Page 12 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

F or everything Cressida thought she knew about Benedict, the Earl of Wakefield, right now, seated across from the cynical gentleman as he demanded she accompany him to one of his residences, she discovered something new.

“You are mad,” she breathed.

No. Not just mad. Stark raving mad .

Benedict looped an ankle across his opposite knee. “Why don’t we call it a temporary lapse in sanity?”

His hard lips curved in a maddeningly smug grin she’d never seen him bestow upon another, and she wondered if he reserved all that cynical mirth for her.

Discomfited, Cressida drew back. “You may call it whatever you want, my lord. The fact remains, if you believe I’m going anywhere with you, you are madder than a March hare.”

The vein at his right temple bulged and pulsed.

Good. Her icy cold rejection quashed his cocksure arrogance. Served him right, the jackanapes.

The earl’s fight for restraint didn’t terrify her as it should, but rather, it fascinated Cressida.

Just as that arrogant smirk had been unfamiliar to her before now, so too was this version of Benedict. Every time she’d ever interacted with the earl or observed him from across a room, he’d been completely in command of himself. Certainly, he’d never been the hot-tempered sort. Somehow, this shockingly new side to him made him more… real .

His self-possession drew her, held her in awe. The men in her life had been wholly lacking in self-control. Her brother. Why, even her father, had lost himself to his grief.

The taut lines at the corners of his hard mouth eased. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’ve been presumptuous.”

An apology now? Cressida’s lips parted for a breath she hadn’t intended to take. Men didn’t apologize. For that matter, people in general did not. How many times had she witnessed her friends of the Mismatch Society struggling with those two words for friends and sweethearts. But here, Benedict freely apologized and took ownership of his bad behavior.

A regretful smile curled his lips into a half-grin. “Will you please come with me?” This time, in gentlemanly tones, he asked a question that wasn’t at all gentlemanly.

He’d vacillated too easily from domineering lord to coaxing charmer for Cressida to be anything but wary.

“Where exactly are you ordering me—”

“ Now asking,” he glibly intoned.

“—to go, Lord Wakefield?”

He flashed another smile. “Why, to my residence,” he replied, like his was the most natural response in the world.

The carriage hit a particularly large hole that lifted Cressida from her seat and sent her landing hard on the cushions. She grunted.

Lord Wakefield remained firmly on his bench because, of course, even the common cobblestones would pay him homage and treat Cressida with disdain.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You are asking me to…join you at your home?” She was missing something. Nothing about what he was saying made any sense. The more he spoke, the less sense it made.

He clarified. “I have a residence where you may go.”

Cressida drew her chin up in defiance—masking the ache. “I have a residence of my own, Lord Wakefield.” Granted, the dilapidated state of her Ratcliffe townhouse left up to question whether the abode constituted an actual residence. “I am not without a home.” At least she wasn’t without a roof over her head. Hers leaked, but it was still a roof.

His features became strained. “Of course you have a home, Miss Smith.”

One of them just had to be direct. It may as well be her. “Then why…”

Then the understanding hit her, but in a beautiful way. “You want to do right by me,” she whispered, falling in love with him all over again.

His chiseled features froze and then stuttered somewhere between horror and embarrassment.

A bachelor’s residence. He’d been making her an indecent offer.

Mortification brought Cressida’s toes curling sharply into the soles of her feet. She turned her face to the window, edging it back just enough to look out. “I see.” Cressida managed a curt nod, barely holding herself together. “You weren’t offering to do right by me.”

“No,” he said tersely. “Is that what you were expecting?” His smooth, mellifluous tones of before had lost all their warmth.

“Expecting? No.” Secretly, she’d been hoping, but not because he felt a sense of obligation. Rather because he remembered her and had carried, if not the deep abiding love she had for him, at least some admiration, some affection.

A gentleman like the Earl of Wakefield didn’t wed women of Cressida’s stock and background, and neither did they appear interested in keeping them as mistresses.

Not that she wanted to be one of his mistresses.

Liar, you’re so pathetic. You’d have taken that meager scrap.

To give her shaking fingers a purpose, Cressida fiddled with the curtain.

Benedict shot a hand out.

Gasping, Cressida’s gaze locked on his long fingers gently, but firmly, twined about her wrist.

“Leave it,” he commanded.

With a juddering nod, she let the curtain fall.

He is afraid to be seen with me and being forced to marry her.

Desperate to save face this day, she shot a hand up and knocked on the roof.

The carriage came to a slower stop this time.

Benedict frowned and glanced about. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything, my lord. You, on the other hand, are leaving.”

He bristled. “The hell I am.”

“You invaded my carriage, declared I’m to return with you, and now are refusing to leave, even though I’ve told you, time and time again, that I have no intention of going anywhere with you.” Her voice grew increasingly impassioned. “I’ll see myself home. There needn’t be any further reason for us to suffer one another’s company. I’m not asking you to leave. I’m telling you.”

His features tightened. “Ah, but based on our activities last night, that isn’t necessarily true. At least, we cannot yet be sure of that.”

Cressida shook her head.

He gave her a pointed, meaningful look.

What was he saying? She just stared at him.

“A babe?” she whispered. “You are worried about a babe?”

Benedict gave a small, tight, but discernible nod.

Cressida cocked her head. Did all gentlemen carry the same worry after they made love to their mistresses and lovers? By the number of illegitimate bastards littered throughout England, she ventured not. She hated these continuous reminders of the ways in which he was decent and good.

It had been far easier to cut all ties with him here, believing he was no different than all the scoundrels and scapegraces out there, though, yes, in some ways, he was.

He had attended the debauched gaming hell and partaken in shockingly scandalous enjoyments . He did shockingly naughty things with his lovers, of which she’d become one last evening. But the fact still remained; he wanted her to accompany him because he feared he’d left her with child.

Cressida glanced at her lap. “Benedict, you’ve given me instructions as to how to reach you should I…should I…need to.” She wouldn’t.

Her brother had her marrying an ancient duke; the date of their unhappy nuptials was imminent. Perhaps she should tell him that and alleviate his worry.

His expression became pained. “Miss Smith, if you are…on your own,” he said, appearing to carefully weigh his words. “Then I’ll not be aware of your goings-on.”

Hope filtered into her heart. “You are worried about my circumstances?” she ventured, scarcely daring to believe that anyone cared, let alone this man.

“I am.” Benedict answered like she were the mad one of their pair for even asking. “If there’s a child, there’s also the matter of determining if the babe is…”

A curtain of rage descended over her vision.

With a feral hiss, Cressida backhanded him in the face with a slap her former defense teacher, the Duke of Wingate, would have hailed.

The force of her blow sent Benedict’s head whipping back and left a stark imprint upon his cheek. He ran his palm up and down his injured cheek. “This might also be a good time to share I’ve directed your driver to one of my properties.”

Cressida gasped. “The insolence of you. You…You… bastard .” She’d hate him forever, but she’d hate herself more for having ever admired him. To think she’d considered herself in love with him.

“In the figurative sense, yes, but in the literal? No.” Benedict flexed his jaw, opening and closing his mouth several times.

Good . Let him suffer. He deserved that and far more.

The earl let his hand fall and gave her a firm, unbending look. “I am a man who is determined to protect any illegitimate issue I may have, which in turn requires I ensure the woman whom I spilled my seed inside is carefully tended.”

“Ah, if only you’d been more careful with where you spent,” Cressida spat.

Benedict’s lips formed a firm, flat line.

Yet again, he’d not take her bait. He’d insult her, then act like some sort of martyr.

Determined to get a rise out of him, Cressida released a harsh, jeering laugh. “How honorable you are. I take it you make it a regular habit of abducting all your whores and waiting for them to get their monthly courses.”

“You are not my whore,” he rasped with a sharpness that sent her falling back in her seat.

He looked away a moment, and when he returned his eyes to her, he was composed once more. “I’ve never been careless like this before, Cressida.”

“Lucky me,” she spat.

Neither of them spoke for the long length of the carriage ride.

Cressida sat absolutely motionless, stiff as a board upon her seat. She stared unblinkingly at the corner of the curtain he’d forbade her from touching.

If anyone had told Cressida that she’d one day find herself sharing a carriage with the Earl of Wakefield and would be completely miserable about it, she would have scoffed in disbelief, laughing at the very thought.

Sorrowful regret tightened in her breast.

That’s what she got for dreaming. The same thing she had gotten for hoping.

At long last, they arrived.

Cressida made haste, not allowing him a chance to do the gentlemanly thing and help her down. Before the carriage had come to a full stop, Cressida threw the door open and jumped out.

Lord Wakefield cursed roundly. “You’ll get yourself killed.” Concern filled his voice.

How could there be any concern? With the ill opinion he carried of her, how? With the suspicions he had, why, in the face of his clear disgust and mistrust, would he be in any way worried? Oh, yes, that’s right , she thought. Fear for his potential babe.

He’d make a great father. He’d just make a miserable, terrible husband .

Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from weeping, she took in her surroundings. It was an unfamiliar street. Every single townhouse upon the row was an immaculate white with red brick steps and black doors. The stench of feces and refuse didn’t hang in the air. There were no thieves and whores resting against the buildings, watching plainly for their next prey.

A firm, commanding hand rested upon her shoulder in a reassuring way, startling her. She considered herself tall by society’s standards. But for a woman of nearly five inches past five feet, she had to crane her neck back to meet Benedict’s gaze.

“I’ve been boorish,” he said quietly.

“Yes, you have been.”

Benedict swiped a hand through his hair in what she’d quickly learned was his way of dealing with his unease. She’d never before seen this side of him, but then she’d never before been in his life. Everything about Cressida and her family’s existence brought trouble to everyone.

He let his arm drop. “I will not hold you here against your will.”

“How good of you,” she said.

Her droll response put a ghost of a smile on his previously tense lips.

“May I ask you to please come inside where we can speak privately? Everything…all of this…” He stopped, paused a moment, and collected himself. “I’ve handled this poorly. If you’d allow me an opportunity to start again, I would be grateful.”

Cressida eyed him guardedly. She had no reason to trust him. For all the ways he’d shown himself to be a good man, in this one day, he’d also proven to be remarkably like all the other lords in London.

Benedict stretched his left arm out, gesturing towards the brick steps leading into the magnificent townhouse.

“Please, Cressida?” he asked quietly.

Please .

“Please,” he repeated.

He’d asked a second time . Maybe it was the fact that he put that single word to her as a slight plea. Or maybe it was just that she was delaying going back to her house, where she’d have to face her brother and confront the rest of her future, but Cressida found herself nodding.

Then, following alongside him, she entered the Earl of Wakefield’s townhouse.