Cressida's Dilemma

From the tray on the table beside them, she took two glasses of sherry and handed one to Cressida.

In the natural light, Miss Mariah looked different from the previous week. There was now no sign of the gray that had peppered her hair, her gown was of fine blue silk and her eyes sparkled. Cressida was surprised she felt no revulsion for this creature who traded her body for what she could not otherwise procure. Unlike Cousin Catherine, Cressida tried not to be so quick to judge others, yet the fact was that Cressida was about to take advice—perhaps the most important advice of her life—from a prostitute. Or, at least a retired one.

Miss Mariah leaned across the small space between them and asked with clear enthusiasm, “Now, where shall we begin? I do admire a young woman who sets out to help herself. You have been an inspiration to me, for I was a lusterless creature last week, I’ll admit it.” She raised her own glass. “You helped me see that, regardless of our trials, we must embrace the future.”

Cressida took a nervous gulp of the amber-colored liquid and looked down at her gloved hand, clenched in her lap. “My husband—” she began, feeling a surge of longing for the man she’d hurt, neglected and lied to over the past week and whose arms she could not wait to feel around her. A week with her fractious aunt had heightened her desire for the simple comfort of his company.

“Your husband is a capital place to start. I’ve no idea what kind of man he is, but, as it is clear you are deeply in love with him, I cannot imagine he’d not be completely amenable to doing his part to lessen the risk of increasing your already large brood when it comes to lovemaking.”

Heat seared Cressida’s face and throat as she spluttered on her sherry.

Her friend laughed. “How many years did you say you’d been married? Eight? Nearly as long as myself. My dear, the way we entertain our husbands is at the very core of how they regard us, and if you are too afraid even to mention what is at the root of your fear then I see you have a very great problem indeed.”

Cressida forced down her embarrassment. If this woman spoke the truth, her world was about to begin anew. She’d grown up with a maiden aunt and cousin who’d taught her nothing about the business and a domineering mother-in-law who’d made it clear that a reluctant wife was undutiful and unnatural. A knowledgeable stranger was as good as anyone to dispense the kind of advice she needed right now.

She put down her empty glass and laced her fingers in her lap, the anticipation of what she hoped to hear making her heart race. “Miss Mariah, after I left you last week, I chanced upon my husband unexpectedly in this house,” she said, quietly. “Yes, I was shocked, but we were both in masquerade,” she continued, going on to explain what had transpired, though her voice broke as she described the hurt and confusion on Justin’s face when she’d told him she had a megrim.

“A megrim? Good Lord, my dear girl, how have you managed this past week if your husband was so full of expectation upon meeting you last Wednesday?”

Cressida’s mouth trembled. “I…haven’t,” she confessed. “I was a coward, I know. Instead of confiding in him, I went to my great-aunt’s, for I couldn’t face him. I didn’t know what to do.” She raised tear-filled eyes toward Miss Mariah, her self-disgust weighing down on her as much now as it had a week ago. Poor Justin. She hadn’t seen him since that night. What must he think?

“Oh, my dear, what a terrible time you’ve had of it.” Miss Mariah leaned forward and patted Cressida’s knee, and Cressida felt the genuine concern that was so lacking compared with when Catherine did the same. “If I’d known this would happen, I’d have got down to business straightaway. As it is, we’ve not a moment to lose. Let me assure you, you’re not the first who’s sought my advice. Mrs. Plumb’s salon attracts so many like you, women and men with hear

ts full of love but living in circumstances whereby acting on that love is tantamount to a death sentence.”

Cressida covered her hands. “A child born to an unmarried woman would be like a death sentence, though it is a mortal sin and should be justly punished, I suppose,” she whispered. “But I am a married woman, and my only duty is to provide my husband with a son and to manage as best I can. What I am doing—or wish to do—is a sin.”

“Nonsense!”

Cressida looked up at Miss Mariah’s robust tone.

“It’s true that my knowledge of methods to avoid conception is sought by many unmarried women who frequent Mrs. Plumb’s Salon. For some of these women, trading on their natural charms is their only choice unless they are to starve.”

“There is always a choice. Selling one’s body is…is abhorrent,” Cressida whispered with a shiver. She’d overheard such sentiments discussed between Justin and Catherine’s husband, James. In fact, she still blushed to have come silently upon such a conversation when on a warm summer’s evening she’d gone into the garden in search of Justin and heard her husband speak these very words to James, “Taking one’s pleasure outside marriage is abhorrent and a mortal sin.”

It had been so shocking to hear the strength he’d injected into his declaration, not to mention such an odd thing for Justin to say to Catherine’s husband, whom Cressida had to admit she had never liked. He was distant and uncommunicative, and he barely ever looked at Catherine when he spoke to his wife, though Catherine was always gushing about his latest achievements and, more often, his gilded prospects.

Cressida had been confused by James’ response, “What if it’s the only pleasure on offer? By God, Justin, it’s a bit rich to preach from your rarefied position.”

Cressida had quickly left them to hurry back to the house, uncomfortable at having heard what she clearly should not have. Nevertheless, Justin’s disgust for such conduct echoed the strictures with which she’d been brought up. The only good woman was a virtuous woman, otherwise she was condemned both on earth and in the afterlife.

“Surely they know they’ll go to hell?” she added, confused and embarrassed when she saw the way Miss Mariah looked at her.

Miss Mariah sighed and began in measured tones, “Suppose, if you will, you were a parson’s daughter—”

Cressida stifled her gasp. Surely this woman knew nothing of her. But Miss Mariah was talking again.

“And suppose you have every expectation of making a fine match because the squire’s son asks you to stand up with him at two dances every assembly you attend over the course of several months.” Miss Mariah shook her head. Clearly she was recounting the tale of someone she knew. “But then one day you were out riding and came off your horse, and who should come by but the handsome squire’s son, who gallantly puts you into his carriage”—Miss Mariah paused meaningfully—“and then drives you all the way to London, where he ruins you. Deprived now of your virtue, what choice has a young woman but to become this man’s mistress? For, as you know, his influence in his local area will trump the tale of the impecunious parson’s daughter who was known to have set her sights on the best catch of the county.”

“You’re talking about Minna, aren’t you?” Cressida asked quietly.

“Indeed, I am. She was no different from you, I’ll wager, except that fate played her a shocking hand. Now she’s here, earning what little she can by dancing in shifts that leave little to the imagination now that her seducer has tired of her. But she will not sell her body, though she is all but starving.”

“Minna has consulted you on…?” Cressida knew she should not want to know such things, and yet Miss Mariah had struck a chord. Minna’s upbringing was so similar to hers except that the young man who had courted Cressida had been her darling, loyal and honorable Justin, who had almost immediately offered marriage.

Miss Mariah nodded. “On methods to prevent compounding her great distress, for poor Minna recently received news that her father has died, plunging the family into poverty. Now her sister will be forced to marry an abhorrent creature who has offered for her simply because she has no choice, for the family has no money now and she has no dowry.”

Cressida had heard of many such stories. “Women are forced to wed against their hearts’ wishes all the time. I’m sorry for it, and I’m the first to concede how lucky I am, but—”