Page 88 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Her mouth trembled. “Oh.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, this time more gently.
“I’m going to look for Trudy.”
He paused.
She waited for him to call her out for heading back to that dangerous end of London.
Instead, Benedict slowly nodded. “I’ll accompany you.” His wasn’t a question.
If she had more pride, she would fight him. If she had greater sense, she would reject his offer and insist on going alone with a servant. Being this close to him was threatening her in every way that mattered. But she’d been so alone for so long. Even having Trudy, their roles had reversed a long time ago. So that Cressida was now responsible for the old woman, and it felt good having someone in her life offering to stand by her and help her and support her, and she could no sooner reject his offer than reach inside her chest and stop her heart from beating for him.
“I’ll fetch my cloak,” Cressida said, but she didn’t move. She wasn’t capable of it.
His gaze lingered upon her cheek. “You have some flour here,” Benedict murmured.
So captivated as she was by him in this moment, she registered what he was about to do.
It was too late.
Rage darkened Benedict’s eyes. A feral look that could have smote Satan on the spot burned from his eyes. All his black fury directed not at Cressida, but rather at the telling mark upon her cheek.
Blast.
Wakefield stared dumbly at Cressida’s cheek.
The logical part of Wakefield knew he was looking at. The illogical part of his brain, however, couldn’t make out the mark there and how she’d come by it.
He thought if he maybe stared at it long enough, it would change because young ladies such as Miss Cressida Smith did not wear the large marks of some man’s hands upon her face.
Rage blackened his vision.
Between when Wakefield had left her company last evening, and when she’d gone off on her own, before he’d gone to retrieve her, some brute had put his hands upon her. That same cheek Wakefield stroked and placed tender kisses upon, some man had touched in violence.
Every fiber of him wanted to snap and snarl and hiss and demand the bastard’s name. The other part of Benedict, the logical one, was all too cognizant of the fact that he’d been hot-tempered enough in front of Cressida. He’d likely startle her into complete silence if he said the wrong thing or spoke in the wrong tones.
“Who?” he seethed.
I’ll kill him…
She stared at him with such confused eyes. For a moment, he began to question whether she was some grand actress after all, because she couldn’t be this obtuse as to be completely evasive right now.
“Who is the man who put his hands on you?” he asked this time with greater calm.There. That had come out more composed, less half-mad.
“It happened last night.”
That’s not what he’d asked. Somehow, he kept at an even plane. “Who is the man responsible?”
Tell me, he thought to himself.Tell me so I can end him.
Cressida angled her body from his, as if in doing so she could conceal the mark he’d already seen and make him forget it. He couldn’t. He never would.
“Cressida,”
“I don’t know,” she exclaimed, slashing a hand at the air. “When I was searching for Trudy last evening, I went about putting inquiries to strangers. I encountered—” An evil. “Less than helpful man who happened to be drunk. He only got a single blow in when I managed to get myself free.”
He only got a single blow in…?
