Page 94 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“Yes. Well, you’re friends, and you cared very deeply for her.” His sisters had long suspected that he’d been in love with Marcia.
He’d never sought to deny it. When they’d gently quizzed him following her marriage to Andrew, Viscount Waters, he didn’t bother denying it.
“I’m fine. I really am.”
And at least where the Viscountess Waters was concerned, he really was fine. It was another darker-haired minx who had him reeling and hungry as he’d never been for anyone, not even Marcia.
“Harry, please tell him.”
The Earl of Stanhope gently and also firmly interrupted Anne before she said anything further. “Anne, it is not our place to interfere in matters of your brother’s heart.”
The earl looked back at Wakefield. “Unless, that is, he asks for help.”
“I am not in need of help,” Wakefield said emphatically, taking his brother-in-law’s cue.
What need he do to reassure his sister and get her and Katherine off of him?
“In fact, I can demonstrate just how unaffected I am by visiting and speaking with the viscount and viscountess. Would that make you happy?” His words and offer had opposite the intended effect.
“Absolutely not. Benedict, I would never encourage you to go put yourself before someone and bring yourself such pain.”
Oh, for all that was holy. Wakefield downed the rest of his drink and handed it over to his brother-in-law, who obligingly took it.
“Benedict. Benedict. Where are you going?” his sister called urgently after him.
Wakefield made his way down the side of the ballroom, circumventing various lords and eager mamas who sought his attention, until he arrived in front of the viscount and viscountess. His former friend had been a notorious randy rogue.
Viscount Waters noticed Wakefield first. His former favorite chum—and really his only chum from his youth—shot his eyebrows up before quickly regaining his composure.
“Wakefield,” he greeted.
There was an almost relief and disbelief warring in the other man’s voice.
It had been so damn long since he’d talked to Barrett. They’d been inseparable. And then that cord had been severed so quick, a product of two men who’d fallen in love with the same woman.
Marcia followed her husband’s gaze and turned to look at Wakefield with the same expression her husband wore.
“Benedict,” she greeted happily and with such warmth he could almost believe there hadn’t been a passage of two years since they’d all last spoken.
“So good to see you, old chap. So good,” Waters said, shooting a hand out.
Wakefield took it automatically, and the two men shook while, all around them, London looked on.
“It’s been too long.”
And what began as first slightly uncomfortable, casual pleasantries became less stilted and more comfortable as they caught one another up on what had transpired in their own lives, and the couple’s marriage, these past years. After he’d escorted Marcia onto the dance floor for a lively country reel, Wakefield welcomed, if even for just a moment, that things were returnedto normality and not the chaotic world he had been in since his life collided with Cressida’s.
Chapter 23
The thing that had always amazed Cressida was the speed with which gossip columns managed to circulate information abouttonevents, even before most of the guests had stumbled in from late night soirees and balls. She’d often mused that if that same energy was put into improving the lot of those outside their social circle, who lived in squalor, every Londoner’s life would be improved overnight.
Cressida had never given much attention to gossip columns as a rule, and she didn’t read them as a habit. However, she had allowed herself to pore over those sheets for information about the dashing Lord Wakefield. That’s what made it so funny that Cressida should find herself in the kitchen of the very nobleman whom she’d admired from afar and yet still found herself reading the just arrived edition ofThe Times. Her bread had already been baked and now sat cooling. She stared at the front pages.
Benedict didn’t tend to make the front pages of any gossip sheets. This time, he had. Nor was it because it had been discovered he’d been slumming it with Cressida. Since she’d accepted the pages from the boy who delivered them a short while ago and set it down upon the table, she’d read but not touched the pages. And she’d since memorized the part of about. Benedict.
The Earl and Countess of S’s Ball proved to be not only the most attended affair of the London Season and extravagantly done by any hostesses of very highest standards, it also featured the surprising reunion between a certain Earl of W and Viscount W. Given their decade long friendship, it hadn’t taken much for society to deduce the timing of the fallout betweenthe two gentlemen stemmed from the Viscount W’s marriage to the current Viscountess of W. Despite years of bad feelings, the Earl of W appeared unable to stay away for long and exuded charm and, dare this gossip say, adoration for the young Viscountess with her scandalous past, et cetera, etcetera…
“You’re awake.”
