No.“Yes,” she said instead, answering in the affirmative as he deserved.
Cressida detected another faint click and knew the moment he’d shut them away together. So soft were his footfalls, she failed to hear him and stand before it was too late and he appeared before her.
Cressida hastened to rise, but Benedict hurriedly rushed her off and sat down, joining her on the floor. They sat that way, both of them with their knees drawn to their chest, arms looped about their limbs, neither speaking.
It occurred to Cressida he was waiting for her, giving her the time she needed to compose herself to answer, to explain what she knew. Just that he was affording her the moment with which to speak first. He could keep waiting. Not because she was determined to make him sit in silence, but because she didn’t know what to say. There were no words. She had nothing to give him. He must have eventually realized as much.
Wakefield had spent a good part of his life hating people. The first most obvious target of his antipathy had been, of course, his father. The wastrel, the philanderer, the faithless earl. Then there had been his best friend, Andrew, Viscount Waters, who’d slid in as a new source of Wakefield’s loathing.
All the years of despising those two other men combined never came anywhere near the aberrance he now felt for himself.
Emotion wadded in his throat. He’d never been deserving of her reverence. In every way that mattered, Cressida had always been far greater than him. He’d spent years lamenting his own life for being difficult. Why? He’d had a dissolute father, who’d fathered another family and betrayed his wife and forgotten the children whom he’d sired upon the viscountess. But that was no strife, not really. He’d railed at the conditions the previous earl left he and his mother and sisters in, but that had been absolutely nothing compared to the squalor Cressida had known.
He’d believed he loved Marcia, and maybe, in part, he had. She’d been his first love, his childhood love, but never had he felt this wave of possessiveness, this all-powerful, unyielding, fiery passion to know a person inside and out the way he longed to with Cressida. She deserved so much. Certainly, she deserved so much better than him, but he would be her champion. He would stand beside her if she let him, if she’d give him another chance, if she’d let them start again.
Finally, he turned his head to look at her.
Cressida lay so still, her dark blonde eyelashes soft against her cheeks—her bruised cheeks. His heart cinched. For a moment, he believed she slept, and he contemplated lifting her into his arms and carrying her over to the bed so that she might have the rest she both deserved and needed, in order to heal. His gaze caught on the rapid rise and fall of her chest that indicated she didn’t in fact sleep, but more so was putting on the show of sleep because she wanted nothing to do with him. And why should she?
“I’ve never before frequented Forbidden Pleasures or The Devil’s Den or Lucifer’s Lair or any club.” He grimaced. “That is, any club that wasn’t White’s or Brooks’s. Rather, I haven’t visited them with any intention other than to rescue friends of mine who’d gotten themselves into some manner of trouble or other.”
Cressida opened her eyes but still didn’t say anything.
Encouraged, Benedict continued.
“I’ve always worried overly much about my name and reputation.Toomuch,” he finally admitted to her as much as himself. “I was invited to become a partner of The Devil’s Den.”
She went even more still.
“I haven’t shared that with anyone,” he confided. “just you.”
He knew he could trust her. He realized he’d known as much all along. The one he couldn’t trust, however, had been himself.He couldn’t trust who he was around her and with her. She made him feel things he’d never felt. She’d shaken him to his core and never before had he felt less in control of himself, or his faculties, or his heart, and it terrified the everlasting hell out of him.
At last, she angled her head. “You’re an owner of that club?”
He couldn’t make out disgust, only more of a curiosity.
He nodded. “Afraid so. My brother-in-law, Latimer, invited me to invest, and so I did. And he, along with Dynevor, wished to show me what my capital had gained me. Then I saw you, Cressida. You were up for bid.” He relived that night in his head. “Dynevor was telling me all about the club and the financial plans for it, and I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t see anything.” His throat worked. “I only sawyou,” he said, his voice thick.
Her fuller, lower lip trembled ever so slightly, and she caught it between her teeth and bit to still its quaver.
“Something about you bewitched me. Something about you commanded all my attention, and then the bidding went out of control, and if it had been purely about business, well, then I would have been all too happy to allow those bids to continue.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Rothesby wanted you andquitebadly.”
The same rush of black, unreasoning jealousy that had besieged Wakefield at The Devil’s Den assaulted him all over again—this time, with an even more violent force.
He reined in the insidious emotions. “You were correct when you pointed out I’d never bid on you, Cressida. I didn’t. I called for Dynevor to stop the auction.”
Wakefield held her gaze with his. “All I knew was I couldn’t allow him to have you, Cressida. I couldn’t allow any man. I would've killed to have you that night,” he said gravely. “I’ve never felt that way in mylife, Cressida.” A rueful chuckle escaped him. “Once, you mentioned Lady Waters. I would have youknow, I never felt for her anything near the way I feel for you. I never have and never will, for any woman other than you.” Emotion thickened his voice. “From the moment I looked up and saw you on that stage, you captivated me, mind, body, and soul.”
She stared with an endearing confusion at him, wearing the look of one who sought to process what Wakefield was saying. And to be fair, so did Wakefield. His own startlement was reflected back in her clear brown eyes.
“My father,” he said softly, “was terrible with his funds. He wasn’t a wastrel in the sense that your—” he cut himself short.
