Page 46 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Wakefield’s brows snapped together. As obsessed as he’d been with making her come, and burying himself in her eager cunny over and over, he’d only vaguely noted she didn’t possess the snowy white skin or soft body of a highborn lady. There had been ink stains upon the tips of her fingers. Her nails were cracked and otherwise mostly filed to nubs. Only with Dynevor now pointing out those telling details, did last night’s afterthoughts resurface.
He faintly registered Latimer and Dynevor quietly speculating about Wakefield’s mystery lover.
While they conversed, Wakefield went over all his shy lover’s professions and acknowledgements.
“…I could never fear you, Benedict…”
“…This is everything I dreamed it would be with you…”
“…I want you to be the one, Benedict…”
Suddenly, Wakefield went still. His entire body went cold.
A horrifying possibility slid in, one just as plausible and that made even more sense.
He sucked in a breath. “What is it, Wakefield?” his brother-in-law asked concernedly behind him.
Wakefield couldn’t even answer. His mind raced. The lady knew of his reputation. She struggled financially and would very easily, by a simple read of any gossip column, know about Wakefield caring for his illegitimate half-sisters. For a desperatewoman, she’d know if any child was born of their passionate night together, Wakefield would do right by them.
Oh, God.
“She trapped me,” he whispered.
Next to him, his powerful partners stopped talking.
“What was that?” Latimer asked.
“Of course…” Wakefield continued speaking to himself. It made complete sense.
Lord knows he’d fucked her enough times last night and been careless enough that the possibility he’d put a babe in her belly were high.
And he only had himself to blame. No other man, not his brother-in-law, not his new business partner, just Wakefield and Wakefield alone was the guilty party.
Wakefield ran an unsteady palm along his cheek. “She trapped me,” he said tiredly.
“You don’t know that,” Dynevor said, so confidently and matter-of-factly it cut through Wakefield’s living nightmare.
The other man’s limpid response also hammered home how calm and collected Dynevor was in the face of Wakefield’s tumult.
“I don’t know that?I don’t know that?”Wakefield repeated. “What other conclusion should I reach?”
The earl shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I just… The lady is too innocent to be duplicitous.”
“And here we have our first bit of naivete from London’s own Earl of Dynevor,” Wakefield jibed. “You, who grew up the most violent gang leader in England’s history, Mac Diggory’s favorite child, should come to think that women are incapable of duplicity?”
Wakefield released a sharp bark of laughter.
Instead of taking offense, the young earl chuckled. “I’ve got four sisters, all of them born on the streets. I witnessed firsthandtheir strength, courage, and their talents. They also proved to me there are some women who are capable of honesty. I’m not saying many of them.” He lifted his palms up, conceding only some. “But enough that I can also count on any one of my sisters coming in here and bloodying my nose were they to find out I questioned all women’s worth.”
Wakefield only half heard him. He didn’t give a damn about Dynevor’s opinions or about his relationships with his family or anything in between. What he needed to sort out right now was how to proceed with Miss Cressida Smith.
Rap. Rap. Rap.There came a knocking at the door.
“Enter,” Latimer called first.
The door opened and Mauley appeared. Mauley, a former guard at the Home Office, whose loyalty to his then employer cost him his career but had earned the man new work as second in command to Latimer at The Devil’s Den.
“What is it?” Wakefield snapped, annoyed by the interruption.
