Page 21 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

T he following morning, seated in the breakfast room, Wakefield found himself doing something he did often with Cressida Smith—waiting.

And waiting he had been—again.

Despite his earlier vow to keep residence at his family townhouse, given the nature of Cressida’s late-night hunt around London, and his own equally late night, he’d decided it best he stay.

He’d still risen at sunrise and taken his morning ride in Hyde Park.

He’d given Cressida time to sleep.

But this was really quite enough.

Wakefield tossed aside the copy of The Times he’d read and re-read.

There could be but one conclusion to reach—she was avoiding him.

He went still.

Avoiding him…or…sneaking off again.

He cursed himself for letting his guard down and came quickly to his feet.

“Burgess,” he shouted.

Bypassing the bell, he beelined for the door…and nearly knocked into the stealthy servant.

“Apologies, my lord.” He swiftly recovered and dropped a deep bow.

“Miss Smith,” he barked.

Burgess looked about as if he was searching for the lady in question. “Yes, my lord?”

“Where the hell is she?” he demanded, keeping control on a thinly fraying patience.

“Ah.” Understanding lit the younger man’s eyes. “I am afraid she is not here, my lord.”

His pulse jumped. “Not here?” he echoed.

“No, my lord. Miss Smith is not in the breakfast room.”

Wakefield closed his eyes and prayed for patience, and when that didn’t help, he counted to ten. Where the hell had she gone this time?

“I can clearly see for myself that she is not in the breakfast room, considering I have been here for nearly three hours and there’s been no sight of the lady.”

“Three hours, you say, my lord?”

Heat climbed Wakefield’s neck. At some point, the conversation had shifted to a question as to his mental fitness.

“Burgess?” he asked, repeating the other man’s name, his voice strained as his patience. “Do you intend to tell me where she is?”

Burgess was determined to make him drag it out of him, “You see, my lord, it is funny.”— The daft fellow thought any of this was funny ?—“The young lady went to the kitchens when she first arrived yesterday.”

Maybe I should just sack him now. “I do not need to know, Burgess, what arrangements the lady made with Cook. What I’m asking is…”

“Oh, no.” The servant interrupted him. “She wasn’t looking to plan any meals.” His butler leaned in and spoke on a whisper. “That was what the staff thought too, that she’d come to discuss the meal, the evening meal. And she was quickly told that someone would come to her rooms and…”

“Would you spit it out already, Burgess?”

Alas, it appeared his butler listened about as well as Cressida.

“Everyone took offense to her being there. The lady asked to bake.”

“What?” Benedict blurted in disbelief.

Burgess had succeeded after all; he’d flummoxed Wakefield.

“You can only imagine how upset and indignant Cook was, as well as the baker, in being asked to deliver lessons, except the lady wasn’t wanting lessons, or so she claimed.” Burgess added that last part in hushed tones. “Made her leave, and she was quite sad about it all.”

Wakefield felt a flash of anger. He’d sack them all for that offense.

“Well,” Burgess said with the relish of a man who clearly found himself reaching the best part of his story, “it should so happen that Miss Smith awoke before all the staff.”

Wakefield’s ears pricked up at that particular point of the story. “All the staff, you say?”

Clearly impatient with the interruption, Burgess nodded.

“So you’re telling me right now, only just now, I’ve been sitting here waiting for the lady and she’s been up and gone since…” What the hell time did servants wake up? he wondered to himself.

“That I cannot tell you.”

Wakefield closed his eyes. “Why the hell not, Burgess?”

“Well,” the other man said like he was speaking to a lackwit, “it’s just I cannot report on what time the lady woke up. Only that when the rest of the staff appeared in the kitchen, they discovered the lady there.”

Christ, Burgess still hadn’t answered. “And what the hell time was that then, Burgess?”

The young butler appeared to finally catch on with his employer’s displeasure. He jumped.

“Half past four this morning, sir! Your lordship!” Poor Burgess kept brandishing forms of address. “M-my lord.”

Wakefield drew a breath in slowly. Bloody hell, he’d become the manner of employer who went about startling and scaring his servants. Wakefield looked at his watch.

“Burgess,” he said measuredly, striving at least for the servant’s benefit, “that has been eight hours ago.”

The slight Adam’s apple in the servant’s throat moved wildly. “Yes, my lord.”

“Where did Miss Smith go after the kitchens?” A sweat had begun to appear on the other man’s eyebrow. Snatching a kerchief from his pocket, Burgess wiped at the moisture.

“Yes,” Wakefield said. “As in, when the lady concluded whatever it was she did in the kitchens, where did she go and when?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say, my lord,” Burgess said, his voice strained.

Wakefield waited and waited and continued waiting.

“And why is it you can’t say?” Why, when he’d specifically told the other man last night when he returned with Cressida that he was to watch after her at all costs and report to Wakefield if he observed anything suspicious.

“You said to report if I observed something suspicious,” Burgess said, clearly following Wakefield’s unspoken thoughts. Then, in a surprising show of spirit, Burgess brought his shoulders back and stood at his impressive six feet one inches, just two or three inches shy of Wakefield’s own height. “Because as I saw it, my lord, I didn’t perceive the lady’s actions to be suspicious in any way.”

Of course, he hadn’t. “Who went out with her?” Wakefield demanded, starting from the room and heading past Burgess.

Burgess kept up in pace. “No one, my lord.”

Wakefield saw red. He stopped so abruptly, Burgess went flying past him and then had to double back. “No one?” Wakefield seethed.

“As I last left it, the lady was still in the kitchens.”

“Still?” he asked incredulously.

“At least right before you rang, I had eyes upon her.” A dusty color sprayed the other man’s cheeks.

Wakefield narrowed his eyes. “Why?” His butler was smitten with Cressida Smith. Something about that set Wakefield’s teeth on edge.

“I was only in the kitchen because of your directive. Absolutely the only reason that is…” Burgess stopped his rambling and nervously cleared his throat.

“Yes. Well, good work, Burgess,” he said dryly, as irritation crawled in his gut. “You’re dismissed,” Wakefield said.

Panic lit the servant’s eyes. Oh, hell, he’d really become that much of a tyrant. “You’re not sacked. I mean I no longer need your assistance at this moment.”

“Ah,” the other man said relief dawning. “Thank you, my lord. Thank you.”

His exuberant praise trailed off as Wakefield moved quickly through the house and headed for his kitchens, of all places. His kitchens. He shook his head. He could say with absolute certainty that there hadn’t been a mistress of his or any other single gentleman in the whole of the kingdom to ever have spent time in the kitchens.

No. Those well-kept women had servants summoned and went over menus with servants and they certainly didn’t bake. What in hell was going on? That question brought him to a screeching halt. Inside the kitchen, his kitchen staff, every last one of them, sat around a long oak table hanging on to whatever it was Cressida was saying.

Cressida, who was working while the staff did not, “Do you know why the baker’s bread is always so light?” she asked the group at large.

A staggered murmuring of ‘whys’ and ‘no’s’ rolled around the kitchen.

Cressida looked up; a twinkle in her eyes. “Because he never kneads a serious conversation!”

Laughter erupted amongst her enthralled audience.

Cressida joined in.

Cressida looked up and her eyes located Wakefield, still standing there with all his staff oblivious to his presence.

An uncertain smile wavered on Cressida’s lips. “My lord.”

What in thunderation had she done now to earn the gentleman’s fury?

The kitchen staff’s laughter died and ushered in silence as the room registered the presence of their employer.

Maybe she unfairly judged him now; maybe he wasn’t here to express his displeasure.

“Leave us.” Benedict’s cool command cleared the kitchen.

Benedict ventured into the kitchen and strolled over, joining her at the other side of the table. The six-foot-across thick oak table provided a thin barrier when presented with a man of his strength and power.

Cressida fisted the fabric of her stained apron. She made herself relax her hands. “I’ve displeased you.”

“Is that what you believe?” he asked quietly.

He inclined his head, staring at her as if she were some creature he couldn’t quite place. “Do you take me as a man who’ll become cross with you for your every action?”

By the solemn manner in which he spoke, his was not an angry affront or accusation. Rather, it emerged as a question he asked of himself.

Unnerved, Cressida found herself fiddling with her flour-covered apron.

“Forgive me,” he said. “For having given you cause to doubt yourself.”

He walked slowly but purposefully about the table, joining Cressida on the other side. She’d far preferred when they’d had an entire table between them.

He left her feeling exposed even more, uncertain about herself, about him.

Who was he? The angry, snarling, surly gentleman who’d hurled accusations at her at The Devil’s Den and had her followed, or the reserved gentleman who’d come and found her last evening, or this tender man who’d self-flagellate himself for his treatment that had led to her reservations around him?

Fascinated, Cressida cocked her head and contemplated him. She’d fallen in love with one of those versions of Benedict. She’d allowed herself to yearn for the man who wore a tender smile and who treated the women he courted, and the stranger she’d been to him, with a kind regard and warmth, but she’d been naive. She’d been looking at him through the lenses worn by a naive girl.

Benedict Adamson, the Earl of Wakefield, wasn’t a one-dimensional man, the kind captured on an oil canvas by a masterful artist. He was flesh and blood and multidimensional. He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t some grand god. He was, simply put, a man. A man with many layers.

The whole while she studied him, he studied her in return.

“You’re afraid of me,” he said, misinterpreting her silence.

“No, never,” she said softly. She hadn’t been stunned by a side of him she’d never before seen, but she knew more than a thing or two about abusive men. And not once had she feared this one. This kind, honorable one would ever strike her. “I know you would never put a hand on me.”

A sad glint lit his eyes. Little flecks of gold that told of his emotion. “Ah, yes, but we are both aware there are other ways in which people can be hurt.”

Cressida sucked her stomach in. For an agonizing, horrifying moment, she thought he’d discovered the truth about her love for him. That he knew her heart belonged to him and that he’d shattered it numerous times since The Devil’s Den.

Cressida unfastened the ribbons at her back and quickly tugged the article off. She hurried over to the cupboard and hung the dirty apron alongside the rest of those in need of cleaning. “You wished to see me, my lord?” she asked on a rush, sparing herself from any probing that could lead to further vulnerability in front of him.

As she moved throughout the kitchen, she felt his eyes upon her.

“Burgess informed me you were in the kitchen.”

“Is that a problem, my lord?” She tucked the stray hairs of her serviceable chignon back behind her ears, trying to tuck the strands into place.

He perched a hip upon the edge of the kitchen table and stared musingly at her. “It’s funny, isn’t it, Cressida?”

“My lord?”

“It’s just that from the moment we met at The Devil’s Den…”

That hadn’t been where they met. That just happened to be the only place he recalled meeting her.

“You only referred to me as Benedict, and here we are. The moment we agreed to refer to one another by our given names, you’ve started my lording me. I wonder why that is?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say,” she lied. She absolutely could say; she just wouldn’t.

It had been far easier to refer to him as Benedict when she’d believed there was a possibility of a future with him. The kind man who’d escorted her without question from the seediest part of London that ton members were allowed to live and whom apologized for his bad behavior and unquestionably offered to find the nursemaid of a woman he didn’t trust was one she found herself falling deeper in love with.

She required barriers between them.

At her silence, he folded his arms at his chest and raised an eyebrow.

He saw her lie. He was just too much of a gentleman to call her out on it.

Under his deep scrutiny, her cheeks pinked. It was too much. This was too much to be forced to live five steps ahead of her brother and society in general to keep them from discovering the extent of her circumstances. She didn’t like being off-kilter the way this man left her. She needed to regain self-control or she was going to lose all of herself, and she feared she’d never be found once that happened.

“My lord—”

He cut her off. “Benedict.”

She’d concede him this point. “Benedict,” she said, “you still haven’t said the reason you came to speak with me. Is it about the kitchens? Would you rather I not be here? Have your staff complained?” She chewed at her lower lip. Cook and the others had seemed amenable and as though they’d warmed to her this morning, but perhaps they’d sent word.

“No. You are, as I said, free to use the entirety of this residence as your own, Cressida. That includes the kitchen. I’ve never, however, had a young lady, or heard of a young lady, who preferred to rise early before the staff does and work in the…” He cast an inscrutable look about. “kitchen.”

Cressida pursed her lips. “I trust you find that disagreeable.”

He returned his focus to her. An amused smile curled his lips. “I find that fascinating.”

“I grew up in the country, my lord.”

He gave her a pointed look.

“I grew up in the country, Benedict .” She placed a slight emphasis on his name. “There’s nothing at all really fascinating about it.”

“To you, perhaps. I, however, find myself intrigued.”

Intrigued by her? She kept in a snort. That’d be a first.

Resting his left hand upon the table, he leveraged himself to a full stand. “Do you think I’m being insincere?”

“Benedict, I don’t believe you’re capable of insincere. If you say you’re intrigued, you are. I just can’t sort out for the life of me why you would be.”

His long, thick lashes dipped. But before they did, she detected the spark of desire in his eyes.

“I’ve never been in the company of a woman who spoke as freely and bluntly as you.”

They were similar in that regard. He was the only man she’d spoken freely and bluntly to.

Her heart fluttered. The way he spoke. The way he looked at her. It was the way in which she’d always dreamed of him looking at her—as if he longed for her, as if he admired her.

“That is, with the exception of my sisters.”

Good Lord and hell. All her fanciful romantic musings popped like a bubble. He’d likened her to his sisters.

“No lady aside from them has ever spoken to me—”

She cut him off. “Do you go about likening all your former lovers to your sisters?” she snapped, miserably.

He was at her side in a heartbeat. He caressed a fingertip across her lips.

Cressida’s mouth trembled.

When he spoke, there was a smile in his voice. “People speak honestly with family, Cressida.”—Not hers. Not if she wished to avoid a sound beating.—“Ladies of the peerage don’t assert themselves with gentleman and I find it…” The way he might worship a treasured artifact, Benedict trailed his gaze over her face. “ Refreshing .” His expression darkened. “I desire you. Cressida, I want you. I’m fascinated by you.”

Her heart forgot its function.

His gaze again found her lips.

He is going to kiss me. She saw it in his eyes. This wasn’t a man who’d run from her last night out of disgust. This was a man who wanted her, and that proved even more dangerous to her than the alternative. This time, it was Cressida who bolted.

“I have to go,” she blurted. In her haste to put distance between them, she tripped over herself. She also steadied herself before he could. “If you will excuse me.”

Confusion darkened his eyes—for but a second.

A muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth. “And where exactly is it you are going, Cressida?”

High-handed Benedict she knew how to be around. The man who desired Cressida left her unsteady.

“What are you going to do, my lord?” she shot back with a question of her own. “Order me about? Lock me indoors again?”

Color suffused his cheeks. He gritted out between tightly clenched teeth, “That was never my intention.”

“No, it just read as your intention.”

“Why am I not permitted to ask where you are going.”

“Why do you need to know?” She shot back.

“Can it not be that I’m simply concerned about you?”

His exclamation brought her reeling back on her heels. The power and intensity with which he spoke lent the most meaning to his avowal.

“I…” She searched for words, but didn’t know what to say or how to respond. Aside from Trudy, there wasn’t anyone around anymore to worry about her.

The tension left his features. “Are you truly so surprised that I would worry about you?”

She managed something that was a cross between a nod and a shake of her head. Then she recalled…

“The maybe-babe,” she whispered more to herself.

His frown returned. “No, about you, Cressida. I’m concerned about you.”

Her mouth trembled. “ Oh .”

“Where are you going?” he asked, this time more gently.

“I’m going to look for Trudy.”

He paused.

She waited for him to call her out for heading back to that dangerous end of London.

Instead, Benedict slowly nodded. “I’ll accompany you.” His wasn’t a question.

If she had more pride, she would fight him. If she had greater sense, she would reject his offer and insist on going alone with a servant. Being this close to him was threatening her in every way that mattered. But she’d been so alone for so long. Even having Trudy, their roles had reversed a long time ago. So that Cressida was now responsible for the old woman, and it felt good having someone in her life offering to stand by her and help her and support her, and she could no sooner reject his offer than reach inside her chest and stop her heart from beating for him.

“I’ll fetch my cloak,” Cressida said, but she didn’t move. She wasn’t capable of it.

His gaze lingered upon her cheek. “You have some flour here,” Benedict murmured.

So captivated as she was by him in this moment, she registered what he was about to do.

It was too late.

Rage darkened Benedict’s eyes. A feral look that could have smote Satan on the spot burned from his eyes. All his black fury directed not at Cressida, but rather at the telling mark upon her cheek.

Blast .

Wakefield stared dumbly at Cressida’s cheek.

The logical part of Wakefield knew he was looking at. The illogical part of his brain, however, couldn’t make out the mark there and how she’d come by it.

He thought if he maybe stared at it long enough, it would change because young ladies such as Miss Cressida Smith did not wear the large marks of some man’s hands upon her face.

Rage blackened his vision.

Between when Wakefield had left her company last evening, and when she’d gone off on her own, before he’d gone to retrieve her, some brute had put his hands upon her. That same cheek Wakefield stroked and placed tender kisses upon, some man had touched in violence.

Every fiber of him wanted to snap and snarl and hiss and demand the bastard’s name. The other part of Benedict, the logical one, was all too cognizant of the fact that he’d been hot-tempered enough in front of Cressida. He’d likely startle her into complete silence if he said the wrong thing or spoke in the wrong tones.

“Who?” he seethed.

I’ll kill him…

She stared at him with such confused eyes. For a moment, he began to question whether she was some grand actress after all, because she couldn’t be this obtuse as to be completely evasive right now.

“Who is the man who put his hands on you?” he asked this time with greater calm. There. That had come out more composed, less half-mad.

“It happened last night.”

That’s not what he’d asked. Somehow, he kept at an even plane. “Who is the man responsible?”

Tell me , he thought to himself. Tell me so I can end him .

Cressida angled her body from his, as if in doing so she could conceal the mark he’d already seen and make him forget it. He couldn’t. He never would.

“Cressida,”

“I don’t know,” she exclaimed, slashing a hand at the air. “When I was searching for Trudy last evening, I went about putting inquiries to strangers. I encountered—” An evil. “Less than helpful man who happened to be drunk. He only got a single blow in when I managed to get myself free.”

He only got a single blow in…?

A hideous vision crawled through his mind of Cressida on her own. Prey for some scum in the streets, at the mercy of some of the most brutal cutthroats, if Wakefield hadn’t gotten to her in time…

And yet something in the urgency in her expression gave him pause. He looked closer, trying to probe for some indication that she lied, that she did in fact have the name and identity of the one who did this, but that merely proved wishful thinking on his part because he wanted a name. He wanted the fiend.

He wanted vengeance.

“You are not to go out alone ever again, Cressida.” Except, she was destined to leave and soon. What accounted for the queer feeling that settled in his chest?

Wakefield grunted. “At least that is the rule as long as you reside with me,” he amended.

Surprisingly, this time, she didn’t resist. “Very well.”

Some of the tension eased from his shoulders—for but a moment.

“I will bring a servant,” she said.

His jaw worked. “I’m bringing you.”

A frown teased the corners of her lush lips down. “You cannot do that.”

“I can do anything.”

Her previously frowning lips twitched into a mesmerizing smile. “Yes, as a powerful nobleman, we both know that to be true. However, I’m only pointing out, my lord, that us being seen together is a risk for both our reputations.”

She gave him an odd look. One that said, Don’t you recall ? And then, he did precisely what he’d said to her. Had it only been just yesterday that he’d threatened to put her under lock and key and spoke of the risk to his reputation and hers were they to be discovered. He still did have that same concern, but something had since shifted in that his worry now stemmed from the ramifications for her.

“Yes, I think we’ve both sorted out by now that I’ve been an unmitigated arse. And that was another circumstance. Although, I won’t ruin your reputation further by squiring you about London theaters and ballets or shopping, but neither will I let you be off alone.” Particularly as she’d already been injured once without him.

Her features went soft.

“I assure you, I’m quite capable of watching after myself. Benedict, you have important business to see too, and certainly squiring me about as I look for an old friend isn’t in your regular business day.”

“I don’t feel obligated to join you. I want to.”

Something shifted between them, something in the moment, or maybe it was something that just changed for him because he did want to join her and it wasn’t just about keeping an eye on her. And, yes, of course he did worry about her, but he was intrigued by her. He enjoyed her conversation. He was mystified by the fact that she spent time in his kitchens, of all places, with the servants and staff.

Cressida gave a shy smile.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I would very much like for you to accompany me.”

He held an arm out, allowing her to proceed him. And as they fell into step alongside one another, Wakefield discovered his questions about Miss Cressida Smith remained but on top of the hundreds he’d had yesterday. He had one thousand and one more today. And not just why she’d been at The Devil’s Den, but instead about the lady herself.