A Secret Affair

Chapter 23

THEY HAD ARGUED since yesterday about where they would marry. Though argued was perhaps not quite the right word since both were fully intent upon being unselfish in the matter.

Constantine thought they should marry at Copeland as it was Hannah’s home and she clearly loved it. A bride ought to marry from her own home.

He was wise enough not to mention Markle.

Hannah thought they should marry at Ainsley as it was Constantine’s home and he clearly loved it. Besides, it seemed fitting that the new Earl of Ainsley should marry at Ainsley Park.

They agreed that St. George’s was the best and most convenient compromise. It was on Hanover Square, a mere stone’s throw from Dunbarton House. The bride could walk there. The whole ton could be expected to attend. Perhaps even the king would come. It was the fashionable place to marry.

Neither of them wanted to marry there, though neither was willing to admit it to the other.

It was going to have to be Copeland.

Or Ainsley.

Or perhaps St. George’s.

“Tell us about your nuptials, Your Grace,” Miss Winsmore said as soon as they were all seated about the dinner table at Merton House. “When and where are they to be?”

“As soon as possible to answer your first question,” Hannah said. “We still have not decided the answer to your second.”

She drew breath to give her vote for Ainsley Park, expecting that Constantine’s family would back her up, but the Earl of Merton spoke first.

“But you must marry at Warren Hall, Con,” he said. “It is still and always your home. It is where you were born, where you grew up. The private chapel has always been used for family weddings and christenings and … burials,” he added more softly.

“Oh, that would be so lovely,” Cassandra said as footmen served the first course. “But Hannah may have other ideas, Stephen. It is her wedding as well as Con’s.”

But she gazed at Hannah with wistful eyes.

“Elliott and I married there,” Vanessa said, “as did Cassandra and Stephen last year. It is the loveliest place for a wedding. The chapel is in a quiet corner of the park, among the trees, and it is full to overflowing with just a few guests. There is a wonderful sense of history there too with the churchyard surrounding the chapel. Family history.”

It must be where Jonathan was buried, Hannah thought. And suddenly she knew that that was where they must marry. She felt a sense of rightness about it even before she looked across the table at Constantine and noted the intense, drawn look on his face.

“It is good of you to be willing to lend us the chapel, Stephen,” he said. “But I think Hannah must be allowed to—”

“Choose for herself?” she said, interrupting him. “I will, then. Thank you. I will choose.”

She knew that his smile came at a great cost.

“I choose Warren Hall,” she said, her eyes on his.

And she felt almost as though she were falling into them as his smile faded.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I am absolutely sure,” she told him, and she was. “Warren Hall it will be. Thank you, Lord Merton. You are very kind.”

“I think I had better be Stephen,” he said, “if you are going to marry Con. I think we had better all be on a first-name basis.”

And suddenly everyone was talking at once, and the dinner was being consumed with great appetite. Margaret, Vanessa, and Katherine had the grand ballroom at Warren Hall and the private chapel decorated for the wedding festivities before the main course was removed, and Cassandra had the menu for the wedding breakfast drawn up before dessert was served.

“You might as well relax and let things happen, Con,” Elliott advised. “You have done your job. You have offered Hannah marriage and been accepted. The rest is in the hands of the ladies.”

For a day or two before her wedding, Hannah was informed, she would stay at Finchley Park, one of the Duke of Moreland’s estates adjoining Warren Hall, the place where he had grown up. So would several other people, including Vanessa and Elliott and their children and Elliott’s mother and sisters and any personal guests Hannah chose to invite. But she must not worry, Vanessa assured her. There was a picturesque and secluded dower house by the lake at Finchley, where she and Elliott had spent their honeymoon. It was where Hannah and Constantine must spend theirs. And if there were a more romantic setting in which to begin a marriage, Vanessa did not know where it might be.

“Do you remember the daffodils?” she asked Elliott.

And the rather austere Duke of Moreland was observed to wink back at her.

Hannah caught Constantine’s eye across the table, and they exchanged a smile that might well have been imperceptible to anyone else. He had warned her on the way here that his female cousins on his father’s side were a formidable trio, and that Cassandra was proving to be a worthy addition to their number. If Hannah was not careful, he had told her, her wedding would be taken right out of her hands and caught up in their very capable ones.

And that was before he had known the wedding would be in their domain—at Warren Hall.

“Oh, dear,” Katherine said suddenly, and the tone of her voice caused a general hush about the table. “We are at it again. We grew up in a small country village, Hannah, as children of the vicar. There were always things to be done and things to be organized. And we were the ones who tended to step forward to do them and organize them. Unless someone does it, you know, nothing gets done at all and country life becomes unutterably dull. But though we have left that life behind, we have never got out of the habit of organizing.”

“We have not indeed,” Margaret said with a sigh. “You have never been known as a helpless, indecisive lady, Hannah. I daresay you have been sitting there laughing at us. You probably have your wedding all planned without any help from us.”

All eyes were on her, Hannah was aware, the ladies’ rather wistful, the gentlemen’s more amused.

“I am not laughing,” she said. “Quite the opposite.” And, sure enough, she had to blink away tears. “And I have never planned a wedding—or had one planned for me. I agreed yesterday to marry Constantine, but I can see today that I will be marrying into his family too, and I am happier about that than I can possibly say.”

The duke had told her that when she found love she would find the community of belonging that went with it.

It was almost time for the ball to begin. The gentlemen did not linger in the dining room after the ladies left. They all adjourned together to the ballroom to await the arrival of the first guests.

Constantine’s new title was to be announced at supper, Hannah knew. And so was their betrothal. It was the beginning of a new era. She glanced down at the lovely turquoise of her gown and was glad she had changed out of her white dress even though doing so had made her late. She did not have to hide any longer. She did not have to fortify herself with any armor of ice and diamonds.

She was the Duchess of Dunbarton, soon to be the Countess of Ainsley. But most important of all, she was Hannah. She was herself as life and her own character and experiences had made her. She liked herself. And she was in love.

She was happy.

Guests began to arrive, and Constantine took her hand and set it on his sleeve. They strolled together about the ballroom, stopping briefly to talk to acquaintances as they went. They were both smiling.

“Have you noticed,” Constantine asked, “that everyone who enters the ballroom looks at you twice, once with a simple appreciation for your beauty, and once with sudden, shocked recognition?”

“I think it is you they are looking at,” she said. “You look quite dazzling when you smile.”

“You are happy about Warren Hall?” he asked.

“I am,” she said. “You will have all your family close by, Constantine. Including Jonathan.”

“Yes,” he said. “And you, Hannah?”

She looked at him and her smile faded.

“Will you have your family close by?” he asked.

“I will invite Barbara and Mr. Newcombe,” she said. “Perhaps they will be willing to travel again for my wedding.”

“When you are not going to theirs?” he said. “Is that real friendship?”

Why was he talking about this now? The ballroom was filling. The air was growing warm. The level of conversation was rising. The orchestra members were tuning their instruments.

“Very well,” she said, lifting both her chin and her fan and becoming for the moment the Duchess of Dunbarton. “I will invite my father and my sister and brother-in-law and my nephews and nieces. I will even invite the Reverend and Mrs. Leavensworth. And I will go to Barbara’s wedding. We will both go. Are you satisfied?”

“I am,” he said. “My love.”

And very briefly and very scandalously, especially in light of an announcement that had not yet been made, he touched his lips to hers.

“You are going to have to marry me after that, sir,” she said.

“Dash it all,” he said, grinning, “and so I am.”

“None of them will come,” she warned him. “Except perhaps Barbara. Even she will probably not.”

“The reaching out is everything, my love,” he said. “It is all you can do. It is all any of us can ever do. Come and dance with me. And then I will with the greatest reluctance obey all the rules and dance with you only once more—after supper and the announcements. It is to be a waltz. I wrestled Stephen to the floor and held him there until he agreed that a waltz it would be.”

She laughed.

“And if my card is full?” she asked.

“Then I will wrestle your waltz partner to the floor and hold him there until he remembers that he is wearing new dancing shoes and they are pinching and blistering his toes horribly,” he said.

“Absurd,” she said, still laughing.

SOMETHING ELSE they had discussed both yesterday and today was where they would live after their marriage. It had been an easier matter to settle.

At Ainsley Park, Constantine had already moved out of the house in order to accommodate more residents. The dower house had been perfectly satisfactory for his bachelor needs, but it would be less so for a wife and—it was to be hoped—a family. And if he spent less time there, he explained to Hannah, then some of the rooms at the dower house could be opened up too—perhaps for his manager and the instructors. All they themselves would need was one suite of rooms for their use when they went there for visits.

He would go a few times a year, of course. Those people were precious to him, and he dared believe that he was precious to them too.

At Copeland Hannah would be close to Land’s End and the elderly people there of whom she was so fond. But Copeland itself would be their own private domain. And it was lovely indeed with its unspoiled park and house on a rise with breathtaking views in every direction. It would be a child’s paradise in the years to come. It was close to London.

And London would, of course, be their home during the spring. Next year he would have to take his place in the Upper House of Parliament. They would live at his house there even though it was not in the most fashionable part of town. They did not need anything ostentatious.

Copeland, then, was to be their primary home.

He was happy about that, Constantine thought as he danced and watched Hannah dance. He would be happy actually to live in a hovel with her—though perhaps it would be as well if no one ever put that theory to the test.

And then it was suppertime and Stephen announced to the gathered ton that his cousin, Constantine Huxtable, was to be honored by His Majesty the King with the title Earl of Ainsley before the Season ended. And that the Earl of Ainsley would take the Duchess of Dunbarton as his countess soon afterward in a private ceremony at Warren Hall.

How many weeks was it, Constantine wondered, since he had ridden in Hyde Park with Monty and Stephen and seen Hannah for the first time in two years—and looked upon her with disapproval? It was not very many, but it was hard to remember quite how she had looked to him then. It was strange how very different a person looked when one knew her inside as well as out.

He had been starting to think about marrying even then. Little had he realized, though, as he looked upon her in the park, that she was the one.

The one.

His only love.

The dancing was late resuming. Everyone wanted to congratulate them and wish them well. A large number of men swore they would wear black armbands for a whole year, starting tomorrow. Hannah tapped them all sharply on the sleeve with her fan.

And then it was time to waltz.

It was a dance Constantine had always enjoyed, provided he was allowed to choose his own partners. Fortunately, men had more control of such matters than women did. But Hannah did not look as if she was complaining when he led her onto the floor.

“Happy?” he asked her as he circled her waist with his right arm and took her right hand in his left.

“Oh, I am,” she said with a sigh. “But I am not at all sure I am going to enjoy all the fuss of these wedding preparations. Perhaps we ought to have eloped.”

“My cousins would never forgive us,” he said, grinning at her.

“I know,” she said. “But I just want to be with you.”

He had been trying valiantly to ignore similar feelings.

“You want to come tonight,” he asked her, “after the ball?”

She gazed into his eyes for several moments before sighing again.

“No,” she said at last. “I am no longer your lover, Constantine. I am your betrothed. There is a difference.”

He was disappointed—and relieved. There was a difference.

“We will be good, then,” he said, “and look forward to our wedding night.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But it is not just that. I want … Oh, I do not know what I want. I want to be your wife.”

He smiled at her.

“And I have just remembered something,” she said, brightening visibly. “The duke taught me that I should never say I want, that it implies a lack in myself and leads to abjectness. I do not want to be your wife. I will be your wife, and I shall throw myself into preparations for my wedding with Margaret and the others so that the time may go faster. And oh, Constantine, it is wonderful indeed to have family to fuss over my wedding, even if part of me would prefer to elope.”

The music began.

They waltzed beneath chandeliers bright with candlelight and among banks of flowers and ferns and about other dancers with their swirling satins and silks of many colors and their gleaming jewels, and they had eyes only for each other.

He had always felt that he lived on the edges of life, Constantine realized, watching everyone else living, sometimes helping them do it. He had been hurt so deeply by Jon’s death because he had tried to live his brother’s life and discovered at the end that it could not be done. Jon had had to do his own dying. Which was only right and proper, he knew now. Jon had lived his own life, and he had lived it richly and then died when his time came.

And now it was his, Constantine’s, turn. Suddenly, and for the first time, he was at the center of his own life, living it and loving it.

Loving the woman who was at the center of it with him.

Loving Hannah.

She was smiling at him.

He twirled them about one corner of the ballroom and smiled back.