Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma (5 page)

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 come here.

Even as she tried to bolster herself with this, she acknowledged that as Justin was rarely home these days she must assume he was seeking company more diverting than her own.

She was only half aware of the emptying of the drawing room—the withdrawal of patrons into chambers beyond while those remaining made small talk around a table of glazed ham and plover’s eggs.

Her misery enveloped her like a cloak of heavy green slime. As she sat hunched in her chair, protected from her environment by her veil, Cressida’s mind roamed over Justin’s likely perusal of his options, once she had started to habitually reject his overtures. A man had his needs, after all.

“Would you care for some refreshment, madam?”

It was Mrs Plumb, judging by the description Catherine had given her. Coarse, plump Mrs Plumb, dressed like Cressida in respectable widow’s weeds, smiling unctuously at her as she held a tray of fizzing champagne coupes. Glancing about her, Cressida realised she was alone amidst a sea of empty blue brocade chairs.

“Or perhaps there is a certain gentleman, known or otherwise, to whom you seek an introduction. Madam, are you all right?”

The woman’s vulgar words brought the bile rushing up Cressida’s throat. Declining with a wave of her hand, Cressida rose and hurried towards the door, pushing her way 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 depth.

In the gloom she saw a gentleman walking down the corridor, smiling at her. Fear spiralled through her and she gripped the first doorknob that came to hand as she cast wildly for the way out. She had to escape Mrs Plumb and her odious assumptions. Who knew what the woman was going to suggest for Cressida’s entertainment? This was not a place for a gently reared female and the sooner she was back home where she belonged, the better. It was time to admit defeat.

Slipping into the room, she closed her eyes as she sank against the door on the other side, weak with relief that at least she was alone, since the room hadn’t opened on to the street and freedom. Her heart was racing and her mouth was dry but a calming scent of rosewater dissipated her nausea. She heard a faint stirring.

Confused, Cressida opened her eyes and found herself gazing 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, her fear apparent.

Dressed in flowing, diaphanous robes, the woman’s long fair hair rippled from a high, Madonna forehead and her eyes were blue and guileless. “My name is Ariane,” she said, “and 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 was 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 looked down at their hands, now linked, and gained courage. “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, she tried to steady her breathing. “I’m not like that. I just want—”

Ariane’s gentle hand upon her shoulder stilled her. “You don’t know what you want, I think.” 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 some friends. You’re very welcome to join us but I think perhaps you’d prefer the safety of your own bed.”

Ariane left her then, and Cressida watched her until she was nearly out of sight. Yes, she should go home. That’s what she’d intended. But Ariane’s enigmatic words had unleashed a world of curiosity that would not be satisfied and, as she disappeared around a corner, Cressida picked up her skirts and quickly followed.

Down twisting corridors and up a shallow flight of stairs she went, through a large, empty space lined with huge, lurid paintings of shocking scenes that made Cressida 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.

Raising her veil, Cressida tried to adjust to the dimness of her new environment. Strangely, she felt no fear, for there were only women, she saw, and all three, in the midst of a gentle, swaying dance, were smiling at one another as if they were as close as sisters.

Cressida blinked as she tried to orient herself, moving into the shadows behind a huge, luxuriant potted palm as the unidentifiable heady scent filled her nostrils and her eyes adjusted to the light. Two young women, dressed in similar flowing robes of white, 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. And belonging. She was amongst other women. Young and beautiful women, full of confidence. They surely did not have fears like hers.

The taller of the two stepped forward, linked her hands behind her partner’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 step forward and declare herself, yet too afraid. The scene was surreal—two women gently cradling each other before pressing themselves closer to deepen their kiss.

They had come here to give themselves up to pleasure. Two women? Did women do this?

Cressida tried to remember when she had last enjoyed uninhibited and carefree enjoyment. Too long ago to remember, beneath the covers of the marital bed in the warmth of her chamber as Justin’s hard body covered her own and stroked her into wild and wonderful sensations. Since her first night as a young bride she’d never been afraid of the act. For years she’d revelled in the glorious wantonness Justin had managed to stir up inside her, and thrilled to the shattering climax that had preceded the peace and contentedness that had soothed her into sleep, Justin’s warm, loving breath on her neck.

No, it was just the consequences of the act that terrified her.

She drew in a shuddering breath, her body alive, nerve endings prickling the surface of her skin, a desperate throbbing ache building between her legs as she remembered those halcyon days with Justin. If only she could return home tonight and offer up her body to his tender ministrations with no danger of the consequences.

She couldn’t. That was the dreadful, painful reality.

But here she was watching two women enjoying a world full of love and beauty with no pain, no guilt, no terrible consequences. No conception, no pregnancy, no pain.

The women had not broken their kiss. Gently they swayed in time, running their hands over each other’s face and body as if they were the most natural of gestures.

All at once the tempo changed. Alertness pulsed through Cressida and she strained to see what was happening. The faint chanting rose to a crescendo then suddenly ceased, and from a dark corner of the room strode a man of such height and magnificence that Cressida gasped at the sight of something so splendidly not of this world.

The reaction of her companions was the same as they huddled together and gazed at this being who seemed to command such power.

The haze cleared a little, both in Cressida’s mind and in the room. She saw that in the centre was a large bed with carved wooden posts and sheets of crisp white linen. The man stood behind this on a raised dais and he beckoned to the women.

“Which of you lovelies will be first?” His voice was low and mellifluous, the accent slightly clipped, slightly foreign.

“I will be first.” Ariane’s voice, though still softly sweet, was firm. She made her way towards him, rising upon a hidden staircase and the stranger caught her to his muscled chest, sliding one hand up behind her neck, the other slowly contouring her body. With a soft groan, Ariane went slack and he whisked her up into his arms and laid her on the mattress before him.

“I offer myself up to your pleasure,” whispered the girl who had led Cressida to this place as she kissed his feet, her hands twining up the thick muscles of his legs. As she kissed her way higher, the haze in the room and in Cressida’s head cleared more. Ariane shifted position and Cressida gasped to see that this magnificent creature was entirely naked. He held himself like a Greek god, proud and arrogant, while Ariane swept her hands all over him in a manner beyond Cressida’s imaginings. Now Ariane was on her knees, her expert tongue flicking against the backs of his knees, rising higher.

And higher…

The pleasure haze dissipated further. Cressida stepped back, fascinated and horrified in equal measure as Ariane gently cupped the pouches beneath his rampant manhood.

She’d never seen a man naked. Not in eight years of marriage. She’d been gently pleasured in Justin’s warm, secure embrace beneath the counterpane in the darkness of the marital bed, but she had never seen her husband clad in less than his night shift or banyan.

The pupils of the magnificent creature in the middle of the bed dilated and he threw back his head as Ariane, with calculated care, put her mouth to his engorged member and slowly circled it with her tongue.

So apparent was his rapture that Cressida felt her own body pulse with sensation despite her shock.

She put her hands to her face to cover her gasp.

No one seemed to register her. All eyes were on the scene in the centre of the bed—eyes greedy, lascivious, wanting…

Cressida glanced around her in the dark, her terror growing. This was not a sight for a gently reared woman like herself. She had to escape.

In the gloom, she thought she recognised the door through which she’d come and stumbled towards it, turning as the man groaned his pleasure.

A final glance at his glazed eyes made plain that he was enslaved by this extraordinary act.

Cressida turned the doorknob and staggered into a dim corridor, gasping for air. She had spied on a naked man in the throes of passion when she had had no right to. What had she done? Her recent fascination now seemed nothing more than wicked prurience.

She was going to be ill, she knew it. Panting, sweating, she sought desperately for the privy, which, to her relief, was pointed out to her by a motherly looking woman dressed in cerulean silk.

When Cressida staggered back into the passage a few minutes later her saviour was waiting for her, a look of sympathetic concern upon her face.

“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 small 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.