Page 77 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Stanley caught her quick in the face with a firm backhand. Cressida went sprawling backwards. More stars filled her vision. Her cheek burned with a familiar pain. For all the ways in which her brother was slow, the one way in which he’d always proven quick was the speed with which he struck her.
She’d not, however, let him keep her down. “You want to know if he’s real? You want his identity?” she asked quietly. “Then, by God, I’ll send him to your clubs and have him humiliate you there.”
Cressida talked a good talk.
Stanley hesitated. “You expect me to believe any man—any good, honorable gentleman—who’d have access to the same clubs I do cares about you either way? You, a whore he just bought last night?”
“Not all men are like you, Stanley,” she said solemnly. “Do you truly believe Dynevor gives memberships to poor, wretched scapegraces like you? Why, he wouldn’t even allow your wife inside.”
That seemed to reach him.
“What do you expect me to tell the duke?” he wheedled.
“That’s not for me to figure out.” Cressida went and fetched her cloak. As she’d intended, Stanley’s greedy eyes did a swift assessment of the luxuriant garment.
He was stupid and cruel, but he knew the fine cut and cost of clothes, and also that Cressida had recently come by a fortune in finery. “Where’s your goon?”
Stanley pursed his lips. “Don’t you worry about it.”
“Ah.” Cressida shrugged into her cloak. “Off looking for Trudy, isn’t he? Or is it me? Perhaps both of us.”
They’d come to the conclusion that Cressida and Trudy had run off.
“Can’t you just tell him you have your courses and be done with it?”
“Why? Because I’m so eager to return home for more of your abuse and to marry some ancient nobleman?”
“I want you to report back every day.”
The hell she would. “If you think I can sneak off every day without the gentleman noticing, you’re off your head.”
“Come, you stupid slut. You and I both know you’ll be here every single day. It’s going to be every day. And do you know how I know that? Because you’re going to keep returning until you find that old bitch. Whichever one gets to her first is going to determine who has the complete power here because when I have her, I’m going to hold her and keep her here to make sure you return.”
He tightened his mouth. “If I find your old bitch first, I’ll make sure you return or she’ll pay the price.”
Dread twisted in her belly. She knew he meant it, and she hated that she couldn’t even have that perceived victory over him.
With a smug smile, her brother left—no doubt off to his clubs.
Except, when he’d gone, she felt the same newfound sense of desperation. This one stemming from the fact that she had absolutely no idea where Trudy had gone.
As such, Cressida was trapped, tethered just as much to Stanley. She couldn’t stay. Her absence would eventually be noted by Benedict’s staff, and they’d alert him.
Collecting her cloak from the hook, she draped it across her shoulders. She had just drawn her hood on when there came a distinct movement at the front door.
Cressida went motionless. Only for a moment. Her heart skidded. It was either Trudy or Fellowes, or maybe both. An idea, which didn’t horrify her. At least then she’d be able to collect Trudy and bring her back to Benedict’s residence.
Enlivened for the first time since she’d come face to face with her brother again, Cressida ran to the door, yanked it open, and stopped. She’d been wrong. There was someone else it could be. It wasn’t Trudy, and it certainly wasn’t Fellowes.
The Earl of Wakefield doffed his velvet-lined top hat. “Hello, Miss Smith.”
Chapter 18
They didn’t speak the length of the carriage ride back from Ratcliffe. In fact, since Wakefield discovered Cressida at her suspicious location, he’d been the only one of them to speak. His had been a greeting and then a request for her to join him in his carriage. She’d done so without argument. She’d done so without a single word, and now they sat as they’d been for the better part of fourteen minutes.
All the suspicions he’d gone to Markham with had been confirmed this night, what with the lady guilty eyed and being caught red-handed. He’d been right all along. Strangely, it did not give Wakefield any sense of satisfaction, for there could be no doubting a woman who sneaked off in the dead of night and journeyed on her own to Ratcliffe and had any interactions or dealings in such a house, portended trouble for Wakefield.
When, fourteen minutes later, they reached the front of Wakefield’s residence, he’d hand it to the lady. She was remarkably taciturn and cooly collected for one who’d been found out as she’d been.
