Duchess of Seduction (Hearts in Hiding 3)

It was more than Cressida could bear. When she’d challenged Catherine on it, her cousin had at least had the grace to look ashamed and for a moment Cressida had believed she’d conjured up something baseless because she was jealous or because James had wounded her pride again.

Instead, Catherine had shrugged. Yes, shrugged and said, “Actually, the information came as quite a shock. I was in conversation with Annabelle, who was waxing lyrical over Rossini’s opera The Barber of S evi!e when her husband, who is not known for his tact after three brandies, joined us, saying he’d just left Justin, who was marveling over Madame Zirelli’s excellent rendering of Rosina’s part. When Reggie had gone, Annabelle looked shocked, asking if Justin hadn’t been known for his high regard for Madame Zirelli in the days before his marriage.”

Cressida had been starting to feel marginally better. Catherine was simply making wild suppositions. Relaxing, she’d managed a smile. “And that is the only basis for these cruel rumors and gossip? The fact that Justin has been praising another woman? For her singing?” Relief had surged through her.

That is, until Catherine’s viper-direct response. “Surely you must know that Madame Zirelli was Justin’s mistress until five minutes before he married you?”

That’s when the world had gone very quiet. And then a great roaring, whistling noise had had Cressida holding her hands to her ears.

She was holding her hands to ears once more, now, in the silence of her dressing room as memories of Catherine’s false sympathy dripped like poison through her consciousness.

“Oh, my poor Cressida,” her cousin had whispered before she’d quit the carriage. “How awful to be the last to know what is common knowledge. And how I wish it had not fallen to me to tell you the sordid details.”

Cressida had rallied at this point. Catherine not only delivered her barbs like a skilled marksman, she savored the kill. When she’d clicked her tongue, adding in an undertone, “Let us hope the music was all he was enjoying when he paid a visit to Mrs. Plumb’s notorious salon,” Cressida was not going to take it like some pathetic lap dog hungry for a pat.

“That’s...just cruel!” she’d managed with some energy. “Madame Plumb’s is not the kind of establishment Justin would visit.” At least on that point she could be very firm. The whispers and innuendo that had circulated about the notorious house of assignation in Soho had penetrated even the staid and respectable circles where Cressida felt most at home. Amongst contented matrons and dowagers was where she belonged whereas Catherine belonged to a wilder set. One which Cressida had no wish to consort with.

And there was no way on earth or in heaven that Justin would step over the threshold of such a place.

Catherine, was otherwise convinced. “Indeed, I believe he has. Like Madame Zirelli, Madame Plumb, also, was an opera singer and actress before Lord Layton set her up, then after he moved on, and with Mrs. Plumb’s looks too faded to snare another of his ilk, she set up her salon. It’s where she’s now invited Madame Zirelli to live—and to sing for her supper. Hence, Madam Plumb is now famous for her 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, “Justin has been a regular patron of Madame Plumb’s, and in view of his...close relationship

...with Madame Zirelli, one can only assume the reason for his visits.”

“Justin loves music,” Cressida had 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.

The thought caused her another stab of pain, now, as she sat in the dark and tried to make sense of everything Catherine had told her.

How could Annabelle have been a party to such a sordid, demeaning conversation? Catherine had suggested Annabelle was merely distracted with having to organise the wedding of her sister-in-law’s daughter. Cressida remembered again how unhappy the the bride-to-be, Miss Madeleine Hardwicke. The young woman had, in fact, looked as unhappy as Cressida felt now when Cressida had congratulated her on her impending marriage to Lord Slitherton that evening.

She tried to bolster herself with the the thought that poor Miss Hardwicke had every reason to look unhappy whereas Cressida knew that Justin still loved her—even if half of what Catherine had suggested was true. No, poor Miss Hardwicke was to marry someone almost old enough to be her grandfather.

Catherine hadn’t been able to help herself when Cressida had turned the subject from herself to the impending nuptials. “But Lord Slitherton is rich and titled, and that’s all that counts. All men—even those who are handsome or loving at the start—” she’d added, pointedly, “—stray. Oh my goodness, Cressy, you’ve snapped your fan!”

It had been all Cressida could do not to slap her cousin with the poor, destroyed ivory accessory Justin had given her for her last birthday. Fortunately they’d drawn to a halt in front of Catherine’s townhouse just as her cousin had suggested Cressida make the most of her husband’s guilt by telling her, “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.”

That was not how Cressida intended approaching matters though just exactly what she planned to do, she wasn’t quite sure. Putting as much distance as she could between herself and her poisonous cousin had certainly been a good start, though.

The clock in the passage tolled another hour. Two in the morning. Cressida had been home for more than an hour meaning she must have been sitting here, all alone, mulling over this evening, her thoughts taking some convoluted twists and turns, for most of that time.

Hugging herself, she remembered how bolstered she’d been by her husband’s praise earlier that evening.

It seemed a hundred years ago and since then the insipid shepherdess had been replaced by a lackluster creature with red- rimmed eyes and sagging shoulders.

Was Catherine right? Was Cressida really just a willfully blind and brainless wife with her head in the sand, completely unaware of her husband’s desires? She shifted uncomfortably. Well, she knew about those. But that was now only half the problem. The other half was what he might be doing about them?

Madame Zirelli? Cressida had never even heard of her and yet this was the woman with whom her husband had had an intimate relationship right up until the moment he’d married her. That’s what Catherine had said.

But what about now? Had he really returned to her?

A desolation so great she was unable to even articulate her pain washed over her. A man had needs—Cressida accepted that—and she certainly hadn’t been doing what she’d happily done in the early years of their marriage to satisfy them.

Wearily, she justified herself, even as she knew her denial of her husband was in terms that did not reflect so much on her own fears as they might. Little Thomas was teething. He needed her. He was such a delicate child and their only son. The girls were far more robust and self-sufficient, but Thomas needed his mother. It’s why Cressida slept in his nursery most nights and had done since he’d been born.

Justin knew that which was why he’d not bother to come to her bedchamber tonight. Which was just as well. Because if he did, she’d have to play the good wife and right now she didn’t have it in her.

Yet she must speak to him.

Only...not tonight. Not so soon after what she’d learned. If she could only force herself to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep, she’d wake refreshed in the morning and able to confront him as she knew she must.