Duchess of Seduction (Hearts in Hiding Book 3)

by Beverley Oakley

  As long as he didn’t cast her as the credulous fool in front of Catherine, the wife who could be relied upon to turn a blind eye to future peccadilloes, she could put all this behind her.

  She patted her cousin’s hand, which had swooped up to stop her, whispering, “It’s all right, Catherine, I’m going home with Justin, now.” If there was more resignation than joy in her tone, she needed to convey her acceptance of the situation so she could simply depart. Justin’s confession could wait.

  Catherine thought differently. “Let Justin say what he came to say, first,” she responded, gripping Cressida’s skirt and pulling her down, hissing in an undertone, “Be strong, Cressy. If you meekly accept everything he tells you, he won’t respect you.”

  Justin glared. Damn, but how could Cressida resist a man who incorporated everything her heart desired—determination, charm, good looks, a desire to see to her happiness and that of their children? She sucked in a wavering breath. If he’d strayed, he regretted the pain it had caused her. She still came first in his world. She had to believe it, or her world was nothing but dust.

  He spoke quickly, holding out his hand before Cressida could reply and in the dim light of the candle on the mantelpiece, and the dying embers in the great, he’d never looked more appealing. “Please, Cressy, I need to speak to you alone.”

  Justin could always make him want her. Even now she felt her desperate need for him override every other painful emotion she’d endured during the past week. He could put her through nameless torments and she’d still want him.

  The knowledge threaded its way uncomfortably through her veins.

  Should she accept everything he said so meekly? Catherine was right. There came a time when, for her own survival, it was incumbent upon her to stand up for herself.

  With another short, sharp tug, Catherine forced Cressida to resume her seat on the sofa beside her while she took the initiative, saying in her thin, superior voice, “Cressida came to me because she was deeply upset by recent events.”

  Although Catherine had had no direct confirmation that Cressida had ventured into Mrs. Plumb’s sinful establishment, her words suggested a knowledge that went far deeper than any confidence with which Cressida had entrusted her.

  Cressida turned to stare at her cousin. Catherine’s capacity for interference suddenly frightened her. Justin would not, could not, deny the existence of Mariah Zirelli, but now was not the time for such a confession. Catherine would be like a dog with a bone. She would use Justin’s guilt for her own ends. His remorse, and the torture Catherine would put him through, would go some way toward alleviating the pain caused by Catherine’s own husband’s painful lack of any finer feelings, but it had the potential to destroy Justin in his own eyes.

  “It’s all right, Catherine.” Cressida stood once more, no longer desperate to hear her husband beg her forgiveness. He could do that later, without Catherine to witness it.

  She was prepared for silence, even for a mumbled, “We’ll talk about this later,” but Justin’s response struck a heavy blow to her new resolve when, in a tone almost of injury, he said, “I’m sorry to see you’ve been caused pain, Cressy, but you’ve misunderstood matters.” The flinty gaze that he’d leveled upon Catherine softened as he held out his hand to Cressida. “I’m so glad to see you safely here, my darling, when I was so worried. Everything will be all right when we are alone.”

  Alone... Oh, how Cressida longed for it.

  “So Cressida’s eyes deceived her.” Catherine’s voice was smug. She smiled at her cousin. “I’m sure you’re greatly relieved to hear that, my dear, but I think the fact you’ve woken me at such an ungodly hour deserves an explanation. What is the cause of your distress, which Justin is so anxious to make you believe was nothing?”

  “It is nothing, but clearly Cressida thinks otherwise.” In clipped tones Justin added, “Leave it, Catherine, so I might explain everything in private.”

  Catherine shifted, patted Cressida’s arm, and said smugly, “But I have been drawn into the middle of it, haven’t I? And I want an answer more satisfactory that the one with which you’ve fobbed off Cressida. Come Justin, if her eyes deceived her—and that’s why she’s so upset—what did she see?”

  Torn, Cressida sank back into her seat, wavering, then ultimately rejecting the hand her husband extended toward her. Justin had quite clearly denied the truth of that which could not be denied. Cressida had seen him in the arms of the woman who’d been his former mistress right up to the eve of his marriage. The woman, rumor had it, to whom he’d returned. Furthermore, it was at a notorious House of Assignation.

  Did Justin truly think Cressida such a gullible fool? Was she nothing more than a doormat who could be relied upon not to make a fuss and to turn a blind eye whenever he chose to stray?

  Catherine was not to be denied her evening’s entertainment. Ignoring Justin, she ran her hand over Cressida’s black silk skirts. Her eyes glittered with curiosity. “Where have you come from tonight, Cressy? I can see it’s not masquerade, so surely it’s some wild disguise?”

  “Nowhere you’d know,” Cressida mumbled while she still agonized over whether she’d stay or go with Justin.

  “Nowhere I’d know.” Catherine repeated Cressida’s words slowly, clearly intrigued. “Why, Cressy, I didn’t think you had it in you. It’s Wednesday, isn’t it? And if you weren’t at home or with me, why surely you’ve been at Mrs. Plumb’s? Look at you. I’ve never seen you look so dashing...” Her words trailed away. She tilted her head to look at Justin, and her mouth curved in a speculative smile. “But I fear something at Mrs. Plumb’s has upset you. Something involving your husband and,” she added, carefully, “perhaps another woman.”

  Justin seized Cressida’s hand and pulled her to her feet. It was the ungentlest action Cressida had ever experienced at his hands and a thrill of mixed emotions flooded her. She wanted to be with him more than anything in the world right now, yet there was a grain in truth in what Catherine said.

  “Cressida’s eyes deceived her. She is coming home with me.”

  Cressida’s eyes deceived her? Indignation gained the upper hand and banished Cressida’s desire to meekly return home with her husband. Her eyes had certainly not deceived her. And while Cressida was prepared to accept a watered-down version of the truth, unless she showed some backbone, as Catherine put it, she realized in this instant that this might well be only the start of even greater sorrow .

  The truth was that the time had come for her to stand up for herself .

  Snatching away her hand, she challenged Justin for the first time in their married life, her voice thick with emotion, her heart pounding so hard she could barely hear her own words. “I saw you with Madame Zirelli. Did my eyes deceive me as to the”—she choked down the painful swelling in her throat—“familiarity of her greeting?”

  Justin stilled. “Madame Zirelli is an old friend.” He spoke carefully. Was that because he was afraid of incriminating himself? “It could not have escaped your notice, Cressida, that she is also at least ten years older than you. A woman of mature years. One whose advice I have sought in a platonic sense, and whom I am aiding in a capacity quite unrelated to...everything else.”

  So it had come to this? Oblivious of everything around her, Cressida stared at Justin for the first time as if he were not her husband. The eyes that generally regarded her with genial warmth were wary. Surely that must suggest—she nearly choked on her grief—guilt? The lean, handsome jaw was clenched as if he hung on her response, and his whole stance was as tense as if he were about to spring.

  This was not the Justin she knew. She wanted her loving husband back. She wanted this whole nightmare to go away so she could wake up in Justin’s arms feeling warm and safe like she’d done almost every morning until...

  She hung her head as she finished the thought.

  Until ten months ago when she’d withdrawn, physically, from him.

  “Do you deny she is your mistress?” s
he whispered, even though to hear him confirm it would be like a lance through her heart.

  “I don’t know what made you think it, but Madame Zirelli is not my mistress.”

  Catherine cocked her head. “Then why were you at Mrs. Plumb’s with her?”

  “I heard she was your mistress before you married me,” Cressida whispered.

  “Yes,” he said, carefully, “before I married you, she was my mistress.”

  “Then you admit you lied to me just now!” Cressida clapped her hand to her mouth. “Why not just tell me I forced you away? That I pushed you into the arms of this woman who could be relied upon to...give you the comfort I couldn’t—”

  “Good Lord, Cressy, you are overwrought!” Seizing her wrist once more, Justin pulled her to her feet. tilting her chin with his forefinger as he forced her to meet his eyes. “That is not what happened at all. I have not been unfaithful in mind or body for the entire eight years we’ve been married.”

  “Then tell me, what were you were doing at Mrs. Plumb’s?” begged Cressida. “Last week, when I saw you there for the first time, you were in her sitting room, clearly not expecting me. Yet when a...widow in need of manly attention came knocking, you—”

  “Do you think I don’t know my own wife?”

  Cressida shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.” Miserably, she sank down into the cushions beside Catherine when Justin released her. “I didn’t know what to think, but I wanted you back, Justin.” She stared at her feet. “And then when I saw you with... that other woman... I realized I knew nothing.”

  “Cressy, I want to explain everything to you. Like who she is and what she is to me. But”—he glanced at Catherine—“I want to explain when we are alone.”

  Catherine patted Cressida’s shoulder. “All fixed,” she said brightly. “You were entirely mistaken, my dear, and I’m so pleased this drama is on such shaky foundations. However, if it really is nothing more than a snowflake in a snowstorm, surely I can be privy to Justin’s simple explanation as to what he was doing at Mrs. Plumb’s with his apparently former mistress?”

  “I’m sorry, Catherine, but I’m taking Cressida home to continue this conversation...in private.”

  The pressure of his hand on Cressida’s shoulder was enough to send the blood rushing to her head, demonstrating yet again that she had no resistance against him.

  “If you have no secrets, I wonder why you won’t reveal why you were at Mrs. Plumb’s at all?” Catherine asked sweetly .

  Justin stared down at them, his face an inscrutable mask. No hesitation as to what he was about to do, or regret as to what he had done, crossed his handsome, normally mobile features.

  With a curt nod at Catherine, he muttered, “You are a dangerous woman, Catherine, but sadly, you have not a care for the hurt you cause your cousin.”

  Cressida was half on her feet, but her obvious wavering was too much for him. Before she had a chance to make her decision, Justin bowed, then turned on his heel and left.

  Chapter 12

  For two hours, Catherine had ranted over a husband’s inability to remain faithful to his wife and about a wife’s duty for the sake of womanhood to punish him for his failings.

  For more than twenty years, she’d bullied Cressida, making her cousin feel small and insignificant. Cressida was too small of stature to command the respect the tall—now gaunt- looking— Catherine received as her due. Cressida’s nose was too small for her little face, though the long shadows cast by the dim firelight tonight turned Catherine’s into a hawk- like proboscis wedged between the hard angles of her cheeks.

  Catherine had implied that by extraordinary good fortune, Cressida had snared a jaded noble on the rebound, although in the happy years that had followed their marriage, Cressida had been able to dismiss Catherine’s jibes.

  Yet here Cressida now was, cowering on the Egyptian sofa beside her bullying cousin, having just dismissed her ever-patient, ever-loving husband when any decent wife would have heard him out and any loving wife would have perhaps gone further than that. Instead Cressida had allowed Catherine to hold her hostage in her drawing room in an attempt to poison her mind against Justin.

  How had she allowed Catherine to assume her former pre- marriage position of such power over her? Cressida wondered as the clock in the passage struck three. What kind of wife did it make her if she couldn’t even give her husband an honest hearing?

  As the final chime faded into silence, Catherine exhaled on a gusty sigh and turned back from the fire. The lines of her face were pulled taut with the disdain now ingrained in her character. Why had Cressida not noticed it before? Catherine’s dissatisfaction with life was poisoning her from within and her remedy was to make everyone else as miserable as she was.

  She looked twenty years older than she had last week, twenty years older than Cressida, who had been born in the same year. Bitterness had sucked her dry, and Cressida realized in that moment what happened to women who could not, or would not, forgive. Women who wouldn’t even give their husbands a hearing, much less a little of the kindness they were forced to seek elsewhere.

  Like a dog with a bone, Catherine kept chewing. “Really, Cressida, I don’t know how you can even contemplate forgiving your husband’s disgraceful behavior. He was at Mrs. Plumb’s for goodness’ sake. His conduct is deplorable. When will you learn to trust your instincts?”

  When wi! you learn to trust your instincts? Had Catherine really asked her that? Like a virtuous virago desperate to sink her teeth into another juicy victim, mauling Cressida and Justin at each other’s expense? Rage burned slowly through her veins, filling her with the fire and fortitude she needed to make her own decisions against a formidable opponent.

  Before Catherine could take a breath to launch further into her theme, Cressida decided she’d heard enough. With quiet majesty, she smoothed her skirts and rose. “Actually, Catherine, I am going to finally trust my instincts,” she said in clipped tones, enough at odds with her character to make Catherine raise her eyebrows.

  “I’ve had enough of your hectoring for one night. Actually, for a lifetime.” She straightened her décolletage in the looking glass above the mantelpiece, pinching her cheeks to heighten the color. Businesslike, she said, “My poor coachman will have to be roused so I can return to find Justin and let him tell me what he was doing at Mrs. Plumb’s before I tell him my side of our little domestic drama of the past ten months.”

  “Justin? How can you believe a word of what he says?” Catherine looked mightily put out at her uncharacteristic determination, Cressida noted as she glanced at her cousin’s reflection in the mirror.

  She heard Catherine rise and her footsteps across the floor. Her voice was closer and the tone no less carping. “You heard the way Justin lied to you, Cressy, telling you your eyes deceived you when you know very well what you saw .”

  “What I saw does not confirm Justin was unfaithful.” Cressida continued to make those subtle but important improvements to her appearance in front of the looking glass, enjoying the novelty of Catherine’s helplessness to stop her from leaving. “What’s more,” she added crisply as she tucked a curl behind one ear, “if he was unfaithful, I now know what I intend to do about it.”

  “That’s the spirit.” But Catherine sounded uncertain as she watched Cressida continue to preen. And when Cressida turned back to her after plumping up her breasts and tugging at her black lace-edged décolletage, Catherine was frowning.

  Cressida smiled. “First I intend telling him how sorry I am not to have known how to tell him of my fears of conceiving another child.”

  “Cressida—!”

  “Then I intend to inform him that I’ve now resolved those fears and am ready to be the good wife he once loved—no, enjoyed —so much.” Cressida slanted a wickedly suggestive glance at her cousin. “He will soon be in no doubt as to where my affection and loyalty lie.”

  She stroked her hands over her belly and breasts in a gesture Catherine had probabl
y not seen before, and the shock on her cousin’s face made Cressida laugh.

  This night had been the most extraordinary of her life. Her encounter with Justin at Madame Plumb’s—truncated though it had been—had reminded her of the physical pleasures she’d so missed. When she was in Justin’s arms and the first difficult words had been said, she knew the rest would be easy. A man didn’t change character overnight and if Justin had strayed, Cressida was confident enough of winning him back, now and for the future, that she was prepared to put the past behind them.

  “I am sorry for your unhappiness, Catherine, but we reap what we sow. When did you last please your husband, Catherine?” she asked. She began to count on her fingers. “Let me think, your two sons were born less than a year apart. Baby William, your second son and final child, was born four years ago. Once you’d provided James with two sons, you felt you’d done your duty, didn’t you? You’ve denied James access to your bed ever since, yet you blame him for seeking his pleasures elsewhere?”

  “How...dare...you.”

  For once, Cressida felt no fear in the face of Catherine’s anger. She shrugged. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s speculated that. Of course, it is only speculation, but I’m not the innocent I was, Catherine.” Excitement bubbled inside her at the thought of what lay ahead. Taking another quick look at herself in the looking glass, she dragged down the lace-edged black silk at her décolletage, enjoying the fact that her behavior was, for once, scandalizing her cousin. She swung back to face her, not hiding her pleasure at the prospect of seeing Justin again. “You see, Catherine, I realize how lucky I am. I’ve enjoyed a love most women never experience, and I’m not about to squander the opportunity to take it in a new and exciting direction.” She raised her eyes heavenward and said in an adrenaline-fuelled rush, “I went to Mrs. Plumb’s last week and again this week, Catherine, and I’ve seen things you’d not believe.” If she sounded like a schoolroom miss, she didn’t care, especially as she saw the effect her admission had on Catherine.