Cressida's Dilemma

“Oh, Justin!” Just two simple words but uttered in such heartfelt tones that Cressida needed to be a fool not to understand that some deep emotion bonded the two of them.

Justin did not push the woman away. He did not unclasp her fingers, which gripped him behind his neck. He did not step politely away. No, his expression changed from passion to something curiously deeper in a response that quite clearly conveyed to Cressida how much this woman meant to him. Miss Mariah. Madame Zirelli. The woman who had been Justin’s mistress before he’d married Cressida.

In the moment that the truth revealed itself, Cressida traded hope and happiness for the sorrow of all the world’s betrayed women. She would have preferred anger to the heartbreak that consumed every hope for their shared future she’d ever allowed herself. What a fool she’d been to have missed the truth that had been staring her in the face. The woman to whom Justin had turned during these long months when Cressida had not wanted him had indeed been his old mistress, as Catherine had insisted.

“I always knew I could rely on you!” Miss Mariah wept. Cressida’s stomach roiled and she felt the bile, excoriating and bitter, burn her throat.

Miss Mariah was apparently unaware of Cressida standing a few yards farther up the passage, her limpid gaze encompassing only Justin as she clasped his shoulder, pulling him down for her kiss, her greeting revealing a depth of feeling between them that went beyond friendship.

Or anything a wife would condone.

Heaving in a wrenching breath, Cressida brushed the tears from her eyes and picked up her skirts, ignoring her husband’s imploring call as she gathered speed, all but running along the corridor and out into the street where her carriage was waiting.

As she pulled in her trailing skirt, she heard his desperate cry from the top step of the portico.

“Cressida, come back!”She rapped on the roof, signaling impatiently for the coachman to go.“Cressida, it’s not what you think. Talk to me—!”He was at the carriage door, grasping the handle, while she gasped her anger and outrage to John the coachman in one imperative command that he obey her and whip up the horses. Hunched up in the carriage, numb and trembling with shock, she dared not look out through the window in case the sight of Justin, pleading and confused, staring after her in the street, caused her to weaken her resolve and turn back.

She’d accepted that Justin had a very good reason for being at Mrs. Plumb’s. No, she hadn’t questioned that at all. At every turn, she’d given him the benefit of the doubt before challenging her greatest fears in order to give herself once more to him.

What a fool she was.

Justin would follow her and try to make her believe some concocted story, but right now she needed to talk matters over with someone who knew all about straying husbands.

Chapter Nine

The moment Catherine received her, Cressida realized her error.

For a start, the house was in darkness. She’d hoped to find her cousin up and playing cards or recently returned from an evening out and full of post-revelry cheer.

Instead a glowering Catherine appeared at the top of the stairs, an enormous muslin cap covering her elaborately dressed hair and a shawl thrown hastily over her nightgown.

“Good Lord, Cressy, do you know what time it is?” she demanded. “Unless Justin has thrown you out, I’ve not the patience to listen to tales of Thomas’ teething woes.”

Cressida swayed at the bottom of the stairs, the fury of her anguish over recent events turning to indecision. She’d not come for a sympathetic hearing, for there was scant kindness in Catherine at the best of times, but she’d not expected such a vituperative greeting.

Oh Lord, what had possessed her to seek out Catherine? It was Justin she should be speaking to, not her viperish cousin. She was bound to Justin for life and, if he could explain his way out of this or persuade her out of her misery enough to enable her to forge ahead, a happiness only temporarily wounded was more than most wives could hope for under such circumstances.

With a brittle smile, she half turned. “I beg your pardon, Catherine, and apologies for disturbing you. I’ve decided to return home after all.” Gathering up her skirts, she turned back toward the door, unable to shake the image of the woman she’d considered her friend, cozily making up to her husband at Mrs. Plumb’s…

For a moment, she thought she was going to be sick.

Catherine seemed only then to take in the extraordinarily daring cut of Cressida’s gown, for her eyes widened then gleamed as Cressida turned, gasping at the sound of a vehicle drawing up in apparent haste by the front door.

“My, my, Cressy, love…marital dramas!” Her cousin hastened down the stairs and took her arm, leading her back from the door. “You’ve come to the right place. I apologize for my rude welcome, but I’m never at my best when my slumber is disturbed.”

“Then I shan’t continue to disturb you,” Cressida said, dignified while she prepared for Justin’s entrance. At least he’d valued her sufficiently to make coming after his wife his priority. Recalling again the familiarity of gesture and caress between the two who, it must be borne in mind, had known each other intimately before Cressida had even met her husband, made her feel ill. She clenched her teeth. Not only had she been deceived, but she’d been made a laughing stock, and by a woman she’d considered her friend. It only proved how naïve and credulous she was.

When she opened her eyes again, Catherine was hustling her into the drawing room, leaving the butler to attend to the pounding on the door.

“I made a mistake. I must go to Justin.” Cressida tried to pull away, but her cousin held her firmly, pushing her down onto the Egyptian sofa and adopting an attitude of the greatest solidarity as she positioned herself close, her arm about Cressida’s shoulders.

“So I was right?” The edge of prurient interest was greater than the sympathy for which Catherine obviously strove as she pursed her mouth and patted Cressida’s knee, saying, “My poor love, I thought you were the lucky one, and that nothing could touch the magic that seemed all too apparent between you and Justin. Now you see he’s like all the rest, and you have to learn that sorrow is a woman’s lifelong companion.”

Her words were cut short by the drawing room door being thrown open over the whispered admonitions of Catherine’s butler that Justin wait to be announced.

“Evening, Catherine. I’d like to see my wife, alone.” His glance did not even encompass his wife’s cousin. The tightness around his mouth and the flare in his eye as he rested his gaze upon Cressida indicated the storm raging within. Never had Cressida seen Justin so discomposed.

Despite the raw hurt that scored deep into her heart, there was no denying Cressida’s pride at being allied to such a handsome man, or her admiration as she raked her gaze over his tall, determined form. Certainly these were cosmetic, but it had always given her a thrill to know that Catherine—and others like her—envied Cressida her husband for his outward charm, good looks and obvious intelligence, in addition to his pocketbook. Catherine must indeed be curious as to the extent of Justin’s manly attributes, which only Cressida—well, of the two of them, anyway—was in a position to know.