by Mary Balogh
She positively ached with love for him, foolish woman that she was.
All of which was quite inappropriate to the moment anyway. She lifted her head, smiled, and turned to introduce her visitors to the Reverend Newcombe.
He and Barbara were both on their feet. Barbara’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears. She hurried forward to hug Hannah.
“I knew the king would not forget,” she said.
Would this now be the end, Hannah wondered. The earl had just said that Constantine would travel back to town with the Duke of Moreland. But would he change his mind and stay at Ainsley since the Season was already more than half over? Would he need to stay, as he had intended anyway, to help console poor Jess and soothe some ruffled feathers among his neighbors? Now that he was away from her, would he decide that this was a convenient time to end their affair?
She had told him she loved him. That might persuade him to keep his distance from her for the next year or two.
Or would he come back? Would he resume their affair as though there had been no interruption?
Would she?
She had not thought about it before now. And now was not an appropriate time. She had two sets of visitors to entertain, though Cassandra was in the process of explaining that they would not stay, that they must go and let Vanessa know what had happened and how soon she could expect the duke’s return home.
Would she continue living here by day, going to Constantine’s house by night so that they could make love?
She ached to make love. To be made love to.
She was his mistress.
He was her lover.
Was it enough?
It was what they had agreed upon. It was what she had wanted for this, her first year of freedom. Indeed, she was the one who had initiated the whole thing.
Had she changed her mind so soon?
She could not bear for them not to be lovers any longer.
She could not bear for them to be lovers either.
She really did love him. She had told him the truth about that—which may, of course, not have been a wise thing to do.
Why did loving him and being his lover seem like two mutually exclusive things?
Ah, she thought as she bade the earl and Cassandra a good day and thanked them for coming, she was no more calm and in control of her emotions now than she had been at the age of nineteen. The eleven intervening years might never have been.
Except that now she could see that she had a clear choice before her and that it was she alone who must make it. Calmly and rationally. Provided Constantine himself did not make it for her, that was, by staying at Ainsley.
Would they remain lovers for the rest of the Season?
Or would they not?
The choice could not be simpler.
Making it was another matter, of course.
“Will you come with us, Hannah?” Barbara asked when the three of them were alone with one another in the drawing room once more. “You no longer have to wait at home for news, do you? It has come, and it is the very best news possible.”
“Why not?” Hannah said, looking from one to the other of them. “Let us celebrate by going to look at some old books.”
The Reverend Newcombe beamed.
CONSTANTINE REMAINED at Ainsley Park for four days after Jess had been freed and Stephen had taken the duchess’s carriage and returned to London.
He felt the need to be with his people for a while as they all recovered from their terrible anxiety and settled back to their normal everyday life. He felt the need to call upon all his neighbors and talk openly with them about the situation at Ainsley. He could not promise them that awkward situations like this one would never arise again, but he could and did remind them that the incident with Jess was the first of its kind in all the years he had been here. And he explained that all his people appreciated the new chance in life they were being given here and were doing all in their power to become respectable and productive individuals again. He was not running a thieves’ den—or a brothel. Even Jess was not a thief by nature, but a man who had tried to put right a wrong without thinking through what he was doing. And Jess was leaving. He would not be at Ainsley ever again.
Most of his neighbors received him with courtesy. A few received him with warm kindness. A few others reserved their judgment. Kincaid was openly skeptical though not unduly hostile. Time would bring him around, Constantine believed and hoped.
He stayed at Ainsley for four days so that Jess could recover somewhat from his ordeal and accustom himself to the idea that his training at Ainsley Park was over and that he was to be promoted to a position he had always dreamed of, that of stable hand. The Duke of Moreland was offering him such a position at Rigby Abbey, his own country estate. It was going to be hard on them all to see him go, Constantine explained, but the duke was his cousin, and if he must let Jess move on to a better position, then he would rather it be with a relative than with a stranger. And he would be able to see Jess from time to time when he visited the duke. He would be able to bring him news of all his friends at Ainsley.
He had never been to Rigby Abbey himself.
One thing that surprised him was that Elliott chose to remain at Ainsley too, though it was obvious he hated being away from his wife and children. He stayed to renew their friendship. There could be no other reason. And renew it they did, tentatively at first, with growing ease as the days passed.
It felt like a gift, a balm to the soul, to have Elliott back. Constantine had not realized just how much he had missed him. Losing him and then losing Jon had all been mixed up together in one massively lonely emptiness.
Now he had Elliott back. And they talked about Jon. They shared memories of him—not the painful last ones, but those encompassing the previous fifteen years or so.
Constantine found those four days healing and relaxing, though a part of him fretted to be back in London. Even so, he tried to keep his mind off Hannah as much as he could. He was not ready yet to think.
She had told him she loved him.
By the time he returned to London in Elliott’s luxurious carriage, Jess up on the box with the coachman while the footman rode behind, Constantine had been gone from London for almost two weeks.
He had to go and call upon the duchess to thank her for her intervention on behalf of Jess—he could hardly call it interference, could he?—and for the use of her carriage.
He found himself strangely reluctant to go, though. What would happen now? A return to the status quo? She would be his mistress again? He would be her lover again?
He longed for her. It was almost three weeks since he had last had her.
They were having an affair. A sexual fling. A temporary one, until the Season’s end, for their mutual pleasure.
Good God, was that what they were having?
It sounded damnably … what was the word his mind sought? Cheap? Sordid? Unsatisfactory? Definitely that last. Probably those first two as well. But that was strange. His previous affairs had never seemed any of the three. He had enjoyed them for what they were worth, ended them when the time came, and put them behind him.
An affair with Hannah, of course, was not enough.
He loved her.
He had scarcely thought of her in the past week and a half. Not consciously anyway. And yet she had been there at every moment of every day. A part of him.
It was dashed alarming.
Or was it?
She had told him she loved him before he left Copeland. Did she mean it? In that way? Devil take it, but he had so little experience with love. With that kind of love anyway. But perhaps everyone did until love came and punched them between the eyes. What did her actions say? Did they bear out her words?
What had she done after he had left—in her carriage?
She had dragged Stephen back to London with her, bearded Elliott in his den, packed the two of them off to Gloucestershire, and then dashed off to rouse the king.
All for a m
entally handicapped stranger?
Hardly, compassionate as she undoubtedly was.
Elliott, on the seat opposite him in the carriage, yawned.
“You were staring fixedly into space when I dozed off, Con,” he said, “and you are still doing it when I wake up again. Worried about Jess, are you? You did a fine job of convincing him he has graduated with honors from Ainsley and has been promoted to Rigby. And I can be kind enough to my employees when I forget to be the autocratic duke.”
Constantine looked at him.
“I am deeply in your debt,” he said. “For everything.”
Elliott grinned.
“Do you imagine for one moment,” he said, “that I am going to let you forget it?”
Constantine chuckled.
“No,” he said. “I know you from of old.”
“Are you going to marry her?” Elliott asked.
And there it was. The idea his mind had been skirting about for days.
He wanted to marry. He wanted to have children. He wanted all those things he had avoided for years. He wanted to settle down.
But—with the Duchess of Dunbarton?
With Hannah?
It was like thinking of two different persons. But she was one and the same. She was both the duchess as he had always known her and Hannah as she had revealed herself since they became lovers. She could not be summed up in one word or one sentence. Even in one paragraph. Even in one book or one library. She was a vibrant, complex individual, and he loved her.
“The idea had not crossed my mind,” he said.
“Liar!” Elliott was still grinning.
“What made you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you wanted to marry Vanessa?” Constantine asked.
“I didn’t,” Elliott said. “She proposed to me, and I was so shocked that I said yes before I knew what I was doing and was stuck with the decision forever after.”
“If you don’t want to tell me,” Constantine said, “you can just say so, you know.”
Elliott held up his right hand.
“Honest truth,” he said. “By the time I loved her more than life, I was already married to her and didn’t have to go through all the agony of deciding how and where and when and whether to make my offer.”
“She might laugh at me,” Constantine said.
“It is a distinct possibility,” Elliott conceded after thinking about it for a moment. “She is a formidable lady, is she not? Not to mention beautiful. She could probably have any unmarried man in the realm she chose to set her sights upon. She might laugh at your suit, Con. She might also weep. That would be more promising.”
“The Duchess of Dunbarton, Elliott,” Constantine said. “I would have to be mad.”
“Why?” Elliott said. “You have much to offer, Con, and you are considerably more eligible today than you were a week ago.” He grinned again.
Constantine shrugged.
“Vanessa swears,” Elliott said, “that there is passion beneath all that sparkling white ice, Con, and that when the duchess finds an object upon which to focus it, she will be as constant as the north star. Vanessa tends to know these things. I would not dream of arguing with her upon such matters. I would turn out to be wrong, and she would gallantly refrain from saying I told you so, and I would feel like an idiot.”
“Hmm,” Constantine said.
“For your edification,” Elliott added, “she says that you have become that object, Con. You had better come with me to Moreland House as soon as we get back to town, by the way, and make your peace with Vanessa before you go off to Dunbarton House.”
“Right,” Constantine said before setting his head back and pretending to sleep so that there would be no more such talk.
He dozed off while wondering if she would laugh or weep if he offered her marriage.
Or whether he would give her the opportunity to do either.
HANNAH THOUGHT she must have been right to fear that Constantine would stay at Ainsley and so avoid the issue of their affair and the words she had so incautiously spoken to him when they were at Copeland. He did not return to London the day after the Earl of Merton or even the day after that.
But, she discovered after three days, neither did the Duke of Moreland. They were both still out of town. Hannah found that out when she met the duchess during the afternoon when they were both calling upon Katherine to see if she was still suffering morning sickness.
So perhaps he would return after all. The duke certainly would.
In the meantime, it did not take Hannah long to discover that she had tired of her new favorite almost as quickly as everyone had predicted. She had cast him off without pity, and he had gone off into the country to lick his wounds. She was looking about her for a new lover, who would have his moment in the sun before being cast off in his turn. Everyone wondered who he would be. There was no lack of eager candidates.
This, at least, was the gossip that was doing the rounds of London clubs and drawing rooms. It would have been amusing had she not been so consumed with anxiety lest she be the one abandoned.
There was nothing to be done, however, but to live up to expectations while she waited. She was certainly not going to stay at home like a recluse any longer. On one brilliantly sunny afternoon she donned her most dazzling white muslin dress and bonnet, added ostentatiously large diamonds to her earlobes and gloved fingers and one wrist, raised a white lacy parasol over her head, and sallied forth for a walk in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour.
Barbara and the Reverend Newcombe accompanied her. It was their last day in London. Tomorrow they would return to Markle, Babs in a carriage with her maid, the vicar on horseback beside it so that all the proprieties might be observed. Hannah had wanted them to spend their last afternoon in town alone somewhere together—she had suggested Richmond Park—but they had insisted upon remaining with her.
They were soon surrounded by people, most of them male, though not all. Margaret and Katherine were together in an open barouche and stopped to talk for a while. Katherine, upon learning that Barbara was to leave the next day, insisted that Hannah come to dine in the evening. And Margaret invited her to attend the opera with them the evening after.
“We have almost but not quite persuaded Duncan’s grandpapa to come with us,” she said. “If he knows you are to be of our party, Hannah, he will surely come.”
“Then tell him I have accepted only on condition that he does too,” Hannah said. “Tell him that if he fails to come, I shall be at Claverbrook House the following morning to demand an explanation from him.”
Barbara and the Reverend Newcombe were talking with Mr. and Mrs. Park and another couple.
The barouche drove on, and Hannah was swallowed up in a circle of her old male friends, some of whom were also would-be suitors, and a few new admirers. It felt very comfortable, she thought after a few minutes, to be back within the old armor, playing the part of the Duchess of Dunbarton while guarding the more fragile person of Hannah Reid safely within.
And yet it was a part that could not be played indefinitely. She had not realized that until now. She certainly had not realized it at the start of the Season. Playing the part had been easy and even enjoyable while the duke had lived. There had been his company, his companionship, and—yes—his love in which to bask when she was not on public display. But now? There was only loneliness to look forward to after she went home. And Babs was leaving tomorrow.
Would new friends and old be enough in the coming days and months—and years?
Oh, Constantine, where are you? And are you going to avoid me if and when you return?
She was laughing at something Lord Moodie had just said and tapping him sharply on the sleeve of his coat when her court parted down the middle to let a horse through. A queer sort of hush descended too.
It was an all-black horse.
Constantine’s.
Hannah looked up and gave her parasol a violent enough twirl to create a slight breeze about her head.
Constantine. All in black except for his shirt. Narrow-faced. Dark-eyed. Unsmiling. Almost sinister. Almost satanic.
Her dearly beloved.
Goodness, where had those fanciful words sprung from? The marriage service?
“Mr. Huxtable?” Her eyebrows arched upward.
“Duchess.”
Her court hung upon their words as though they had delivered a lengthy monologue apiece.
“You have deigned to favor London with your presence again, then?” she asked.
Her court sighed with almost inaudible approval of her disdain for a man who had come back after she had rejected him. His time was over, that near-silent sigh informed him. The sooner he rode on and bore his heartbreak with some dignity, the better for all concerned.
For answer, he held out one hand, clad in skin-tight black leather. His eyes held Hannah’s with an intensity that made it impossible for her to look away.
“Set your foot on my boot,” he said.
What?
“Oh, I say,” one unidentified gentleman protested. “Can you not see, Huxtable, that her grace …”
Hannah was not listening. Her eyes were fighting a battle of wills with Constantine’s. She was dressed as unsuitably for riding as she could possibly be. If he wanted to speak with her, it would be far easier and infinitely more gallant for him to descend from his horse’s back. But he wanted to see her—and he wanted the ton to see her—make a spectacle of herself. He wanted to provide the ton with talk of scandal to last a month. He wanted to show the world that he was master, that he had merely to snap his fingers for her to come running.
She gave her parasol one more twirl and looked mockingly up at him.
There was another near-inaudible sigh of approval. If Hannah had looked about her, she would have seen that her court had grown in number and that its members were no longer all male. There was already fodder enough here for drawing room conversation to last a fortnight.
Hannah slowly and deliberately lowered and furled her parasol before handing it without a word or a glance to Lord Hardingraye beside her. She took two steps forward, lifted her skirt with one hand to set her very delicate white slipper on the high gloss of Constantine’s hard black riding boot, and reached up her other hand to set in his—white silk on black leather.
