Page 3 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

H aving been born to a faithless father, the previous Earl of Wakefield—who’d been rot with money, loose with his affections, and possessed a muddied name—Benedict Adamson, the current Earl of Wakefield, vowed to never become like his father. And he hadn’t.

With the former earl’s failings, he’d left such a shameful legacy, Wakefield had been determined to restore the Adamson name, connections, and fortune. He’d managed to set aside societal expectations and do actual work.

When he’d first begun growing his fortunes through finance, manufacturing, and resource extractions, he’d been met with whispers and top stories written in the gossip pages. It’d flown in the face of what Polite Society deemed respectable, yet that was what he’d spent most of his hours on.

Until the ton began to take note and as his fortunes shifted, he’d conducted himself in an upstanding way, at least by the standards of the peerage. Eventually, the disdainful words spoken about him shifted. Lords and ladies, particularly those without fortunes and with daughters of marriageable age, began to take note and…make exceptions for Working Wakefield, as he’d been mocked and dubbed at university and in the papers.

Wakefield not only built back the fortune—and then some—that his late father squandered, he’d also carried himself in a way that was beyond reproach. He didn’t gamble. He only drank a respectable amount of the finest spirits, and never to the point of overindulgence. No, he prided himself on his self-restraint.

His good name and reputation being more precious to him than all the gold he had to his name, Wakefield never set foot in the wicked gaming establishments his friends frequented. Or, in the case of his recently married former best friend, previously frequented.

Somewhere along the way, Wakefield proved himself in such a way that it no longer became a matter of the ton “making exceptions” for Wakefield. Rather, the nobility, from those with the oldest, most venerated titles to the fellows who’d made his life hell at Eton and Oxford, curried his favor and desired his presence at all their most exclusive affairs and respectable clubs.

Alas, it’d been strictly business that brought Wakefield here this night to The Devil’s Den.

Not unlike the ton’s scandalous establishments, like Forbidden Pleasures and Lucifer’s Lair, membership to the notorious club had recently been extended to select ladies of the ton. But, whereas at the other rival establishments, gleeful participants were masked ladies and their identities kept secret, here at The Devil’s Den, the eager, lusty ladies and widows, if they so wished, flaunted their presence.

They played the bored wife—ofttimes, with their generous husbands in the audience, watching on. Or they played the lusty virgin, yearning to be taken by a big, powerful gentleman . Or one who’d been caught cuckolding her husband and sought to be punished, badly and painfully.

Wakefield’s latest investment flew in the face of all the respectable businesses he’d otherwise taken on until now. Through the marriage of his half-sister, Livian Latimer, to an owner of the establishment, Wakefield found himself joining in a partnership to restore the once-great hell to its former glory.

All things known about Wakefield’s commitment to respectability should have made his presence at the notorious gaming hell, The Devil’s Den, a thing for the others to note.

But not a single pathetically weak, dissolute fellow among the nearly one hundred and twenty-five patrons in attendance, most three sheets to the wind, paid him a sprig of attention. Not with the depraved and very mesmerizing show taking place on the stage of London’s wicked club. Tonight, however, had proven exceedingly helpful in showing Wakefield that the patrons who attended these hells weren’t watching him, and for obvious reasons.

Seated in the green leather armchair next to Wakefield, the Earl of Dynevor, proprietor and Wakefield’s recent partner, poured two brandies. He slid one across the smooth surface of the newly installed, gleaming mahogany table.

“What are your thoughts on your latest investment, Wakefield?” Dynevor asked as casually as he might two gentlemen discussing dull, respectable business transactions and not the sordid scene—a Virgin Auction—on display at the front stage.

Wakefield considered the other man’s question.

What were his thoughts? “I believe we’ll make a fortune because most men are weak, and men like you and I are strong because we aren’t ruled by our cocks.”

The younger gentleman lifted his snifter in Wakefield’s direction. “Aye to that,” he said.

They clinked glasses.

While Wakefield cradled his snifter between his hands, he and Dynevor continued assessing the salacious affair in companionable silence while the bidding grew increasingly heated.

“Do I hear one hundred pounds?”

“One hundred pounds!”

Yes, there was a fortune to be had in sin, and if the display unfolding wasn’t testament to that, Wakefield didn’t know what was.

Craving carnality like the drug it was, the ladies enjoyed putting themselves on display for a room of hungry men, and all the exquisite participants played at some role.

The tall, slim-hipped, narrow-waisted beauty clad in a filmy white negligee commanding the room’s attention was no different.

With her enormous doe eyes, a man could easily believe the role she carried out with the finesse of a damsel in distress. That was if it were not for the heavy, long-lashed, desire-filled gaze she passed over the room.

Those same eyes which continued to find their way back to him.

The first time she’d sought his gaze, he’d believed it nothing more than a seductress’s trick she employed with various gentlemen around the establishment. But the more he’d contemplated the skilled actress on the stage, the more he noted her hungry stare sliding back his way.

“Hello,” she mouthed, her lips moving distinctly, her gaze adoring.

He started at the sense of shared connection she managed to create from even across the length of the hall.

The minx’s lips moved again, mouthing those same words. “He—”

Wakefield stiffened. She hadn’t been saying “hello.” She’d been asking the crowd for help. No, she’d been asking him specifically. Or that’s how it seemed. God, she was masterful.

“Lovely, isn’t she?”

Wakefield, unnerved at Dynevor catching his absorption with the lady, tossed the remainder of his drink back. “Passably so.” Determined to wrestle his self-control back, he shifted his attention from the wicked wanton.

“Aye,” Dynevor allowed. “I’ll give you she isn’t a grand beauty.”

No, she certainly wasn’t, but—

“There is a certain je ne sais quoi to her,” the proprietor murmured, more to himself. “Something a gent can’t put his finger on. I sensed it the moment I met her.”

Wakefield’s attention went flying to the other man. “Do you meet all the ladies before they take part in the act?” There was a snappish quality to Wakefield’s voice he neither understood nor liked.

Dynevor snorted. “I’ve got women playing at virgins who volunteer to be sold and bought by my patrons. Do you truly believe I don’t ascertain for myself that this is a choice they want to make?” He gave Wakefield a weird look.

Wakefield cursed the heat that suffused his cheeks. Disquieted by both his own out of character show of temper and the earl’s puzzlement, Wakefield was grateful when, a moment later, the auctioneer continued the action.

His relief proved short-lived.

“Lady Aurum is aptly named, gentlemen.” The auctioneer strung along those impatient bidders of a sale that’d already gotten underway. “This innocent has dark, wheat-gold curls upon her head, but have a look at her eyebrows, and you shall realize she’s all golden between her legs too.”

Laughs filled The Devil’s Den.

Under the glow of the lights, the actress’s nearly translucent peignoir did nothing to hide the red blush that spread across her body—her entire body.

Despite himself, lust filled Wakefield. His gaze went hungrily to the shadow of curls at the V between her long, fit thighs, those golden curls the auctioneer tempted the crowd with.

The young proprietor smirked. “Though this isn’t, I trust, your usual pleasures, you must admit you see the draw in it.”

Wakefield made a noncommittal grunt. It was widely known Wakefield, as a rule, was a one-mistress-at-a-time man, who didn’t partake in public spectacles with his lovers. He’d sooner chop his own fingers off than admit to that or any weakness, on the account of not having any.

An unfooled Dynevor chuckled and took another drink.

Wakefield’s preoccupation this night had little to do with the game of pretend and even more to do with the enigmatic participant.

Refusing to acknowledge the earl’s wry knowingness, Wakefield shifted his attention back to his new business partner. “I’m here to discuss numbers. The women participating in this particular act aren’t paid prostitutes at the club.”

Dynevor’s jaded mirth vanished under a scowl. “Aye, that’s right. All of ‘em here not only want to be here, they fight for the privilege.”

“Privilege.” Wakefield grasped on the other man’s particular word choice. “That’s how you and Latimer sold the idea to me, and yet I received an update this week which indicates you’ve now resorted to offering some form of payment to the female patrons. Doesn’t that make them prostitutes?”

Color to rival the virgin’s blush slapped at the younger gentleman’s cheeks. In a rare crack in his armor, Dynevor dropped his elbows on the edge of the table, leaned towards Wakefield, and glared.

“Oi don’t ‘resort’ to anything. Everything Oi do, every idea Oi put forward, is fucking deliberate and with purpose.”

That further dissolution of the earl’s proper King’s speech into Cockney revealed a fiery temper that wouldn’t serve Dynevor, or Wakefield’s new business, well.

“And yet, here we are, Dynevor,” he said, spreading his palms out. “With you paying customers.”

Dynevor’s crooked nose flared. “Ye got a lot o’ bluidy nerve questioning me.”

The auctioneer’s errant calls punctuated their discussion. “Two hundred pounds!”

Fury and frustration blazed in the younger man’s fiery eyes. That raw rage on display, that Dynevor couldn’t control, recalled everything Wakefield read about the lad’s past: the future Marquess of Maddock being kidnapped by the bloodiest, most ruthless gang leader and turned into a common thief…and worse.

The research Wakefield himself had done following the offer of partnership from his brother-in-law revealed a spotted past where Dynevor was linked to arsons.

He and Dynevor remained with their focus on each other, sizing one another up.

Wakefield knew firsthand that one’s past left one scarred, and the other earl’s rage had more to do with the dark deeds he’d done and far less to do with his actual age. Either way, this was business, and the sooner they came to an understanding of what Wakefield’s role would be, the better it was for their arrangement—and pockets.

“You forget you invited me to be a partner, Dynevor,” Wakefield quietly reminded.

By the way a vein at the other man’s temple throbbed, he was regretting it more by the minute.

Wakefield leaned in the remaining way across the table. “Did you actually believe, Dynevor, you were bringing in a gentleman who’d be content to throw money at your club, but remain a silent partner, without any voice in the actual investment?”

“Hoped,” the earl muttered under his breath.

Wakefield chuckled. “The hell you were. You’d no sooner do business with a fucking lackwit with a big purse than I’d give a fortune to someone and remain a silent partner.”

Cursing, Dynevor grabbed his glass and took a long swallow. “Could’ve fooled me, with you asking to have your ownership stake remain unknown.”

“…two hundred and twenty-five pounds…”

This time, Wakefield chuckled outright. “You know being publicly connected to a business and being an actual partner in the ways that matter are…are…”

A tingling sensation formed in his neck, and ran along his spine. Frowning, he started to look about for the source of that response, but found his gaze drifting to the stage—more specifically, the woman upon it.

“In terms of the payment paid to the patrons, the idea belonged to my sister. She pointed out there are married women amongst the ton with no way to make their own money and without power. Here, they could come and not only have the ultimate choice but receive compensation to…”

Somewhere within that suitable explanation, Wakefield stopped hearing the proprietor.

The delectable woman on display commanded all his attention.

Wakefield sharpened his gaze on the young woman. She certainly wasn’t a beauty to rival the likes of Athena and Helen of Troy. Neither would she, by society’s standard, be more than pretty. What was it about her?

At three or four inches past five feet, she’d neither be considered tall nor short. Her hair, neither honey-colored nor spun gold, but a sloppy blend of light and dark shades of blonde and light browns. Her breasts weren’t ample and overflowing her plunging neckline as all men preferred nor were the globes nonexistent. The swells were curved just enough to emphasize a stomach so flat as to be nearly unreal, and impossibly narrow hips.

No, by ways of Wakefield’s preference in women, this unknown stranger would have never been one he’d steal a second—or, even for that matter, so much as a first, look—at.

And yet…

Fixed in his study, Wakefield poured himself another drink, and with his glass in hand, he leaned closer to the action. Her staring eyes called to him; the shades of them, he could not make out. All he could make out was her wide-eyed gaze fixed on him and him alone.

“She’s a new one,” Dynevor said, accurately deciphering Wakefield’s interest. “This is her first night.”

“Is it?” he asked noncommittally.

“I had the pleasure of interviewing her before she entered the auction.”

Wakefield’s muscles coiled tight. Interview . He wasn’t quite sure the earl’s choice of word was the appropriate one.

“Do you make it a habit of auditioning all the participants, Dynevor?” he asked, icily.

The earl chuckled. “I don’t audition any of them. Many come here looking for a place in my bed. The ones that tempt me enough, I’ll happily oblige.”

“…three-hundred and seventy-five pounds…”

The young earl had bedded the mysterious creature. Wakefield’s gaze drifted back to the center stage. Sure enough, Lady Aurum’s hungry gaze remained fixed on his and Dynevor’s table. The reason for the virgin’s singular attention on Wakefield’s table now made sense.

His lips curled with distaste. “I take it Lady Aurum was one of those whom you happily bedded.”

“…four hundred pounds…!”

“No.”

Wakefield whipped his head in the other man’s direction.

Lord Dynevor contemplated the trim, fit lady in question.

“No?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking the earl.

“As appealing as she is, the lady isn’t the manner of woman I consort with,” the proprietor explained with a vagueness that answered nothing.

Grabbing his drink, Dynevor took a long sip of brandy and moved his focus back to Wakefield. “What about you?”

“…Four hundred twenty-five…!”

Wakefield’s brows came together. “What about me?”

“Would you like her?” The earl splayed his palms at the stage; he presented the beauty to him the same way he had the bottle of fine French spirits he’d summoned earlier.

Would he like her? Curiously, Wakefield eyed the woman whose gaze kept coming back to his table.

Usually, his sexual appetites weren’t compelled by the deviant game at play.

His lashes dipped.

With a dramatically over-the-top regretfulness, the auctioneer slowed the bidding and worked his audience up even further. “Her story is a sad one, gentlemen.”

A full chorus of answering “aww” of false commiseration surrounded the hall.

Lady Aurum, as she was called, looked at Wakefield as if he were the only gent in the club and they were the only two people left in the world.

Something about this particular woman and her masterful act commanded all of Wakefield and his lust. Or perhaps that was the lady’s skill. Perhaps the unknown woman’s ability to make each man present believe she looked adoringly at each of them was why, even now, the bidding continued to climb to ridiculous heights.

“…It occurs to me,” the speaker tempted the crowd. “You are bidding, and most generously, but know so little about the damsel before you… It is a tale as old as time.” The auctioneer tsked and the quiet was so thick that the clicking of the fellow’s tongue reached all the way to the very back of the action where Wakefield and Dynevor sat.

Unlike his weaker sire, Wakefield hadn’t ever been a slave to his lust, which was what made his whole-body absorption in this particular moment so out of the ordinary. The way in which he knew his strengths and weaknesses was the same way in which he knew his physical desires. Where the last earl had been ruled by his emotions, Wakefield had learned logic and prided himself on restraint. That forbearance extended to all areas of his life—including desires of the flesh.

As for Wakefield? He craved control and sorting out complicated messes—like his family. His finances. And other people’s even messier lives, which probably explained his unwavering fascination with the woman on display for all at The Devil’s Den.

“Get on with it already, Sully!” an impatient Lord Stentson shouted.

The club’s guards immediately converged on the greying, married marquess, who was somewhere in his forties.

Wakefield’s brother-in-law, Latimer, broad and big enough to rouse terror in the hearts of the most jaded fighter, put an end to the interruption with an utterance and a warning look.

“Lady Aurum’s brother,” Sully went on, like there’d never been a break in the action, “is a horrid, abusive letch.” He raised his voice for dramatic effect. “A mere squire in the country, the newly titled lord frittered away all his funds.”

Resounding boos swelled; the patrons present seemed as eager participants as the woman who’d asked to be sold off.

The auctioneer paused again to build the theater of it all.

“Which means each of you present, as respected, venerable lords, must open your purses most generously to save her from the fate of having an old, decrepit libertine husband being the first man to bed her.”

Lady Aurum shut her eyes so tightly, the muscles of her diamond-shaped face scrunched up.

Cries went up. Patrons stomped their feet and the thumping rolled around the club.

“Who amongst you will be the one to save her?” Sully thundered to be heard over the crowd’s swell.

Lord Whitby jumped to his feet. “Four hundred and fifty pounds!” he called, louder than the rest.

Sully pointed in the gentleman’s direction but continued his address of the room. “Who will take her maidenhead so the foul ancient lord is denied that satisfaction?”

“Four hundred and seventy-five !” came the answering shout.

The auctioneer kept speaking over the bidding. “Who will be the first to teach Lady Aurum about desire? Which one of you will patiently teach her how to make love?” Sully, a master performer whom Dynevor poached from Mrs. Gertrude Killoran’s theatre, did a little jig about the stage.

Sully painted another visual for the crowd. “And then, after the lucky winner tonight breaks the lady in, you can teach her what it is to fuck and be fucked.”

Laughs filled the hall.

The lady squirmed, shifting her hips like she was any modest virgin, embarrassed by her body’s response. In a clear sign of her hunger, she bit at her lower lip, but her gaze was terrified and hungry all at the same time. Her eyes found his.

Wakefield inhaled a breath in slowly through his nose. Bloody hell, the actress could have made a fortune on the London stage.

He had eyes only for the woman behind this great furor.

It turned out, Wakefield wasn’t the only one.

“Five hundred pounds.” That quiet, smoothly authoritative voice silenced the room.

All gazes from the three rows went back. Wakefield found himself looking with the rest of the patrons to the Duke of Rothesby.

Standing behind the ropes, the duke casually took a sip of his whiskey.

Wakefield frowned.

Bloody Rothesby.

Notorious rogue. Ungodly wealthy. In possession of one of the oldest dukedoms that went back to William the Conqueror.

With the nobleman’s wealth, power, and connections in Polite Society, he and Wakefield were not vastly different, but for one exception—Rothesby’s title and name had never been sullied like Wakefield’s.

And he despised him mightily for it.

Now, Rothesby would have the lady acting her soul out at the front of the room.

There came a flurry of murmurs as the bidding action quieted down, indicating the auction for Lady Aurum was nearing its conclusion.

Sully surveyed the room, clearly unprepared to bring this sale to a close. “His Grace has put forth a most generous bid, and why should he not? Now, ask yourselves. Will it be you or Rothesby who shows the maiden how to take a cock in her mouth and teaches her how to use it the way all men love.”

Wakefield’s fingers curled more forcefully around his snifter. Bloody hell. The damned thought of Rothesby or one of the other chaps in the room being the one to do all the wicked things Sully dangled forth made him want to wager a goddamned fortune to possess her.

The auctioneer barked the latest bid. “Do I hear five hundred twenty-five, gentlemen?”

It took all the restraint Wakefield prided himself on to keep from shooting his blasted hand up and making that bid.

As it turned out, Lord Templeton made it instead. “Five hundred twenty-five!” he shouted.

Yes, he wanted her—and badly. And no, it wasn’t purely the male urge to dominate the competition and win the entrancing woman for his own. Though hardly lovely by society’s standards, she possessed interesting features, too sharp to be classically beautiful but that made a man linger for a second look.

Another gentleman called out. “Six hundred pounds.”

The crowd rabidly fighting for the pleasure of the lady’s company that night indicated the room at large agreed.

Wakefield ignored the frantic battle taking place among men that were now his patrons. He should be relishing the fortune the enigmatic woman was raking in for him and his partners, but he remained utterly transfixed by Lady Aurum.

His pulse grew thick as the blood moving in his veins. Lust sent his nostrils into a full flare.

The delicate, diamond-encrusted mask adorning her face revealed, around pearl-trimmed eye slits, the hot, hungry gaze of a lusty woman who hungered for Wakefield with a like passion.

No, Wakefield hadn’t been imagining that the mysterious creature had eyes only for him. His cock strained painfully in his breeches, and he shifted to alleviate the heavy ache.

“You are certain you don’t want her, Wakefield?” Dynevor offered up like the devil he was.

On the contrary, Wakefield was beyond certain he did .

“Two thousand pounds.” Rothesby’s voice emerged calmer and in greater control than all the increasingly desperate patrons.

The duke’s exorbitant sum shut all the bidders down and silenced the hall. There came a roll of regretful murmurs as the other gentlemen reluctantly ceded yet another win for the powerful duke.

The auctioneer, however, demonstrated a level of greed that marked The Devil’s Den as perhaps Wakefield’s greatest—if wickedest—investment. “Do I perhaps hear two thousand and fifty pounds?”

“Three-thousand pounds.” That offer came as casually as if the gentleman proffered the time.

Wakefield along with the rest of the crowd looked to the bid-happy Duke of Rothesby.

Rothesby’s latest put up, this time against himself had ushered in an even greater furor from the crowd.

Resentment rolled like a slow wave through Wakefield, and in the flash of a second, he imagined the beguiling creature parting her legs for the charmer, Rothesby.

“Last chance, Wakefield,” Dynevor said. “What’ll it be?”

In his head, Wakefield saw the siren’s hot gaze—previously reserved for Wakefield—now filled with hungering for the duke.

Wakefield flared his nostrils.

“Gentlemen?” the auctioneer called for one last bid. “It appears we have a winner in—”

Wakefield gave a tight nod. “I’ll have her.”

Dynevor lifted a hand, signaling a close to the action.