Cressida's Dilemma

by Beverley Oakley

  Yet she’d gained so much. And soon, she’d gain so much more. In a few days’ time, she’d have all the knowledge she needed to remind Justin of the glorious days when they’d reveled in their newly wedded bliss.

  Entering through a doorway at the end of the corridor, she tried 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 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 the 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 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, but had not wanted to hint to his protected wife that his work involved him with such depraved creatures.

  All Cressida’s doubts about Justin’s constancy dissipated to be replaced by unadulterated joy at the prospect of being taken in his arms 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. Holding the back of the sofa, she turned, swaying slightly toward him, 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.

  She raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “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. 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, of 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 five 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 this 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 stared, hiding his horrified confusion behind a concerned, interested smile as she created a fiction about her loss in that maddeningly sensual, familiar, breathy voice. Could his innocent, protected little Cressida really be in Mrs. Plumb’s house of ill repute, making up to a strange gentleman?

  He recalled her obvious reluctance the last time he’d made love to her, two months after Thomas had been born. Every time he’d ventured close during the past ten months, she had recoiled.

  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?

  Then he realized it 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 t
he 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. It trembled in his, and another wave of her familiar scent assailed his nostrils, making him weak with longing. Not that he’d remain weak for very long when given the opportunity to bed her again.

  “I miss his love and his comfort,” she whispered.

  “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. Good God, 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 gently stroking her neck, tangling his fingers in the silky, flaxen curls at the nape. She had always liked that.

  It was a successful strategy. He heard her faint intake of breath before she moved slightly against him, whispering, “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. “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, 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.

  Let Cressida assume he was examining the location’s proximity to the river as a cause of water infection, or the possible exploitation of children—perhaps she’d think he was merely here to accompany a friend from his club.

  Cressida was in charge of this breathtakingly erotic little intrigue, and it was clear she had no doubts about his constancy, else she’d not be issuing such an obvious invitation for the resumption of the intimacies they’d once so enjoyed.

  “I enjoy the music,” he said. Smiling, squeezing her hand, he added, “But tonight I prefer the company.” He wanted to reassure her that he was still the same loving husband, despite her emotional and physical withdrawal, that he was more than happy to continue her charade.

  The feel of her hourglass figure beneath her widow’s weeds when he discreetly skimmed her waist as he shifted position speared him with another rush of lust. The rapid rise and fall of her bosom indicated she felt as he. She tilted her head, and beneath her veil, he could just make out the curve of her lips. It was an invitation he’d never been able to resist. An invitation he’d not had from her in years, in fact.

  But when he clasped her waist to draw her to him, she jerked back.

  “I must go!” Her unexpected reaction shocked him. Like a frightened deer, she made an attempt to withdraw her hand and would have risen had he not pulled her back down, caging her hand on his thigh as he ground out, “I am sorry for your loss, madam, but consider me at your service.” He heard the strained suggestiveness in his voice. The tone sounded alien, even to his own ears, but he was desperate that she not lose courage now.

  “I will return next Wednesday.”

  Her voice was breathless and full of indecision. He felt the barrier rise between them as she pulled decisively away, smoothing her black silk skirts as she stood. He felt, rather than observed, her resolve falter and imagined her biting her lip, that adorable habit he remembered from her youth that made her dimples so gorgeously evident in her delicately tinted cheeks, though tonight he could not see behind her veil. Lord, she appeared barely older than a debutante, even now. Five beautiful children since their marriage eight years ago had only increased her womanly charms.

  He let her go. Everything was in Cressida’s hands now, and he was her putty. She clearly did not want to continue in this tawdry place. He imagined the seduction scene she was no doubt planning a short while hence. He’d come to her like he’d done a hundred times and still be affected by the glow of candlelight on Cressida’s ivory-tinted flesh and the limpid look in her cornflower blue eyes as she gazed up at him with love and trust…

  He swallowed, clenching his teeth against the fire in his loins, desperate to hold her with no barriers between them but knowing he must practice the restraint of a lifetime.

  Though he rose, he did not follow her. It was clear she had reached the limit of her bravado for the moment. From the door, she hesitated, her look inquiring. “I look forward to continuing our conversation next Wednesday.”

  “I anticipate it very much.”

  With pounding heart, he watched her leave. Now she would return home. She had made her point, intimating that he should not be long in following her. The blood thrummed in his brain and he realized almost with embarrassment as he glanced down that he was as randy as a young buck. He’d thought he had more self-control, but tonight’s play-acting had reinforced how much he missed their intimacy. For so long he’d pretended away his loneliness and confusion at her rejection, but now Cressida was returning to him with all the love and willingness she’d once shown him.

  Heart beating wildly, Justin tidied away the half-written report he’d prepared for Mariah. In half an hour, he would be where he felt most at home—locked in Cressida’s enthusiastic embrace.

  * * * *

  Wind whipped the branches of the tree against Cressida’s bedchamber window. A storm was brewing, said Tom, the footman. He should know, for he was a farmer’s son.

  But Cressida was a parson’s daughter, and she knew nothing about anything except what was required of her to be a good wife.

  She drew the counterpane up to her chin and shivered, wishing it were with anticipation at the same time that she wished Justin were cuddled warmly against her. But that was not to be, not tonight.

  At first, the limpid look in Justin’s eye when he’d held her hand in that tawdry sitting room at Mrs. Plumb’s had sliced away at her soul. She’d seen the hunter in him size up his quarry. At eighteen, she’d been easy prey, falling into his arms during their first waltz. There’d been no chase on Justin’s part, for their hearts and minds had been as one from the start.

  He’d quickly realized it was Cressida, though, in that shabby little sitting room in that wicked house. She knew Justin too well. His sudden stillness and the change in his tone had alerted her to the fact that he knew exactly who she was.

  Without missing a beat, he’d continued the charade while her brain had been in a whirl as to whether to admit her identity. Yet when Justin so willingly endorsed their play-acting, the exciting possibilities had quickly taken on a life of their own.

&nbs
p; He’d agreed to an assignation a week hence. Her body pulsed at the thought before fear intruded that he’d come to her too soon. How could she hold him at bay? In a week, she’d have all the tools and knowledge she needed to be everything Justin could desire.

  She didn’t have them now. She was as ignorant of the practicalities as she’d ever been, but she knew now that precautions were possible.

  Of course, her kindly friend at Mrs. Plumb’s would advise her to explain everything to Justin. But how could Cressida tell him everything? That she was afraid of giving him another child? Another son? Panic banished reason. All she wanted was one more week—then she’d be all-powerful in her knowledge. Miss Mariah could help her with the words she needed to explain that she was not abrogating her childbearing duty, she just wanted to be in control of it. It was a treasonous sentiment, and there must be more artful ways for a wife to communicate such a thing, or at least make it palatable to her husband. Cressida had not the vocabulary, much less the knowledge, to say what she needed to.

  Here, protected in her own bed, which Justin had visited but once in ten months, she tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that in a short time, all would be well between her and her adored husband. For so many years, she’d been granted every material luxury she could have wished for. The soft, featherdown mattress was a comfort she’d not enjoyed as the daughter of an impecunious parson, the luxurious bed linen something else she’d never taken for granted. No, she’d taken nothing in her marriage for granted, even Justin’s love. But it was Justin’s love and companionship she lacked now and missed more than anything, and she’d trade every physical luxury just to know that again, though Catherine often insinuated otherwise.

  A familiar step sounded just outside her room. With a start of horror, she jerked upright, drawing the counterpane up to her neck as the door opened slowly, faint light spilling in from the corridor.