Page 15 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

A fter he took his leave of Cressida, Wakefield’s business for the day continued. His current business should also happen to be as unconventional as the first. Money and power got a person anything, and that included an immediate meeting with Lord Markham, one of the top investigators in England.

Granted, so did connections, but the connections Wakefield had to the rival investigative company happened to be ones he made through his brother-in-law, Latimer.

As a result, the situation merited outside help, without any links to the two men he’d joined ranks with, which accounted for his appointment with Lord Markham.

Seated across the gentleman’s elaborate desk, Lord Markham listened while Wakefield told his sins and crimes for a second time this day. The other man’s austere face gave nothing away. But somehow, the gentleman still oozed cynicism, threat, and power. The fellow’s hard lips could have been chipped and chiseled of granite. His every feature, from his too-sharp cheekbones to a jawline edged of steel, were as blunt as the man himself.

His face was a cold as the man’s office itself. Furniture was scarce but for the partner’s desk that dominated the space and a pair of saber-leg armchairs as stiff-backed and brutal as the room’s owner. The sapphire-black painted walls contained not a single painting or portrait.

When Wakefield finished, the stony-faced and hard-eyed Lord Markham appeared to be a blend of annoyed and bored. “Are you asking me to dispose of the lady?”

Wakefield stared incredulously. “ No ,” Wakefield said, utterly horrified. He searched for some signs the other man was joking, and it soon became apparent no jest was intended.

With a tightly cropped golden halo of hair, the gentleman had the look of an archangel but spoke with a coldness and lethality of Satan’s finest killer.

His heart hammered against his ribcage. Just hearing the investigator speak so casually about offing Cressida—“Absolutely not!” he said forcefully, wanting to be absolutely clear. “In fact, if the lady is harmed—”

Lord Markham held a hand up. “Let me spare you. I know who you are, Wakefield. I know your reputation. Obviously, I don’t believe for an instant you came here to hire me to silence some lady or dispose of any bodies.”

Why, the gent sounded downright disappointed.

“I’m merely pointing out that you don’t need me, and you certainly don’t require my services for the type of questions you have. The lady belongs to Polite Society. Someone connected her with The Devil’s Den. With your connections, it’ll be easy enough to put questions about discreetly. The gossips can give you for free what I’ll charge you a fortune for.”

Markham snapped his book closed in a clear indication that the meeting was concluded.

Wakefield dug in. “I believe you missed the point,” he said coolly. “I don’t want questions—just the opposite. I’m looking to avoid all that entirely.”

Markham’s mouth went taut as if he’d tasted something bad. “That’s not the kind of work I do.”

Wakefield leaned forward. “Well, I am asking you to make it your work, and I’m willing to pay you double for your services.”

A cool smile quirked the other man’s lips. “I’ve done my research on you. It appears, however, you’ve not done the same on me. If that were the case, you would know I don’t need a fortune from you. I already have one of my own, and I have the ability to decline whatever work I want. So do not go throwing money at me as if it matters or means anything. Are we clear?”

A warning glint lit Markham’s eyes, indicating Wakefield had gone too far.

He was fucking up every last discussion he had and every last relationship in the span of a half day’s time. First, he’d grossly insulted Cressida. Then there’d been the amiable Rothesby, whom Wakefield hadn’t believed could be offended, and now one of the most ruthless investigators in the entire empire—a mercenary man who’d just as easily end a young lady as split Wakefield’s neck open.

He’d come here knowing about Markham’s reputation. Having interacted a short while, Wakefield had finally caught up on how to deal with the man.

“I misrepresented my concerns,” Wakefield said flatly. “This is not a matter of me being worried I fathered a child with this woman.”

Markham smirked. “Though you’d also be lying if you said you weren’t worried about it too.”

“Yes,” he allowed. “That is obviously a concern. But none of this makes sense.”

The investigator was bored. He wanted a challenge. Wakefield gave him that in his next opening.

“Think of it, Markham, the lady is somewhere near twenty-three. Maybe twenty-four. She moves in the same social circles as me, and yet she claims she can disappear for weeks on end without anyone discovering her identity.” The more he spoke, the further he roused his own earlier suspicions. “She knows who I am. What am I to think, other than that her family has masterminded some kind of plan that involves me?”

Markham weighed all that a moment. “You want my opinion, Wakefield?”

That appeared to be the question of the day.

“I want you on staff,” Wakefield said icily. “But I’ll take your opinion.”

“Various circumstances drive every person. Maybe the lady landing in your bed doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with you specifically. Perhaps the lady is in some other kind of trouble. Perhaps there’s a villainous family member whom she’s trying to escape from. Who the hell knows? But again, all you need do is put out discrete feelers, and you’ll have every last answer.”

Wakefield stared at him, continuing to thread the needle to land the investigator. “ This is what you’ve come up with?” Wakefield gave a rueful chuckle. “I’d not taken you for the fanciful sort who’d peddle me some melodramatic, gothic tale.”

For a flash, Markham’s mouth flattened and then returned to neutral.

“What do you want?” Wakefield asked bluntly.

“What do I want?” Lord Markham sounded positively amused at the idea Wakefield could offer him anything.

Men like Markham and Rothesby had underestimated Wakefield his entire life. He knew what they said about him: a good, dutiful peer, without a cynical bone in his body. Both failed to realize Wakefield was just as jaded as each of them, maybe more so. Certainly more than anyone gave him credit for being.

Wakefield slashed a hand Markham’s way. “Everyone wants something. You know so much about me already. No doubt, you know my background and even what I might be coming to you to ask about.”

His previously impressive patience became increasingly frayed as this day went. “You most likely knew why I was here before I even opened my mouth.”

The impressively stoic investigator neither confirmed nor denied.

Wakefield continued, “You provided a thorough enough assessment of me that you unequivocally knew I’d never bring a case you’d be interested in, and yet…here we are, still talking.”

Done with this man’s games, done with all of it, Wakefield narrowed his eyes. “So let us—what did you say?—cut to it. Stop beating about the proverbial bush, and tell me what exactly it is you want from me.”

Surprise and something else—admiration?—glinted briefly in Lord Markham’s eyes and then was gone. It wasn’t an unfamiliar reaction men had when dealing with Wakefield.

Finally, Lord Markham drawled, “You’re giving me an indication that it might not be such a chore to work with you after all.”

All business, the investigator leaned across the gold leather surface of the walnut partner’s desk that dominated the office. “All right, I’ll get to it. Your assignment is an easy one. I’ll have answers in a day or two, at most.”

“And in return?” After all, it wasn’t a sudden newfound friendship or altruism that drove the mercenary gentleman.

Markham steepled his large hands together. They were unblemished, meticulous fingers, kept that way to conceal the blood upon them. “You have connections in Parliament—”

“You’re interested in the passage of certain bills?” Wakefield scoffed. “Is it my parliamentary connections you seek or those I have with the Home Office, Markham?”

That appeared to break a wall between them. For the first time since Wakefield stepped inside his office, Markham didn’t consider him the same way Wakefield considered the drunkards and scapegraces losing fortunes and forgetting their families.

“I don’t want this work.” Markham held himself still like movement would betray him, when it was his lips that currently did. “I don’t want nobles coming in and asking me to pay off their mistresses or hide their bastards or whatever else.”

Wakefield peered long at the other man. All the ton knew about the Markhams. Lord Adam Markham, who’d been an officer at the Home Office, imprisoned by a traitor to the Crown, and saved by the man’s daughter.

Wakefield narrowed his eyes. “You believe I can do for you something that your own family and connections can’t do for you?” he asked, but they both well knew Markham had influence enough through his family.

“I’m nearly thirty years old and I have a father determined to,” Markham’s ice-hard lips twisted in a sneer, “protect me from encounters and experiences he suffered during his time at the Home Office.”

Ah, so Lord Markham was forced into this role of private investigator because his powerful sire sought to protect him.

How strange, each of them, chafed at the circumstances their fathers created for them. And yet for Wakefield’s case, his ire came from the fact the late Earl of Wakefield hadn’t cared enough about his own family.

For the first time, Wakefield found himself with something he hadn’t since this morning started, leverage, power over situation and he relished the feeling—now and always. “Tell me who you want me to speak with at the Home Office and what you want. It will be done.”

Markham took that in and then slowly nodded his head.

At the same time, they stretched a hand across the desk and cemented their partnership.

The flinty-eyed investigator remained just as aloof. “What do you want me to do?”

Wakefield tapped the desk. “I want everything you can find about Cressida Smith. My partners at The Devil’s Den, Latimer and Dynevor. I want to know about my new partners at The Devil’s Den. I want everything. I want to know how the club finds the women to be part of their auction. Who sets those terms. I want to know the inside outs of the club and how it is run.”

“I take it all this has already been provided for you by your brother-in-law and new business partner,” the other man aptly assumed. “And that you are now just verifying how truthful they’ve been about their circumstances and the new business you’ve signed on for.”

“Correct,” Benedict said.

“I believe the most important part for us to discuss now…”

Wakefield waited for Lord Markham to speak.

“What happens, Wakefield, if my investigation does turns up treacherous acts against you? Are you expecting me to deal with them?” Lord Markham sounded positively gleeful at the prospect.

“Yes.” Wakefield firmed his jaw. He might be a gentleman and value his reputation, but he was just as ruthless as the rest. No one wronged him. No one deceived him. And the ones who did would pay the price.

“As we are speaking about your having vengeance, it’s also important for me to discover what that will look like for each involved player. Right now we have,” Markham lifted his thumb, “The Earl of Dynevor. I trust what punishment you’d expect me to exact would be easy given the fact of your having no actual meaningful connections with him.”

“Correct.”

“Two,” the investigator continued said, sticking another digit up. “And this is where it becomes more complicated. We have your brother-in-law, Latimer, married to your half-sister.”

Livian’s husband.

His gut knotted.

Livian and Verity might be half-sisters by the definition, but not to Wakefield. They were as much sisters to him as either of his legitimate sisters, twins, Lady Katherine and Lady Anne. Could he hurt any of them? He’d sooner knock his own head off.

Yet, his sister would be devastated if any type of harm befell her husband.

Wakefield glanced away. Yes, punishing Latimer would be more complex and complicated.

“And last,” Markham said, lifting a third finger, which he wagged the most heavily. “Then we have Miss Smith, a young lady who was, until last night, a virgin and who may even now be carrying your child.”

A vision flickered forward of a child—a tiny little girl with eyes that sparkled and shone with her every emotion—not with the sadness and sorrow of her mother—but the lady’s spirit and the ebullience that was missing. How must those eyes glow when Cressida Smith wore her happiness.

“Wakefield?”

The strangest sensation filled his chest.

“Wakefield?”

“Hmm?” Blinking rapidly, Wakefield looked dumbly at Markham.

The sinister arrangement of his features brought all Wakefield’s musings to an end.

“If we’re to discover she is in fact a player in some terrible, terrific scheme against you, how should I handle Miss Smith?”

Another memory entered Wakefield’s mind. Cressida’s eyes big as moons and just as bright and filled one instant with shyness, and the other, a fiery spirit to rival a Spartan princess.

Who is she? Who is she? Who was this woman who’d upended his order in the world? Was she the master manipulator he feared or shy siren? How much was real? What was real? Any of it? All of it?

This woman who he knew not at all left him scattered and weak in ways he didn’t understand, particularly as she was a stranger shrouded in secrets and mystery.

Wakefield’s lips curled slowly at the corners. “If Miss Smith does in fact mean my business, my family, or myself harm, I will be all too happy to have you deal with her and make her pay the price.”