Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma by Beverley Oakley Page B

push her dark hair back from her high forehead and wondered when it had become so tinged with grey. Just as he’d been struck by her handsome Castilian features when he’d first met her nine years before, he’d been struck by the continued rich gloss of her hair when she’d approached him the previous month. Now it seemed dull and lifeless.
    She was talking again and he realised she was still referring to the young woman she’d met the previous day.
    “I’d never have guessed it. She looked as innocent as a child, herself. And as frightened. This was no place for her. She admitted as much but I think she’d have entered a tiger’s den if she could have reclaimed her husband and poured out her heart to him.”
    Justin, who had been scanning his report once more, while preparing to leave, looked up.
    “She was here to reclaim her husband, did you say?”
    Maria nodded, chewing her thumbnail as she continued to stare into the street. “If we women were only given rudimentary knowledge of the facts when it came to the realities of marriage this poor woman would not be so desperate and I”—her shoulders slumped—“might still be happily married.”
    He could barely attend to her reflections, and hoped his voice did not betray him. Trying to assimilate the multitude of questions jostling for precedence, he asked carefully, “How did you and this woman meet?”
    “She was near fainting in the corridor so great was her fear of discovery. She’d been told her husband was here, though she seemed to have scant notion as to what she would do when she found him.”
    “She ventured to this place, alone, to find her husband?” Justin balled his fists and forced himself to breathe evenly. Mariah could be describing no one else but his wife. “Because someone told her this is where she’d find me?”
    “I think she just wanted to know if he was here. Though I don’t think she’d have known what to do if she’d found him. She said she was terrified of more children. Apparently her mother died giving birth to her sixth.”
    “What!” Justin gave no thought to the force of his exclamation. Afraid of more children? Cressida doted on their offspring. Increasingly she chose to spend her time with them, rather than her husband.
    Mariah was speaking once more. He tried to concentrate on her words while the implications of her assertion filtered through to his brain. He’d begun to think his wife’s earlier enthusiasm for the marriage act was purely for procreation, not recreation. That while she sought a cessation of marital relations with the nursery full, she’d also lost interest in the shared intimacy he still so greatly craved. Not once had she ever suggested he take precautions to protect against further pregnancies.
    Shock was swept away by the most intense dismay as he acknowledged they’d never properly had the conversation. Such talk was lewd, sinful… Good Lord, he thought with a start, perhaps Cressida did not even know such prevention was possible. It was not a conversation one had with one’s wife, though he had tried…
    The realisation of Cressida’s real and terrible fears swamped him and the words of his report, upon which his eyes were unconsciously trained, blurred. Uncurling his fingers, he raked his hand through his hair.
    He straightened in his chair, breathing carefully as he acknowledged how gravely he had failed his innocent, lovely wife. It was his duty to comfort and protect Cressida, to make her happy. He was ten years older, with experience beyond anything she could ever know. Just as Cressida had no knowledge of sexual relations outside their own bedroom, she’d have no idea how to translate her fear into words. Lord almighty, she’d known nothing on her wedding night and when her first pregnancy had been confirmed she’d asked from where the baby would emerge!
    Now, instead of broaching a topic that Justin suspected was not discussed even among women, she’d practised the only