“Happiness is the word I’ve have used,” Cressida murmured, casting her cousin her most demure look while inside she raged.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I will speak to Justin,” Cressida muttered, putting down the teapot with a clatter.

“Speak to him? Why, if these are nothing but rumors, as you’re so sure is the case, you’ll not want to wound darling Justin’s sensibilities by suggesting you believe ill of him.”

“Well, I can hardly don a disguise and start creeping after him at all hours of the night!” Cressida snapped.

Catherine shrugged, her eyes glittering over the rim of the teacup she raised to her lips. “And why not? You must discover the truth for yourself and make the most of the power you have over him, Cressy. We women have little enough of it.”

She might resent Catherine. She might think her brazen and insufferable. A bully.

But Cressida could see the merit of her cousin’s outrageous, terrifying words. If she couldn’t simply return to offering her husband the full conjugal rights he was entitled to as per their marriage contract, and if she couldn’t find the courage to explain her fears, and question him directly, then she must find some other means of learning, exactly, Justin was doing. Only then could she decide how far she could tolerate the current situation.

Madam Plumb’s Salon.

Catherine had the address at her fingertips and now Cressida had no excuse, for once again Justin had chosen to spend the evening away from her.

There was a distinct chill in the night air as she stepped out of her hired hackney and her hands felt cold and clammy in their York tan gloves as she fought for the courage to raise the polished brass door knocker of the unassuming, four square house in front of her. Everything seemed so alien, so frightening, without her husband or the children, or even a maid, beside her.

But Cressida was not going to become an object of gossip or remain a miserable wife without first trying to discover the truth for herself. Several times during the past couple of days she’d caught Justin staring at her. Once, locking glances, he’d opened his mouth as if he would say something, his look meaningful. But a maid had entered the breakfast room and the conversation had then turned to the food—followed, as usual, by the children.

Then, yesterday, after the pudding had been cleared away and Cressida and Justin were alone for a few moments in the dining room, battling, it seemed, with an oppressive silence, Cressida had been the one to initiate an exchange.

But she’d got no further then, “Justin, I—” before words failed her.

She closed her eyes and shuddered at the horror of ending that sentence. Justin, I want to know if you have a mistress. If she couldn’t even think it, then how could she say it to Justin? No, it couldn’t be true. And she did not have the fortitude for how disappointed Justin would be in her if he knew she seriously doubted his constancy when it wasn’t true.

That was what she’d come to verify tonight—and didn’t it make her feel a thief in the night? Justin’s love, she knew she had in abundance, but his constancy...? If he had strayed, she had only herself to blame.

With the door knocker still in her hand, she reflected on a boldness she’d not dreamed she possessed. All those things Catherine had accused her of returned like a shower of reproach. First she’d exhorted Cressida to learn the truth for herself. Then her cousin had become sneering and disdainful as she’d gone on to advise Cressida to accept the inevitable as Catherine had done years ago. It was true that Cressida was timid by nature, and certainly compared with Cousin Catherine, but she could not allow Catherine to brand Justin complacently as no better than any other man.

The ring of the horses’ hooves as the hackney that had dropped her here now disappeared around the corner was the loneliest, most frightening noise she had ever heard. In her whole life, she’d never been alone or unaccompanied after dark. Nannies, governesses, Justin and then children had accompanied her everywhere.

Adjusting the thick gauze veil over her face, Cressida took three deep breaths for courage and knocked loudly. She was trembling so much she thought she’d crumple upon the spot.

She took a shaky breath. She had to follow through with this. Succumbing to her usual fear was not an option. She had to be able to inform Catherine that her husband had never set foot within the notorious—as she’d now learned Mrs. Plumb’s salon definitely was—den of vice and iniquity. Regardless of what she discovered, she’d tell Catherine that, anyway. No, Cressida had to know for herself.

Within seconds of her knock, she was admitted into a dim, quiet passage lined with paintings of women in various states of undress, the heavy atmosphere overlaid by a strong scent of musk. She felt the thickness of her veil for reassurance as she battled to combat the nausea caused by the sudden surge of fear before pressing her hands briefly against the passage wall to steady herself .

She could do this. She had to do this.

Her courage was bolstered by the sound of a confident contralto issuing through the door that had been opened for her by a slip of a parlor maid. Italian opera... Excitement mingled with trepidation as the girl took her cloak and the distant sound of clapping carried through from the next room.

However, by the time Cressida had settled herself on a blue brocade chair, she was dismayed to find a tall, balding young man offering the company—of about thirty, altogether—a passionate recitation of a passage from Ivanhoe. If only Cressida had timed her arrival a few minutes earlier, but Thomas had been fractious, and— She stopped mid-thought. The truth was that, although Justin was out, she had searched for just about every excuse not to come this evening and face her terrors.

Now her usual prevarication, if not cowardice, had resulted in the loss of her prime opportunity for seeing for herself this Madame Zirelli—whom Catherine claimed had ensnared her husband, a theory Cressida was desperate to discount— before deciding how best to act.

Casting around the room for a woman who fitted the vague description Catherine had given her of a dark-haired woman nearing forty, she decided Madame Zirelli had quit the scene of her rousing performance.

Of course, no one with pretensions to respectability would be seen dead at Madam Plumb’s, which was why most of those assembled were in masquerade while another handful were, like herself, heavily veiled.

Smoothing the skirts of her black silk gown, Cressida tried to swallow down her nervousness at seeing several gentlemen whom she knew were acquaintances of Justin. Of Justin, however, there was no sign, which made her vague, desperate plan seem all the more ill-conceived and not properly thought out. Was it any wonder her husband had grown tired of a wife who seemed capable of little more than nursing his children?

Clapping dutifully as the current performer, the dome-headed orator, came to the end of his repertoire, her mind focused on her next move. What if someone addressed her? Asked her name? She had no idea how matters were conducted in a place like this, or indeed what went on other than music and conversation, though she could not plead complete ignorance. Catherine had taken such delight in telling Cressida about what kind of salon Mrs. Plumb ran. Cressida knew most wives would believe they had no choice but to turn a blind eye. They certainly wouldn’t venture out to visit such a salon as Cressida was doing right now. Perhaps most wives would consider Mrs. Plumb was doing a service, providing a meeting place for nefarious assignations in the dim chambers beyond if their husbands considered their amatory needs were not being met by their wives. Perhaps most wives considered that such discretion shown by their husbands, in avoiding bawdy houses or more public carte blanches, was acceptable. The idea sickened Cressida. It made her feel physically ill to think of what Catherine had said. That people like Justin—and even apparently well-connected, irreproachable women like herself—came here to meet a lover. If Catherine were with her, her cousin would no doubt claim that Justin and the Italian warbler she had heard on her arrival were closeted together at this moment, engaged in the very activities Cressida had once enjoyed so greatly but that now terrified her.

Covering her face with her hands, she recalled Catherine’s gleeful revelations. She must not dwell on them. After all, it was only gossip, and Catherine thrived on gossip. It was to settle her doubts that she had c

Tags: Beverley Oakley Hearts in Hiding Romance
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