Page 15 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Resentment rolled like a slow wave through Wakefield, and in the flash of a second, he imagined the beguiling creature parting her legs for the charmer, Rothesby.
“Last chance, Wakefield,” Dynevor said. “What’ll it be?”
In his head, Wakefield saw the siren’s hot gaze—previously reserved for Wakefield—now filled with hungering for the duke.
Wakefield flared his nostrils.
“Gentlemen?” the auctioneer called for one last bid. “It appears we have a winner in—”
Wakefield gave a tight nod. “I’ll have her.”
Dynevor lifted a hand, signaling a close to the action.
Chapter 3
Cressida had wanted to cry any number of times this night.
One time, she had.
Ironically, as she found herself bustled off the stage before the auction concluded, to a bevy of boos and hisses at the abrupt end to bidding, Cressida wanted to toss her head back and sob at her failure.
The sandy-haired guard, Mauley, ushered Cressida down a brightly lit corridor, onward toward the back entrance she’d arrived through a lifetime ago.
She’d been spared the horridness of being sold off to a debauched lord. A true lady would no doubt feel relief at the sudden change in her circumstances. But Cressida hadn’t been born a proper lady. Her brother inherited a fancy title, but Cressida was still just the same poor country squire’s daughter she’d always been. She didn’t have a good name. She had no respectable familial relations.
All she had was Trudy, and if she allowed the guard to toss her out of The Devil’s Den, Cressida wouldn’t even have that.
They walked silently, and Cressida stared blankly at her escort’s broad, black-uniformed back.
When she’d first been first presented before the audience of crude, vulgar, leering gentlemen, she’d caught the Earl of Wakefield’s gaze.
His had locked with hers too. For a ceaseless moment, the horror around her vanished into silence, and she and Lord Wakefield existed as the only two people present.
He recognized her.
She’d spotted the flash of shock, confusion, and concern.
And she might not know him personally, per se, but she’d witnessed his interactions with her friend, whom he’d courted,and she’d listened to Anwen describe the manner of gentleman he was. She’d seen him across crowded rooms, being unfailingly polite and kind—even to ladies who weren’t the sought-after Diamonds. He’d even danced with Cressida—once. She’d read the papers, all of which never had anything nice to write about anyone, making an exception on the earl’s account.
And when Cressida’s brother took the little their family had and pissed it all away, it’d been the tales of how Lord Wakefield saved his family from the dire straits his sire left them in, and built a better, bigger future, that’d made her fall head over heels in love with him.
He was going to save her. She’d been so sure of it. Even with him being engaged in an intense conversation with the Earl of Dynevor, Lord Wakefield’s eyes stayed on Cressida.
In her mind, he would have put forward a bid to put an immediate end to the auction, stormed the stage, draped his jacket about her shoulders, and swept her away.
That dream had lived but a moment in her mind.
Because the only way in which Lord Wakefield could save her was by falling madly in love with her, marrying her, and, in so doing, providing a home, security, and safety to both she and Trudy.
Alas, she wasn’t a dreamer. She had no reason to be.
In the end, whether he’d intervened or not hadn’t mattered. Her circumstances remained the same either way.
Cressida and the guard, Mauley, began to near the end of the hall she’d arrived at earlier in the night.
The exit.
Desperate to put a stop to her departure and make the guard return her to the bidding action, Cressida grabbed his arm. “Stop,” she ordered, her voice shamefully husky.
