Page 2 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

The peeress spoke for the both of them. “Yes, yes.” She sighed. “I fear that was the reason for their delay. We were hopeful there’d be space for both of us but were deciding which of us would be granted the right, and to my great frustration, my dear cousin won the navia aut caput. Is there any way you might make an except—”

A tall figure came upon them.

The cryptic stranger glanced back and forth between the baroness and Cressida, before he leveled a flat, assessing stare on Cressida. There was something familiar about the dark, coldly beautiful, and well-dressed man, but between the fog of dread and haze of drugs, for the life of her, Cressida, could not place him.

Lady Marianne, on the other hand, did recognize the young gentleman.

“Lord Dynevor.” Like a cat, she purred his name.

The gentleman—Lord Dynevor—ignored Lady Marianne. “What’s the problem here?” He put that question to a heavily armed, scarred bear of a man, who was either a killer or security guard.

Most likely, the fellow was both.

A giggle emerged breathlessly from her lips; the sound, faint and husky, managed to earn Cressida a rebuke-filled look from the baroness and much briefer, dismissive looks from the pair of men.

“This one,” the Bear growled, as bears did, and notched a thumb in the baroness’s direction. “Lookin’ to join the fun.”

“Tell your men to allow the both of us,” Lady Marianne said throatily. As she’d done in the carriage, the baroness unfastened the ties of her indecent gown and put her bare breasts on display. “Imagine the money you’d earn selling two sisters to one gentleman.”

Lord Dynevor gave her a once over. “Madam, if you truly believe anyone’s going to believe you are anything other than an old, sagging mother of this one, then your brains are failing you as badly as your looks.”

Fury and embarrassment leant round circles of crimson color to the depraved baroness’s plump cheeks. “If you spent one night in my bed, Lord Dynevor, you would rethink your rejection.”

“Doubtful. Escort her out,” he ordered, his focus already squarely on Cressida.

The single, fortress-sized guard slipped from the shadows and whisked the baroness off and out before Cressida’s brain could register what’d happened.

Lord Dynevor removed his gloves. “Lady Aurum.”

Lady Aurum.

She furrowed her brow, trying to think where she’d heard that name and why this man referred to her so. “My name is—”

Before Cressida gave herself away, he stopped her. “The women who choose to be here all do so with the assurance of anonymity. As such, masks are worn by those ladies who do not wish to be linked to The Devil’s Den, and identities are concealed, regardless.”

Lady Aurum. Cressida. All analogues of gold—that coveted mineral.

Lord Dynevor flashed a hard smile. “Must allow the nobs of London to keep up the illusion that the women they call wives are proper. Must maintain the illusion that only proper gents get to enjoy earthly pleasures.”

The young earl vacillated between the King’s proper English and rough Cockney.

That’s why she’d heard of the gentleman. The notorious, debauched gaming hell had begun to rise to prominence, knowledge only a lady who found herself saddled with a degenerate brother would be in possession of.

Suddenly, the throbbing between her legs grew keener until it pulled a moan from her. Cressida shifted in a bid to alleviate some of that searing ache, but her efforts proved futile as the sensation grew and grew.

Cressida bit down hard on her lower lip.

“It’s showtime, luv.” A knowing grin iced the Earl of Dynevor’s hard lips. “Even with you in your current state, madam, I am still required to confirm for myself, as I do with all the women who partake in this particular entertainment, that you’re here of your own volition.”

Was she here of her own volition?

Funny a question that should be straightforward should prove debatable, and with multiple answers.

Did she want to surrender her virtue to a stranger? She’d trade her soul to Satan if she were spared from doing so. But to fail in this would mean Stanley made sure Cressida’s nursemaid disappeared. And as useless as the older woman was in her advanced years, the fact he’d sell his own sister left her in no doubt that he’d just as easily kill Trudy.

Only technically was this, in any way, Cressida’s choice.

Lord Dynevor flicked a gaze over Cressida’s modest pink and white gown. One of the last four garments she’d retained from her first Season, it’d begun showing signs of its age some five years ago.

Now, the earl examined her in a way that indicated he’d spotted poverty upon her person. “Lady Aurum, if yer here because you need a portion of coins that’ll come from the paying customers…”

Cressida arched on the balls of her feet. “Is that an option some ladies have?” she asked, breathless with hope.

The suspicion in his eyes deepened. “Aye. That along with an offer of employment if yer in need.”

Employment? Was that really much of a choice? Being sold by her brother, where she’d have just one man she’d be bound to bed, or taking on the work of a Cyprian, where she’d have dozens and dozens of lovers.

Either way, only one of the options afforded her a way to get Trudy out from under Stanley’s cruel thumb.

The earl’s mouth tightened. “I don’t let women who are anything but certain be part of my club, Lady Aurum.”

Lord Dynevor looked over her shoulder.

“I want to be here, my lord!” This time the half-truth flew from her lips, and it came easily. “I am here of my own choice.”

Even with that assurance given, the earl went on to study Cressida for an interminable amount of time. She estimated him to be a year or two younger but at least older than twenty. The gelid glint in his dark eyes gave him the appearance of a man two to three decades his senior.

Sweat prickled at her nape and fear sapped the moisture from her mouth. “I’m just nervous as I’ve never visited a club such as yours or took part in such wicked activities.” Desperate, she gripped him by his lapels. “But I want to be here,” she repeated, a fresh wave of want washing through her and turning her breathless exhalation into another sultry moan.

It also leant Cressida a sincerity that divested Dynevor of any reservations he might have had, ensuring her ability to save Trudy.

Lord Dynevor glanced down at where her fingers still held him. “If it weren’t my own club, Oi’d be of a mind to bid on ye myself.”

Embarrassed, Cressida snatched her hand back.

A cold, cynical but sagacious grin graced his lips. “You’re phrase to cease is ‘Venus Forbids.’ Following the auction, you will be escorted to private chambers. Behind the French screen painted with Jupiter and Juno, you will find a doorway. If you wish to bow out, you are free to leave through that door. You will face no consequences. There are numerous ladies who’ve asked for the opportunity to join this auction, and there are others standing by to take your place.”

Again, Cressida would be freed from whatever deal Stanley and Lady Marianne struck, but at the ultimate cost, one that Cressida wouldn’t pay, but Trudy would.

“A guard will be waiting at the bottom of the stairs,” the earl was saying.

Cressida struggled to attend him. All the most forbidden parts of her body tingled. Her blood and every nerve in her body was tangled up with a desire she’d learned about from books and discussions at the Mismatch Society meetings. She’d only truly felt the like that one time during her bath. She wanted to claw the clothes off her body.

“The only words you must speak to the guard is a call for a conveyance and your destination, Lady Aurum. You will be brought by way of one my carriages to whichever destination you desire. Your presence here will not be spoken of. It will be as if you never stepped through the doors of The Devil’s Den.”

The Devil’s Den. What an apt name for an unholy, hedonistic club such as Lord Dynevor’s.

“Do you have all that?” he asked, peering closely at her face.

She managed a nod. At the very least, she’d heard enough to know the decision whether to proceed this night rested with her, and she had a way out of this hell.

“Thank you, my lord,” Cressida murmured, unsure how her voice should emerge so strong when she felt so very small.

“What are the words if you wish to stop, Lady Aurum?”

“Venus Forbids,” she said, hardly recognizing the sultry voice as her own.

There was absolutely no doubt that he allowed ladies who truly wanted to be part of the perverted games he spoke of to leave. How many others consented, like Cressida, but did so without any real choice?

If she weren’t fighting the urge to moan like an animal with the aching need that now consumed her, she’d have cried at the numerous attempts he gave Cressida to escape her situation. As it stood, everything within Cressida now tunneled on the desperate ache at her core.

His inky black lashes dipped, and his gaze lingered long on her mouth.

He is going to kiss me…

Even as her heated body moved of its own volition and strained towards him, she wanted to cry; her mind screamed out a reminder that this isn’t what she’d wanted of her first embrace. She’d wanted to be loved, to have one gentleman who was true to her, who loved her, listened to her, and fought for her and against anyone who’d dare hurt her.

“As I said, a pity I won’t have the chance to bid. I have a feeling I’d enjoy playing the game with you.” Lord Dynevor spoke with an emotional flatness that put into strong doubt the possibility he actually enjoyed anything in life.

Playing the game? As in, being the one to divest Cressida of her virginity and good name? But then, he didn’t necessarily know. Only Cressida, and whichever gentleman bought her this night, would be aware there’d be an actual virgin in their wicked auction.

Then as quick as the desire appeared in the earl’s eyes, it was gone.

“Lady Aurum is ready,” he stated. Lord Dynevor raised several fingers in the air, signaling for something.

Confused as to why the earl was speaking her fake name in third person, she did a slow search about and gasped.

The something he’d signaled for happened to be someone—two of them.

That the titan-like pair with broad of muscles and towering height should move so silently was either a testament to their stealth—or whatever it was she’d drank that had disheveled her senses.

A moment later, four women appeared on either side of her. Like outrageously scandalous uniforms befitting a footman, each woman wore scandalously tight breeches, a short, fitted lawn shirt with the sleeves cut off, and high black leather boots. One of the titian-haired beauties held a large rectangular box.

With moves so practiced as to be a minuet, the guards presented their backs and formed a wall on either side of Cressida. Then the women opened the box and withdrew various articles of clothing.

If those translucent, filmy scraps that left nothing to the imagination could be described as such.

Her senses were overwhelmed with a hungering so deep, Cressida felt like a voyeur looking in, even as she was divested of her gown, stays, and petticoats.

The quartet of maids acted with precision, their deft fingers gliding over her naked flesh. Their fleeting touches roused her body to such agony, she was mortified and shamed by her need.

When they’d finished attiring her for the upcoming auction, a different maid, pixie-like in height and features, stepped forward.

With the same ease exercised by her four counterparts, the young woman smoothed Cressida’s curls. Her small but capable hands quickly freed Cressida’s hair of the remaining pins until all the heavy tresses fell about her shoulders.

As Cressida was guided into a chair and seated so the attendant might better reach Cressida’s tresses, it occurred to Cressida that the young woman intently contemplating her was just a girl. Why, she couldn’t be any more than ten or eleven, or somewhere around there. Not much older than Cressida had been when the death of her mother had set in motion what would become the slow descent of her life.

“Wot ye thinking?” one of the previously silent maids asked the tiny creature intently contemplating Cressida.

Letting out a dark curse Cressida didn’t know the meaning of, the girl glared at the one who’d spoken. “Shut yer mouth. Ye know oi’m working.”

Honoring the blunt—rude—request, the group of the girls’ elders fell respectfully quiet.

The spirited child took Cressida’s face between her hands. “When do ye feel most beautiful?”

Never. “I…” She shook her head.

“Gor, miss. It’s a question so simple that one of the owners there at Forbidden Pleasures or Lucifer’s Lair could answer.” Her impatient maid rolled big violet-hued eyes. “When do you—?”

An impatient growl cut through the rest of the girl’s question. “We’re on a schedule, Snap.”

They looked to the scowling Bear, who, with his scarred face and menacing look, would have roused terror in the devil himself.

Uncowed, the child he’d called Snap turned an even blacker scowl on the huge guard. “Shut yer bloody mouth, Roy. Adults are working here.”

Cressida caught the ghost of a smile that twitched the guard’s thin lips before he looked away.

“What is your name?” she asked quietly, when the girl returned her focus to Cressida.

“They call me Snap.”

She lamented her own fate, but Cressida was humbled by the reminder that, for all the ways in which she herself had suffered, she hadn’t been working in a brothel or gaming hell or whatever the hell debauched place the earl ran at ten years of age. “Yes, I gathered, but I also trust you must have an actual name.”

Snap sneered. “Why you wanna know, Aurum ?”

It’d be easy for Cressida to convince herself she was merely stalling, delaying her inevitable fate. But deep inside, she knew the truth. In the presence of the spirited child, Cressida forgot all: her fate, her future, her fear. She’d even been distracted from the unbearable longing to touch herself or be touched. Here in this moment, she craved, more than anything, more than her own physical yearnings, a true, meaningful connection with another person.

Cressida stared into the girl’s eyes. “My name is Cressida,” she whispered faintly.

Another overwhelming wave of desire went through Cressida, reminding her all over again that she was not a person. She was a vessel, here at the bidding of one man to bring pleasure to another.

The young but life-hardened maid peered at Cressida a long moment. “Used to be called Addien.” She shrugged. “But Dynevor named me Snap.” Addien gave a shy smile. “Ye don’t need to tell me what ye want. I’ll make ye even more beautiful.”

Even more beautiful? For the first time in years, Cressida managed a wistful smile.

As if Addien were either embarrassed by their brief personal connection or worried that it could be construed as displeasure with the head of the club, her face fired red. Without speaking another word, her fingers flew wildly in front of Cressida’s face, until Cressida went cross-eyed.

When Addien finished, she stepped away to assess the results. “Gor, ye look beautiful, ye do, miss,” the girl whispered. “’Tis a shame we ’ave to cover yer gorgeous face.”

While another maid came over, covered Cressida’s face with a mask, and began to tie it, she managed her first smile on this hellish night. “That would be a first,” she said.

There came a murmur of dissent from the gathered maids who’d attended her.

And as they guided Cressida down a corridor that emptied out onto a long stage concealed by crimson draperies, she could almost believe them—that she was, in fact, a proper lady being praised for her appearance before she arrived at a ball.

Any such illusion ended when her fictional name was called, and the long velvet curtains were drawn back, leaving Cressida on display.

Thick, overwhelming silence met her.

Cressida, blinded by the flash of bright lights from the crystal chandeliers overhead, squinted through the haze of cheroot smoke hanging in the air. She had to blink several times and promptly wished she’d left herself without an ability to see.

A small section, three rows of twelve gilded, golden upholstered hall chairs, had been cordoned off from the rest of the crimson-carpeted gaming hell. Every last of the thirty-six seats were occupied by various gentlemen. Some she recognized. Most she did not. They were of varying ages, from what must be lads in university to decrepit fellows with but one foot from the grave. Behind the red ropes, there were a handful of tables for what she’d venture were the club’s most distinguished guests.

One of these gentlemen would be her first lover. This man, still a stranger to her—but only for a short while more—would, for the rest of her life, be the man she’d freely give herself to. Ironically, he’d also be the one who’d bought Cressida as the whore her brother made of her this night.

Oh, God.

It was too much.

Tears blurred her vision.

Unable to let the dissipated spectators witness her misery, she closed her eyes tightly. Alas, even Cressida’s own tears failed her and began to fall for the leering crowd to see.

A loud buzzing went up around The Devil’s Den. Sharply drawn breaths and incoherent murmurings of the approving gentlemen who sat enjoying the show .

A horrifying realization hit her squarely in the chest.

The patrons here at The Devil’s Den were aroused by the sight of her suffering. Why…these men wanted her to be a pitiable, weeping, lost creature. Whether they believed hers to be an act or real mattered not. That they’d gone lust-crazed at the idea of her weakness marked them as monsters.

On the heel of that sickening truth, whatever drug she’d been given sent a wave of lust so powerful sweeping over Cressida she couldn’t stop herself from running her palms down over her stomach.

She bit her lower lip; her wanting was so great, she was past the point of shame at touching herself.

Having another touch her? That continued to horrify her, and yet she desperately craved surcease from this debilitating need.

Cressida moaned.

“Ah, as you see.” A deep voice coming from somewhere on the stage boomed throughout The Devil’s Den. “Lady Aurum comes to us as a virgin. She feels shame in being here.”

Both of those were true.

The patrons’ breaths caught on a collective gasp.

A memory slipped in of one of the meetings she’d attended of the Mismatch Society where they’d discussed the readings of Diderot.

“…Women are not weak, they are made so by men who fear their strength…”

Yes, society’s strictures and the laws which bound them dictated that Cressida’s decisions and life didn’t belong to her, but rather to the men who ruled her life—her brother and her eventual husband.

To hell with them all. She would not allow a man—or any woman—who wanted her for those twisted reasons to be the one to take her virginity.

Wresting back the last shred of control she had over her life, Cressida tossed her head back, tipped her chin up, and glared. This time, a new round of approved murmurings went up, and from different spaces and corners of the club. Although she’d lose her virtue to a gentleman who bid on her, at least he’d be one who appreciated a woman who was strong and did not cower before him.

Cressida’s triumph proved short-lived. Her body had been turned into a weapon to be used against her.

Her need for some relief proved greater than her pride. Cressida, no longer able to care that a crowded room of the ton’s most powerful watched on, rolled her hips at the empty air. It didn’t help.

“As you can see, gentlemen, the lady’s longing to have a cock buried deep inside her tight, untried cunny proves greater. It is what brings this innocent, virtuous lady to the most depraved club—her need to have an itch she doesn’t understand scratched. To have a lover make her come for the very first time.”

The auctioneer’s deep voice, as much as the words he spoke, set her afire and raised the temperature in the room to scorching levels.

They were words she’d heard before, at least in various ways and forms at the Mismatch Club. The older, experienced women with knowledge of carnal acts explained the difference between tupping and lovemaking—two areas about which Polite Society preferred young and old women alike to remain ignorant. The words the auctioneer spoke painted a mesmerizing image of that act, and she could see herself being fulfilled in the ways her friends had spoken of.

She’d become a woman possessed. Cressida pressed a hand against her breast.

“For the love of God,” a spectator cried out. “She’s bloody hot for it. We all are. Would you start the bloody thing already?”

The auctioneer looked to one of the private tables at the center.

Panting softly, Cressida, equal parts hungry for some sort of relief from the sensations ratcheting inside her and desperate for the show to stop, looked to the gentleman whose approval he sought.

The Earl of Dynevor sat watching the stage, watching Cressida with a hard, merciless expression. Any hint of softness she’d thought she’d seen in him must have been imagined. Unable to look at the man who ruled this vile, debauched empire, she slid her gaze away…and it collided with that of another.

Cressida froze.

They were eyes she knew. She’d remembered them after their first meeting. She thought of them during the day and dreamed of them at night.

Her breath caught, but this time for reasons different than the incessant ache at her center.

Maybe whatever drug she’d ingested that left her desperate to be touched and pleasured also affected her mind.

Benedict Adamson, the Earl of Wakefield, the one man she’d secretly adored and loved, was here at The Devil’s Den. His stare locked on her.

For the first time that night, Cressida’s throat filled with some emotion other than fear.

Hope.

“Let the auction begin!”