A Secret Affair

Chapter 22

THIS LOVE BUSINESS, Constantine had discovered over the past several days, could quite unman a person. He had a new respect for married men, all of whom had presumably gone through the ordeal he was currently going through. With the exception of Elliott, of course, who had been proposed to, lucky man.

Reconciling with Vanessa had been easy.

“Don’t say a word,” she had said, hurrying across the drawing room of Moreland House toward him as soon as he had set foot inside it, while Elliott had stood by the fireplace, one elbow propped on the mantel, one eyebrow cocked in amusement. “Not a word. Let us forgive and forget and start making up for lost time. Tell me about your prostitutes.”

Elliott had chuckled aloud.

“Ex-prostitutes,” she had added. “And don’t you dare laugh at me, Constantine, just when we are newly friends again. Tell me about them, and the thieves and vagabonds and unwed mothers.”

She had linked her arm through his and drawn him to sit beside her on a sofa while Elliott had looked on with laughter in his eyes and on his lips.

“If you have an hour or six, Vanessa,” Constantine had said.

“Seven if necessary. You are staying for dinner,” she had told him. “That is already settled. Unless, that is, you have an engagement with Hannah.”

An unfortunate choice of words. And Hannah, was it?

“No,” he had said. “I have to work myself up to falling on one knee and delivering a passionate speech, and it is going to take some time. Not to mention courage.”

Elliott had chuckled again.

“Oh, but it will be worth every moment,” Vanessa had told him, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed. “Elliott looked very splendid indeed when he did it. On wet grass, no less.”

Constantine had looked up reproachfully at his grinning cousin.

“It was after Vanessa had proposed to me,” he had said, raising his right hand. “I could not allow her to have the final word, now, could I? She said yes before I did.”

Theirs might be a story worth knowing, Constantine had thought.

In going impulsively to Dunbarton House within two hours of his return to town, he had hoped to settle the matter with Hannah. And then, when he had found her from home but had learned she was in Hyde Park, he had gone in pursuit of her and had seen—without having to stop and think—the perfect way of declaring himself.

It had not struck him that she might refuse to mount his horse with him. And indeed she had not done so.

It had not occurred to him that after she had done so and after he had kissed her quite lasciviously and in public, and she had kissed him back, she might then refuse to marry him.

Not that she had refused.

It was just that he had not asked.

And he had not even realized that until she had pointed it out. Dash it, there was all the difference in the world between asking and telling, and he had told.

Just like a gauche schoolboy.

Why was there not a university degree course in proposing marriage to the woman of one’s choice? Did everyone mess it up as thoroughly as he had done?

And so he had had to spend three days making amends. Or three days procrastinating. It depended upon whether one was being honest with oneself or not.

But once he had started, he had to allow the three days to proceed on their way. He could hardly rush in with his proposal after sending just one rose and the declaration that he lusted after her, could he?

If she intended to refuse him, he really had been making a prize ass of himself during the three days.

But there was no point in thinking about that, he realized as he dressed to make his afternoon call at Dunbarton House on the third day. He could not possibly not go now to see this wretched ordeal to its conclusion either way.

What if she was not at home? There must be a thousand and one reasons for her to be out—picnics, garden parties, excursions to Kew Gardens or Richmond Park, shopping, strolling early in the park, to name but a few of the myriad possibilities. Indeed, he thought as he rapped on the door, it would be surprising if she were at home.

The baser part of his nature hoped she was out.

Except that he could never go through this again.

The butler, as usual, did not know the contents of his own domain. He had to make his way upstairs as if there were no hurry at all to discover if the Duchess of Dunbarton was at home or not.

She was at home. And willing to receive him, it seemed. He was invited to follow the butler upstairs.

Would she have Miss Leavensworth with her?

They passed the doors of the drawing room and climbed another staircase. They stopped outside a single door, and the butler tapped discreetly on it before opening it and announcing him.

It was a parlor or sitting room, not a bedchamber. She was alone there.

On a table beside the door were a dozen white roses in a crystal vase. On a low table in the middle of the room were two dozen red roses in a silver urn. Their combined scent hung sweetly on the air.

The duchess sat sideways on a window seat, her legs drawn up before her, her arms crossed over her waist. She looked startlingly, vividly beautiful in scarlet red, which matched the roses almost exactly. Her hair lay smooth and shining over her head and was dressed in soft curls at her neck, with wispy tendrils of ringlets at her temples and ears. Her head was turned into the room, and she regarded him with dreamy blue eyes.

He was reminded of the scene in his own bedchamber the night they became lovers. Except that then she had been wearing only his shirt, and her hair had been loose down her back.

The butler closed the door and went on his way.

“Duchess,” he said.

“Constantine.”

She smiled—also dreamily—when he did not immediately continue.

“I need your protection,” she said. “I have been receiving anonymous notes.”

“Have you?” he said.

“Someone,” she said, “lusts after me.”

“I’ll challenge him to pistols at dawn,” he said.

“He also claims to be in love with me,” she said.

“Easily said,” he told her. “It does not go very deep, does it, that euphoric, romantic feeling?”

“But it is one of the most lovely feelings in the world,” she said. “Perhaps the most lovely. I am quite in love with him in return.”

“Lucky fellow,” he said. “I am definitely going to call him out.”

“He says he loves me,” she said, and her eyes made the almost imperceptible but quite remarkable change from dreamy to luminous.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Mind to mind,” she said. “Heart to heart. Soul to soul.”

“And body to body?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice a murmur of sound. “And that too.”

“No barriers,” he said. “No masks or disguises. No fears.”

“None.” She shook her head. “No secrets. Two become one and indivisible.”

“And this,” he said, “is what your anonymous penman is saying to you?”

“In capital letters,” she told him.

“Ostentatious fellow,” he said.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Just look at all the roses he has sent me.”

“Hannah,” he said.

“Yes.”

He was still standing just inside the door. He strode toward her, and she held out her right hand. He took it in both his own and raised it to his lips.

“I do love you,” he said. “In capital letters and in every other way I can think of. And in every way I cannot think of for that matter.”

He heard her inhale slowly.

It was time. And he was no longer nervous. He dropped to one knee, her hand still in his. His face was on a level with her own. The color was high in her cheeks, he could see. Her lips were slightly parted. Her eyes were still luminous and very blue—like the sky beyond the window.

“Hannah,” he said, “will you marry me?”

He had been rehearsing a speech for three long days. He could not remember a word of it.

“Yes,” she said.

He had been convinced that she would tease him, that she would play the part of Duchess of Dunbarton at least for a while before capitulating—if she capitulated at all. He had been so convinced, in fact, that he almost missed her response.

With his ears he almost missed it.

But with his heart?

“Yes,” she had said, and there really was nothing else to say.

They gazed at each other, and he raised her hand to press against his lips again.

“He used to tell me about it,” she said. “About love. And he used to promise me that I would know it for myself one day. I trusted him and believed him for every moment of my life from our first meeting to his final breath, Constantine, but I did not fully believe him in that. I believed that he had loved an extraordinary love for more than fifty years. But I was afraid to believe I ever would. I was wrong to fear, and he was right to be confident for me. I love you.”

“And will for more than fifty years?” he said.

“He used to say it was for eternity,” she said. “I believe him.”

He smiled at her, and she smiled back until he moved his head closer to hers and kissed her.

It had been almost three weeks since they had last made love, and it had seemed to him that he had been hungry for her every moment of every intervening day. Nevertheless, it was not with sexual hunger that they kissed. It was with …

Well, he had only ever kissed with sexual appetite and did not have words for this.

Affection? Far too tame.

Love?

A much overused word.

But whatever it was, they kissed with it.

And then, as their arms closed about each other and he lifted her from the sill and got to his feet with her so that he could turn and sit on the window seat with her on his lap, he knew the word. Or the best one available, anyway.

They kissed with joy.

And then they smiled into each other’s eyes as though they were the ones who had discovered it. Joy, that was. Love ever after.

“Are you quite sure,” he asked her, “that you are willing to sacrifice your title simply for the pleasure of marrying me, Duchess?”

“To be simply Mrs. Huxtable?” she said. “At least you will have to call me Hannah all the time, and I like that.”

“Or Countess,” he said.

She looked blankly at him.

“That would be a little absurd,” she said.

“Not really,” he told her. “The king sent two royal proclamations after your visit to him, you know. Or perhaps you do not know. The one was Jess’s pardon.”

She sat upright on his lap when he did not continue and frowned down at him.

“And the other?” she asked.

“You have just agreed to marry Constantine Huxtable, first Earl of Ainsley,” he said. “The title was awarded for extraordinary service to the poorest and dearest of His Majesty’s loyal subjects. I believe I have quoted him more or less accurately.”

Her jaw dropped.

And then she threw back her head and laughed.

The new Earl of Ainsley laughed with her.

THE EARL AND COUNTESS of Merton were hosting a ball at Merton House the following evening on the occasion of the anniversary of their betrothal ball there the year before.

They had invited family members to dine with them before the ball—Stephen’s three sisters and their spouses, and Cassandra’s brother, Sir Wesley Young, and his fiancée, Miss Julia Winsmore. They had also invited Constantine since he was Stephen’s cousin. And the Duchess of Dunbarton, who was no relative at all.

“I really hoped,” Cassandra said as she and Stephen awaited the arrival of their dinner guests in the drawing room, “that by today it would not seem at all odd that we have invited her, Stephen. Con has been back in London for the better part of a week, and Hannah has been here since we brought her with us from Copeland. And she is the one who persuaded Elliott to go to Ainsley Park and then talked to the king himself. She saved the day almost singlehanded. But nothing has happened yet. Will this dinner be an embarrassment, do you think?”

“Why should it?” he asked. “The duchess has become your friend, and it is perfectly acceptable to invite one’s friend to dine. We intend to announce Con’s new title at the ball tonight, and she was definitely instrumental in bringing that about. She will surely realize that Con is to be one of our dinner guests and will simply stay away if coming will be embarrassing for her. I do not believe the duchess embarrasses easily, however.”

“That scene in the park,” she said. “Meg described it so amusingly and Kate so romantically. And everyone has talked about it ad nauseam ever since. And yet—nothing has happened.”

“We don’t know that,” he said. “Nothing has been announced. We do not know that nothing has happened. They are entitled to some privacy in their own affairs, Cass.”

She sighed.

“We were all so horrified,” she said, “when Con began his affair with her. Not that we were supposed to know about it, of course. Such affairs are always supposed to be secret. She seemed so unsuitable for him. So …”

“Arrogant?” he suggested.

She frowned.

“Well, she did,” she said. “But people are not always what they seem to be, are they? I ought to know that better than most. Perhaps she has always been … well, someone warm and full of fun, someone I very much want as a friend. Someone good. Why are she and Con not affianced?”

Stephen stepped up close to her and kissed her on the mouth.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you can ask each of them as soon as they arrive. Perhaps you can make it a topic of conversation at the dinner table. I am sure my sisters will have something to say on the matter. They seem to have taken the duchess to their collective bosom, just as you have. Even Nessie.”

She laughed and punched him lightly on the arm.

“It would be a lovely opening line,” she said, “as soon as each walks in—why are you not betrothed? I am not a matchmaker, Stephen, but Con is such a lonely man, and Hannah is a lonely woman.”

“And therefore,” he said, “they must belong together.”

“Therefore nothing,” she said tartly. “They do belong together. Anyone who was at Copeland with the two of them would have had to be both blind and stupid not to see it.”

They were saved from further conversation on the subject by the arrival of Vanessa and Elliott and Wesley and Julia almost simultaneously, and then by the appearance of Katherine and Jasper and Margaret and Duncan soon after.

“Is Con coming?” Elliott asked while they were all sipping their drinks.

“He said he was,” Stephen said.

“And Hannah?” Margaret asked.

And they were at it again.

“Mama says they have no choice but to marry,” Julia Winsmore said, “after the way he kissed her in the park. I saw it with my own eyes. It was really quite shocking.”

She blushed.

“And very romantic too, Jule,” Sir Wesley said. “That is what you told me at the time, anyway.”

“I do not believe,” Elliott said, “the duchess would ever be moved by the argument that she has no choice but to do a particular thing.”

“She clearly loves Constantine,” Katherine said. “She will torture him before saying yes.”

Her husband exchanged a pained glance with Duncan over this blatant example of feminine logic.

“Or no,” Margaret said.

“Con is no one’s fool,” Stephen said. “He dances to no one’s tune.”

“But he is in love,” Cassandra pointed out.

And that stifled the conversation. There was silence for a few moments.

The butler appeared and murmured to Cassandra that dinner was ready. It must wait a little longer, she murmured back. She could imagine the consternation her reply would arouse in the kitchen.

And then the remaining two guests arrived—together and a little more than five minutes late.

Both were looking quite radiant enough to send expectations soaring—at least among the ladies gathered in the drawing room. And to cause Cassandra to forgive them instantly for putting her on the outs with her cook.

The Duchess of Dunbarton was looking resplendent in soft turquoise with very little jewelry. None was necessary. She was going to be drawing all eyes her way all evening without them. The sparkle and luster that was usually on the outside of her person was glowing from the inside of her person tonight.

“If we are late,” she said before any greetings could be exchanged, “the fault is entirely mine. I was all ready long before I expected Constantine, but just as I heard his knock at the door I decided that I did not want to wear my favorite white ball gown after all—or all the diamonds that went with it. So I changed while he kicked his heels and ground his teeth down in the hall.”

She smiled dazzlingly about her.

“I never grind my teeth,” Constantine said mildly. “I would have them ground down to stumps if I did it every time you are late, Hannah. I am going to cultivate the virtue of patience. I am going to learn to enjoy waiting around. You had better not be late for our wedding, though. It is said to be bad luck.”

And so all questions were answered without any having to be asked.

And dinner had to wait another quarter of an hour as hugs and kisses and back slaps and handshakes were exchanged and Hannah declared that it was all very lowering but she had agreed to be demoted all the way down from duchess to countess.

“Though plain Mrs. Constantine Huxtable would have suited me admirably too,” she added with another of her radiant smiles.

And her eyes sparkled with unshed tears, and she bit her lower lip, and Constantine set one arm about her shoulders—and Cassandra suggested that they proceed to the dining room before her cook resigned on the spot.