Page 13 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Would he like her? Curiously, Wakefield eyed the woman whose gaze kept coming back to his table.
Usually, his sexual appetites weren’t compelled by the deviant game at play.
His lashes dipped.
With a dramatically over-the-top regretfulness, the auctioneer slowed the bidding and worked his audience up even further. “Her story is a sad one, gentlemen.”
A full chorus of answering “aww” of false commiseration surrounded the hall.
Lady Aurum, as she was called, looked at Wakefield as if he were the only gent in the club and they were the only two people left in the world.
Something about this particular woman and her masterful act commanded all of Wakefield and his lust. Or perhaps that was the lady’s skill. Perhaps the unknown woman’s ability to make each man present believe she looked adoringly at each of them was why, even now, the bidding continued to climb to ridiculous heights.
“…It occurs to me,” the speaker tempted the crowd. “You are bidding, and most generously, but know so little about the damsel before you… It is a tale as old as time.” The auctioneer tsked and the quiet was so thick that the clicking of the fellow’s tongue reached all the way to the very back of the action where Wakefield and Dynevor sat.
Unlike his weaker sire, Wakefield hadn’t ever been a slave to his lust, which was what made his whole-body absorption in this particular moment so out of the ordinary. The way in which he knew his strengths and weaknesses was the same way in which he knew his physical desires. Where the last earl had been ruled by his emotions, Wakefield had learned logic and prided himself on restraint. That forbearance extended to all areas of his life—including desires of the flesh.
As for Wakefield? He craved control and sorting out complicated messes—like his family. His finances. And other people’s even messier lives, which probably explained his unwavering fascination with the woman on display for all at The Devil’s Den.
“Get on with it already, Sully!” an impatient Lord Stentson shouted.
The club’s guards immediately converged on the greying, married marquess, who was somewhere in his forties.
Wakefield’s brother-in-law, Latimer, broad and big enough to rouse terror in the hearts of the most jaded fighter, put an end to the interruption with an utterance and a warning look.
“Lady Aurum’s brother,” Sully went on, like there’d never been a break in the action, “is a horrid, abusive letch.” He raised his voice for dramatic effect. “A mere squire in the country, the newly titled lord frittered away all his funds.”
Resounding boos swelled; the patrons present seemed as eager participants as the woman who’d asked to be sold off.
The auctioneer paused again to build the theater of it all.
“Which means each of you present, as respected, venerable lords, must open your purses most generously to save her from the fate of having an old, decrepit libertine husband being the first man to bed her.”
Lady Aurum shut her eyes so tightly, the muscles of her diamond-shaped face scrunched up.
Cries went up. Patrons stomped their feet and the thumping rolled around the club.
“Who amongst you will be the one to save her?” Sully thundered to be heard over the crowd’s swell.
Lord Whitby jumped to his feet. “Four hundred and fifty pounds!” he called, louder than the rest.
Sully pointed in the gentleman’s direction but continued his address of the room. “Who will take her maidenhead so the foul ancient lord is denied that satisfaction?”
“Four hundred andseventy-five!” came the answering shout.
The auctioneer kept speaking over the bidding. “Who will be the first to teach Lady Aurum about desire? Which one of you will patiently teach her how tomake love?”Sully, a master performer whom Dynevor poached from Mrs. Gertrude Killoran’s theatre, did a little jig about the stage.
Sully painted another visual for the crowd. “And then, after the lucky winner tonight breaks the lady in, you can teach her what it is to fuck and be fucked.”
Laughs filled the hall.
The lady squirmed, shifting her hips like she was any modest virgin, embarrassed by her body’s response. In a clear sign of her hunger, she bit at her lower lip, but her gaze was terrified and hungry all at the same time. Her eyes found his.
Wakefield inhaled a breath in slowly through his nose. Bloody hell, the actress could have made a fortune on the London stage.
He had eyes only for the woman behind this great furor.
It turned out, Wakefield wasn’t the only one.
