Page 31 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl (Seven Deadly Sins #4)

S he’d prayed for Benedict to leave, and he’d done just that.

How funny that for all the prayers she’d put to God, this should be the only one He’d ever answered.

The one she hadn’t meant.

Seated at the gilded vanity, with Trudy gently brushing her hair, Cressida stared miserably at her equally miserable reflection.

For as long as she lived, she’d remember Benedict’s expression as he’d caught sight of her face.

Horror. Shock. Disgust. And pain. So much of it. That eclectic swirl of so many emotions; she’d gone dizzy from deciphering each one as his handsome features spasmed.

No one had ever looked upon Cressida so—as though her suffering had become their suffering, and the same feelings of rage at her lot had been absorbed within them. Trudy’s life had been even harder than Cressida’s and had left the older woman jaded. Though angered at Stanley’s violence, she viewed it more as a woman’s lot.

But Benedict? Benedict had seemed to feel, in that instant, everything Cressida had carried for years, and that he, another soul, not only understood but raged with her, railed with her, mourned and hurt, made her feel seen.

Cressida stared vacantly at the silver brush in Trudy’s gnarled fingers; sightlessly, Cressida followed its slow drag through her hair.

He hadn’t needn’t to speak a single thought. She and Benedict had lived on a previously single plane that Cressida had inhabited alone.

Until he’d asked if she’d met with Stanley, and upon confirmation from Cressida, Benedict had walked out.

A fresh wave of tears filled her throat.

Trudy grunted. “Why do you look like that fancy fellow kicked your pup?”

“I don’t have a pup, Trudy. You know that.”

She hadn’t had one since she’d been a girl of eleven. Her brother had released the beloved hound, who’d never returned.

Trudy snorted.

“Ye also don’t have any skill hidin’ in your misery either, girl. You are the one who ran the boy off.”

Cressida’s heart squeezed. She had.

“I know what’s going on in that head.”

Her nursemaid couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“Maybe I’m just sore from Stanley’s latest work,” Cressida suggested.

Trudy stopped gliding those bristles through Cressida’s hair and jabbed the brush at her reflection. “That pillock’s gone hurt you heaps worse than your current condition.” Trudy scowled. “The bloody bastard,” she spat. “But this wouldn’t be the strike to take you down, girl.”

That was the problem that came from living with someone who knew Cressida’s existence inside and out.

What an outsider might see and judge to be the greatest horror, Trudy knew was, in fact, only a glimpse. A mild inconvenience of one, in comparison to the other horrid abuse she’d suffered at her brother’s hands.

Trudy resumed brushing Cressida’s hair. “The fellow was angry.”

“Which? Dr. Carlson or—”

The nursemaid jabbed the brush again at Cressida. “Don’t you dare start with me again, gel. You’re not wiggling out of this one. You know exactly who I’m talking about. The fine, fancy gentleman who looked like he was going to dismember your corpulent brother.”

Cressida angled her head back, and in so doing, she caused her hair to tangle in the bristles of Trudy’s brush.

It bought Cressida some time.

Trudy proceeded to gently disentangle Cressida’s hair.

“I’ll allow you the earl was angry with Stanley for his treatment of me, but only because Lord Wakefield is noble and gallant and charitable.” Benedict might be angry with a person—of which he decidedly was with Cressida, but he’d never countenance mistreatment against any woman.

“I saw the way that lad looked at you, Cressie. He wasn’t angry at you. He was angry with himself.”

Hope briefly crept into Cressida’s heart.

Trudy’s lips cracked a rare smile. “Never saw a man more ready to kill than the earl seeing you hurt. That wasn’t just anger, girl. That was the look of a man protecting what is his.”

Her old friend’s words continued to fan the flames of that hope. Cressida lifted her gaze to Trudy’s. “He believes we’re one and the same, Trudy.”

Trudy frowned and set aside the brush. “On what do you base that, my girl?”

Cressida went on to explain the million and one things that had transpired since they had been apart from one another.

When she’d finished, Trudy wore the darkest frown she had that day. “That isn’t a man who’s mad at you, gel. That’s a man who’s furious and about ready to kill the baron, as he should have been killed long ago.”

“He can be angry with me and want to kill Stanley too, Trudy. Both of those things can be true.”

“You’re his mistress,” Trudy said unexpectedly.

Heat filled her cheeks. “No, as I mentioned…”

“Yes, yes, you said he purchased you at that debauched club, but I take it you are here now because you warm his bed.”

Cressida tried to make out whether there was disapproval, or whether she sought to understand the entirety of Cressida’s relationship with Benedict.

“No. He won’t have me as his mistress.”

“Then why are you here, girl?”

“He was…” Cressida caught the twinkle in the older woman’s eyes. She realized what she was suggesting.

“It isn’t because he cares about me, Trudy,” she said, setting the other woman straight. “He was worried that I’m with…”

She abruptly stopped herself. Cressida already knew what conclusion Trudy would reach when she heard the rest of that.

“What was that, girl?” Trudy prodded unrelentingly.

“He’s concerned I might be with child.”

“Ah, I see, then.” Trudy said. “He’s such a terrible gentleman. The kind who’d be angry with you and not the fat baron at this moment, but is also one who… What is it? Worry about the possibility that you’re with child?” Trudy let out another snort. “Child, do you know how many noblemen would’ve walked away from you that night without another backwards glance or thought? How many of those immoral bollocks go about planting their seed in the bellies of their mistresses and whores and never even think about whether they sowed a child?”

“He’s not like those men.”

“Aye, I know that, girl,” Trudy said. “But are you sure you do?”

Cressida exploded to her feet. Her heart pounded.

“He believes I’m in cahoots with my brother. He stormed off earlier today, and he stated blankly and boldly, numerous times now, that he doesn’t trust me.” Cressida’s voice shook with the force of her emotion.

Trudy, God love her, remained stone-faced through Cressida’s display of emotion.

“And I’m sure you were about as honest discussing your actual lot in life as you were with those good friends of yours. One of whom even went toe to toe with the fat baron—”

Emma, the Countess of Scarsdale.

“Now, even the Earl of Scarsdale had roughed Stanley up. But you didn’t tell them, did you, Cressida? You didn’t let any of them in, not really. If the countess hadn’t come herself looking for you, you’d have hidden in obscurity and been in an even sorrier state without any of the reprieve you got when you went to those Mismatch Society meetings. But that’s what you do, girl,” Trudy said, her tones gentler, her words just as piercing for the truth contained within them.

“You suffer in silence. You refuse to share anything with anyone. What’s your pride got you?” Trudy asked bluntly.

“I know,” Cressida said tiredly.

Trudy drew back. She gave a little guffaw. “Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that. Figured it out yourself, did you?”

Cressida nodded.

“I’m going to venture sometime during your short stay here with his lordship.”

Closing her eyes, Cressida nodded.

Trudy made a gentle clucking noise and drew Cressida into her arms, holding her in the gentle way she always did.

“After a sparing beating, you gone and fell in love with the fella, did you?”

Sniffling, Cressida nodded miserably against her nursemaid’s bony shoulder.

“He…” Her words emerged muffled by the thin-patched wool fabric of her serviceable dress… The only dress she owned.

“He courted Anwen.”

“Ah,” Trudy said in understanding.

Trudy knew all the names of everyone whom Cressida had met, called a friend, acquaintance, or spoken about. “Well, that doesn’t mean he—”

“And before her, he was desperately in love with the Viscountess Waters.”

“I see,” her old nursemaid said.

And by her tones, this time her loyal friend and nursemaid did see.

“Well—”

“Just stop, Trudy,” Cressida said, all the life drained from her. The day had been entirely too much, even for someone such as she.

“He’ll give you a job.”

That startled Trudy into dropping the topic. Her gray eyebrows went shooting to her high, receding hairline.

“Come again, girl?”

“He’ll give you work. One that will not break your back. One that will see you well-fed and safe and secure and—”

“And what about you, Cressida?” Trudy interjected sharply.

That, Cressida still hadn’t figured out.

“Come,” Trudy said.

She guided a hand around Cressida’s waist and tenderly guided her towards the bed.

“Here’s what I’ll tell you, Cressida, and you take with it what you will. You’ve gone through life all on your own, never confiding in anyone, never taking help, always giving of yourself. And finally, you’ve met a good man, and you’re just so afraid to trust he can give of himself to you, and be there for you, that you’ve gone and tried to run him away.”

Cressida stared emptily off at the opposite wall. The truth of her old nursemaid’s words landed square and didn’t bring with them any manner of shock.

“You need to rest, gel. Just trust me when I say whatever you think or don’t think about the old girl, the fellow cares for you. If he didn’t, he certainly wouldn’t go about offering work for an old biddy like me.”

Cressida managed a wan smile. She allowed Trudy to believe the matter settled, and also that she was fit for sleep, just so she could have time to be alone with herself and think about how it could have been with Benedict, instead of how it was.