Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma Read Online Free Page B

cutting him off. “I sing for my supper every Wednesday, Justin. Mrs Plumb has been a good friend.” She indicated the small drawing room in which they sat. “She gives me my privacy when I need it and ensures I do not lack entertainment.”
    Justin gave a wry laugh. “I wish it weren’t necessary to disguise myself, Mariah. I feel like a thief in the night and don’t know how I’d begin to explain these visits to my wife.”
    “Your wife should strive a little harder to value the prize jewel she married. You’ve not told her about what you’re doing, Justin? You promised me.”
    His urge to confide in Mariah was checked by her mild criticism of Cressida and he regretted unburdening himself when he’d hinted that his wife was no longer as eager for the joys of the marital bed as she once had been. But it had been so good to see Mariah again after nearly ten years, and natural to revive the friendship with its old familiarity.
    “Cressida is an angel. I’d trust her with my life, but since you are concerned that she mixes with some of the parties concerned in my investigation I assure you that my lips are sealed.”
    “Cressida is a lucky woman.”
    He glanced at Mariah’s face, serene and faintly sympathetic in the light cast by the Argand light on the low table nearby. He did not think jealousy was behind the faint contempt he sensed. Mariah and he had shared similar interests and an affectionate rather than passionate physical relationship all those years ago. He’d been generous when he’d given Mariah her congé but she’d already proved she could do better, having married the much wealthier Lord Grainger nine years earlier. It was, initially, for Justin’s legal expertise that Mariah had turned to him when her marriage to the ageing peer had been in its final stages of disintegration, and the once-famous singer had been struggling to maintain her dignity in the face of Grainger’s shocking treatment of her. Mariah had given the youthful Justin her loyalty and her gratitude for his friendship. Much later she’d given him her body, but never a hint as to the reasons for her humiliating divorce. Not all of them, anyway.
    “It seems Cressida would rather put you through the mill than offer a reasonable argument for her cruelty.” Mariah looked so disdainful that Justin laughed. “You always were my champion, my dear Mariah,” he said, “but since you have never met my wife I beg you to refrain from passing judgement. I must be blamed for this erroneous perception of her, for, I assure you, a man could have no better a wife.” Smiling, refusing to countenance the churning in his breast, he added, “Cressida is the most conscientious of mothers. It is a trial and a sadness that our youngest is not robust, but I will not hear Cressida criticised for choosing her son’s comfort over mine, on occasion.”
    “Perceptions matter as much as the truth.” Mariah fixed him with a direct look. “The word about town is that Lady Lovett has not been seen more than three times by your side during the last year. You are lonely, Justin.”
    The concern in her expression was genuine, not a gambit for offering him the solace of her charms.
    Indeed, it was on account of his genuine liking and respect for his old friend and former mistress that Justin allowed her to persist with the subject.
    “Have you ever suspected there might be someone else, Justin?”
    When he shook his head she countered, gently, “I was married to Lord Grainger for nine years. I thought I knew him better than I knew myself. It was only in the final year of our marriage that I discovered I did not know him at all.”
    This was not the time to question Mariah about her husband. Justin rose and went to the window. “As I have already made plain, Mariah, nothing stands between Cressida and me except”—holding back the curtain he stared into the moonless night—“the children.” It was the first time he’d put it into words. A vision