Page 27 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

T he minute Wakefield walked into his office and found Lord Markham seated at his desk, he knew he’d arrived with answers.

Lord Markham stood as a courtesy, for he was brutally direct and as cold as he could be.

“Markham,” he greeted, shutting the door behind them.

The investigator looked him up and down and made no attempt to hide his disdain.

“I’m sorry to have dragged you away from whatever fun you were up to.” He knew the look the other man was giving him. He recognized his derisive tones.

Wakefield knew because he’d often looked in the very exact way at Viscount Waters.

“Yes. Well. I had a late night at my sister’s and Lord Stanhope’s ball,” he said evenly.

“Yes. Returned home what an hour and a half ago.” Unnerved that the other man had been keeping such close tabs on his activities and whereabouts even as he understood the reason for it.

Wakefield had hired Markham to find him in an instant and report back on what it was he’d learned about Cressida.

“Cressida” With a calm he didn’t feel, Wakefield gestured for Markum to reclaim his seat and join him on the other side of his desk.

“I trust the reason you’re here is because you’ve in fact discovered something about Miss Smith.”

“Miss Smith, whose name is in fact not Smith.”

“Yes.” Wakefield curled his fingers into the mahogany arms of his chair, leaving crescent marks upon the previously immaculate wood.

At last, he’d have his answers as satisfied as that should leave him. An emotion that felt deeply like regret and something else he couldn’t name churned in his chest.

He had wanted—no, expected—that truth to come from Cressida’s lips, not delivered cold and clinical from the mouth of a man he’d paid to uncover it. But why should he have expected anything else? Why, when he had known her scarcely more than a handful of days? And yet the sting was there all the same. Hurt. That’s what it was, though he scarcely wished to name it.

She had been deliberately vague, artfully elusive, revealing nothing of herself—not one blasted thing. And yes, perhaps he hadn’t offered her the whole of himself either. But he had not cloaked his purpose. He had told her, plainly enough, what had drawn him to The Devil’s Den that night. She had told him nothing in return. Not then. Not now.

Markam spoke, breaking him from his musings.

“Her name is Miss Cressida Alby.”

Something in knowing she’d been honest and forthright in her given name. Knowing that every time they’d spoken, and he’d addressed her, had been real. It brought some relief as he searched his mind for even though he was now in possession of her actual name, it still didn’t ring clear.

“I don’t know any Albys.”

“No, you wouldn’t. They’re not good stock.”

Wakefield frowned and he had to restrain himself from biting off the other man’s head over that insult until he recalled that had been his like response when he discovered the lady was in fact a virgin.

Smarting at his own arrogance and condescension, he fought to keep from squirming.

Markham looped his right ankle over his left knee.

“They derived from Somerset. There’s a brother and sister. The father died some years back, a country squire. They lived a modest existence until a distant relative turned up his heels and left Stanley Alby a baron. The two of them came to London and lived above their means. He threw the lady a grand Season.”

Wakefield realized at some point he’d leaned forward, hanging on the man’s every word. He made himself sit back, even as his pulse raced.

“The brother lived even richer until he didn’t. He’s racked up sizable debt from excessive wagering, which, according to the ledgers at Forbidden Pleasures, The Devil’s Den and Lucifer’s Lair, are bad to poor at best.”

“Her brother is a patron at The Devil’s Den?”

Seeing how Markham had just said as much, it likely accounted for the odd way in which he looked at Wakefield now.

Markham didn’t bother answering. None of this, however, was that incriminating? Perhaps the lady knew the places her brother frequented and had been curious for herself.

“This, however, is where it gets really interesting,” Markham said, instantly slashing across that faint hope on Wakefield’s part.

“The Albys are involved with the Carews.”

The air exhaled from Wakefield’s lungs on a violent hiss. “The Carews.”

The brother of whom had sired Marcia out of wedlock and abandoned the lady’s mother. Now Viscountess Wessex and the sister…a baroness herself, who’d viciously tried to upend Marcia’s life and from what Wakefield previously learned, had a history of making a mess in other people’s lives.

And this is the manner of company she kept?

These were the people she was involved with. Where there had only been suspicions before, now he had confirmation about just what manner of woman Cressida Alby and her brother in fact were.

“What exactly do they want of me?” he asked. His voice was surprisingly calm, though a tumult raged inside.

“That I haven’t been able to deduce at this point. However, I will. It appears we were both right, however, Wakefield.” Markham shook his head.

“It would have been simple enough for you to obtain all this information yourself and without paying the exorbitant fee, but your suspicions proved apt. On the other hand, given the company the lady keeps is the Carews, with a history of bribing, extorting, and in the brother’s case, assaulting innocent ladies, there’s definitely more at play. None of which indicates anything good or honorable where Miss Alby is concerned.”

Wakefield took all of that in. He didn’t want to feel anything about Markham’s report. He’d come to discuss business. The business being Miss Cressida Alby, not Smith.

Wakefield finally had meaningful information about the lady. Even as he knew all of that, he, a man of logic, couldn’t keep at bay the stinging sense of betrayal, hurt, and the stirrings of resentment and fury.

“Thank you, Markham. You’ve done well.”

The gentleman stood. “It won’t take me long to unentangle all of this. I expect I’ll have a complete report to you by the end of the week. In the meantime, I’d advise you to be extra cautious with Miss Alby. Do not let yourself get too close.”

Too late. Way too late.

“I’ve stationed more men outside your townhouse, given the change in circumstances.”

Only there wasn’t really a change. They both just knew more now about Cressida. That realization hit him square in the solar plexus after Markam had gone.

Wakefield stood locked to the spot, staring at the door the other man had just departed through. Now he knew, and yet, at the same time, he knew nothing at all about what Cressida was up to.

He clenched and unclenched his jaw and weighed his options.

He could reveal nothing about what he discovered and keep a careful eye on her, possessed of the knowledge that she was up to something, or he could confront her with the fact of everything he’d learned. In so doing, he’d have an advantage on her—the art of surprise. There was no surer way to get the actual truth out of someone than to disarm them.

With a plan in hand and his heart steeled, Wakefield returned upstairs to his suites. Before he confronted her, he’d need rest so he was at the top of his game when he spoke to her. And time and distance with which to bury the staggering pain of betrayal.