Cressida's Dilemma (6 page)

The woman’s vulgar words brought the bile rushing up Cressida’s throat. Pushing away, she hurried toward the door, past a knot of people gathered near the supper table, to find herself in a darkened passage. What on earth had possessed her to come to such a place? She was out of her mind. Without doubt, she was out of her depth.

In the gloom, she observed a gentleman walking down the corridor, head bent, but when he raised it, as he drew almost level, he was smiling at her. And there was invitation implicit in the sweep of his speculative gaze.

Fear and horror spiraled through Cressida as she gripped the first doorknob that came to hand, hoping wildly it would yield escape. She had to get as far away as she could from Mrs. Plumb, her patrons and their odious assumptions. Who knew what the woman was going to suggest for Cressida’s entertainment? A quick fumble with that man who looked like he was treading the corridors in search of conquest? He’d been young and handsome enough, so surely he had someone at home waiting for him?

Mrs. Plumb’s establishment was not a place for a gently reared female, and the sooner Cressida was back home where she belonged, the better. It was time to admit defeat. And this was definitely a place Justin would
never
visit.

Slipping into the room, she closed her eyes as she sank against the door on the other side. Blessed relief it was to be alone, though she wouldn’t rest until she’d found her way onto the street and freedom. Her heart was racing and her mouth was dry, but a calming scent of rosewater dissipated her nausea. After a moment, she became conscious of a faint singing in the background—soft, gentle, harmonious voices.

Disoriented, Cressida opened her eyes and gazed upon the countenance of the most angelic creature she’d ever seen.

“Would you like to join us?” asked the young woman, who smiled when Cressida jerked back in fear.

Dressed in flowing, diaphanous robes, her long, fair hair rippled from a high Madonna forehead, and her eyes were blue and guileless. “My name is Ariane.” There was something mesmerizing about her gaze. As if she had no will of her own, Cressida stretched out her hands as Ariane whispered, “You look as if you have lost your way and don’t know how to find it again. I think I understand, for I was once like you—fearful. But there’s nothing to be afraid of in this house. Not if you are looking for love.”

Everyone Cressida had seen tonight had been dressed in masquerade or heavily in disguise, but this young woman looked as if she had nothing to hide, as if she’d stepped straight from a mythical painting, adding to Cressida’s sense of unreality that she should be in such a place. Ariane was the most beautiful woman Cressida had ever laid eyes upon. She was also the most undressed, with her gossamer robes leaving little to the imagination.

Blushing, Cressida looked down at their hands, now linked, and courage flowed through her. This young woman, Ariane, was one of four similarly dressed ‘goddesses’ in the room who all smiled kindly at her with understanding in their eyes. Suddenly, she felt emboldened. “I heard men and women,” Cressida swallowed, “meet lovers in this house. That’s not why I came. I haven’t come to meet a lover.” Pulling away her hands as she backed toward the door, she tried to steady her breathing. “I’m not like that. I saw a man in the corridor just now who looked at me as if I were like—”

“Like one of us?” Ariane supplied with a gentle smile. She’d followed and now began to stroke Cressida’s arm, her soft, ungloved touch searing sensation through her. “A Vestal Virgin? That’s what we’re called, you know.” Ariane laughed softly. “If he was dark and handsome with a piratical leer, then he was probably my husband.”

“Your husband?”

Ariane nodded. “No need to sound so shocked. Mrs. Plumb’s Salon of Sin is for people like us—star-crossed lovers or those burdened by unhappy marriages. My husband and I eloped five years ago, but it’s a secret we must keep until he turns five-and-twenty and can therefore claim his inheritance.” A great sorrow seemed to weigh upon her shoulders, and her face pinched with pain. “So we meet here, where I survive by dancing for the entertainment of others. We all have a different story, and I have told you, a stranger, mine within a moment of meeting you. Unburdening oneself can be great catharsis, as my friends will attest.” She indicated the three other young women, whose mouths all turned up in a sympathy that shone from their eyes.

Cressida stared. In harmony, they’d seemed as one, but now that they’d drawn closer and the candlelight flickered across their features, she saw the tallest was crowned with a cascade of jet black hair as glossy as a raven’s wing, her sharp, pretty little face viewing Cressida with fixed interest. The other two were fair, the youngest of them rubbing swollen eyes, suggesting she’d just been crying.

“If you heard our stories,” Ariane said softly, “you’d realize you were little different from the rest of us and that we are here, like you, looking for the same thing — love.”

“I have love,” Cressida said woodenly, looking from their four earnest faces to the dim, ordinary room beyond. “I have a loving husband at home.” Her shoulders heaved on the final word, and Ariane patted her shoulder comfortingly.

“Except that you think he’s here, and that’s why you’ve bravely set out to search for him. You think he’s been taking pleasure in a house like this,” she paused meaningfully, adding, “with women like us.”

Cressida shook her head. “No, I’m sure he’d never—”

“Nor would we, for we are not lightskirts who sell our bodies for the pleasure of men,” said the youngest woman fiercely, dabbing her eyes with her chiffon scarf as she broke away from the comfort of her companions to confront Cressida. “Though often one’s body is the only commodity we have, and selling it is the only way to stop from starving when a woman has no man to support her. Her voice trembled. “So we dance, and while we are young and still have our looks, men pay for the pleasure of watching us. We’re not forced to do anything we don’t want to do at Mrs. Plumb’s salon, for she is not like some women who run houses of ill repute and profit from defenseless women and who are just as wicked and depraved as the men who frequent these establishments. We’ve come to this house because Mrs. Plumb
protects
those who have been ruined by such men and women, but we are not”—she gulped—“cyprians or jades.”

“That’s enough, Minna,” Ariane said, her voice sharper than Cressida had heard it as Minna started to cry and was comforted by the two other ‘Vestal Virgins’.

“Minna has been here nearly two years and is happy enough after the horrors she endured before. Tonight it’s been a great shock for her to see the young man who once courted her and to whom she lost her heart when she was a parson’s daughter in her first season out,” Ariane explained. “Unlike me, who’s only been taught how to play a lady when expedient, she grew up privileged in a fine house with a horse and carriage. Her fall from grace has been hard for her.”

Cressida pressed her hand to her throat. She’d never met women like this. ‘Ruined’ women were contagious, their sin likely to contaminate the rarified purity of well-born women like Cressida. But now she was talking to them, her own subterfuge and disguise lessening the chasm between them and blurring the lines of distinction, and she was shocked and drawn to their stories.

“Then why is she here?” she whispered.

“Because she was ruined on her first visit to the capital to stay with her godmother in Mayfair,” said the red-haired Vestal Virgin sadly, extricating herself from Minna’s side and draping an arm around Cressida’s shoulders. “During a shopping expedition, she lost her way when she paused to look into a street window and then found her godmother gone. Being such an innocent, she had no idea of the danger she courted when she accepted the invitation of a seemingly kind and elderly woman to take refreshment while a boy was supposedly dispatched to take a message to Minna’s aunt. This woman happened to procure girls for Mrs. Saville’s brothel in Soho. Now Minna is ruined and she can never go home.”

Ariane corroborated the redhead’s story with a nod. “It’s a sad tale, Persephone, indeed it is, with no happy ending in sight, for poor Minna has ever spoken with longing of this Mr. de Courtney, her young man whom she saw tonight, three years after her ambitious mama forced her to reject his marriage offer. She thinks he may have recognized her, and she’s ashamed and fears he may tell her parents, whom she hopes simply believe her dead.”

“But it wasn’t her fault,” Cressida stammered, before realizing that it was always the woman’s fault.

“No, it wasn’t her fault, but that’s no defense, and now Minna must earn her daily bread, as must we all and, if she’s lucky, find a little love along the way before she is old and dies in the gutter.”

Shocked at the harshness of Ariane’s tone, Cressida reflected on her own good fortune. Regardless of whether Justin strayed or not, she was protected by his name and his wealth. She might die lonely and unhappy, but at least it would not be in a gutter.

“Surely this young man might rescue her?” she asked, realizing at the same time how absurd the notion was, for if Minna was no longer a virgin, she was indeed condemned to a lonely and miserable future with only the protection she could procure herself.

Ariane turned the subject, her voice sympathetic and questioning as she laid two hands upon Cressida’s shoulders. “And why are you here? You are looking for your husband? Well, there are peepholes that will give you access to many of the rooms here, though if he does not wish to be spied upon, he has that right. Many here, however, are quite happy to flaunt themselves.”

“Spy? Goodness, no! I just want—”

Ariane’s gentle squeeze stilled her. “You don’t know what you want, I think. Or perhaps you just want to go home. This is not the place to be when you have somewhere else to go to that offers you comfort and security.” She led her to the door and pointed down the corridor. “The entrance is that way. I shall be going in a different direction, for I came here to enjoy myself”—a secretive smile curved her lips—“with my friends, since I’m rarely in a position to enjoy my husband, though he
is
visiting tonight. He is very handsome, you will have noticed. Come.” She started for the door and beckoned Cressida to follow. “You’re very welcome to join Minna and Persephone and Julia and me, but I think perhaps you’d prefer the safety of your own bed.”

Ariane left her then, brushing past her and into the passage, her companions following, and heading in the direction opposite to that in which she’d pointed Cressida.

Cressida watched her until she was nearly out of sight. Yes, she should go home. That’s what she’d intended. But she’d not found Justin. She’d not begun to understand what might have drawn him to such a place—if there was any grain of truth in Catherine’s words. And Ariane’s own story, and that of Minna, needled her. No, Justin would never come here, but he should know of what went on, and Cressida should make him
do
something…though changing the world and a judgmental society was hardly something that could be done overnight. However, Justin was in a position of power. He
was
a man who changed the ways of the world, and wasn’t that what her own papa had grown up lamenting was needed to his unworldly daughter? He always said it was a harsher world with a greater divide between the fortunate and the unfortunate than should be the case.

Justin need not know she’d been here, but he should know what terrible things happened to defenseless women unaided or even persecuted by the law. He
should
try to do his part to change the society that governed so many cruel attitudes.

Emboldened by an unexpected sense of crusade, Cressida picked up her skirts and quickly followed the young women.

She might not have much experience of the seamier side of life, but as a parson’s daughter, she had not always enjoyed the sumptuous privilege she did now. And her father, a kind and gentle man, had been far less condemnatory toward the few fallen women of their parish than her more ambitious mother.

Down twisting corridors and up a shallow flight of stairs Cressida went, through a large, empty space lined with huge, lurid paintings of shocking scenes that made her gasp and avert her eyes. Then finally through a pair of carved double doors and into a room filled with soft music and a strange, unidentifiable scent overlaying the hint of rosewater.

Raising her veil, Cressida tried to adjust to the dimness of her new environment. When she saw that the room was sparsely furnished and contained only Ariane and her three companions, she felt no fear, and even a great sense of sisterhood, for the four of them were in the midst of a gentle, swaying dance, smiling at one another as if they shared a joyful bond.

Cressida blinked to orient herself, moving into the shadows of a huge, luxuriant potted palm as the unknown, heady scent filled her nostrils and made her head swim. Ariane and Minna, dressed in their flowing robes of white, did indeed look like a pair of Vestal Virgins in a trance as they swayed gently in time to a soft chant in the background. Their hair, held back by silver fillets, fell in loose ripples around their waists, and their smiles were warm and gentle. Even in such an alien environment, Cressida felt a sense of comfort and safety. Even belonging. She was amongst other women. Young and beautiful women who shared her fears, but at this elemental level, also shared a bond which united them. They looked after one another when they were all similarly vulnerable.

She thought again of Catherine. Catherine was supposed to be Cressida’s closest friend, but there was no sense of shared purpose or sisterly bond between them. Only a veiled desire on Catherine’s part to erode Cressida’s confidence and triumph over the parson’s daughter who had married well.

Now the raven-haired beauty stepped forward and linked her hands behind Ariane’s neck and kissed her, ever so softly, upon the lips. Her eyes, slightly unfocused, were the palest blue, and she looked so supremely at peace with her world that Cressida longed to learn her secret.

She glanced around her, uncertain if she should at least step forward and declare herself, though she had been invited. The scene was surreal—two women gently cradling each other before pressing themselves closer to deepen their kiss.