A Secret Affair hq-5

by Mary Balogh

  “With high spirits?” she said. “I never sparkle with high spirits. It would be vulgar. I daresay you mean my jewels.” She held up her left hand. “The diamond on my third finger was a wedding present. At the time I did not believe it was real. I did not know they came so large. The one on my little finger was a gift for my twentieth birthday.” She held out both hands. “There was a ring for each of my birthdays after that, to fit different fingers, until I ran out of fingers and we had to start over again since I thought they would be uncomfortable on my toes. And there was a ring too for each wedding anniversary and for other assorted occasions.”

  “And for Christmas?” he asked.

  “It was always a necklace and earrings for Christmas,” she said, “and a bracelet for Valentine’s Day, which the duke would observe, foolish man. He was very generous.”

  “As the whole world can see,” he said.

  She lowered her hands to her lap and turned her head to look fully at him.

  “Jewels are meant to be seen, Constantine,” she said. “So is beauty. I will never apologize for being either rich or beautiful.”

  “Or vain?” he said.

  “Is it vain,” she asked him, “to be truthful? I have been beautiful since childhood. I will probably retain some beauty even into old age, if I should live so long. I have been told that I have good bone structure. I claim no credit for my beauty just as a musician or actor can claim no credit for his talent. But we can all claim credit for using the gifts we brought with us into this life.”

  “Beauty is a gift?” he asked.

  “It is,” she said. “Beauty ought to be cultivated and admired. There is too much ugliness in life. Beauty can bring joy. Why do we decorate our homes with paintings and vases and tapestries? Why do we not hide them away in a dark cupboard so that they will not fade or become damaged?”

  “I would hate it, Duchess,” he said, “if you hid yourself away in a dark cupboard. Unless, that is, I could hide in there with you.”

  She almost laughed. But laughter was not a part of her public persona, and she did not doubt that many eyes were still upon her.

  “The play is about to begin,” he said, and she turned her attention to the stage.

  She had not explained that very well, had she? The duke had taught her not to curse her beauty or be wary of it or try to hide it. Or deny it. All of which she had been well on her way to doing when she married him. He had taught her to enhance it and to celebrate it.

  And she had celebrated. For ten years she had been the light in his eyes, and somehow that had been enough.

  Almost enough.

  Now she asked herself how much joy her beauty had really given. To him, yes. But to anyone else? Did it matter if it had not? He had been her husband. It had been her duty and her joy to give him joy.

  When had she last felt real joy? The sort that set one to twirling about in a meadow of hay and wildflowers, one’s arms outstretched, one’s face lifted to the sun? Or that sent one running along a sandy beach, the wind in one’s hair?

  Was beauty really a gift, as musical talent was?

  And wherever were these maudlin thoughts coming from when there was a comedy in progress on the stage? The audience laughed as one, and Hannah fanned her face.

  She had found intense enjoyment in Constantine’s bedchamber last week. But joy?

  She would find it there tonight. She might even stay all night. It must be a strange feeling actually to sleep with a man in bed. To wake up beside him. To—

  “Duchess.” His breath was warm on her ear. His voice was almost a whisper. “Woolgathering?”

  “Constantine,” she murmured in response without taking her eyes off the stage, “watching me rather than the play?”

  He did not answer.

  ***

  CONSTANTINE HAD HAD a brief conversation with Monty in the box before going back down to the lobby to await the arrival of the duchess and Miss Leavensworth. Katherine had been speaking with the Parks and Mrs. Park’s brother, who were also of their party.

  “Now let me guess, Con,” Monty had said. “Miss Leavensworth, is it? She is not a bad looker, but—Well, for shame. She is betrothed, I seem to recall. To a clergyman.”

  “Not Miss Leavensworth, Monty, as you are very well aware,” Constantine had said.

  Monty had recoiled in mock amazement. “Never tell me it is the duchess?” he had said. “After your disclaimer in the park when she looked you over from toe to head but did not offer her hand to be kissed?”

  “A man may be allowed to change his mind from time to time,” Constantine had said.

  “So the duchess is to be your mistress for this year.” Monty had grinned and shaken his head. “Dangerous, Con. Dangerous.”

  “I do believe,” Constantine had said, “I can handle all the danger she cares to throw my way, Monty.”

  Monty had waggled his eyebrows.

  “Ah,” he had said, “but can she handle everything you throw her way, Con? This will be an interesting spring.”

  Yes, it would, Constantine thought at the end of the evening as his carriage followed the duchess’s to Hanover Square—she had insisted, as she ought, upon returning to Dunbarton House with her friend. She would transfer to his carriage once they arrived there.

  Yes, it would be an interesting spring. A sensually satisfying one, anyway, he did not doubt. The wait from last week to tonight had seemed interminable, and he guessed that his sexual appetite for the Duchess of Dunbarton would be barely sated before it was time for them both to go to their separate homes for the summer.

  Their affair would not resume next year, of course. Neither of them would want that.

  But was he making a mistake even this year?

  She was beautiful, desirable, and vain. She was rich and arrogant and shallow.

  He had not thought himself capable of abandoning all other considerations just for lust. Lust was his only motive for taking the duchess as his mistress, though.

  And perhaps a certain fascination too. One he shared with much of the male half of the ton, of course, and with a significant proportion of the female half, for different reasons.

  But only he knew the one very interesting fact about her—that she had lived to the age of thirty without ever once having sex.

  It was still hard to believe.

  His carriage drew to a halt behind hers, and he watched the two ladies disappear into the house. The doors closed. Her carriage was driven away, and his drew up closer to the front steps.

  The front door remained closed for eighteen minutes. Constantine slouched in his seat and wondered how long he would wait and how many persons were standing behind curtains at darkened windows about the square, preparing to make him the laughingstock tomorrow.

  He felt more amusement than anger.

  She was certainly not going to relinquish any control to him, was she?

  He wondered if the old duke had found her a handful. But damn it all, she had never been unfaithful to him.

  How long would he wait? he wondered again.

  After eighteen minutes the doors of Dunbarton House opened again, and she emerged, dressed in last week’s white cloak, the wide hood over her head.

  Had she changed clothes?

  Constantine got out of the carriage, extended a hand for hers, and helped her in. He climbed in after her and took a seat beside her. His coachman shut the door, and the carriage rocked on its springs as he climbed up to the box and drove the carriage around the square and out onto the street.

  Constantine turned to look at her in the darkness. Neither of them had spoken. He reached for the clasp at her neck and undid it before lowering the hood from her head and opening back the cloak.

  Her hair was loose again, held back from her face with heavy jeweled clips above her ears. Her dress was dark in color—blue or purple, perhaps. Royal blue, he saw in the shaft of light from a street lamp as they passed. It was low cut, high waisted. The diamonds had gone from her neck and e
arlobes.

  She was a woman ready for her lover.

  He lowered his head and kissed her. Her lips were warm, slightly parted, receptive.

  He slid one arm behind her back, one beneath her knees, and swung her over onto his lap.

  He kissed her again, and she slid her arms about his neck.

  Oh, yes, there was lust right enough.

  And something else, perhaps?

  It was pure rationalization that made him imagine so. This was not partially about companionship, as his affairs usually were. This was purely about lust.

  Sex.

  Which they were going to be having with great vigor within the hour. It was enough. The summer and winter had been long. Surely he could be forgiven a little unbridled lust during the spring.

  They had not spoken a word to each other since they left the theater.

  ***

  SHE WAS NOT to be whisked upstairs and tossed onto his bed without further ado, Hannah discovered when they stepped inside his house and he dismissed the butler for the night, saying he would have no further need of him.

  Constantine then took her by the elbow and guided her into the room where they had dined last week. The table was set again, with cold meats and cheese and bread and wine this time. A single candle was burning in the center of the table. And a fire crackled in the hearth again.

  It was as much a relief as a disappointment, Hannah found. Not that she was particularly hungry. Or in need of wine. And she had certainly been wanting him very badly all evening. She had hardly concentrated at all upon the play, one of her favorites. And desire had all but boiled over in the carriage, especially after he had lifted her onto his lap.

  How deliciously strong he was to be able to do that without heaving and hauling her and panting with the exertion. She weighed a mite more than a feather, after all.

  She was glad desire had not quite boiled over. Which was a strange thought. She was doing all this purely out of lust, was she not? This spring she was free to take a lover, she had deliberately chosen to take one, and she had very carefully selected Constantine Huxtable.

  Only to discover that lust was not quite sufficient in itself.

  How very provoking!

  One really ought to be able to fix one’s mind upon a certain goal—especially when one had chosen it and worked toward it with deliberate care—and move inexorably forward until it was achieved.

  Her goal was to enjoy the person of Constantine Huxtable until summer drove her off to Kent and him to wherever in Gloucestershire he had his home.

  What was the big secret about that place, she wondered, that he would tell her nothing?

  And now she was discovering that perhaps his person—gorgeous and perfect as it was—was not enough.

  Maybe she was just tired. Oh, but she was still feeling lusty too. She was glad, though, that there was to be some supper first—even if she did not eat anything.

  He drew her cloak off her shoulders, standing behind her as he did so. His hands barely touched her.

  “Duchess?” he said, indicating the chair on which she had sat last week. “Will you have a seat?”

  He poured the wine as she seated herself. She placed a little of everything on her plate.

  “Did you enjoy the performance?” she asked.

  “I was somewhat distracted through much of it,” he said. “But I believe it was entertaining.”

  “Barbara was ecstatic,” she said. “She views the London scene, of course, through eyes that have not become jaded.”

  “She has never been here before?” he asked.

  “She has,” she said. “While I was married I occasionally prevailed upon her to spend a couple of weeks or so with me, though most of those visits were in the country rather than in town. And she would never stay long. She was terrified of the duke.”

  “Did she have reason to be?” he asked.

  “He was a duke,” she said. “He had been since the age of twelve. He had been a duke for longer than sixty years when I married him. Of course she had reason to be terrified even though he always went out of his way to be courteous to her. She is a vicar’s daughter, Constantine.”

  “But you were not terrified of him?” he asked.

  “I adored him,” she said, picking up her glass and twirling the stem in her fingers.

  “How did you meet him?” he asked.

  How had the conversation swung in this direction? That was the trouble with conversations.

  “He had a family which he liked to describe as ‘prodigious large and tedious,’” she said. “He ignored them when he could, which was most of the time. But he had a sense of duty too. He attended the wedding of one relative, who was fourteenth in line to his title. He always felt an obligation to anyone who was higher than twentieth in line, he told me. I was at the wedding celebrations too. We met there.”

  “And married soon after,” he said. “It must have been love at first sight.”

  “If I had not noted the hint of irony in your voice, Constantine,” she said, “I would tell you not to be ridiculous.”

  He gazed at her silently for a few moments.

  “Your youth and beauty and his rank and wealth?” he said.

  “The reason behind a thousand marriages,” she said, biting off a piece of cheese. “You make the duke and me sound quite ordinary, Constantine.”

  “I am quite sure, Duchess,” he said, “you do not need my assurance that you were in fact a quite extraordinary couple, but I will give it anyway.”

  “He was quite splendid, was he not?” she said. “Courtly and stately and oh-so-aristocratic to the end. And with a presence that drew all eyes but not many persons. Most people dared not approach him. Oh, he must have been a sight to behold when he was a young man. I do believe I would have fallen hopelessly in love with him if I had known him then.”

  “Hopelessly?” he said.

  “Yes.” She sighed. “It would have been quite, quite hopeless. He would not have spared me a glance.”

  “Hard to believe, Duchess,” he said. “But I do believe you were a little in love with him anyway.”

  “I loved him,” she said. “And he loved me. Would not the ton be amazed if they knew that we had a happy marriage? But no, not amazed. They would be incredulous. People believe what they choose to believe—just as you do.”

  “You proved me colossally wrong on one recent occasion,” he said.

  “You called me vain tonight,” she said, “when in reality I am simply honest.”

  “It would be rather foolish,” he said, “if you went about calling yourself ugly.”

  “And massively untruthful,” she said.

  She drained her glass as he gazed across the table at her.

  “And you have called me greedy tonight,” she said.

  His eyebrows arched upward.

  “I hope, Duchess,” he said, “I am too much the gentleman to accuse anyone of greed, least of all the lady who is my lover.”

  “But you have implied it,” she said. “At the theater you chose to view my jewels and hear about them with amusement. And here at this table you have presumed to know my motive for marrying the duke.”

  “And I am wrong?” he asked.

  She spread her hands on the table on either side of her plate. She had removed all her jewels at home and returned them to their respective safes. But she had put on other rings. She always felt a little strange without them, truth to tell. They sparkled up at her from every finger except her thumbs.

  She drew them off one at a time and set them in the center of the table, beside the candlestick.

  “What is their total worth?” she asked when they were all there. “Just the stones.”

  He looked at the rings, at her, and at the rings again. He reached out a hand and picked up the largest. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and turned it so that it caught the light.

  Oh, goodness, Hannah thought, there was something unexpectedly erotic about seeing one of her ri
ngs in his dark-skinned, long-fingered hand.

  He set the ring down and picked up another.

  He spread them apart with the tip of a finger so that they were not all clustered together.

  And then he named a sum that showed he knew a thing or two about diamonds.

  “No,” she said.

  He doubled the estimate.

  “Not even close,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I give in.”

  “One hundred pounds,” she said.

  He sat back in his chair and held her eyes with his.

  “Fake?” he said. “Paste?”

  “These, yes,” she said. “Some are real—the ones I received for the most precious occasions. All the jewels I wore to the theater this evening were real. About two-thirds of those I own are paste.”

  “Dunbarton was not as generous as he appeared to be?” he asked.

  “He was generosity itself,” she told him. “He would have showered me with half his fortune and probably did, though of course most of it was entailed. I had only to admire something and it was mine. I had only not to admire it and it was mine.”

  He had nothing to say this time. He regarded her steadily.

  “They were real when they were given to me,” she said. “I had the diamonds replaced with paste imitations. They are very good imitations. In fact, I probably underestimated the value of those rings on the table. They are probably worth two hundred pounds. Perhaps even a little more. I did it with the duke’s knowledge. His consent was reluctantly given, but how could he refuse? He had taught me to be independent, to think for myself, to decide what I wanted and refuse to take no for an answer. I believe he was proud of me.”

  His elbow was on the table, his chin propped between his thumb and forefinger.

  “There are certain … causes in which I am interested,” she said.

  “You have given away a minor fortune in the proceeds of your diamonds for causes, Duchess?” he asked. “Not so minor either, at a wager.”

  She shrugged.

  “A mere tiny drop in a very large ocean,” she said. “There is suffering enough in the world, Constantine, to feed the philanthropic leanings of a thousand rich people who like to believe they have a conscience and that it can be soothed with the giving of a little money.”