Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma

by Beverley Oakley

  What is it?

  What could she say? What should she say? I don’t want your child, Justin, and am busy investigating ways to ensure I need never become pregnant again, if you’ll just be patient another week.

  If they were having this conversation before becoming intimate she might have fumbled her way into making some semblance of sense. Right now, however, with fear and terror and guilt bombarding her with equal relentlessness, she did not know what to say.

  “I’m so sorry, Justin,” she whispered, withdrawing from his embrace and putting her hands to her temples as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, “but I feel another megrim coming on.”

  His hands fell away from her. She felt his withdrawal, both physical and emotional, as he slowly got out of bed.

  “You should have said something before, darling.” He rose up before her, his look puzzled, but suspicious also.

  At the irony in his tone, she nearly abandoned her resolve to hurl herself right back into his arms.

  Nearly.

  Only the fear of a fate equal to death in nine months stopped her.

  Chapter Six

  “You seem distracted, Justin? Bad news?”

  Justin glanced up from the little writing desk in the corner of Mariah’s sitting room at which he’d been working for the past hour, reconciling, yet again, the list of orphans who’d been delivered and removed from Sedleywich eighteen years ago.

  “I wish I could offer you concrete answers but we have to be patient, Mariah,” he muttered, though it was not his apparent preoccupation with the task with which Mariah had charged him that accounted for his distraction.

  Cressida. Her behaviour defied logic. Last night it was as if she’d enticed him to her merely so she could repulse him when that was not at all her nature. He closed his eyes and shivered with remembered longing as he recalled the brief feeling of being wanted once more by his wife.

  Brief. He nearly snarled his bitterness. Where had she learned such a thing? Why had she started on an act so calculated to whip up his desire only to reject him at the end?

  He was confused and hurt. Suspicious, too. Not that she’d indulged in activities he’d not condone but as to the source of her inspiration for such extraordinary bedroom antics. Antics that she had initiated.

  Only to reject him. That’s what it all came down to.

  For the first time since he could remember, Cressida had not been at breakfast this morning. Though he’d endured a hellish night, he’d forced himself to take his seat at the usual time, hoping to glean something over their habitual haddock and toast, even if no actual allusion were made to the previous evening’s several extraordinary encounters.

  Mariah came to stand beside him, bending to look over his shoulder. She looked grey and drawn and Justin reached up to squeeze her hand.

  “I agree with you, Mariah, that the most likely candidate is this Miss Madeleine Hardwicke, Lord Slitherton’s betrothed. As you know, I’m on the Sedleywich board with her sister-in-law, Annabelle Luscombe.”

  “Which makes muddying the trail all the easier.” Mariah sighed. “Miss Hardwicke looks just as I did as a young girl, Justin, with her blue-black hair and Castilian features, yet she has Robert’s nose.” She twisted her hands. “Surely you can trace her origins and reveal the deception? I’m going insane, Justin, unable to think of anything but the growing suspicion my beloved Robert’s evil mother retrieved my child from the Sedleywich Home for Orphans and somehow engineered that she be brought up as the child of Robert’s sister.” She covered her face with her hands. “Lord knows, I was in no position to keep the child, I know that, but I was used, deceived, abandoned. Where was Robert when I needed him? We were so in love.”

  Justin squeezed her fingers tight, then he rose and put his arms around his old friend. “Hush, Mariah, you are overwrought,” he murmured as she clung to him and her body convulsed with tears. “Do not blame Robert. You think men are all-powerful creatures? They are equally at the mercy of women when the balance is not in their favour.” A frisson of despair speared through him at the thought of Cressida and the power she wielded over him. “Love is a wonderful thing when two people are of one mind and that love is sanctioned by those around them who wield the power. Robert was not yet of age. He could do nothing in the face of his mother’s opposition.”

  Mariah drew back, sniffing and attempting to smile, then she resumed her seat on the sofa while Robert returned to his desk. “You are a sensible man, Justin. Of course, I know what you say is true.”

  He drummed his fingers upon the document. “But I have to tell you that another possibility has presented itself.” His smile failed to banish the rawness of her feelings. He knew desperate hope hovered beneath the surface of her restraint.

  Wearily, she said, “Who is she, Justin?”

  He shook his head. “It would be unfair to divulge names until her identity is confirmed.”

  Mariah rose and trailed to the window.

  “If you have narrowed down the list to two, and indeed you know Miss Hardwicke’s family, tell me if your investigations have concluded this at least…” She closed her eyes and the whitening of her knuckles, which matched the pallor of her face, tugged at Justin’s heartstrings. “Will she want to know me?”

  Justin pondered the question. Although he was navigating these dangerous emotional waters as best he could, he felt close to being overwhelmed.

  He shuffled the papers, wishing he’d been able to confide in Cressida from the start and cursing his promise to Mariah that he not breathe a word of her affairs to his wife. Cressida’s wise counsel would have helped ensure he was dealing with the matter as sensitively as possible.

  God, he certainly needed a lesson in that!

  His overtures to Cressida last night only proved how utterly lacking in sensitivity he was. He’d completely misread the situation between them.

  Impatiently, he pushed aside the document, desperate suddenly to leave Mariah’s sitting room. He needed to return home so he could confront Cressida and learn why she ran hot and cold with him these days.

  Why had she followed him to Mrs Plumb’s and enticed him so overtly only to reject him later?

  “It is never possible to predict a person’s desire to know another,” he said, hoping to do justice to Mariah’s question while his thoughts remained with his wife. “This other young woman whose identity I discovered yesterday was removed from the orphanage the same day and it is possible the two names were confused. I can tell you this, however—she lives in desperate poverty and your patronage would be gratefully received, I’m sure.” He hesitated, then pressed on, his voice tinged with doubt. “However, the initial subject of my inquiries—”

  “You mean Madeleine Hardwicke? Please suspend the lawyer speak, Justin.”

  Mariah’s voice was bleak as she crossed the room to stand before Justin, forcing him to look her in the eye. “If it is Madeleine Hardwicke she won’t want to know me…” she drew out the pause, adding quietly, “will she?”

  Taking Justin’s lack of response as confirmation for her worst fears, Mariah whispered, “Then my daughter is as lost to me as she ever was.”

  She turned away, saying brokenly, “I know I am being selfish and unreasonable. Would I wish her to have spent her life in poverty? Of course not. But what can I offer…someone like that…in my current position when I was so hoping my suspicion to be entirely off the mark and that you would discover a young woman to whom I could be of some small use?”

  Insensible to his soothing answer, her agitation increased as she paced. “I just cannot believe it of Robert’s family. They wanted nothing to do with me. Robert, himself, abandoned me! Now this! Surely the risk would be too great if the truth were discovered?”

  Justin tapped the desk with his fingers, mulling over everything he had learned during the past weeks. He’d spent hours studying the Sedleywich orphans register and following the complex chain of events that had obscured the origins of the chil
d later presented to the world as the legitimate daughter of one of London’s leading families. The daughter Mariah believed was her own.

  “It’s all in my report, Mariah,” he said, indicating the document on the desk. “Soon I shall receive information which will confirm, I suspect, that this second girl has no relevance to my investigation. As I’ve told you, Miss Hardwicke’s family has gone to great lengths, and expense, to guard against any possibility of discovery, making my task so difficult. The only thing they could not factor into the equation was family resemblance and a mother’s need to know.”

  Mariah appeared not to have heard him. Only the rise and fall of her bosom revealed her feelings as she stared through the window into the street. “After all these years to finally discover my child…” Her voice trailed away before she added bitterly, “A child I can never claim!”

  Her pain sliced at him but he had nothing to offer except platitudes. She spoke the truth.

  Turning back to him, Mariah gave a wry laugh. “Only yesterday I told a young woman I was childless. Indeed, it is the truth, for I have never known my daughter and, now, it appears, I never will.” Dropping her eyes, she added, “In a twist of irony, this poor young woman’s anguish was caused by her ever-growing brood. Five, she said she’d had, in eight years, and suffering torments because she believed a sixth would kill her.”

  Justin watched her push her dark hair back from her high forehead and wondered when it had become so tinged with grey. Just as he’d been struck by her handsome Castilian features when he’d first met her nine years before, he’d been struck by the continued rich gloss of her hair when she’d approached him the previous month. Now it seemed dull and lifeless.

  She was talking again and he realised she was still referring to the young woman she’d met the previous day.

  “I’d never have guessed it. She looked as innocent as a child, herself. And as frightened. This was no place for her. She admitted as much but I think she’d have entered a tiger’s den if she could have reclaimed her husband and poured out her heart to him.”

  Justin, who had been scanning his report once more, while preparing to leave, looked up.

  “She was here to reclaim her husband, did you say?”

  Maria nodded, chewing her thumbnail as she continued to stare into the street. “If we women were only given rudimentary knowledge of the facts when it came to the realities of marriage this poor woman would not be so desperate and I”—her shoulders slumped—“might still be happily married.”

  He could barely attend to her reflections, and hoped his voice did not betray him. Trying to assimilate the multitude of questions jostling for precedence, he asked carefully, “How did you and this woman meet?”

  “She was near fainting in the corridor so great was her fear of discovery. She’d been told her husband was here, though she seemed to have scant notion as to what she would do when she found him.”

  “She ventured to this place, alone, to find her husband?” Justin balled his fists and forced himself to breathe evenly. Mariah could be describing no one else but his wife. “Because someone told her this is where she’d find me?”

  “I think she just wanted to know if he was here. Though I don’t think she’d have known what to do if she’d found him. She said she was terrified of more children. Apparently her mother died giving birth to her sixth.”

  “What!” Justin gave no thought to the force of his exclamation. Afraid of more children? Cressida doted on their offspring. Increasingly she chose to spend her time with them, rather than her husband.

  Mariah was speaking once more. He tried to concentrate on her words while the implications of her assertion filtered through to his brain. He’d begun to think his wife’s earlier enthusiasm for the marriage act was purely for procreation, not recreation. That while she sought a cessation of marital relations with the nursery full, she’d also lost interest in the shared intimacy he still so greatly craved. Not once had she ever suggested he take precautions to protect against further pregnancies.

  Shock was swept away by the most intense dismay as he acknowledged they’d never properly had the conversation. Such talk was lewd, sinful… Good Lord, he thought with a start, perhaps Cressida did not even know such prevention was possible. It was not a conversation one had with one’s wife, though he had tried…

  The realisation of Cressida’s real and terrible fears swamped him and the words of his report, upon which his eyes were unconsciously trained, blurred. Uncurling his fingers, he raked his hand through his hair.

  He straightened in his chair, breathing carefully as he acknowledged how gravely he had failed his innocent, lovely wife. It was his duty to comfort and protect Cressida, to make her happy. He was ten years older, with experience beyond anything she could ever know. Just as Cressida had no knowledge of sexual relations outside their own bedroom, she’d have no idea how to translate her fear into words. Lord almighty, she’d known nothing on her wedding night and when her first pregnancy had been confirmed she’d asked from where the baby would emerge!

  Now, instead of broaching a topic that Justin suspected was not discussed even among women, she’d practised the only thing she knew would protect against conception.

  Abstinence.

  Resistance.

  A surge of protectiveness sent the blood roaring through his veins and moisture stung his eyes.

  How long had his precious, darling Cressida been caught in this dark, terrible place, unable to translate her feelings for him into anything physical for fear of the consequences? Last night she had come so far, taken such bold, brave steps, faltering only at the last when he had failed, yet again, to understand her terrors.

  The chair nearly toppled in Justin’s sudden haste to return home and take Cressida in his arms and counter every fear of hers in the most loving, practical way of which he was capable.

  “Apologies for my abrupt departure, Mariah,” he said, “but I have just recalled an urgent appointment. Tomorrow I shall return with, I hope, confirmation to set both our minds at rest.” In three quick strides he was at the door. In less than ten minutes he’d be home. He’d thought Cressida was playing games with him. No…he’d had no idea what Cressida was doing but now he knew the truth. Surely, if he acted quickly, he could rekindle their precious love before she had drifted too far from him?

  “That’s unlike you, Justin.”

  He could barely answer, for his thoughts were concentrated entirely on the task at hand. “Sounds like your poor new friend’s husband is an ignorant boor,” he muttered, his hand upon the doorknob, “who deserves to sleep alone.”

  Great was his disappointment to learn upon arriving in Bruton Street that Cressida had apparently responded to an urgent summons from her great-aunt Jane, who claimed to be upon her deathbed. Brimble, the butler, said he was uncertain when Lady Lovett would return.

  Chapter Seven

  Fumbling in her reticule for her handkerchief as she stood uncertainly in a dim passage at Mrs Plumb’s the following Wednesday, Cressida mopped her eyes. These tears! Where did they come from? Soon she would be confined to the asylum if she did not find a remedy for the nervous anxiety that afflicted her. She’d spent the previous five days with her great-aunt before returning this afternoon to find Justin not at home. She had to admit she’d been rather relieved.

  She trembled. Tonight… What might it bring? It all depended so much on whether Miss Mariah was telling her the truth or not.

  “My dear girl!” Her friend greeted her warmly and led her into a small conservatory at the back of the house.

  “It is such a lovely evening we can sit here, as my own sitting room is currently occupied.” Miss Mariah patted the seat beside her on the cane sofa. “I’m glad you came…and dressed for action, too, I see,” she added, referring to Cressida’s revealing black evening gown. With its deep neckline and figure-hugging cut it was very different to her widow’s weeds. “I promise you, a few minutes are all it takes for me to explain
what would advance society’s happiness and end so much suffering.”

  From the tray on the table beside them, she took two glasses of sherry and handed one to Cressida.

  In the natural light, Miss Mariah looked different from the previous week. There was now no sign of the grey that had peppered her hair, her gown was of fine blue silk and her eyes sparkled. Cressida was surprised she felt no revulsion for this creature who traded her body for what she could not otherwise procure. Unlike Cousin Catherine, Cressida tried not to be so quick to judge others.

  Miss Mariah leaned across the small space between them and asked with clear enthusiasm, “Now, where shall we begin? I do admire a young woman who sets out to help herself. You have been an inspiration to me, for I was a lustreless creature last week, I’ll admit it.” She raised her own glass. “You helped me see that, regardless of our trials, we must embrace the future.”

  Cressida took a nervous gulp of the amber-coloured liquid and looked down at her gloved hand, clenched in her lap. “My husband—” she began, feeling a surge of longing for the man she’d hurt, neglected and lied to over the past week and whose arms she could not wait to feel around her. A week had heightened her desire for the simple comfort of his company.

  “Your husband is a capital place to start. I’ve no idea what kind of man he is but, as it is clear you are deeply in love with him, I cannot imagine he’d not be completely amenable to doing his part to lessen the risk of increasing your already large brood when it comes to lovemaking.”

  Heat seared Cressida’s face and throat as she spluttered on her sherry.

  Her friend laughed. “How many years did you say you’d been married? Eight? Nearly as long as myself. My dear, the way we entertain our husbands is at the very core of how they regard us and if you are too afraid even to mention what is at the root of your fear then I see you have a very great problem indeed.”

  Cressida forced down her embarrassment. If this woman spoke the truth her world was about to begin anew. She’d grown up with maiden aunts who’d taught her nothing about the business and a domineering mother-in-law who’d made it clear that a reluctant wife was undutiful and unnatural. A knowledgeable stranger was as good as anyone to dispense the kind of advice she needed right now.