Page 4 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“Yes, yes!” Lady Marianne praised. “He’ll like that very much. Perhaps fight him even. Men love that.”
Cressida’s teeth began to chatter.
Her sister-in-law’s eyebrows dipped. “You’re genuinely upset.”
Would most virgin spinsters sold to a stranger—twice, if one considered Cressida’s eventual and wizened bridegroom—respond differently?
Knock-Knock-Knock.
“A moment more, if you please,” the baroness called out with a honeyed husk to her voice. “I’m seeing to the final touches.”
This time, the other woman’s sultry tones appeared to have the intended effect, as the impatient servant granted that request without complaint.
Lady Marianne reached inside a small reticule; the fine, pearl-encrusted satin bag danced in some kind of suspended time, until Cressida went cross-eyed and the purse blurred. “Your brother is a disgusting, pathetic reprobate, but he does have his uses.”
“Does he?” Cressida managed to ask, truly curious, because she really did need to know.
The baroness looked up from the contents of her bag, stared at Cressida a moment, and then tossed back her golden-curls and laughed like Cressida was none other than London’s notorious clown, Joseph Grimaldi.
“No better rhetorical question was ever asserted than that,” Lady Marianne muttered after her amusement died down and she’d returned her focus to her bag. “This being one of his uses.Here.” The peeress wagged something in front of Cressida’s face. “This helped me my first time too.”
Cressida attempted to bring the present into focus.
“Here.” Lady Marianne pressed something cool, smooth, and metallic into Cressida’s fingers. “Drink, drink, drink.”
More drink?
Polite ladies didn’t drink. Wait, Cressida’s friend, Annalee, Baroness Darlington, did.
Or she had. She didn’t anymore.
Cressida’s mind moved like her feet did when she slogged through the mud and filth on Fleet Street.
Her sister-in-law pressed the silver flask against her lips. “Open up, my dear.”
As her inhibitions dulled, Cressida, from some far recess of her mind, knew rebuffing the offer was vital, but she found herself hovering above her body once more, watching on as she drank.
When she’d consumed some—all?—of the contents, Stanley’s wife plucked the flask from her fingers and returned the item to her reticule.
That same welcome, warm sensation she’d felt back at her abode on Ratcliffe found its way inside her body. The blood moved warmly through her veins and quieted the voices in her head.
An unfamiliar tingling started low in Cressida’s belly, and then alarmingly, shockingly, the sensation traveled to that most intimate place between her legs.
Biting at her lower lip, Cressida squirmed on the bench to alleviate the distressingly keen throbbing. Her efforts proved in vain. Some poor, pitiable animal released a forlorn moan.
Poor thing. Cressida felt deeply for the creature’s struggle.
“Oh, my poor, poor dear,” Lady Marianne whispered, her voice ragged and breathless.
Or wait. Was that Cressida’s moan?
“How I would dearly love to be the first to help you. As it is, you are late for your grand debut.”
Cressida’s debut. “Had one.” It’d been a nightmare. Invisibility would have been worse than the humiliatingon ditabout her the morning after her debut at Almack’s.
Her new sister-in-law’s garish laugh filtered around them. “Oh, not like this.” With that cryptic declaration, the baroness tapped the door.
The panel was immediately opened.
