Page 39 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
One made all the worse by the fact that it was, in fact, her reality.
“Stop,” Cressida harshly ordered herself to some restraint. “Don’t do this now. Not here.”
Yes. It’d be far better to wait until you return home and wallow in your misery before a triumphant Stanley and his baroness.
That thought wrenched another bitter sob from Cressida’s throat.
“Stop. Stop. Stop. You have to s-stop,” she pleaded with herself.
Through her sorrow came her nursemaid’s familiar guidance.Breathe, girl. You focus on breathing because that’s all you can control.
Trudy first gave Cressida that advice when Cressida learned her beloved mother had died. She’d been besieged by such sorrow, she’d been sure her heart was attacking her.
Breathe, girl. You focus on breathing because that’s all you can control.
Steadied some, Cressida buried her face in the mattress—the white silk sheets she and Benedict made love upon—repeatedly—were still warm with the heat left by their bodies.
Her lower lip quivered.
They also happened to be the same satin sheets Benedict looked upon with utter horror and revulsion.
Her chest hitched.
Moments ago? Hours ago?
Her teeth began to chatter and her body broke out into a cold sweat.
It appeared her wise old friend happened to be wrong about something after all—this time Cressida had no control over anything. Not even her own breath.
She darted panicked eyes around the room.
She had to get out of here, but where to go? The moment she returnedhome, her brother and his wife would be there, botheager and ready to hand her over to some ancient duke, who’d certainly bought whatever debt Stanley built—an impossible sum.
Resentment and fury grew in the place where pain previously only existed, and Cressida feasted on that white-hot anger. From it, she found strength—a strength she desperately needed to survive. “And what will you do after having these debts resolved, brother?” she thought to herself. “Go spend through even more money.” In the end, Cressida’s sacrifice would be for naught.
As much as she wished to run and keep on running to some impossible place that didn’t exist, a far-off land where her brother could never find her, the fact remained she didn’t have that luxury. For Trudy’s sake, Cressida needed to return.
Cressida didn’t have any luxuries; her beloved friend and former nursemaid, Trudy, had even less.
Cressida needed to return for no other reason than because Trudy wouldn’t survive there on her own, and Cressida would sooner slice her own limbs off than leave the old woman.
Focus on Trudy.As long as she did, Cressida was in control of something and that kept her stable.
Armed with an actual purpose, Cressida managed to steady herself.
Cressida didn’t have to marry the man Stanley and his baroness had selected for her. There’d been plenty of times in the dead of night, with Stanley at one of his clubs and his goon sleeping off the cheap spirits he’d imbibed, when Cressida and Trudy had plotted ways to get themselves out from under the baron’s thumb.
But this time? They truly had no choice. She and Trudy darned socks and had done so for years. Granted, they’d only made pennies. But after Cressida’s latest life heartbreak, this time at the hands of Benedict Adamson, the Earl of Wakefield, there couldn’t be anything worse.
They’d find a way to scrape by.
No, you won’t, and worse, you can’t.
Not even Cressida’s inner-self would allow her a reprieve.
She shut her eyes tightly.
No respectable employer would bring on a woman of Trudy’s advanced age. Between her tired eyes and life-weathered hands, the former nursemaid couldn’t work in most of the basic ways she once had.
