Duchess of Seduction (Hearts in Hiding 3)

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 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 hearts 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 blinked at Miss Mariah’s robust tone.

“Perhaps it is in the eyes of the church and some members of

society but that it their problem.” The older woman spoke with extraordinary confidence and disregard for conventional wisdom. “It’s true that knowledge of methods to avoid conception is sought by many of the unmarried women who frequent Mrs. Plumb’s Salon. For some, 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 sentim

ents 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 pressed her lips together and shifted uncomfortably. Surely this woman knew nothing of her origins? 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. Before she became one of the vestal virgins, 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. For many months she has been adamant she will not sell her body, though she is all but starving. But now her high ideals are in jeopardy if she is merely to survive and she has asked me—”

“Minna has consulted you about such things, too?” Cressida knew she should not want to know the details, 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. “She has, yes.”

“She should stand firm,” Cressida burst out. “If she’s survived these many months then surely she will find one man who will offer her...marriage. And he’d only do that if he knew she was...virtuous.”

Miss Mariah raised one eyebrow. “Life is not always so black and white, my dear. Recently, poor Minna 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 ad whom she will be forced to wed, 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—”

“Is it wrong for a woman who is already ruined and believes she’s destined for hell to want to save her virtuous and innocent young sister from a life of unhappiness?”

Cressida frowned. “No,” she said dubiously, wondering on what basis Miss Mariah’s argument could be furthered. Slowly, she added as understanding dawned, “But if I were Minna’s unmarried sister, I’d rather die than know she’d sold her body to help me.”

“It’s not that simple, my dear.” Miss Mariah smiled sadly. “Indeed, it never is. You see, Minna has been made a handsome offer by a stranger who wishes for just five nights in her bed. It is an extraordinary offer, for it is generous enough to provide Minna with the means of offering her sister an avenue out of a lifetime of marital unhappiness and servitude. Yes, Minna feels it is abhorrent to sell her body...and yet what sacrifice would she not make to ensure her young sister does not endure the pain of being thrust into the hands of an uncaring man with whom she’ll have to live for the rest of her life?”

Cressida’s shoulders slumped. It was all so confusing, and the more she heard of such tales, the more her own moral code shifted on its axis. Nothing was straightforward, it seemed. “What is Minna going to do?” Of course it was nothing to do with her, but the pretty, fair-haired girl could have been any of the debutantes she’d grown up with and who’d gone on to make respectable marriages.