Cressida's Dilemma Read Online Free PDF Page A

clothes, had not resorted to more than a simple masque, though he was regretting that now as he stepped aside to allow a large woman wearing an elaborate, ostrich-plumed face mask that hid most of her features to pass. She was leaning heavily on the arm of a small, slender gentleman, clearly years younger than herself, and a glance at the richness of her gown, which even Justin could tell was embellished with this season’s trimmings, suggested she was not some tawdry imposter of the aristocracy. Justin recoiled in sudden shock when he heard her throaty murmur. Good Lord, could this really be Lady Dalton? He turned his face away, fearing she’d recognize him. This was not a place either of them would wish to be known to frequent.
    The door opened then, and Lady Dalton—if that’s who she was—and her mismatched companion lurched past him and down the corridor as if they knew exactly where they were headed.
    Justin, by contrast, handed his hat and cane to a young girl barely older than his daughter, he reflected uncomfortably, who led him into Mrs. Plumb’s oddly decorated, little sitting room, for the handsome paintings and sculptures contrasted strangely with the knick-knacks that might have been collected by a simple cottager’s daughter—though rumor had it that’s what Mrs. Plumb had been when she’d arrived in the city to work as a housemaid before catching the eye of a wealthy banker, the first of a number of liaisons that had secured her future.
    He should not be here, he thought again as he was led to a cluster of chairs. Though this might not be a brothel in the finer sense of the word, it was little better. He had to admit that now as a howl of raucous laughter from somewhere above him was followed by a moan of apparent ecstasy from a room nearby. Men and women came here to seek pleasure when pleasure was lacking in their own homes, their own lives.
    But Justin was not one of those. He had a beautiful wife to go home to. A wife who, if anything, was more exquisite than the day he met her. Even after five children and eight years of marriage, he still desired Cressida more than he had desired any woman. Ever.
    An unbidden flash of memory made him squirm. It was an uncensored image of Cressida’s pale limbs, fully exposed in the dawn light. He’d woken beside her after a night of passion, conducted as was usual, in the dark. As he’d rolled over sleepily to pull her against his chest, he’d been jolted by the sight of the sun slanting through a chink in the curtain, burnishing the naked limbs of his sleeping wife. Even now the memory made his throat dry. How innocent she’d looked, her lips curved in a slight smile, her hair loosened and spread about her like a halo. He had gazed at her for what seemed like hours, drinking in every curve of her body, which he knew like a treasure map by touch but which he’d never seen by daylight or even candlelight. He’d been riveted, in fact. How elegantly her limbs melded from dainty feet and ankles to finely tuned calves, thighs, then to that secret juncture, thatched with fine blond hair.
    Justin had no idea how long he’d had gazed at her, drinking in the beauty of her body. She’d woken when he’d touched her, his hand lightly skimming her curves, cupping her pubic mound. In the dark, during their frequent lovemaking, she’d indicated her pleasure at being touched there, but in the daylight, shock and embarrassment scarred her expression and she’d scrambled to pull down the thin linen night rail always present between them, even in the midst of the most passionate of lovemaking.
    He’d never seen her body so completely revealed since then. But when had that been, he wondered? That’s right, several months after Millie’s birth, and in fact, a few hours before Dr. Milner had examined Cressida and announced she was with child again. Their third. Naturally, Cressida had been over the moon, though Justin remembered his twinge of disappointment at the