A Secret Affair (40 page)

“The king promised to help, Hannah,” she said.

“But the king’s memory is notoriously unreliable,” Hannah said. “He means well, but he is easily distracted. I was not the only petitioner to see him that morning, or the last. The fact that he
wept
over my story means little. He weeps over
everything
that contains even one speck of sentiment.”

“You must trust him,” Barbara said. “And the Duke of Moreland and the Earl of Merton. And Mr. Huxtable himself.”

Hannah sighed and picked up a cushion to hug to her bosom.

“It is so hard to trust anyone but oneself,” she said.

“You have done all you can,” Barbara said.
“More
than all.”

Hannah regarded the top of her head again for a while. She considered getting up from her perch and prowling about the room—again. She considered going outside for a brisker walk, but it was raining and the wind was blowing, and Barbara would insist upon going with her. And she would probably contract a chill and have to be dragged back from death’s door over the next week or so.

Sometimes Barbara could be a severe annoyance.

“You were supposed to go home as soon as we returned from Kent,” she said. “You were
longing
to go home even though you were too polite to say so. And yet here you sit, quietly patient, Babs. I would be
raging
if it were me.”

“No, you would not.” Barbara looked up at her once more. “You are a far better person than you would have others believe, Hannah. If it were you, you would stay with me for as long as I needed you. We are friends. We
love
each other.”

Hannah heard a gurgle in her throat and swallowed. She widened
her eyes so that they would not fill with tears. She was dangerously close to becoming a watering pot these days. She had also been a virtual recluse since her visit to St. James’s Palace. Though her new friends had been obliging enough to call yesterday afternoon. They had come all together—the
three
Huxtable sisters and their sister-in-law—and had stayed for an hour and a half, far longer than a mere polite afternoon call required. They had been almost as anxious for news as she was.

“You love your vicar,” she said. “You should be with
him
, Babs.”

“I will be,” Barbara said. “We will be married for the rest of our lives after August. When I hear from him, I am as sure as I can be that he will tell me I have done the right thing in staying with you. I thought I would hear today. There will surely be a letter tomorrow.”

She returned to work, and Hannah heaved a deep sigh.

And then she held her breath, and Barbara sat with her needle suspended above her cloth.

From a distance below them they had both heard the knocker being rapped against the street door.

“Visitors,” Hannah said with an attempt at nonchalance. “They will be told I am not at home.”

But she listened for the sound of footsteps outside the door, and when it came, she tensed and pressed the pillow against herself as though she must guard it with her life.

“A gentleman for Miss Leavensworth, Your Grace,” her butler said when he opened the door.

“Tell him—For
Barbara?”
Hannah said.

“A Reverend Newcombe, Your Grace,” he said, glancing at Barbara. “Shall I inform him that you are from home?”

“Simon?” Barbara spoke softly. Her needle was still suspended above her work. Suddenly, Hannah thought, she looked quite incredibly beautiful.

“Show him up here, if you please,” Hannah said.

She never entertained visitors in her private parlor.

She swung her legs to the floor as the butler withdrew, and cast
aside the cushion. Her first instinct was to hurry from the room, to leave the field clear for the reunion of the lovers. But she could not resist seeing it for herself and meeting Barbara’s betrothed.

Barbara was calmly and methodically putting away her embroidery and then checking to see that her hair was tidy and that no crumbs of her tea remained on her dress. She looked up at Hannah.

“This is why there was no letter from him today,” she said. “He has come in person.”

She was still radiating beauty. Her eyes were huge and luminous.

It was the look of love, Hannah thought. She had seen it in her own looking glass lately. And much good it would do her.

The door opened again after a token tap.

“The Reverend Newcombe for Miss Leavensworth,” the butler said.

And in stepped the most ordinary young gentleman Hannah could possibly have imagined. He was just as Barbara had described him, in fact. He was neither tall nor sturdily built nor handsome. He was dressed soberly and decently and quite without flair. But as soon as his eyes lit upon Barbara, he smiled—and Hannah knew why her friend, who had routinely rejected a number of perfectly eligible suitors throughout the years of her youth, had finally lost her heart to this man.

She was beaming back at him.

Goodness, Hannah thought, if it had been
her
, she would have hurtled across the room by now with a bloodcurdling shriek and launched herself at him.

“Barb,” he said.

“Simon.”

After which loverlike outburst they both recovered their manners and turned their attention to Hannah.

“Hannah,” Barbara said, “may I have the honor of presenting the Reverend Newcombe? The Duchess of Dunbarton, Simon.”

The vicar bowed. Hannah inclined her head.

“You have come in person to bear Barbara off homeward,” she said. “I do not blame you, Mr. Newcombe. I have been very selfish.”

“I have come, Your Grace,” he said, “because my future father-in-law very kindly offered to take my Sunday services for me and allow me a short holiday in London, even though I will be having another after my nuptials. I came because it seems years rather than merely weeks since I last saw Barbara. And I came because you are in distress and I thought perhaps I could offer you some spiritual comfort.”

Hannah bit her lower lip. Laughter would be inappropriate. And indeed, though part of her wanted to dissolve into giggles, a nobler part of her was deeply touched.

“I thank you, sir,” she said. “It
is
an anxious time. A man’s life is at stake, and I care even though I have never met him and probably never will. Someone I
have
met has a deep emotional involvement in the matter, and I have a deep emotional involvement with
him
.”

She had not meant to put it quite like that. But the words were out now, and they were the truth. One ought to tell the truth to a clergyman.

“I understand, Your Grace,” he said, and it seemed to Hannah that indeed he did.

“I have urgent business elsewhere in the house,” she said, “and must be an imperfect hostess, I am afraid, Mr. Newcombe, and quit this room. I will leave you Barbara, however. I daresay she will do her best to entertain you in my absence.”

“I daresay she will, Your Grace,” he agreed.

Hannah smiled at him, and he smiled back with such sweet good humor that she might have fallen in love with him herself if there had been a vacancy in her heart.

She smiled and winked at Barbara with the eye that was farthest from the Reverend Simon Newcombe and hurried from the room just as if she really did have a thousand and one tasks awaiting her.

What was
happening
in Gloucestershire? And why did no one think
to write to her
?

T
HE
R
EVEREND
N
EWCOMBE
had come all the way to London, and the most entertaining thing he could find to do on his first full day there was visit a bookshop on Oxford Street that he remembered from his student days.

He had come to Dunbarton House to invite Barbara and Hannah to accompany him. And Barbara was glowing with enthusiasm at the prospect.

Hannah gazed from one to the other of them as they all sat in the drawing room drinking coffee. It really was quite extraordinary. It was not even a shop for
new
books. It was probably filled with dust. It was undoubtedly filled too with old tomes so dry that they were crumbling away to create more dust.

“You must come with us, Hannah,” Barbara pleaded. “You have scarcely been over the doorstep for several days, and the
sun is shining again today. You must not fear that you will be in the way.” She blushed.

“I fear no such thing,” Hannah said. “You are both too polite to admit even to yourselves that my presence would be de trop. I shall go walking in Hyde Park this afternoon and receive my court and learn all the newest gossip with which to regale you both at dinner. You
will
dine here, Mr. Newcombe?”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” he said, inclining his head. “I—”

He was interrupted by a tap on the drawing room door.

“The Earl and Countess of Merton wish to know if you are at home, Your Grace,” the butler said when he had opened it.

Hannah shot to her feet. Cassandra? And
the earl
too?

“Show them up,” she said.

It was as much as she could do not to run after him and overtake him on the stairs so that she could arrive in the hall ahead of him and discover
what had happened
.

“The Earl of Merton,” Barbara was explaining to her vicar, “went to Ainsley Park with the Duke of Moreland to see what they could do to intercede for the condemned man.”

“Yes,” the Reverend Newcombe said, “I remember the names from your letter, Barb. And now the earl has returned, perhaps with news. Let us hope it is
good
news. Your concern for a poor misguided man, Your Grace, does you great credit. But it does not surprise me. Barbara has told me—”

Hannah stopped listening. Not because she was being deliberately impolite, but because her thoughts were whirling out of control. She stepped as close to the door as she could and not be bowled over by it when it opened again. She clasped her hands at her waist. She tried to gather her dignity about her.

The Duke of Moreland had not come with the earl?
Constantine
had not?

There was a tap on the door and it opened again. “The Earl and Countess of Merton, Your Grace,” the butler announced.

The earl looked travel worn. Although his clothes did not look unduly rumpled or his face unshaven, there were signs of weariness about his eyes, and it seemed to Hannah that he must have returned home to Merton House only long enough to see his wife. And Cassandra was—beaming.

“All is well,” she said and hurried forward to catch Hannah up in her arms. “All is well, Hannah.”

Hannah sagged with relief as she submitted to the hug.

“I daresay you knew as much, Your Grace,” the earl said. “It is you who must have persuaded the king to intervene. But I suppose you have been anxious anyway to hear that the pardon arrived in time. It did. With three days to spare, in fact.”

Only three days?

“It was a complete pardon,” he added. “Jess Barnes is free. I promised Con when I left that I would let you know within an hour of my return to London. And I took the liberty of traveling here in your carriage, Your Grace. Con will come with Elliott later.”

“With the Duke of Moreland?” Hannah raised her eyebrows. “The two of them together in one carriage?”

He grinned.

“And they will probably not even come to blows,” he said. “Or preserve a stony silence either.”

“They have settled that foolish quarrel?” Hannah asked.

“They have,” he said. “For the first time I have seen them together as they must have been most of their lives before I met them both. They talk incessantly and joke—and even argue. And lest you need more assurance, I will add that it was upon Elliott’s shoulder Con chose to weep when he read the king’s pardon even though mine was just as close and just as available.”

“Oh.” Hannah pressed her hands together and brought her mouth down to the tips of her fingers. She closed her eyes and pictured Constantine weeping. How embarrassed he must have been. And how furious he would be if he knew that his cousin was telling her about it.

Men could be very foolish about such things.

How strange that one could be so wrong about another person. She had always called him the devil to herself. He
looked
dark and dangerous enough to justify the name. He was quite the opposite. He was all light and love and compassion. Oh, and perhaps a little dark and dangerous too. He was a dizzying mix of human qualities, in fact—as most people were.

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?