Duchess of Seduction (Hearts in Hiding Book 3) Read online

  Duchess of Seduction

  Hearts in Hiding ~ Book 3

  Beverley Oakley

  Contents

  Duchess of Seduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Note from the Author

  Series by Beverley Oakley

  Get A Free Book

  About the Author

  Duchess of Seduction

  Chapter 1

  “The Duke of Lovett has taken a mistress?”

  The breathy shock of pretty newlywed, Mrs. Rupert Browne, sliced through the buzz of conversation, lancing its unsuspecting target three feet away and causing a deaf colonel to ask the duchess if she required a glass of water.

  “Of all the men in this town, he was the last— Why, Catherine are you not astonished?”

  Still choking on her champagne, Cressida, Lady Lovett, strained to hear the response of her cousin, Catherine, who had obviously disseminated the shocking on dit regarding her husband while she smilingly assured deaf Colonel Horvitt she was quite all right, as if her happiness were not suddenly hanging by a gossamer thread.

  The colorful throng in the ballroom seemed to sway like jeering miasmas as Cressida clutched her shepherdess’s crook, glad to have the foolish prop of her fancy dress costume provide such unexpected support.

  She only hoped she was making the right responses to the colonel’s monologue. Meanwhile, all her concentration was focused on the nearby conversation as she waited desperately for a rejection of the outrageous claim.

  “Indeed! And yes, surely not?” gasped the generally well-intentioned but oblivious Mrs. Browne to Cousin Catherine’s whispered reply. The two were in a huddle of black and gold silk and ermine, clearly enjoying the opportunity to dress as 17th century palace courtiers at tonight’s lavish entertainment. “The duke made a love match. Mama told me he scandalized society by marrying a nobody. Why, that was but a handful of years ago.”

  Cressida tried to keep her champagne coupe steady. The indignity of being described as a ‘nobody’ was nothing compared with the pain of hearing her husband’s amours—real or otherwise—discussed in the middle of a ballroom.

  “Why, I remember the word around town was that he insisted that the state of his heart was of greater consequence than his pocket book. But that was then. I daresay after all those children—“

  The children! How could anyone speak of her darlings like that? Cressida forced her trembling mouth into her best attempt at a smile as the colonel leaned forward and wagged his finger at her, his stentorian tone precluding further eavesdropping. “Your husband ruffled more than a few feathers with his speech in the House of Lords last night, Lady Lovett.”

  Cressida was in no mood for his bantering tone. Or for giggling as she’d once been in the habit of doing with her fearfully forceful but often entertaining cousin. Clearly, Cousin Catherine was disclosing details about the state of Cressida’s marriage, of which Cressida, apparently, was the last to know. She straightened and pushed her shoulders back, suddenly self-conscious of appearing the sagging, lacking creature the several hundred guests crowded into Lady Belton’s newly renovated ballroom must imagine her, if they were already privy to what she was hearing for the first time. Before her last sip of champagne, she’d considered herself happily married. It was all she could do to remain standing and dry-eyed.

  Adjusting the lace of her masquerade costume, she managed, faintly, “Ah, Colonel, you know Lord Lovett and his good causes.” She tried to make it sound like an endearment, but the axis of her world had become centered on ascertaining what other titbits about her marriage Catherine was divulging to Mrs. Browne.

  The music swelled to a crashing crescendo, the end of which was punctuated by Mrs. Browne’s shocked squeak, “Surely that is not the woman? Madame Zirelli? Was she not once Lord Grainger’s mistress? No! His wife? He divorced her? And now she and Lord Lovett—?”

  If Cressida hadn’t been holding a champagne coupe, she’d have pressed her hands against her ears. If she hadn’t been a lady, she’d have dashed the champagne coupe to the floor.

  But she was a mother. It’s why she hadn’t wanted to come to Lady Belton’s masquerade. Little Thomas was teething, but her darling husband Justin had been especially persuasive tonight, reminding her that it had been a long time since they’d been out in public, and that, yes, he knew Thomas was cutting a tooth, but there was nothing Cressida could do that Nurse Flora couldn’t, just for a few hours that evening.

  Seeing his handsome face smiling down at her had been more than she could resist. Especially since she could acquiesce and please him—without the dangers of being faced with his charm within the bedchamber.

  Searching the ballroom for her Justin, she spied him talking to her friend, Annabelle Luscombe and a dark-haired Castilian looking young woman, near the supper table. His look was enquiring, as if he were hanging on Annabelle’s every word. Cressida knew he would take equal interest if Annabelle were talking about her latest bonnet or about the Sedleywich Home for Orphans, of which Justin was patron and Annabelle on the committee.

  A frisson of longing speared her. Justin had often gazed at her with such a look of interest when she’d first met him. So handsome, so determined. So sincere.

  The thought that he’d made a special plea for her presence tonight purely in the interest of stilling wagging tongues was almost too terrible to consider.

  A mistress? Her kind, beloved, faithful Justin?

  As if he were conscious of her from across the room, Justin turned, his dark brown eyes kindling at the sight of her, the warmth of his smile spreading comfort like a woolen mantle. It radiated across the heated, perfumed distance that separated them and sent the blood tingling through her extremities. Cocooned in such safety—a public ballroom—she could admit to the extent to which he aroused her. Dear Lord, he looked like a handsome prince taken right out of the pages of a storybook, his brown, wavy hair brushed fashionably forward, topped with the laurel wreath required by his costume, his sideburns contouring his elegantly chiseled, high cheekbones.

  Even after all these years of marriage her body responded as if she were a girl in the first throes of love.

  Dressed like a stately Roman senator, Justin was the stuff of every swooning maiden’s dreams, yet it was she, insignificant Miss Cressida Honeywell, daughter of a poor country parson, who had won his heart all those years ago.

  She’d thought she still had it—had vowed she’d always keep it.

  Rallying, she took a step forward, responding to the invitation implicit in her husband’s eye, but the colonel began counseling Cressida on the dangers of Justin making speeches about orphans and sanitation when he could better rouse his audience in the Lords if he concerned himself with more important matters.

  Cressida bit back her response. Like the docile, well bred woman she’d trained herself to become, she instead smiled politely at the colonel while her heart beat like a drum in response to the smouldering look she’d just exchanged with her husband. A look that was enough to all but dismiss her fears.

  Exhaling with relief, she rewarded the colonel with such radiance that he, obviously regarding this as encouragement, closed the distance between them as he pursued his argument.

  Cressida took a discreet step backwards though she preten
ded to be invested in the exchange with the elderly gentleman before her; meanwhile she slanted another secretive smile at Justin. He raised one eyebrow and his lips quirked as if he might blow at kiss in her direction before he gallantly attended to the hunchbacked Dowager Duchess of Trentham, whose eightieth birthday celebration this was.

  Justin had the gift of making every woman feel the center of his especial interest. Clearly something must have been misconstrued...

  And yet.

  Awareness prickled through her—that she had for some time sensed all was not quite right.

  “Very true, as always, colonel.” She was adept at trotting out the required niceties. Her face and her body could speak the language required of her while her mind took its own journey .

  And the journey it was now forced to take was not a comfortable one.

  Justin, lately, had not been the contented husband of old. The recent bolstering she’d silently received from him faded upon this acknowledgement as she dwelt upon the altered tenor of their relationship. A relationship that had begun with such hope and passion.

  The colonel was still speaking. Lord, he could intone forever and she’d somehow know how to nod and murmur and smile in a way that was eminently satisfying to him.

  But Justin was not like that. He could see through platitudes. He’d seen through her the moment her responses no longer indicated the true state of her heart.

  Cressida squeezed her right hand into a fist until her fingernails pierced the flesh of her palm while her lips curved into a smile of even greater parody .

  When had it all changed? Why had it all changed? Surely Catherine’s words were nothing more than evil gossip with not a jot of truth to them. Catherine had always been a trouble-maker. A fun cousin, to be sure, but a jealous, discontented one, ready to stir up trouble at the first opportunity, nevertheless.

  “And this preoccupation with orphans when there are matters of governing that should take precedence.” The colonel’s whining monologue was accompanied by a great twitching of his mighty moustache. Fluffy and white like two rabbits’ tails lying end to end. If Catherine had been here, they might have giggled over it like two school girls if only to strip the conversation of any seriousness. Cressida was often confronted by emphatic views she did not share but which she was given no chance to refute. She simply wasn’t the kind of woman who used forceful words to indicate her feelings.

  But there were other ways to ensure her wishes were acceded to.

  Another frisson of discomfort snaked its way through her and she bit her lip as she continued to respond like a marionette to her undemanding audience. The colonel only required that she observe the niceties and give him a hearing. He didn’t really care what she thought.

  But Justin— She swallowed painfully. Justin had always cared what she thought.

  Justin. Longing tore at her as she turned towards him once more. She wanted to pick up her skirts and run through the ballroom, pushing people out of her way before snatching at Justin’s finely tailored coat sleeve. She wanted to beg him in an impassioned whisper to run out into the night with her. To press her body against his and twine her hands behind his neck while he kissed her senseless.

  Senseless so she need not think of the consequences and she could again be the wife he needed and deserved.

  “My husband believes governing means following a path that ensures justice even to orphans,” she said softly .

  Justin adored children. Didn’t he? Of course he did.

  Her mind felt suddenly fragmented as she tried to assimilate the current conversation with the the truncated exchanges she’d had with Justin over the past few months. The children. Her needs, their needs.

  She swallowed uncomfortably .

  Justin’s needs.

  She shook her head as if that might shake out the demons while she confronted the unpalatable truth.

  Cressida knew her behavior had not been beyond reproach— that she had withdrawn and that understandably, Justin was confused.

  It had been some time since they’d enjoyed cosy evenings side by side upon the sofa; affection and playfulness leading to passionate bedroom trysts. How wonderful those days had been.

  But the repercussions. She’d not thought they’d weigh so heavily upon her. Joyfulness had been the natural consequence of giving birth to their first healthy child. A second child had cemented the family unit. A third in such a short time had been tiring but Justin had insisted a second nurse was hired so that Cressida could regain her health as quickly as possible.

  The birth of Thomas—their fourth—had been especially difficult.

  Cressida sucked in a breath at the memory. She had nearly died. The pain had been like nothing she’d ever experienced and she’d wondered if she’d ever again feel like her body belonged to her as it once had.

  Fortunately, she had healed but the fear remained. How could she ever go through that again?

  Forcing aside her shame, she turned in the direction of her cousin and took advantage of a pause in the colonel’s complaints to say, “Catherine? A minute, if you please?”

  Nodding politely at the colonel, Cressida waylaid the stately, dark-haired young woman dressed as a siren as the colonel—thankfully—responded to his wife’s perfunctory summons. With a little intake of breath and a stammered excuse, the recently gossiping Mrs. Browne slipped away while Cousin Catherine betrayed her guilt with a blush.

  “Why, Cressy, I did not notice you. How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to wonder who Madame Zirelli might be and what she is to my husband,” Cressida responded with uncharacteristic harshness.

  Catherine’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Cressy,” she gasped. “I had no idea you— I’m so sorry. But of course, it’s only gossip. You know how quick people are to jump to conclusions.” But her cheeks were flushed. She knew she was guilty of the charges Cressida made.

  “Only gossip?” Cressida demanded. “Gossip which it seems I’m the last to know .”

  Catherine became brisk. “I hope you’re not complaining, my dearest cousin, for we are not all as blessed as you with an indulgent husband. Behold Miss Hardwicke over there who is to marry the man beside her.”

  Cressida’s gaze followed the finger Catherine stabbed forcefully in the direction of an thin, aged peer with grey hair and a stoop.

  “Have you heard Miss Hardwick rail against life’s unfairnesss? No, for everyone is depending upon her to rectify the family’s finances thanks to her unexpected marriage offer.”

  Cressida stared at the tight-lipped expression on the face of the young woman’s groom-to-be, and shuddered.

  “You’re looking unwell, Cressy. I’ll take you home. We’ll have a nice, cozy chat in the carriage, shall we? I hadn’t expected to see you out this evening, you’ve been hiding away so long.”

  Cressida was about to argue that she planned to return home with Justin when Catherine took her arm, saying breezily, “Don’t trouble yourself over Justin. He’s asked me to tell you he’s off to White’s with Roddy Johnson. He knew you were anxious to return home to little Thomas.”

  Was that grim satisfaction she saw on her cousin’s face?

  It wasn’t until she’d gained the darkness of the vehicle that Cressida broke her tense silence. She could barely force out the words, but she would not have Catherine secretly gloating over something Cressida was apparently the last to know about.

  “I’d thank you to tell me everything you told Mrs. Browne.” Sinking back against the squabs of her husband’s plush equipage, she hid her disquiet beneath a veneer of dignified anger. “If she is under the impression Justin has taken a mistress, you apparently did little to disabuse her of that notion, when I know very well it is not true. I’d like to know the source of your information.”

  Catherine shifted beside her, and although Cressida could not see her face, she could tell she was uncomfortable. “No need to get on your high ropes, Cressy,” she muttered, and Cressid
a could imagine the proud, defiant tilt to Catherine’s pointed chin as she defended her actions, just as she had done all through her impish childhood and spirited adolescence. “Like you say, I’m sure there’s nothing to it.”

  Cressida was not about to assume her normally pliant role in order to appease her cousin. Not when her happiness was at stake, and not when it concerned her husband. He was her light, her moon. In steely tones, she asked, “I would like to know, Catherine, how you gained the impression Justin has taken a mistress.” This was too important for the tears to which Cressida was sometimes prone, especially lately. With her back pressed stiffly against the carriage seat in the darkness, she felt, ironically, as if some of her own youthful confidence had returned. Justin was the axis of her existence. If her happiness was at risk—though she was sure it was not—she needed to know so she could act.

  “Justin appears just as loving toward you as he ever did, my dear,” Catherine hedged. “Why, only last week when James and I dined with you, he remarked to me—”

  “Obviously, you must have heard something specific. I’m sure you’d not repeat hurtful gossip.”

  “Really, Cressida, I think you are making too much of this.” Catherine halted in the middle of her response, paused, then added in clipped tones, as if she were angry with her cousin, “All right then, if you must know, and since you’ve all but accused me of being a gossiping jade—though I had hoped to spare you—I’ll tell you what whispers are buzzing around the salons in London.”

  In the gloom, her expression was combative. “Justin has been a regular visitor to Mrs. Plumb’s Wednesday salons.” She gave a self-righteous sniff. “And if you’ve never heard of her, James says Mrs. Plumb is an actress with literary pretensions. A very vulgar woman, I believe, who paints her face.”