Page 69 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“Correct,” Benedict said.
“I believe the most important part for us to discuss now…”
Wakefield waited for Lord Markham to speak.
“What happens, Wakefield, if my investigation does turns up treacherous acts against you? Are you expecting me to deal with them?” Lord Markham sounded positively gleeful at the prospect.
“Yes.” Wakefield firmed his jaw. He might be a gentleman and value his reputation, but he was just as ruthless as the rest. No one wronged him. No one deceived him. And the ones who did would pay the price.
“As we are speaking about your having vengeance, it’s also important for me to discover what that will look like for each involved player. Right now we have,” Markham lifted his thumb, “The Earl of Dynevor. I trust what punishment you’d expect me to exact would be easy given the fact of your having no actual meaningful connections with him.”
“Correct.”
“Two,” the investigator continued said, sticking another digit up. “And this is where it becomes more complicated. We have your brother-in-law, Latimer, married to your half-sister.”
Livian’s husband.
His gut knotted.
Livian and Verity might be half-sisters by the definition, but not to Wakefield. They were as much sisters to him as eitherof his legitimate sisters, twins, Lady Katherine and Lady Anne. Could he hurt any of them? He’d sooner knock his own head off.
Yet, his sister would be devastated if any type of harm befell her husband.
Wakefield glanced away. Yes, punishing Latimer would be more complex and complicated.
“And last,” Markham said, lifting a third finger, which he wagged the most heavily. “Then we have Miss Smith, a young lady who was, until last night, a virgin and who may even now be carrying your child.”
A vision flickered forward of a child—a tiny little girl with eyes that sparkled and shone with her every emotion—not with the sadness and sorrow of her mother—but the lady’s spirit and the ebullience that was missing. How must those eyes glow when Cressida Smith wore her happiness.
“Wakefield?”
The strangest sensation filled his chest.
“Wakefield?”
“Hmm?” Blinking rapidly, Wakefield looked dumbly at Markham.
The sinister arrangement of his features brought all Wakefield’s musings to an end.
“If we’re to discover she is in fact a player in some terrible, terrific scheme against you, how should I handle Miss Smith?”
Another memory entered Wakefield’s mind. Cressida’s eyes big as moons and just as bright and filled one instant with shyness, and the other, a fiery spirit to rival a Spartan princess.
Who is she?Who is she?Who was this woman who’d upended his order in the world? Was she the master manipulator he feared or shy siren? How much was real? What was real? Any of it? All of it?
This woman who he knew not at all left him scattered and weak in ways he didn’t understand, particularly as she was a stranger shrouded in secrets and mystery.
Wakefield’s lips curled slowly at the corners. “If Miss Smith does in fact mean my business, my family, or myself harm, I will be all too happy to have you deal with her and make her pay the price.”
Chapter 15
After Benedict took his leave and Cressida found herself alone, it took everything within her to keep from dashing off and setting out to rescue Trudy. But she’d learned firsthand what impulsivity cost her. None of it was ever good, and it almost always led to violence.
She shuddered, and a shiver snaked along her spine as the memory of past beatings came back to haunt her. She forcibly thrust them out. No, she resolved it was safest to wait. It was safest for her and Trudy for Cressida to wait until the cover of darkness. That was the hour in which she could always count on Stanley being outrageously drunk and invariably off at his clubs until the earliest hours of morning when the sun was beginning to pop her head out from the eastern horizon.
And so Cressida set out to investigate her new and very temporary home.
Except, if she was with child, in which case—
