A Secret Affair (13 page)

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 earlobes.

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.

S
HE 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 rings 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.”

She stopped herself from saying more. He doubtless would not understand. Or he would think her a bleeding heart. And maybe that was all she was. Why had she felt the need to share even as much as
she had with him? He thought her frivolous and rich and spoiled, just as everyone else did. He thought her a gold digger, a woman who would use her beauty to enrich herself.

Which, in a sense, she was.

But that was not the whole story.

She had never before felt the slightest need to justify her existence to anyone. Not for the past eleven years, anyway. She was secure in herself. She rather liked herself. The duke had liked her too. She did not care the snap of two fingers what anyone else thought of her. Indeed, she had always rather enjoyed leading the whole
ton
down the garden path, so to speak.

Was Constantine different because he was her lover?

She had expected only an intimacy of bodies.

She wanted no more.

But she had brought these particular rings deliberately tonight. She had wanted him to know.

He had called her vain and had all but called her greedy.

Did she
care
what he thought? How bothersome that she did.

Was this spring fling to prove less purely enjoyable than she had planned?

He got to his feet and came about the table. He held out a hand for hers.

“We did not come here, Duchess,” he said, “to talk about either philanthropy or consciences.”

“I thought,” she said, getting to her feet, “you would never remember, Constantine.”

And she was being kissed very thoroughly indeed, her body pressed to his from face to knees. She twined her arms about his neck and became a full participant.

Ah, he had such a firm, masculine,
young
body.

And she did not regret a thing. This was what, for this spring anyway, she craved more than anything else in life. There was so much time to make up for, so many pleasures she had never yet experienced.

He lifted his head and looked down at her, and she noticed again how dark his eyes were and could only guess at how much they hid of who he was. She did not need to know. And yet she had always wanted to know. He was not, alas, just a male body to be used for her pleasure. She wished he were. Life would be so much simpler.