Page 17 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

A fter an infernally long, godforsaken day, Wakefield had one last bit of business to attend to.

The minute Wakefield sailed through the entryway of his sister Katherine and brother-in-law’s, the Duke and Duchess of Bainbridge, his sister Katherine was there to scold him.

Wakefield attempted to head her off. “Dear sister!” He caught Katherine around her waist and swung her around in a bear hug. “This has been the highlight of my day,” he said, earning the anticipated bell-like laughter.

There, that’d been as easy as kissing a chambermaid.

The minute he set Katherine down, she frowned. “You are late, dear brother . I’d begun to expect you wouldn’t show.”

Alas, it appeared he hadn’t bagged the fox after all.

Oh, hell.

Wakefield slapped a hand to his chest. “I would never not respond to a summons,” he said.

Before his sister had a chance to turn her full ire on him, he turned to shake his brother-in-law’s hand. “Bainbridge.”

“Wakefield, a pleasure.”

Katherine crossed her arms. “I’d also said you were never late, but here we are, Benedict.”

Her eyes shone as bright as when she’d been a young lady who’d gone off gallivanting, gotten lost at the Frost Fair, and nearly drowned before being plucked from the icy waters by her husband.

A servant stepped forward to collect Wakefield’s cloak.

“Again, my apologies,” Wakefield said, handing the garment over to the liveried footman. “My business went longer than anticipated.”

His business being a slender, lithe, spirited ball of fire and innocence. The memory of her as she’d been during their charged exchange—The sound of his own breathing filled his ears.

“Worry not, Frost only just arrived too.”

He furrowed his brow. “Frost?”

Oh, hell. Frost, as in the Marquess of Kingsmore and the future Duke of Bainbridge.

“As in your nephew, Wakefield,” Bainbridge drawled.

“And godson,” Katherine interjected.

Now he recalled. “Uh, yes,” Wakefield said. “My meeting…with Frost .”

Katherine frowned. “You do remember, don’t you ?”

Vaguely. “Certainly.” He spoke quickly, attempting to save face. “You wished for me to speak to the boy.” Wakefield tugged at his cravat. “What exactly is it I’ll be talking with Frost about?”

This time, the look his sister gave Wakefield was concerned. “Didn’t you read the note?”

He’d skimmed the top contents and now regretted not having read through the second paragraph. “Remind me, please.”

Katherine gave him another look and then laughed. “Oh, Benedict, I’ve missed you. Come along. He and Jasper are waiting.”

Oh, fantastic. Yet another meeting he was going to have to fake his way through and, worse, it was going to be in front of his brother-in-law. And given his sister’s involvement and parenting side by side with Bainbridge, Katherine would be there to take note of the fact he had absolutely no idea what was going on.

“How has Frost been?” he asked as they walked side by side through along the carpeted corridors.

“Given the reason for your visit, I rather expect you know.”

Wakefield found himself tugging at his cravat. “I meant with the exception of the reason for my visit.” There, that was a nice recovery.

“Oh, he’s still up to his mischievous ways, but he remains a deeply devoted and loving older brother just like you.” Katherine beamed at him. “Here we are,” Katherine murmured when they reached the great parlor.

Bainbridge stood at the center of the room with his hands clasped behind his broad back, but for the addition of a few laugh lines that creased the corners of his brow and eyes, the gentleman looked as young as he had when he had first become part of the Adamson family. He also looked just as stern. In fact, if it weren’t for those crinkles, one would doubt whether the fellow was, in fact, capable of a smile.

“Frost, on your feet like a gentleman. Greet your uncle.”

The young man, slouched in his seat with his legs widespread and his long dark hair hanging about his sharp-planed cheeks, came reluctantly to his feet.

Ah, the defiant stage. Wakefield remembered that all too well, only because his sisters had both gone through it, not Wakefield.

Not me. I’m about a decade late and dealing with the ramifications now.

Katherine hurried to join her husband and son at the center of the room.

“Wakefield, old chap,” Frost greeted.

Katherine let an elbow fly, catching her son in the arm. “That is your uncle,” she whispered loud enough to be heard by all the room’s occupants.

“Yes, and he’s Lord Wakefield. A fellow doesn’t call another fellow by his given—”

Katherine stopped the rest of that argument with another sharp jab.

While the lad’s mother gave him a quiet lecture, Wakefield shared a glance with his godson.

“And, for that matter, you need to bow to your uncle,” Katherine finished her lecture.

“You see,” Frost drawled, “this is what confuses me. Is he my uncle or is he some other nobleman to greet? Because if he’s family—”

“You still bow to family,” the beleaguered mother interrupted.

“Ah, I get it. Thank you, Mother.”

Katherine had always been too clever. She narrowed her eyes on her son. “What exactly is it you think you’d get, Frost?” There existed a warning in her tone.

“It’s just how could I forget? You are forever curtsying to Father, and Father is forever bowing to you.”

“No, we do not.” Katherine caught herself, but it was too late.

Frost smirked. Oh, yes. Katherine and Bainbridge had their hands full for sure.

Suddenly, Katherine’s expression grew stricken. “Father,” she whispered. She lifted wounded eyes to her beloved husband. “Since when did he begin referring to you by Father? You’ve always been Papa.”

“Is this what you brought Uncle Benedict over for?” Frost asked dryly. “To speak about the fact that I am a grown man, but that I should continue to refer to my parents as Mama and Papa.”

“We are always going to be your mama and papa,” Katherine cried out.

Before she grew into any more of an emotional temper, the duke rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder. He leaned down and whispered something into his wife’s ear. All her upset vanished in an instant. The couple shared an entirely too long and tender kiss.

Frost jumped away like he’d been caught in the midst of a fire. “For the love of God, would you two stop?”

“Well, you might not feel the same way as us about us being your mama and papa, but your father and I continue to carry the same love for one another.” With that, the couple again kissed.

Wakefield hid a smile. As his nephew jumped even farther out of the way and slapped his hands over his eyes, he made loud, nonsensical murmurings. The boy was young still. He had a lot to learn about letting other people get the best of him. Wakefield had begun to have an idea just why his services had been enlisted.

“Might I suggest we all sit and have a discussion?” Wakefield rescued his nephew from further trauma of his parents’ loving affection for one another.

Frost looked at him all too gratefully. He favored the young man with a wink. Katherine was the first to sit.

“Oh, absolutely not,” her son said. “I’m not having this discussion with Mother…Mama here,” he swiftly amended. “This isn’t a talk for ladies present. This is men’s conversation.”

Wait a moment. Maybe he’d been entirely wrong about the reason for this discussion after all. Surely they were not discussing that .

“Oh, rest assured. I’m entirely different than all other ladies. I am not a woman. I’m your mother. Isn’t that what you’ve said before?” Katherine batted her eyes not so innocently at her son, who surely regretted having uttered that at some point in his life.

The Duke of Bainbridge cut in to the back-and-forth between mother and son. “Your mother stays.” That ducal command had everyone instantly seated, Wakefield included. Their peculiar quartet sat in a circle, all looking at one another. Then suddenly, all eyes went to Wakefield. He resisted the urge to squirm. Never more did he regret not reading a piece of correspondence in his life.

“Why don’t I begin?” Bainbridge said for the group.

Thank God.

“Wakefield, why don’t you lead the way?”

“Oh, shite.”

“Now, did that really constitute…” Bainbridge began.

Wakefield made a clearing sound with his throat. “ Ahem .” Katherine gave him a pointed look. He met his sister’s stare with a sheepish one of his own.

“Benedict,” she mouthed. Then he saw in her eyes the moment she registered that he didn’t have any bloody clue as to what he was doing here. “Why don’t I get us started?” Katherine saved him from utter humiliation. “The reason we’ve asked you to speak with your uncle and have him speak with you…”

“Isn’t it really speaking with us if I’m not alone with Uncle Benedict?”

Fair question, lad , he thought to himself.

Katherine continued as though her son hadn’t spoken. “Given the reports we’ve received…”

“Can’t we call it gossip?” Frost shot back. “That is, unless you’ve hired a private investigator.”

Wakefield dissolved into a paroxysm of choking. Katherine jumped up, but he waved her away. “Well, it is not as though you make any attempt to hide your bad behavior. You are at Oxford. You are the future Duke of Bainbridge.” Katherine’s eyes grew sad. “You are my son.”

“All of these can be true, Mother,” he said. “All of these can be true, Mama,” Frost said softly.

They were tones Wakefield recognized all too well. They were the ones reserved by rogues and rakes to appease some distraught lady.

The anger glinting in Bainbridge’s eyes indicated he too had seen it. “My son thinks nothing of carousing, drinking, and going about with loose women.” That blunt, cold statement broke all the way through Frost’s charade. This time, Bainbridge was all too happy to take control of the discussion.

The marquess’s scowl returned. “Every gentleman does it. It’s called sowing your oats, Mother and Father.”

“No, they don’t. Your father did not.”

“Yes, yes. It’s because he fell in love, first with one woman and then you.”

Bainbridge didn’t so much as flinch.

Katherine gasped. “Frost! You continue to disappoint me.”

“I know I disappoint you,” Frost shouted. “I’m not the paragon Father was and is, and I’m not the optimistic, hopeful person you are, Mother. I’m my own person and I don’t believe that at age eighteen, I could know a bloody thing about love. But I do know I can celebrate my youth along with the rest of the fellows my age.”

“You may take your father as the only saint, but he’s not, my boy,” Katherine riposted. “For a model on how to be conduct yourself as student and young gentleman, you need look no further than—”

No. Don’t say it.

“Your Uncle Benedict,” his sister finished.

Oh, hell.

Three pairs of gazes landed on Wakefield.

Annd she’d said it.

A sinking sensation settled in Wakefield’s stomach. So this was why he’d been summoned. They dragged him here as some kind of moral beacon. For one horrifying moment, he entertained the possibility that the three of them were aware of his crimes and sins at The Devil’s Den, and his recent acquisition of ownership, and that this was all some grand display to make Wakefield feel like the blighter he was.

“Tell him, Benedict,” Katherine exclaimed. “Tell him how serious you took your studies and have conducted yourself.”

“Why does he need to tell me if you’re doing it yourself, Mother?”

With all the tumult Wakefield had endured today, this—this—was the final straw.

“Your mother is right,” he snapped, temper barely held in check. “The trouble you can find yourself in…is staggering.”

He stepped forward, voice rising.

“That’s what young gentlemen never speak of. Not truly. Not enough. If at all.”

A pause. A breath. And then with blistering heat—

“We’re talking about men who run around with no thought, no care. Seducing women. Getting them with child. And altering not just that lady’s life—”

His voice broke, then deepened.

“—but their own. And any innocent offspring they carelessly bring into this world too.”

With every utterance that flew from his lips, Cressida’s face appeared and his guilt compounded. “One minute, you’re living a carefree life with zero entanglements and having a rollicking good time. And the next, you’re stuck neck deep in more trouble than God Himself could solve. So yes, if it is, as your mother says, and you’re behaving like every other randy chap out there, then you’re going to regret it, and you’re going to regret it mightily. Trust me,” he exclaimed. His chest heaved and his shoulders shook. Three sets of very wide eyes looked back at him.

The door exploded open. “An urgent message for Lord Wakefield,” the butler said, panting and out of breath. “Said I was to come get you, interrupt immediately, and that you need to receive this.”

Wakefield’s gut clenched, and he was already crossing over to meet the man more than halfway. With a hurried word of thanks, he ripped the page open and read the note.

“The lady is on the move. Location where she can be reached.”

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, crushing the page in his hand.

“Benedict.” His sister’s voice came haltingly behind him.

“Wakefield?” Bainbridge shared in his wife’s concern.

“Uncle Benedict?”

Wakefield hurriedly composed himself and stuffed the page inside his front jacket. “Sorry to rush off. Yes, as I was saying, Frost, do listen to your parents please. You don’t want to end up like…like…” Me . “Like every other useless lad out there, you’re better than that. Start showing it.” With that most hypocritical advice he’d ever shared, Wakefield set off at a brisk clip through the door and headed in search of Cressida.