Searching the ballroom for her husband, she spied him talking to her friend Annabelle Luscombe near the supper table. His look was solicitous, as if he were hanging on her every word. Cressida knew he would take equal interest if Annabelle were talking about her latest bonnet or about the Sedleywich Home for Orphans, of which both Justin and Annabelle were patrons.
A frisson of longing speared her. Justin had looked at her like that when she’d first met him. So handsome, so determined, so sincere.
The thought that he’d made a special plea for her presence tonight purely in the interests of stilling wagging tongues was almost too terrible to consider.
A mistress? Her kind, beloved, faithful Justin?
As if he were conscious of her from across the room, Justin turned, his dark brown eyes kindling at the sight of her, the warmth of his smile spreading comfort like a woollen mantle. It radiated across the heated, perfumed distance that separated them. Dear Lord, he looked like a handsome prince taken right out of the pages of a story book, his brown, wavy hair brushed fashionably forward, topped with the laurel wreath required by his costume, his sideburns contouring his elegantly chiselled, high cheekbones. Like a stately Roman senator, he was the stuff of every girl’s dreams, yet it was she, insignificant Miss Cressida Honeywell, daughter of a poor country parson, who had won his heart all those years ago.
She’d thought she still had it—had vowed she’d always keep it.
Rallying, she took a step forward, responding to the invitation implicit in her husband’s eye, but the Colonel began counselling Cressida on the dangers of Justin making speeches about orphans and sanitation when he could better rouse his audience in the Lords if he concerned himself with more important matters.
The look she’d just exchanged with her husband was enough to all but dismiss her fears. Exhaling with relief, Cressida smiled at the Colonel who, obviously regarding this as encouragement, closed the distance between them as he pursued his argument. She retained her smile as Justin, from the other side of the room, focused another very warm glance in her direction before attending to the hunchbacked Dowager Duchess of Trentham, whose eightieth birthday celebration this was. Justin had the gift of making every woman feel the centre of his especial interest. Clearly something must have been misconstrued…
And yet.
Awareness prickled through her—that she had for some time sensed all was not quite right. Taking a step back, she swallowed past the lump in her throat while making, she hoped, the appropriate responses for the benefit of the Colonel. Justin, lately, had not been the contented husband of old. The recent bolstering she’d silently received from him faded upon this acknowledgement and her eyes stung. She knew her behaviour had not been beyond reproach—that she had withdrawn and that understandably he was confused. Some months ago he’d tried to raise the subject yet she’d brushed it aside, incapable of putting her feelings into words, unable to entertain that unmentionable aspect of their marriage at the heart of all their problems.
“Catherine? A minute, if you please?” Cressida waylaid the stately, dark-haired young woman dressed as a siren about half an hour later as the Colonel—thankfully—responded to his wife’s perfunctory summons. With a little intake of breath and a stammered excuse, the recently gossiping Mrs Browne slipped away while Cousin Catherine betrayed her guilt with a blush.
“Why, Cressy, I did not notice you. How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to wonder who Madame Zirelli might be and what she is to my husband,” Cressida responded with uncharacteristic harshness.
Catherine’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Cressy,” she gasped. “I had no idea you— I’m so sorry. But, of course, it’s only gossip. You know how quick people are to jump to conclusions.” But her cheeks were flushed. She knew she was guilty of the charges Cressida made. “You’re looking unwell, Cressy. I’ll take you home. We’ll have a nice cosy chat in the carriage, shall we? I hadn’t expected to see you out this evening, you’ve been hiding away so long.”
Cressida was about to argue that she planned to return with Justin when Catherine took her arm, saying breezily, “Don’t trouble yourself over Justin. He’s asked me to tell you he’s off to White’s with Roddy Johnson. He knew you were anxious to return home to little Thomas.”
Was that grim satisfaction she saw on her cousin’s face?
It wasn’t until she’d gained the darkness of the vehicle that Cressida broke her tense silence.
“I’d thank you to tell me everything you told Mrs Browne.” Sinking back against the squabs of her husband’s plush equipage, she hid her disquiet beneath a veneer of dignified anger. “If she is under the impression Justin has taken a mistress, you apparently did little to disabuse her of that fact, when I know very well it is not true. I’d like to know the source of your information.”
Catherine shifted beside her and although Cressida could not see her face she could tell she was uncomfortable. “No need to get on your high ropes, Cressy,” she muttered and Cressida could imagine the proud, defiant tilt to Catherine’s pointed chin as she defended her actions, just as she had done all through her impish childhood and spirited adolescence. “Like you say, I’m sure there’s nothing to it.”
Cressida was not about to assume her normally pliant role in order to appease her cousin. In steely tones she asked, “I would like to know, Catherine, how you gained the impression Justin has taken a mistress.” This was too important for the tears to which Cressida was sometimes prone, especially lately. With her back pressed stiffly against the carriage seat in the darkness she felt, ironically, as if some of her own youthful confidence had returned. Justin was the axis of her existence. If her happiness was at risk—though she was sure it was not—she needed to know so she could act.
“Justin appears just as loving towards you as he ever did, my dear,” Catherine hedged. “Why, only last week when James and I dined with you he remarked to me—”
“Obviously there must be something specific which has prompted the gossip. I’m sure you’d not repeat hurtful gossip.”
Catherine halted in the middle of her response, paused, then said in careful, clipped tones, as if she were angry with her cousin, “Well, my dear Cressida, I had hoped to spare you. However, as you’ve all but accused me of being a gossiping jade, I’ll tell you what whispers are buzzing around the salons in London.” In the gloom, her expression was combative. “Justin has been a regular visitor to Mrs Plumb’s Wednesday salons.” She gave a self-righteous sniff. “James told me Mrs Plumb is an actress with literary pretensions. A very vulgar woman, I believe, who paints her face.”
Now was not the time to remind Catherine that she herself was not averse to resorting to artifice to enhance her natural charms. Cressida gripped her reticule with trembling fingers. “I take it this Madame Zirelli is also a regular at Mrs Plumb’s. Is it on this flimsy basis that the rumours are circulating regarding Justin’s…extramarital amours?” Hurt and anger banished Cressida’s propensity to soften life’s harsh realities. She rarely spoke so directly to anyone—certainly not to Catherine, who’d taunted Cressida since they’d been children for being ‘churchyard poor’ but whose respect Cressida had thought she’d gained through her glittering match with Justin. Now, Catherine had seized on the first opportunity to knock Cressida down to size. With dignity, she asked her cousin, “On what grounds am I to believe this? Come, Catherine, it is not like you to be anything but direct.”
“If you prefer directness, Cressida,” Catherine responded with an air of injury, “do you not think it perfectly reasonable that Justin, like most men after eight years of marriage, feels the need to seek diversion? Is it not perfectly understandable that after so long you are no longer everything to him. What woman ever is?” she added bitterly.
Cressida gasped as if she had been struck but her cousin went on, her green eyes glittering as the carriage passed beneath a lamp post, “He is no different from his like, but you fail to consider
your good fortune, Cressy, for at least Justin is discreet.”
“How can you say that?” Deflated, Cressida slumped into the corner, glad of the dimness so she could hurriedly wipe away her tears. Catherine would enjoy her weakness. “You speak as if I am the last to know and that I’ve brought this on myself. How would you feel if James—” A sudden illumination stopped her mid-sentence and she put out her hand, saying before she could stop herself, “James has strayed again? Oh, Catherine, I’m so sorry.”
“Save your sympathy for yourself, Cressy.” Catherine drew away as if Cressida’s outstretched hand were as welcome as a snake. “I was under no illusions as to James’ likely fidelity from the day we wed. He was always too handsome for me—you remember we overheard Mrs Dooley saying it at our engagement ball?”
Cressida knew Catherine’s wounding had been close to mortal all those years ago. Six, she recalled, wondering if by Catherine’s calculations Cressida should consider herself lucky for having retained her husband’s loyalty for this long.
Shrugging, as if the matter were no longer of importance, Catherine went on, “James and now Justin are simply conforming to the prescribed role of husbands by doing what society condones, within the limits of money and discretion and, like me, you should accept the situation and direct your energies towards the children. Though perhaps in your case—not wishing to criticise—I wonder if that is not at the root of your problem. You dote on those babies and seem to forget Justin has his needs, too. When were you last seen at his side?”
Cressida blinked like one dazed by blinding light. Catherine, whose lack of insight and sympathy was on a par with her lack of tactfulness, had come too close to the bone.
Seeming not to register Cressida’s stricken look, her cousin went on, “I mean, have you looked at yourself lately, Cressida? Yes, at twenty-six you still have that girlish, sleepy-eyed charm that won him over, but must you appear quite so naïve after all those children? As I said, tonight is the first time you’ve torn yourself from the nursery to accompany Justin anywhere, and whom do you choose to masquerade as? A shepherdess, for God’s sake?” Plucking the black lace of her own daring décolletage, Catherine straightened majestically. “Justin has been your loyal husband for all these years and he loves you. But if you want to win him back from the arms of Madame Zirelli—and, yes, I have it on good authority that Madame Zirelli is his new mistress—you’d do yourself more favours parading as something less”—her lip curled—“insipid.”
Cressida had experienced Catherine’s propensity to lash out when she was feeling vulnerable. Not that this lessened her own devastation. “On whose good authority?” she whispered. “One of your snake-tongued society friends, or someone serving on the Home for Orphans Committee?”
Catherine glared at the inherent criticism before saying, “If you must know, it was Annabelle Luscombe—”
“Annabelle!” Cressida’s hands flew to her face and she had to force her knuckles into her mouth to stop the sob. “Annabelle wouldn’t say a word to injure anyone. What did she say about Justin?”
Catherine had the grace to look ashamed. “She wasn’t gossiping, Cressida, only her husband mentioned that Justin is a regular at Mrs Plumb’s. Surely you’ve heard about Mrs Plumb?” she went on in answer to Cressida’s look of puzzlement. “The woman was an actress before Lord Layton set her up, but, after he moved on, and with her looks too faded to snare another of Layton’s ilk, she’s set up a house which has become famous for its Wednesday salons. People attend in masquerade supposedly to listen to the music, but really it’s just a meeting place for—” She stopped at Cressida’s gasp, saying instead, in gentler tones, “It seems Justin has been paying court to this Madame Zirelli who resides there.”
“Justin loves music,” Cressida said, dully, trying to equate Justin sneaking off in masquerade to some house of ill repute after bidding her his standard tender farewell for the evening. “I can’t believe, though, that Annabelle would repeat such a thing, if it suggested that Justin were being—” she gulped the word—“unfaithful. Annabelle is so—”
“Kind?” Catherine supplied, her tone sharp at Cressida’s implication that she was not. “Perhaps she was distracted, for she has had much to occupy her with organising her sister-in-law’s wedding—Madeleine Hardwicke, if you recall…the dark, Castilian-looking creature who looked so down in the mouth when you congratulated her on her impending marriage to Lord Slitherton this evening. You remarked upon her unusual looks when she came out last year.”
“Yes, a handsome girl. Poor Miss Hardwicke,” Cressida murmured, distracted for the moment. “Lord Slitherton is old enough to be her grandfather.”
“Well, her father, at any rate. But he’s rich and titled and that’s all that counts. All men—even those who are handsome or loving at the start—” Catherine added, pointedly, “stray. Oh my goodness, Cressy, you’ve snapped your fan!”
It was all Cressida could do not to slap her cousin with the poor destroyed ivory accessory Justin had given her for her last birthday. Instead, she muttered, ignoring the feigned concern over her fan, “Not Justin.”
“Oh, he’ll deny it.” Catherine sounded as if she had much experience of such exchanges. “You must make the most of his discomfort, though. I suggest you order three fine, expensive gowns, confront him with everything you’ve heard, then present him with the bill. I promise you, he’ll pay up like a lamb.”
Cressida said nothing. That was not how she intended approaching matters. Though just exactly what she planned to do, she wasn’t quite sure. Quitting the carriage and putting as much distance as she could between herself and her poisonous cousin was a good start, though.
Changing the subject was the second best alternative. “I’m sorry for Miss Hardwicke. She and Mr Pendleton looked so in love, and Justin was saying only the other day that he’d marked Mr Pendleton out for great things. That is, once the young man’s a little older and less circumspect about putting himself forward. Apparently he’s very clever.”
“That might be, but he has no money.” Catherine sniffed as if that sealed the matter. “Lord Slitherton has more than ten thousand a year and, as Miss Hardwicke’s mother is very ill and wants to see her only daughter settled, she’s obviously prepared to overlook Lord Slitherton’s age, just as she’s overlooked Mr Pendleton’s candidacy on account of his impecuniousness. You forget how lucky you were, Cressy, that you were able to follow your heart and that you retained your husband’s interest for so long.” Her tone dripped false sympathy. “Just because Justin has taken a mistress doesn’t mean you are less to him than you ever were. He just wants more. Like most men.”
Cressida glared at her cousin while nevertheless resorting to her handkerchief to dab her eyes. “Tell me about this Madame Zirelli? I’ve never heard of her.” She was encouraged by the scepticism with which she managed to lace the command, disappointed when Catherine responded in a matter-of-fact tone as the carriage negotiated a bend in competition with a cooper’s wagon. “Neither had I, until Annabelle told me the curious story of Miss Hardwicke’s uncle’s determination that Madame Zirelli sing at his niece’s wedding. Annabelle is doing all the organising as Miss Hardwicke’s mother is on her deathbed. Well, it seems Miss Hardwicke’s uncle, Sir Robert, who’s lived abroad the past sixteen years and is returning for the wedding, charged Annabelle with the task of hunting down the finest soprano in all England. He especially instructed Annabelle to seek out this Madame Zirelli. Of course, Annabelle’s husband took over the search after Annabelle learned of the lady’s…well, unsavoury past…and it led him to Mrs Plumb’s house of ill repute. Yes! Mrs Plumb’s lodger is Madame Zirelli who, it is incumbent upon me to tell you, Cressida, since it’s not fair to keep you in ignorance, no matter how it hurts me, was Justin’s mistress before he married you.”
Cressida forced her mouth shut, realising she must appear like a gaping fish, as Catherine responded, smugly, “Surely, Cressida, you can’t imagine your husband led a blame
less life before he whisked you down the aisle? Be glad his name is associated with only this one woman. Why, James—”
But Cressida wasn’t interested in James. James was a whoremonger. Innocent though she was, she’d heard the name in association with her cousin’s husband, and for that reason alone she must try and feel some sympathy for Catherine, who’d never known the love and loyalty Cressida had taken for granted all these years.
Forcing out the words while trying to keep the tears in check, she whispered, “I don’t believe you. Justin is deeply loyal. I have never found fault with him as either a husband or a father.” Her thoughts trailed away. It was true, though, that she knew nothing of Justin’s female associations before she’d married him.
She gulped, stricken as a thought occurred. “This Madame Zirelli…if indeed he did have an association with her… Perhaps she was not someone he could marry—” The idea of Justin losing his heart to someone else before her time but being unable to follow his inclinations was a terrible one and put their entire marriage in a new light.
“Without wishing to sound unkind, you were hardly a glittering prospect, Cressy.” With some slight consideration for the bluntness of this assessment, Catherine hurried on at her cousin’s injured look, reminding her of what Cressida had always taken comfort in. “Justin lost his heart to you the moment he saw you, and, despite all the persuasion that could be exerted, he married you, penniless though you were. This Madame Zirelli was married to Lord Grainger, though I believe their divorce was being finalised when she and Justin— Well, anyway, suffice to say you must forget this foolish idea that Justin is returning to some long lost love.”
“I must speak to Justin,” Cressida muttered, as the carriage lurched before coming to a halt outside Catherine’s Mayfair address. “What else can I do?”
The Rose's Bloom Page 6
