Duchess of Seduction (Hearts in Hiding Book 3)

by Beverley Oakley

  “Stop!” Arresting her retreat with a stern frown, her friend went on. “You say you love your husband.”

  “I adore him—”

  “Yet you cannot speak to him of your fears?”

  “What do wives know of such things?” Despairingly, Cressida

  continued, supporting herself with a hand on the back of the sofa as she started towards the door. “My mother died when I was a child. Whom can I ask? No one told me what to expect on my wedding night, much less—” Taking a deep, sustaining breath, she calmed herself. “Do you have children?” she suddenly asked.

  Her new friend certainly inferred that she knew a lot more about minimizing their likelihood than Cressida did. And she must be ‘experienced’, otherwise she’d not be here.

  She thought Miss Mariah had not heard, for she appeared distracted as she fiddled with the tassels of the brocade curtain. “No,” came the answer, eventually, and much to Cressida’s surprise.

  “But you’ve had lovers?” Cressida heard the desperate note in her voice, as if pleading for the two to be compatible. How pathetic she must seem. This was a fool’s errand. “I’m sorry. That was impolite of me.” She clasped her reticule against her and took another step toward the door.

  “Home, to your children?” A smile hovered about Miss Mariah’s mouth as she fixed Cressida with a level stare. “Or to find your husband and explain what is at the root of your troubles? If he is as considerate as it would appear, I think your frankness will not go unrewarded.”

  Cressida winced. “My youngest is teething—” she mumbled.

  “With a competent nursery maid. I’ll wager your husband needs you more. Listen to me. I know all about husbands, too. I was married for many years, and I can assure you that husbands and lovers are no different where a desirable woman is concerned.” With an incisive look she asked, “I am curious. If you had found your husband here, in the arms of his mistress, do you think your feelings for him would survive the trauma? Yes, I know straying husbands are a matter of course, but it is easier to ignore and forgive what is not presented to you on a platter.”

  Through gritted teeth, Cressida maintained what she truly believed. “I will always love him, for if he’d strayed, I’d know it was only because I’d driven him to it.”

  She’d reached the door and now turned, hurt and angered by the smile on Miss Mariah’s face. “You think it’s not true? I’ve had time to reflect, and I’ve been reminded of my duty. Women like me have no choice but to be compliant wives if we want to trade in happiness. I am going home to wait for my husband and to do whatever is required so that he will never seek diversion elsewhere. I shall return to reclaim his heart.” Lowering the veil of her bonnet, she put out her hand. “You have been patient, listening to my foolishness. You talk of sacrifices not being required, but I am not—” She swallowed. “That kind of woman. Women like me must honor our marriage vows in return for comfort and security. We have an obligation to our husbands, and I’m about to fulfill mine, though, truly, I thank you for your good advice.” She pushed away Miss Mariah’s restraining hand to turn the doorknob, but it was the woman’s soft, suggestive words that proved too intriguing to resist.

  “It is not your husband’s heart that needs repossessing but his desire. Of course you are upset, my dear, but think a moment on the reasons you came here...of your fears and what I can teach you.” She came up close behind Cressida and put her hand on her shoulder. Then gently she touched her cheek.

  The gesture of sympathy was almost more than Cressida could bear, but she had to leave before she succumbed to the fresh wave of self-pity that threatened to overcome her. She turned the door handle.

  “I would be very happy to stay, my dear. But if you’re intent upon leaving, don’t, I implore you, act with too much haste and undo all the good that’s come from your bravery tonight.”

  Cressida turned as Miss Mariah put a hand on Cressida’s shoulder, then tucked an escaped tendril behind her ear. “I would be very happy if you would like to come back next Wednesday so I can tell you more about the many women like you who do not have extensive nurseries but who are equally dutiful wives. For if you return, I can show you how to satisfy your husband without necessarily conceiving a child.”

  Cressida stilled. This was the second time the woman had alluded to such a possibility, but the first she’d said it in such direct words.

  “Satisfy my husband without conceiving a child.” She repeated the phrase, more as an incantation than questioning the assertion. What a incongruous notion. And yet...a tremor of hope and excitement started at the core of her.

  Her friend gripped Cressida’s fingertips and gave a comforting squeeze. “That’s what women do when they’re not raised in fear and ignorance.”

  Chapter 6

  She’d learned nothing, yet she’d learned too much to go home and meekly await Justin’s return. Excitement thrummed through Cressida’s veins as she stepped out of Miss Mariah’s sitting room and into the dimly lit corridor. Quickly she lowered her head as two passersby approached. A smirking young man was holding up a woman old enough to be his mother, whose drunken laughter and unsteady gait sent them on a trajectory that required Cressida to press herself against the wall for fear of being bowled over.

  Lord, she thought, panic gripping her as she touched her thick veil for reassurance, ducking into an alcove to tidy her hair so it was completely concealed by the ugly bonnet. What would Justin say if he discovered her in such a place? His faith in her constancy as a pliant, loving wife would be rocked to the core. Could he even look at her in the same way, knowing what she must have seen simply by coming here?

  Yet what she’d gained was inestimable. Hope and courage and the curiosity to find the answers to what she’d once thought an insoluble problem.

  Yet, if what Miss Mariah said was true, Cressida might, in a few days’ time, have all the knowledge she needed to return her and Justin to the glorious days when they’d reveled in their newly wedded bliss. What power that would be!

  Entering through a doorway at the end of the corridor, such revolutionary thoughts were, in only a few minutes, giving sway to a fresh wave of doubts. But she forced herself to concentrate on the hope she now embraced rather than the guilt and shame that would stifle her if she let it. She must put it out of her mind. Never hint to Justin what she’d seen—

  With sudden disorientation, she realized that what she’d believed to be the hallway when she issued through the door was instead another private sitting room, cozily furnished with a fire crackling in the grate. In the far corner was a desk lit by an Argand lamp, at which sat a gentleman bent over a document he was reading. His frown indicated the deepest concentration, his left hand thrumming his knee, his right foot tapping as if he was agitated. Like everyone else here this evening, he was dressed in masquerade, a demi-mask half covering his face that he must have forgotten to remove, considering no one else occupied the room. The pristine spill of his cravat was the only relief to his austere clothing, which was cut to perfection and which clung to him...

  In the most heart-stopping way .

  Heart-stopping because this was just how Justin had affected Cressida the very first time she had met him, when he’d bent to kiss her hand as he’d asked her to stand up with him for the next country dance.

  The sight of the man slowly raising his head, warm brown eyes regarding her with unmistakable interest, sucked the air from her lungs, a reaction as piercing now as it was a whole eight years and so much history ago.

  “Oh!” she gasped as she raked her gaze over the familiar masculine form. His relaxed and pleasant smile lent him an air of calm and dignified authority. And safety .

  Then terror washed over Cressida, that all her wickedness was about to be revealed.

  What could she say that would adequately explain her presence? Dear Lord, she’d been caught. Either she was sneaking after him as if she didn’t trust him, or she was the kind of depraved being who sought out th
e sins of the flesh in a place like this. What kind of a wife would he think her? Mistrustful? Deceitful? Depraved?

  She closed her eyes and forced herself to be calm. She could barely see clearly through the thickness of her veil.

  Of course he has no idea who I am.

  “Madam?” He raised his eyebrows in polite inquiry, and her resolve shattered. Her husband was smiling at her and every particle of her being answered in a breathless chorus—anything to be in his arms. He was the breath of her life, the sun to her moon, the axis on which her existence revolved. He was the reason she was here, so that she might rediscover the secret of the happiness they once had shared.

  “Sir.” On sudden impulse, she swallowed down her fear, forcing a smile as calm and self-controlled as his as she closed the door behind her. Here was her beloved husband, whose heart she believed she still possessed, but whose desire she was desperate to rekindle...if what her new friend had told her was true—that passion and pregnancy need not always go hand in hand.

  Justin was busy working at something. She knew that his look of polite interest masked the fact that his mind was completely on his task.

  He was here...alone. There was a document in his hands. Not a woman.

  And he had no idea who his new visitor was. Cressida could say anything, do anything...

  The sense of being an actress in a play took hold. Boldly, she went over to him, standing in his light, just a couple of feet away.

  Now his smile was distant and there was a slight wariness in his tone as he murmured, “I think you have lost your way, madam, for the front door is down the corridor to your right. Shall I show you the way?”

  She did not move, did not falter as she gazed up at him through her heavy veil. Justin was here at Mrs. Plumb’s, exactly where she’d dreaded she’d find him, but her heart and mind could only rejoice in the fact that his concentration on a particular document suggested his interest in the place was not the women.

  Of course it was not, and how like Justin. Justin was just as likely to be concerned over the use of child labor as the rescue of fallen women. That must be why he was here. On work matters, yet he’d not wanted to hint to his protected wife that such business involved him with the depraved creatures who inhabited Madame Plumb’s.

  With all Cressida’s doubts about Justin’s constancy dissipated, she found herself now trembling with the unadulterated joy at the prospect of being taken in the arms of her wonderful, noble, constant husband once again.

  Yet as she stepped forward, she felt again the slightest stirring of doubt. Catherine always told her she was much too credulous for her own good.

  “Mrs. Plumb told me I’d find the gentleman I was looking for in this room.” She made her voice softer, breathier. Gripping her reticule against her chest for courage, she stared at him through her veil, striving for a tone and gesture both appealing and vulnerable. Justin’s chivalrous impulses were easily stirred. She wanted to see the effect she had on him when she was not his wife, but a stranger. An appealing, interested stranger.

  “I am a widow, sir. I lost my beloved husband a year ago. Mrs. Plumb directed me here. She said you were a kind man who’d listen...if I wanted to talk.”

  Despite the dimness of the room, she saw indecisiveness cross his face. Justin was a kind man, but how far would he allow himself to be swayed by a lonely widow? How much did she want him to be?

  She caught herself up. Took a step backwards. This was madness. She had no desire to be confronted by her husband’s weaknesses—if he had any—yet here they were, in a cozy, intimate setting, where each could pretend to be someone else.

  It was too much to resist.

  Lowering herself onto the sofa, she tilted her head in invitation. “Just five minutes of your time, sir. Perhaps you knew my husband?”

  Justin was on the point of refusing, or kindly but firmly leading the woman out of the sitting room, when his senses switched to high alert. There was something familiar about the line of her throat when she tilted her head, glimpsed for a second through her thick veil. Also, the voice—the soft, breathy tone could almost be...

  When she stepped from the shadows and into the light, he thought he was hallucinating.

  Why, Cressida would no more frequent a place like this than have a public affair with the footman.

  Yet the doubt refused to be dislodged. Frowning, Justin cautiously seated himself beside her as he was bid. It was impossible to make out her features, but the slender line of her body beneath the black silk gown and the swell of her breasts, even more desirable after four children, were devastatingly familiar. He shook his head to clear it. He was being ridiculous. It was wishful thinking or his worst nightmare.

  The sofa was small and he sat awkwardly, his thigh touching hers. If it was, in fact, Cressida, he acknowledged wryly, then this tableau promised greater intimacy between them than they’d shared in many months.

  Doubt dissipated when she moved slightly and a faint waft of lavender mixed with his wife’s familiar scent confirmed what his sixth sense had been screaming since she’d spoken.

  This was no bereaved widow wanting to lament her late husband.

  He hid his confusion behind a concerned, interested smile as she created a fiction about her loss in that maddeningly sensual, familiar, breathy voice of hers. What was she about? How could his innocent, protected little Cressida be in Mrs. Plumb’s house of ill repute, making up to a strange gentleman?

  On the one hand, Justin wanted to leap up and declare himself —and thus force her to reveal herself. On the other, he wanted to tease out her reasons and so lay his torment to rest. Cressida... revealing hidden desires in a house of sin and not able to tell him?

  Perhaps she did know it was him. And yet, the room was so dim and he’d replaced his mask. It was possible she did not. Good God, it was entirely possible she believed him someone else!

  He shook his head to clear it and hurt welled up where confusion had set in. Did she no longer find him attractive now that age had set in and he was no longer the vigorous sapling of a youth he’d been when he married her? Could that be why she was seeking alternative avenues of pleasure by coming here? H ere? To such a place? He swallowed painfully. How could she know of it? Had Catherine introduced her to it?

  Then realisation and, with it, relief swept all confusion away. Of course! This was all part of the charade. She knew exactly who he was, just as she knew he realized her identity.

  Cressida, who had allowed him to lie with her only once since Thomas’ birth, was now here, using Mrs. Plumb’s as the setting for signaling his readmittance to the marriage bed. God knew how she’d located him, but she had, though it seemed too incredible to believe, it was so out of character.

  It was also unbelievably exciting. The dull ache in his loins became almost painful as he forced down his desire.

  “You miss your husband, madam?” He hoped he sounded more sympathetic than hoarse with anticipation. Cressida had used this charade to initiate their physical reunion, and he was fully determined to play along.

  He took her gloved hand and placed it on his knee. Her hand shook and another wave of her familiar scent assailed his nostrils, making him weak with longing. Not that he was going to remain weak for very long when given this incredible opportunity .

  “I miss his love and his comfort,” she whispered, her eyes fixed coyly upon their linked hands.

  “So that’s why you came here? To Mrs. Plumb’s?” He could feel the warmth radiating from her body a hair’s breadth from his and longed to offer her the love and comfort she sought with no further preliminaries. Then he’d proceed to remind her of all the other delights she’d been missing for so long.

  But this was Cressida’s charade. She wanted to set the pace. Desire and anticipation ratcheted up even further. Cressida could set whatever pace she wanted if it meant a resumption of the bedroom delights he missed so much. Restraint did not come easily, but he satisfied himself by reaching across and gently
stroking her neck, tangling his fingers in the silky, flaxen curls at the nape as he drew her closer into his embrace. She had always liked that.

  It was a successful strategy. He heard her faint intake of breath before she whispered, “I am not in the habit of frequenting such a place except that my cousin told me sometimes both ladies and gentlemen come here f-for reasons other than the music.” Her voice faltered as she raised her eyes to his. “Do you come here for reasons other than the music, sir?”

  He weighed up his answer, her hand captive in his. Without going into greater detail than he was prepared to at this time, he could not tell her about Mariah and the specific undertaking with which he had concerned himself on her behalf for the past three weeks. Cressida must have innocently followed him here in disguise. She certainly could not understand what went on at Mrs. Plumb’s, else she’d not have made it through the front doors.

  And yet...

  With vivid clarity, he recalled Cressida’s enthusiasm for the decorous, almost chaste lovemaking they’d enjoyed in the early days of their marriage. Had she grown bold, all of a sudden? Wished to up the pace now that she was ready to allow him access to her body at last? Why else would she bare her charms and speak so suggestively unless she knew exactly what she was about?

  As to her inevitable question regarding what had brought him to Mrs. Plumb’s in the first place, he’d be in a position to reveal everything within just a few days. Cressida’s close friend, Annabelle Luscombe, who worked with him on the Sedleywich Board of the Foundling Home, was too closely involved and he was honor-bound to help Mariah locate her lost child first, as promised, before discreetly explaining the details to his wife.