Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma

“My dear, let me take you somewhere private where you can compose yourself.”

The kindness of the woman’s expression, and her thoughtfulness—so different from what she’d expected to find in a place like this—made Cressida want to burst into tears.

With a grateful nod of her head, she allowed herself to be led into a smal

l private sitting room at the back of the house where she was gently pushed down onto an Egyptian sofa. When she looked up, the woman was proffering a handkerchief dipped in Cressida’s favourite lavender water.

“My dear, I think you are out of your depth,” murmured the woman as Cressida cooled her forehead and dabbed the corners of her trembling mouth. “Shall I order a carriage to take you home?”

Go home? Cressida shook her head. How could she go home in this state? She was shaking like a leaf, her mind roiling with images of the naked man she’d just seen, and the ecstasy he’d clearly experienced at the hands of… What was Ariane? A woman of the night? Surely not? She’d said she was ‘just like her’. Like Cressida. Could Ariane be a respectable woman by day, who simply chose to take her pleasure out of the domestic arena—like a man?

“I think you need to take a few deep breaths,” said the woman. “It will make you feel much better.” Her smile took years off her age, her twinkling brown eyes suggesting a depth of insight and intelligence with which Cressida would never have credited a woman who lived in such a depraved setting as this.

Cressida covered her face and rocked as images of beautiful maidens kissing each other and magnificently muscled men with rampant members chased around her brain.

Her remembered excitement and the dampness at the juncture of her legs made her whimper with guilt.

What had she done? What would Justin think if he knew she’d witnessed such a tableau and…that she’d been excited by it? He’d never look at her the same way. Never touch her…

Enough presence of mind remained for Cressida to understand the irony of such a fear. The way she was conducting herself in this marriage, Justin was never going to touch her.

She had to take matters into her own hands.

But how?

“I think, my dear, you did not understand what it meant for you to come to such a place.”

Cressida opened her eyes and found she was staring directly at a pair of once-elegant dancing slippers beneath a cerulean skirt.

Taking in the faded elegance of the woman’s dress, the grey in her jet black hair and the sympathy of her expression, she questioned her original assumption of this woman’s calling. After all, Cressida was here, in this house, and she wasn’t a…

A what? Her heart seemed to thud to her feet and she looked down.

After what she’d participated in, she didn’t know what she was. She put her hands to her mouth to stifle her wail as she raised her eyes once more to the woman’s kind face.

“Who are you—?” she began, before halting at the rudeness of such blunt questioning.

“A friend of Mrs Plumb’s—you may call me Miss Mariah—and this is my drawing room, where you are welcome to remain for as long as you need to.” The woman rose and came towards her, placing a gentle hand upon Cressida’s shoulder. The sensation was completely different to Cressida’s reaction to Mrs Plumb. Everything about this woman was motherly. Unthreatening.

“Now, perhaps a little medicinal brandy?” Miss Mariah suggested, moving to a small table by a bookshelf. “You’re shaking like a leaf and it’ll be an aid to unburdening yourself of your troubles, if nothing else. You would not be in this house with such a look in your eyes if you were free of those.”

“Thank you,” Cressida managed through chattering teeth as she accepted a glass. Miss Mariah was right. She was out of her depth, amongst a sophisticated, worldly, depraved crowd—with whom she had nothing in common. In this cheaply decorated house of ill repute, witty conversation and good music were enjoyed, and physical attractions acted upon through discreet assignations.

Oh, dear Lord. A fresh tremor of guilt shook her as she was revisited by the sensations that had gripped her when she’d watched the three lovely women. Envy. Envy that they could enjoy gentle loving without fear of the repercussions. But worse was her reaction when she’d watched Ariane pleasure the man on the bed. She’d been speared with excitement and, yes, lust as she’d gazed upon the scene and registered the pleasure with which he received Ariane’s ministrations.

Was it possible such things happened in the intimacy of the bedroom, too? Justin had never indicated in all their private moments together that there was anything else they might be indulging in. Anything beyond the pleasurable, predictable build-up of sensation she felt prior to his plunging into her.

Planting his seed and leaving her with the consequences.

She gasped. Where had such a wicked, disloyal thought come from?

Her companion touched her cheek and, dazed, Cressida looked up into her compassionate eyes.

“Guilt will not help.” Miss Mariah’s look was knowing. “When a woman like you comes to this house she usually has a good reason.”

Cressida thought of all the other people who’d come to this house.

People driven here by their lustful, depraved impulses to find release in sinful pleasures of the flesh. Driven here through…