Duchess of Seduction (Hearts in Hiding Book 3)

by Beverley Oakley

  Ariane corroborated the redhead’s story with a nod. “It’s a sad tale, Persephone, indeed it is, with no happy ending in sight, for poor Minna has ever spoken with longing of this Mr. de Courtney, her young man whom she saw tonight, three years after her ambitious mama forced her to reject his marriage offer. She thinks he may have recognized her, and she’s ashamed and fears he may tell her parents, whom she hopes simply believe her dead.”

  “But it wasn’t her fault,” Cressida stammered, before realizing that it was always the woman’s fault.

  “No, it wasn’t her fault, but that’s no defense, and now Minna must earn her daily bread, as must we all and, if she’s lucky, find a little love along the way before she is old and dies in the gutter.”

  Shocked at the harshness of Ariane’s tone, Cressida reflected on her own good fortune. Regardless of whether Justin strayed or not, she was protected by his name and his wealth. She might die lonely and unhappy, but at least it would not be in a gutter.

  “Surely this young man might rescue her?” she asked, realizing at the same time how absurd the notion was, for if Minna was no longer a virgin, she was indeed condemned to a lonely and miserable future with only the protection she could procure herself.

  Ariane turned the subject, her voice sympathetic and questioning as she laid two hands upon Cressida’s shoulders. “And why, exactly, are you here? You are looking for your husband? Well, there are peepholes that will give you access to many of the rooms here, though if he does not wish to be spied upon, he has that right. Many here, however, are quite happy to flaunt themselves.”

  “Spy? Goodness, no! I just want—”

  Ariane’s gentle squeeze stilled her. “You don’t know what you want, I think. Or perhaps you just want to go home. This is not the place to be when you have somewhere else to go to that offers you comfort and security.” She led her to the door and pointed down the corridor. “The entrance is that way. I shall be going in a different direction, for I came here to enjoy myself”—a secretive smile curved her lips—“with my friends, since I’m rarely in a position to enjoy my husband, though he is visiting tonight. He is very handsome, you will have noticed. Come.” She started for the door and beckoned Cressida to follow. “You’re very welcome to join Minna and Persephone and Julia and me, but I think perhaps you’d prefer the safety of your own bed.”

  Ariane left her then, brushing past her and into the passage, her companions following, and heading in the direction opposite to that in which she’d pointed Cressida.

  Torn by indecision, Cressida watched them until they were nearly out of sight. Yes, she should go home. That’s what she’d intended. But she’d not found Justin. She’d not begun to understand what might have drawn him to such a place—if there was any grain of truth in Catherine’s words. And Ariane’s own story, and that of Minna, needled her. No, Justin would never come here, but he should know of what went on, and Cressida should make him do something...though changing the world and a judgmental society was hardly something that could be done overnight. However, Justin was in a position of power. He was a man who changed the ways of the world, and wasn’t that what her own papa had grown up lamenting was needed to his unworldly daughter? He always said it was a harsher world with a greater divide between the fortunate and the unfortunate than should be the case.

  Justin need not know she’d been here, but he should know what terrible things happened to defenseless women unaided or even persecuted by the law. He should try to do his part to change the society that governed so many cruel attitudes.

  Emboldened by an unexpected sense of crusade, Cressida picked up her skirts and quickly followed the young women.

  She might not have much experience of the seamier side of life, but as a parson’s daughter, she had not always enjoyed the sumptuous privilege she did now.

  Perhaps some good could come out of this visit. For the first time Cressida felt a streak of the crusader take root inside her.

  She was not going to go home just yet. There were things she had to learn, first.

  Chapter 5

  Down twisting corridors and up a shallow flight of stairs Cressida went, through a large, empty space lined with huge, lurid paintings of shocking scenes that made her gasp and avert her eyes. Then finally through a pair of carved double doors and into a room filled with soft music and a strange, unidentifiable scent overlaying the hint of rosewater.

  Raising her veil once more, Cressida tried to adjust to the dimness of her new environment. When she saw that the room was sparsely furnished and contained only Ariane and her three companions, she felt no fear, and even a great sense of sisterhood, for the four of them were in the midst of a gentle, swaying dance, smiling at one another as if they shared a joyful bond.

  A great weightless settled on Cressida’s shoulders; as if she were somehow part of this sisterhood solidarity .

  As she moved into the shadows of a huge, luxuriant potted palm to watch, an unknown, heady scent filled her nostrils making her head swim. Ariane and Minna, dressed in their flowing robes of white, did indeed look like a pair of Vestal Virgins in a trance as they swayed gently in time to their soft chanting. Their hair, held back by silver fillets, fell in loose ripples around their waists, and their smiles were warm and gentle.

  Though the environment was strange, like she’d never before experienced, Cressida felt a sense of comfort and safety. Even belonging. She was amongst other women. Young and beautiful women who shared her fears, but at this elemental level, also shared a bond which united them. They looked after one another when they were all similarly vulnerable. Minna’s story and the comfort and sympathy the others had shown her demonstrated that.

  How different from the relationship Cressida shared with Catherine. Not only was Catherine her cousin, she was, supposedly, Cressida’s closest female companion. Who else did Cressida share her fears and concerns with?

  The few moments she’d spent in the company of these women made her realise there was no sense of shared purpose or sisterly bond between her and Catherine. No, Catherine was spiteful and jealous, never happier than when she could erode Cressida’s confidence so she could triumph over the parson’s daughter who had married so well.

  The revelation was as painful as the fact that she and Justin had never been further apart than they were now, despite living side by side, united by four active children.

  A rapid, low drumming noise filled the vacuum left by the music which has ceased. Cressida watched, mesmerised, as the raven-haired beauty stepped forward and linked her hands behind Ariane’s neck then kissed her, ever so softly, upon the lips.

  Good lord, did women do that? Cressida craned forward and saw the young woman’s pale blue eyes appeared slightly unfocused. Yet she looked so supremely at peace with her world that Cressida longed to learn her secret. How could she step out of her body like that? Was it the music? The sisterly bond?

  She glanced around her, unsure if she should step forward and declare herself, for though she had been invited she’d slipped, unnoticed, into the room.

  Fearing she’d break the mood or spell that seemed to have everyone in its thrall, she decided against it. Instead, incredulous, she took in the surreal scene: two women gently cradling each other before pressing themselves closer to deepen their kiss.

  They had come here to give themselves—to enjoy themselves beyond the realm of men. Cressida had never imagined women sharing such intimacy. Was this giving themselves up to pleasure— without a man—sanctioned as a means of finding...what? Plugging that gaping hole inside oneself when there were no words or actions that could stem the pain?

  When she imagined doing any such thing with Catherine, her mind closed up and her body revolted. No, the only person she would ever want to enjoy such closeness with was Justin.

  But she couldn’t. Not without repercussions.

  The reflection filled her with such deep sadness her legs felt weak and she wanted to weep on the spot.

  When she
had last experienced true uninhibited and carefree enjoyment. Of the kind these women were sharing?

  Too long ago to remember. And yet, there’d been so many wonderful occasions when, beneath the covers of the marital bed in the warmth of her chamber, Justin’s hard body had covered her own and he’d rained gentle kisses upon her; whipping up the kinds of responses from her that were wild and wonderful and completely unfeigned and which had so pleased him.

  From the first night of marriage, Cressida had never been afraid of the act that she’d been warned by Catherine and the other women in her family it was her duty to stoically endure.

  Stoically endure? What were they talking about, she’d wondered as her love for Justin took such an extraordinary turn from sensations she’d understood were restricted to the heart.

  During one awkward, truncated conversation two days before she’d walked down the aisle, her aunt had hinted at what she must expect from her husband when she shared his bed. Sacrificing her body—since as the vessel that would carry the future heir underpinned the marriage contract—was implicit in this notion of ‘her duty’, she gathered. What this sacrifice actually entailed was explained in confusing and oblique terms, but it would consist of some rather crude fumbling beneath the covers followed by a painful and uncomfortable penetration of her nether regions. Thus were children created and Cressida’s role as wife and future mother of the next Duke of Lovett cemented, her existence justified.

  Catherine, newly married herself, by then, had certainly not put the gloss on matters.

  “Don’t be taken in by what your new husband does to try and make things less unpleasant for you, Cressy, for men are men,” Catherine had said. “You’ll think his kisses, and all the rest of it, are sincere—and so will he at the time—but then his interest will wane. After that, he’ll take what he wants without a thought for making it less unpleasant for you.” (For Cressida had hinted to her cousin her distress over the confusing conversation with her aunt.) “The worst part for you won’t be what happens in the bedroom,” Catherine had gone on gloomily, “but what happens in your mind.”

  But when Cressida had got married she’d not been able to assimilate a word of their dire pronouncements with the reality of her blissful experiences in the marital chamber.

  Continually, she’d been at pains to not cry out her pleasure. To admit to such ecstasy in view of what her aunt had said the act was all about, seemed wrong and sinful. Only when she discovered that her pleasure pleased Justin, did she end the charade, and those first couple of years of intimacy between herself and her adored husband had been the most wonderful of her life.

  Well after the first glow of rapture might have been expected to have dimmed, Cressida had revelled in her husband’s tender ministrations. The glorious wantonness Justin managed to stir up inside her was the prelude to an endless series of shattering climaxes that preceded the peace and contentedness that always soothed her into sleep, Justin’s warm, loving breath on her neck.

  Now, watching the women’s shared loving intimacy on stage was like opening the curtains on a new landscape.

  Cressida drew in another shuddering breath, her body alive, nerve endings prickling the surface of her skin, a desperate, throbbing ache building between her legs as she remembered those halcyon days with Justin. If only she could return home tonight and offer up her body to his tender ministrations with no danger of what was likely to happen in nine months. If only she could surrender herself to his sweet touch, enjoying to the full his expert exploration of her body. It might have been ten months since they’d shared a bed but she was ever alive to his ability to create those shattering sensations that stunned her with their intensity at night. It was true that in the morning she was often ashamed that she, a matron with so many children, should revel in those bodily sensations so divorced from the realities of procreation.

  She longed for them now but couldn’t talk of either her longing or her fears with Justin. That was the dreadful, painful reality.

  But she could feast her eyes watching a two women enjoying a world full of love and beauty with no guilt, no terrible consequences. No conception, no pregnancy, no pain.

  The women had not broken their kiss. Gently they swayed in time to the rhythm of the faint music, running their hands over each other’s face and body, caressing breasts and hips as if they were the most natural of gestures.

  Cressida wondered why she wasn’t appalled.

  All at once the tempo changed. Alertness pulsed through her as she sensed the sudden tense awareness between the women as they stepped apart, and she strained to see what was happening. The faint chanting rose to a crescendo then suddenly ceased, and from the shadows in the corner of the room strode a man, splendidly built, she observed, as a faint light burnished his statuesque silhouette. Cressida drew in her breath, embarrassed by her own response to the muscled physique and confident bearing of someone seemingly so splendid. She ran her clammy over her skirts while the back of her neck prickled as she thought of Justin and how she would feel if it were he advancing toward her.

  The awe and admiration of her companions was similar as the four women drew together, arms linked as they gazed at this being who seemed to command such power.

  The haze cleared a little, both in Cressida’s mind and in the room, though her head still swam with a sense of unreality. One of the women—Minna, she saw—broke away and disappeared into the shadows, returning to place three lighted candles on either side of what Cressida now saw was a large bed that thad been pushed into the center of the room, adorned with carved wooden posts and sheets of crisp, white linen. The man stood behind this on a raised dais and he beckoned to the women.

  “I have returned.” His voice was low and mellifluous, and as Cressida strained to see more, she recognized him as the man who’d frightened her in the corridor. Ariane’s husband.

  “Yes... Come to us at last.” Ariane sounded breathless and her face was shining as she pushed back her flowing golden hair. She made her way toward him, climbing what Cressida assumed must be a set of stairs hidden behind the bed. The stranger caught her to his muscled chest, sliding one hand up behind her neck, the other slowly caressing the contours of her body. With a soft groan, Ariane went slack, and he whisked her up into his arms and placed his mouth upon hers.

  “I offer myself up to your pleasure,” whispered the red-haired siren, and she moved forward and up the stairs, kneeling to kiss his feet, her hands twining up the thick muscles of his legs.

  Cressida remained rooted to the spot in shocked fascination. What was happening? The man was kissing Ariane while the other beauty was kissing his feet. No! Shock galvanized Cressida. This must be a dream. A lust-crazed dream for—Good God!—the haze was clearing, and for the first time, Cressida saw that this man was completely naked, and that while he was kissing Ariane, Persephone was kissing his feet, his ankles, the backs of his knees.

  Gently the man placed Ariane upon the mattress before him, rising in tandem with Persephone, locked in a swaying embrace as she twined her arms about his neck, nuzzling his earlobe while Ariane began her own slow progress of pleasuring her husband from his feet upward.

  Cressida glanced at the door. She should not be here, witnessing such a sight. The fog in her brain was clearing, highlighting the wrongness of being in the midst of a scene of such a sexual nature.

  Venturing out of her hiding place, she turned at Ariane’s gasp; then gasped herself to see that this magnificent creature, wearing not a stitch of clothing, was no longer like the several sculptures of naked men with which she was familiar.

  No, while Ariane swept her hands all over him in a manner beyond Cressida’s imaginings, her expert tongue flicking against the backs of his knees, his body was behaving in a way which Cressida had never observed with her own eyes, though she’d been aware of the changes in her own husband during the prelude to their coupling.

  Shocked and fascinated, she stared at his swollen member, which had seemingly a life o
f its own as Persephone kissed his mouth and Ariane rose to her knees, kissing higher...

  And higher...

  The pleasure haze dissipated further. Cressida could not move, fascinated and horrified in equal measure as she watched Ariane gently cup the pouches beneath her husband’s rampant manhood.

  No, she’d never seen a man naked. Not in eight years of marriage. She’d been gently pleasured in Justin’s warm, secure embrace, but always in darkness. She’d never seen her husband clad in less than his nightshirt or banyan.

  The pupils of the magnificent creature in the middle of the bed dilated, and he threw back his head as Ariane, with calculated care, put her mouth to his engorged member and slowly circled it with her tongue.

  So apparent was his rapture that Cressida felt her own body pulse with sensation, despite her shock.

  She put her hands to her face to cover her shame.

  No one seemed to register her. All eyes were on the scene in the center of the bed—eyes greedy, lascivious, wanting...

  Cressida blindly took a few steps, her terror growing, yet drawn again to the stage by the sounds of rapture. This was not a sight for a gently reared woman like herself. She had to escape.

  In the gloom, she thought she recognized the door through which she’d come and stumbled toward it, turning as the man groaned his pleasure.

  A final glance at his glazed eyes made plain that he was enslaved by this extraordinary act. Was he a normal man? Of course not, so why should she be so fascinated, her mind returning to her husband’s body and what he might think of such a thing.

  There. The door was before her at last. Turning the brass knob, Cressida staggered into the corridor, gasping for air. She had spied on two women kissing. She’d been unable to tear her eyes away from a naked man in the throes of passion. What had she done? Her recent fascination now seemed nothing more than wicked prurience.