CHAPTER3
Cressida closed her eyes and leaned against the door of Mr. Fairbanks’s apartment, her breathing a bit too rapid. Even her knees felt weak, and her heart pounded at an exhilarated tempo. “Goodness gracious, I cannot credit that I have done it!”
A part of her had been horrified to be speaking so candidly about being painted nude, but Cressida managed rather well, she believed. A little laugh escaped her. It had been a very long time since she’d felt such an instant affinity with someone. Flirting with him had been so natural and lovely. Hurrying to tug the hood of her cloak above her head and reaching into her pocket for the small face mask, she slipped it onto her face before hastening away from the lodgings and toward the carriage that awaited her on the street. The footman knocked the carriage steps down, and she hurried inside the equipage and sat with a sigh.
Lady Leigh Gardner, the new Countess of Stanhope, and Cressida’s older sister, sat up and pinned her with a reproachful glare. “You were gone more than the five minutes you promised! You were with that rogue for at least fifteen minutes.”
“Was it really so long?”
“Yes!”
“I assure you he was very proper,” Cressida said, pushing back the hood of her cloak to settle against the squabs. “It makes me wonder why my heart is pounding so.”
“Should you really wonder at it?” her sister demanded, her brown eyes squinting at Cressida. “You went to a man and asked him to paint you naked! I am even wondering at myself for being a part of this wicked scheme. Should anyone find out…” She gave a delicate shudder. “I cannot bear to think of the scandal.”
A soft prick of guilt lanced her heart. “I promise you I shall be careful, and is that not the reason we approached Nicholas Fairbanks? That he is notoriously discreet?”
Her sister sniffed. “You plan to allow the man to paint younaked, Cressida.”
“If he agrees to it,” she said quietly, folding her hands in her lap.
That had her sister straightening. “Never say he disagreed.”
“The money was not enough.”
Her sister’s eyes widened. “Five hundred pounds is a fortune!”
“Yes,” she said pertly, “it seems he wants liberties as well.”
“Liberties?” her sister faintly demanded. “Could the man have been so outrageous in his conduct?”
“A few kisses as per his words,” Cressida said, fighting the urge to blush.
Leigh choked and then she giggled. “We should have known! Our cousin did say the man lived up to his reputation and was a sensual beast.”
Their second cousin was the widowed Viscountess Nelson, who recently boasted in this very carriage that Mr. Fairbanks was her lover for a night and that the man had devastated her senses. Only that he was rumored to never bed the same woman twice. If such wickedness could ever be believed, and though her cousin tried, he was not enchanted any further with her charms.
“Well, what shall you do, Cressida? Does this mean you will give up this nonsensical idea for revenge?”
“It is not nonsensical.”
“Are you suggesting you will grant this man kisses?”
“Of course not. I never once thought it.”Liar, a tiny voice needled her. Her belly had fluttered with nerves and excitement that she had fought to suppress, for the unprovoked reaction had startled her.
Her sister sighed and pinned her with a sober stare. “It is not uncommon for gentlemen to have mistresses and their wives. I daresay it is even expected.”
The earlier pain and shock of catching the gentleman who had recently proposed to her locked in a torrid embrace with another woman pierced Cressida’s chest. That he had even tried to justify his unsupportable actions to her was humiliating. He called that lady ‘nothing’ and ‘only his mistress.’ The lady’s eyes had pooled with tears, and she had walked away with stiff dignity, which had infuriated Cressida even more. That he would speak of a woman he owned as his lover so casually and with little regard to her feelings only revealed that Lord Cameron Balfour, the Marquess of Linfield, was a cad. A cad she had thought herself falling in love with.
Everyone had speculated that the most dashing catch of the season would be paired with their incomparable. Cressida had felt as if she walked on clouds and soared on the wings of love, with each mention in the scandal sheets of her and the marquess being society’s most eligible couple. The ‘match of the decade’ some newssheet had called their courtship.
The marquess had courted her with ardent and flattering attention, always sending her a bouquet of her favorite flowers, lilies, once they danced at a ball. He drove with her in Hyde Park atop his gleaming phaeton for all of society to see, and when they took long walks, he read her poetry. Cressida had thought he would make the perfect husband and when he had hinted she would make him a perfect marchioness, she had been giddy with excitement.
Her mother and sister had shared that excitement, and they had waited with bated breath for him to approach her father. Then only this morning, he had turned up at their townhouse for an audience with her papa. Her father had consented to the marriage, and there had been plans to announce their alliance at Lady Metcalf’s ball—the very ball Cressida had just fled from in tears.
“Cress,” her sister said at her long silence. “Will you consider forgiving him?”
“No.”