A Secret Affair (15 page)

“That is entirely the point,” Hannah said. “I am living in a different lifetime now, Babs, and in a different universe. The old ones no longer exist for me. I do not
want
them to exist.”

“What does that make me?” her friend asked. “A ghost?”

“Oh, Babs,” Hannah said, and she had to turn her head away again to hide the tears welling in her eyes, “don’t ever abandon me.”

She heard a rustling behind her, and then she was being enfolded in a tight hug. They clung wordlessly to each other for a while, Hannah feeling very foolish indeed. And, strangely, almost as griefstricken as she had felt on the day the duke died.

“Silly goose,” Barbara said in a voice that was not quite steady. “Why would I drop your friendship when you are so
rich?
And when you take me to
ton
balls and insist upon buying me a perfectly frivolous bonnet every time I wangle an invitation to London from you?”

Hannah swung her legs over the side of the window seat and brushed her hands over the muslin skirt of her dress.

“It was a particularly splendid bonnet, was it not?” she said. “If you had not allowed me to buy it for you yesterday, Babs, I would have bought it for myself, and where would I have put it? I already have a whole dressing room and the guest room adjoining it positively bursting at the seams with clothes—or so rumor has it, and everyone knows how reliable rumor is.”

“I have the guest room adjoining your dressing room,” Barbara said, straightening up and turning to fold her embroidery.

“You are greatly to be pitied,” Hannah said. “It must be extremely difficult, Babs, to get through the door, even if you walk sideways.”

Barbara laughed.

“
Will
you come to my wedding?” she asked softly.

Hannah sighed inaudibly. She had hoped that matter had been dropped.

“I cannot, Babs,” she said. “I will not go back. But perhaps you and your vicar would like to come and spend at least a part of your honeymoon with me in Kent.”

A maid came into the room at that point, bringing their tea, and the conversation moved on to other topics.

She was
not
unhappy, Hannah thought. Barbara was quite, quite wrong about that. And she was not going to become unhappier. How could she when she was not unhappy to start with?

She could hardly wait for tonight, after the ball was over. The need she felt might be a superficial one, but it was very powerful nonetheless.

She did not believe she would
ever
tire of Constantine’s lovemaking. She would have to, of course, by the time the Season ended. But that was long in the future. She did not have to even start thinking about it yet.

She got up to pour the tea.

A
NOTE WAS DELIVERED
to Constantine’s house early in the afternoon from Cassandra, Countess of Merton, Stephen’s wife, inviting him to dine at Merton House before the Kitteridge ball. He had no other engagement and was pleased to send back an acceptance.

He had tried a number of times over the years to resent, even to hate, Stephen, who had inherited Jon’s title and had turned up at Warren Hall at the age of seventeen as the new owner, bringing his
sisters with him. They had all been strangers to Constantine, who had not even known of their existence until Elliott and his solicitors had searched the family tree and found a distant heir. Even then it had not been easy to track him down to some remote village in Shropshire.

Constantine had been sick with hatred before he met them. They were coming to invade
his
home, to trample upon
his
memories, to take over what ought by rights to have been his. More important than all that, Jon was buried on land that now belonged to a stranger.

Even afterward he had hated them for a while.

But how could one hate Stephen once one got to know him? It would be like hating angels. And his sisters were equally hard to dislike. They had been so very pleased, all of them, to discover him. They had embraced him as a long-lost member of their family. They had been sensitive to how he must feel about the whole succession.

Margaret and Duncan, Earl of Sheringford, had also been invited to dinner, Constantine discovered when he arrived at Merton House. Margaret was the eldest of the three sisters, the one who had held the family together after the early death of their parents. She had remained stubbornly single until they were all grown up. Only then had she herself married. Her choice of husband had seemed disastrous at the time. But the marriage had survived and apparently flourished.

Constantine relaxed and enjoyed dinner. The food was good, the company and conversation congenial. Until they retired to the drawing room afterward with an hour or so to kill before they must leave for the ball, he did not even suspect that there had perhaps been an ulterior motive in inviting him.

“Cassandra and I went to call on Kate this morning,” Margaret remarked as Cassandra poured the tea. “Nessie came with us too. Kate is in a delicate way again after all this time. Did you know, Constantine? She is both delighted and queasy in the mornings. She told us about the pleasant evening she and Jasper spent at the theater yesterday.”

Ah, Constantine thought.

“I did not know about her condition,” he said. “I daresay they are both pleased.”

They had got to talking about
him
during the morning visit, he would wager. He waited for them to say it.

“We got to talking about you,” Margaret said.

“Me?”
he said, all amazement. “Am I to feel flattered?”

“You are in your thirties,” Margaret said.

Hmm. What angle were they going to take with this? They could hardly come right out and scold him for taking the Duchess of Dunbarton as a mistress, could they? As genteel ladies, they could not admit to knowing any such thing, or even
suspecting
it.

Margaret was doing the talking, of course. Cassandra was busier than she need have been with the teapot. Stephen and Sherry were trying to look as though they thought this was just another harmless topic of conversation.

“Yes, well,” Constantine said with a sigh, “the powers that be will not allow one to remain in one’s twenties for longer than ten years, Margaret. It is really quite unobliging of them.”

They all laughed, even Margaret, but she was undeterred from her purpose, whatever it might be.

“We all agreed, Constantine,” she said, “that you ought to be considering marriage. You are our cousin, and—”

“Second
cousin,” he said. “Second cousin-in-law to Cassandra.”

“He is in his charming mood, Meg,” Cassandra said. “As opposed to his brooding mood. He is determined to take nothing seriously.”

Stephen sipped his tea. Constantine exchanged a blank-eyed stare with Sherry.

“I take the idea of marriage very seriously indeed,” he assured them. “Especially my own. And more especially when it is being suggested to me by a deputation of my female relatives. This
is
a deputation, I gather? Is there any lady you particularly wish me to consider?”

Margaret opened her mouth and shut it again. Cassandra merely smiled. The gentlemen
both
sipped their tea.

“Or anyone you particularly wish me
not
to consider?” he suggested.

Cassandra laughed outright.

“I told you he would instantly know what this was all about, Meg,” she said. “But really, Con, all we want is your
happiness
. I have been a member of this family for only a year—less, actually—but I too want to see you happy.”

“Beware a happily married woman,” he said. “She will scheme and plot to force everyone else to be happy too.”

Stephen grinned and Sherry chuckled.

“And there is something wrong with that?” Margaret asked, visibly bristling. She was looking at Sherry.

“Katherine saw the way the wind blew at the theater last evening, did she?” Constantine asked. “And did not approve of what she saw? And you all concurred with her opinion this morning? It would be interesting to know if Vanessa did too.”

“You have a favorite almost every year, Constantine,” Margaret said as she sat back in her chair, her cup and saucer in hand. “They have all been pleasant ladies. I particularly liked Mrs. Hunter the year Duncan and I met and married.”

Her cheeks would probably bloom with a thousand roses if he asked her to explain exactly what she meant by
favorite
, Constantine thought.

“I liked her too, Margaret,” he said. “That was why she was my
favorite
that year. But I hope you are not about to ask me to consider her as a bride. She married Lord Lund two summers ago.”

“And presented him with an heir last year, I believe,” Sherry said. “You are wise not to go pining after her, Con.”

Margaret gave him an indignant look.

“The Duchess of Dunbarton is beautiful,” she said. “No one can dispute that. She draws all eyes wherever she goes, and it is more than just her beauty that does it. She is really quite fascinating.”

“I hear a
but
in your voice,” Constantine said.

Cassandra took over.

“Kate was of the opinion that the duchess has decided to make
you her
favorite, Con,” she said. “And what the duchess wants,
apparently, she usually gets. But she is said to be fickle in her preferences. Next week or the week after it is likely to be someone else.”

She was looking decidedly uncomfortable and turned her head to frown at Stephen, who was grinning at her.

“She does indeed have a reputation for being somewhat
fast
, Constantine,” Margaret said. “And I believe it is well deserved.”

What would they say, he wondered, if he told them that the duchess had been a virgin until a little more than a week ago, and that she had lost that virginity courtesy of himself?

“And you are afraid I will end up hurt and brokenhearted if I succumb to her wiles this week and perhaps next?” he asked. “I will be no match at all for someone of the duchess’s, ah,
experience?
Even though I am frequently said to be the devil himself? I am touched at your concern.”

He was feeling vastly amused.

“Oh, dear,” Cassandra said, setting down her cup and saucer with a clatter. “This was not how we planned to approach the subject, was it, Meg? Kate will be quite vexed with us.
Of course
you can cope with her grace if she should become your, er,
favorite
, Con. Indeed, I daresay there are people warning
her
against becoming involved with
you
. What we
intended
to say, or to hint or suggest, purely out of filial fondness for you, you must understand, is that perhaps it is time you turned your attention away from mere flirtation and toward matrimony. You are extremely eligible. And really very handsome indeed, though I am not sure that is quite the correct word to describe you. You draw admiring eyes wherever you go—just as the duchess does.”

“We
have
rather made a mess of things, Constantine,” Margaret admitted. “We meant to oh-so-subtly nudge your thoughts in the direction of marriage rather than … Well.”

“Perhaps,” Sherry suggested, “we ought to talk about tomorrow’s weather, my love. Or last week’s. Or next month’s.”

She smiled and then laughed aloud with what sounded like genuine amusement.

“May we forget about the last five minutes and start again?” she asked.

“Heaven forbid,” Sherry and Stephen said in unison.

“What I want to know,” Constantine said, “is what
Vanessa
had to say about all this.”

Vanessa, the middle sister, had been a warm friend of his until she married Elliott, now Duke of Moreland. Then, in trying to get at Elliott in the asinine, somewhat childish way in which he had tended to conduct their long-standing quarrel in those days, he had inadvertently—but quite predictably—hurt and humiliated her, and she had been barely civil to him since.

It had
not
been his finest moment. In fact, it had easily been one of his worst. He was dogged by guilt and shame every time he saw or even thought about Vanessa, in fact.

“To be honest, Con,” Cassandra said, “we had the discussion while she was up in the nursery taking a gift to Hal and paying homage to Jonathan. Cassandra had brought him with her.”

Hal was Katherine and Monty’s four-year-old son.

Stephen had actually written to Constantine after the birth of his son to ask if he would mind terribly much if they called the baby Jonathan. Constantine
had
minded very much indeed and had almost written back to say so in no uncertain terms. But he had stopped to think of how delighted his brother Jon would have been. He had been almost able to
hear
the boy’s excited, ungainly laughter. So the new heir to the title was Jonathan.

It had even felt strangely comforting to know that when he had made his duty call here to see the baby after his arrival in town.

“We ought not to have said anything,” Margaret said. “Duncan and Stephen have been odious enough to laugh behind their hands ever since we came from the dining room, and you are no better, Constantine. You have chosen to be amused.”