Page 87 of Enticing Odds
“Caplin?” she said, scoffing. “Thatbrute? That brute you fainsoldme to? Yes, he did often refer to me asCresto. Adored doing so, even. Especially once I told him how much I loathed it. I believe that made him enjoy it all the more, do you know?”
Frederick went pale.
“I’m certain he relished every moment of my unhappiness, every cry I swallowed, every desire I voiced that he quashed.”
Her breath came quickly now, but she hadn’t said it all yet. Years’ worth of repressed loathing and unvoiced charges remained, but all Cressida could think of was Matthew. His constant deference to her needs and wants. How he’d the foresight to use preventive measures. How he’d allowed her to make the rules, to set the terms of their liaison. How he’d accepted her ending their involvement once she’d felt exposed.
Dr. Collier seemed to be the only good man she’d ever known.
She would rather Arthur and Henry take after his model than any of the men in her own class. The realization made her stomach hurt.
“I… I did not know,” Frederick offered mildly, his discomfort apparent.
“What? That Bartholomew was a spiteful, hateful toad of a man who reveled in my suffering?” Cressida could bear this veneer of civility no longer; she stood and began to pace as she spoke. “You somehow did not know? Or was it that you simply could not bring yourself to care?”
He did not respond.
She laughed spitefully.
“And yet, Bartholomew, the esteemed Viscount Caplin, merited membership in your vaunted club. And countless others like him, enjoying their little sanctuaries where ladies are not welcomed. Idling about with their papers, their smoking, playing the genteel savant, the elevated aristocrat, whose mind is ever on higher things. While their wives raise their heirs and tend to their estates and reputations.”
“Are we still speaking of your late husband?” Frederick asked timidly.
“Goodness!” Cressida cried, throwing her hands up in disgust. “And yet the lot of you would turn your nose up at poor Dr. Collier.”
She stopped and took several deep breaths. Her heart slowed, though still thudded heavily in her chest.
And then it came to her—the way forward had revealed itself. Cressida had everything she needed to solve all of her problems. Suddenly she felt as light as a feather.
She could save their reputations; she could salvage that which had seemed lost.
“He is worth more than all of the Athenaeum’s members combined,” she whispered. “More noble, more intelligent.” She pressed her lips together, wanting to cry. But she would not. “The strongest man I’ve known.”
“Um, pardon, but… are we now speaking ofDr. Collier?”
“Of course I am,” she snapped.
Frederick stood, belatedly.
“But…” He paused, then shook his head as he laughed, and adjusted the buttons on his waistcoat. “Begging your pardon, dear sister, but you speak of the fellow as if… well. If I didn’t know you to have better sense about these things, I’d say you cared for this fellow.”
The charming furnishings of the drawing room—the pristine white bone china tea service, the tasteful silk velvet covering the walls—suddenly felt tacky and oppressive. The ache in Cressida’s heart mellowed into something pleasant and warm that spread throughout her body, a feeling that recalled only joyful memories. Of Arthur taking his first steps. Of Henry, cuddling with her as she sang him songs. Of Matthew, clutching her against him.
Cressida turned coolly to her brother, her hands folded in front of her. She felt very much herself again, level-headed and sharp. But also like someone new. Someone kind and gentle, even forgiving, after a fashion.
She smiled, but not cruelly this time.
“Of course I do, you dolt.”
Frederick’s eyes widened.
“I love him.”
For several beats her brother gaped at her as she stood calmly. And then his bearing shifted, from someone blindsided to one vindicated.
“I knew it!” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing at her. “I knew something was amiss about the whole bloody thing!”
Cressida looked about the room, her eyes settling upon the handsome secretaire in the corner where she conducted her correspondence each morning. The little gold box sat inconspicuously atop it, looking as if it might hold a pair of small inkwells rather than glimmering dice.
