Page 7 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“As I said, a pity I won’t have the chance to bid. I have a feeling I’d enjoy playing the game with you.” Lord Dynevorspoke with an emotional flatness that put into strong doubt the possibility he actually enjoyed anything in life.
Playing the game? As in, being the one to divest Cressida of her virginity and good name? But then, he didn’t necessarily know. Only Cressida, and whichever gentleman bought her this night, would be aware there’d be an actual virgin in their wicked auction.
Then as quick as the desire appeared in the earl’s eyes, it was gone.
“Lady Aurum is ready,” he stated. Lord Dynevor raised several fingers in the air, signaling for something.
Confused as to why the earl was speaking her fake name in third person, she did a slow search about and gasped.
The something he’d signaled for happened to be someone—two of them.
That the titan-like pair with broad of muscles and towering height should move so silently was either a testament to their stealth—or whatever it was she’d drank that had disheveled her senses.
A moment later, four women appeared on either side of her. Like outrageously scandalous uniforms befitting a footman, each woman wore scandalously tight breeches, a short, fitted lawn shirt with the sleeves cut off, and high black leather boots. One of the titian-haired beauties held a large rectangular box.
With moves so practiced as to be a minuet, the guards presented their backs and formed a wall on either side of Cressida. Then the women opened the box and withdrew various articles of clothing.
If those translucent, filmy scraps that left nothing to the imagination could be described as such.
Her senses were overwhelmed with a hungering so deep, Cressida felt like a voyeur looking in, even as she was divested of her gown, stays, and petticoats.
The quartet of maids acted with precision, their deft fingers gliding over her naked flesh. Their fleeting touches roused her body to such agony, she was mortified and shamed by her need.
When they’d finished attiring her for the upcoming auction, a different maid, pixie-like in height and features, stepped forward.
With the same ease exercised by her four counterparts, the young woman smoothed Cressida’s curls. Her small but capable hands quickly freed Cressida’s hair of the remaining pins until all the heavy tresses fell about her shoulders.
As Cressida was guided into a chair and seated so the attendant might better reach Cressida’s tresses, it occurred to Cressida that the young woman intently contemplating her was just a girl. Why, she couldn’t be any more than ten or eleven, or somewhere around there. Not much older than Cressida had been when the death of her mother had set in motion what would become the slow descent of her life.
“Wot ye thinking?” one of the previously silent maids asked the tiny creature intently contemplating Cressida.
Letting out a dark curse Cressida didn’t know the meaning of, the girl glared at the one who’d spoken. “Shut yer mouth. Ye know oi’m working.”
Honoring the blunt—rude—request, the group of the girls’ elders fell respectfully quiet.
The spirited child took Cressida’s face between her hands. “When do ye feel most beautiful?”
Never. “I…” She shook her head.
“Gor, miss. It’s a question so simple that one of the owners there at Forbidden Pleasures or Lucifer’s Lair could answer.” Her impatient maid rolled big violet-hued eyes. “When do you—?”
An impatient growl cut through the rest of the girl’s question. “We’re on a schedule, Snap.”
They looked to the scowling Bear, who, with his scarred face and menacing look, would have roused terror in the devil himself.
Uncowed, the child he’d called Snap turned an even blacker scowl on the huge guard. “Shut yer bloody mouth, Roy. Adults are working here.”
Cressida caught the ghost of a smile that twitched the guard’s thin lips before he looked away.
“What is your name?” she asked quietly, when the girl returned her focus to Cressida.
“They call me Snap.”
She lamented her own fate, but Cressida was humbled by the reminder that, for all the ways in which she herself had suffered, she hadn’t been working in a brothel or gaming hell or whatever the hell debauched place the earl ran at ten years of age. “Yes, I gathered, but I also trust you must have an actual name.”
Snap sneered. “Why you wanna know,Aurum?”
It’d be easy for Cressida to convince herself she was merely stalling, delaying her inevitable fate. But deep inside, she knew the truth. In the presence of the spirited child, Cressida forgot all: her fate, her future, her fear. She’d even been distracted from the unbearable longing to touch herself or be touched. Here in this moment, she craved, more than anything, more than her own physical yearnings, a true, meaningful connection with another person.
