A Secret Affair (43 page)

The bouquet was set on a table in the middle of the drawing room, to be enjoyed by all comers for days to come. The rose found its way to her bedchamber, where she alone would enjoy it.

An hour later the butler brought her a note on his silver salver. It had a brief message and no signature.

I lust after you
.

Not so very romantic, perhaps, but Hannah smiled as she read it for perhaps the dozenth time—after ascertaining that its author had not delivered it in person and was not waiting in the hall below.

She recognized the beginning of a game.

She dined during the evening with the Montfords and enjoyed their company and conversation along with that of Mr. and Mrs. Gooding and the Earl and Countess of Lanting—the ladies were Lord Montford’s sisters.

The next morning a dozen white roses were delivered to Dunbarton House, again with no accompanying card. They were taken up to Hannah’s sitting room.

An hour later the butler came with a note atop his salver.

Again it was unsigned.

I am in love with you
, it read.

Hannah held it to her lips, closed her eyes, and smiled.

The wretch. The absolute
wretch
. Did he have no respect for her nerves? Why did he not simply
come?

But she knew the answer. He had been speaking the truth in Hyde Park—
if you knew me better, you would understand that I am babbling, Duchess, and that my heart is thumping quite erratically
.

The foolish man was nervous.

And long may it last even though the wait seemed interminable. Nervousness was making him quite the romantic.

She went to the opera during the evening with the Sheringfords and the Marquess of Claverbrook and sat with her hand on the sleeve of the latter for most of the evening while they exchanged remarks. The tenor brought tears to her eyes just with the beauty of his voice. The soprano brought tears to the marquess’s eyes just with her beauty. He chuckled low as Hannah laughed.

“But not with her voice?” she asked.

“That,” he said, “just gives me the headache, Hannah.”

Much of the attention of the audience was focused upon their box, and Hannah wondered idly if tomorrow’s gossip would be that she was digging her claws into yet another elderly, wealthy aristocrat. The thought amused her.

The following morning it was two dozen roses that arrived—blood-red roses. No note, of course. That came an hour later.

I LOVE YOU
, it read,
my multipetaled rose
.

No signature.

Hannah wept and thoroughly enjoyed every tear.

She was supposed to go to Lord and Lady Carpenter’s Venetian
breakfast during the afternoon. Contrary to the name of such entertainments, they were
not
morning affairs. It did not matter either way. She did not go.

She donned a dress she had worn only once about three years ago. She had not worn it again because it made her feel like a scarlet woman inside as well as out, and that was too blatant a disguise even for her. She loved it nevertheless, and today it matched her roses. She wore a single diamond on a silver chain about her neck—a teardrop that would not dry or lose its luster—and no other jewelry.

She waited.

There was no improving upon two dozen red roses.

There was no more to be said on paper either. He had even written the first three words of the last note in capital letters. The rest had to be spoken aloud, face-to-face.

If he could muster the courage.

Ah, her poor, dear devil. Tamed by love.

He would, of course, find the courage. And he would be quite splendid—when he came.

She waited.

T
HIS LOVE BUSINESS,
Constantine had discovered over the past several days, could quite unman a person. He had a new respect for married men, all of whom had presumably gone through the ordeal he was currently going through. With the exception of Elliott, of course, who had been proposed
to
, lucky man.

Reconciling with Vanessa had been easy.

“Don’t say a word,” she had said, hurrying across the drawing room of Moreland House toward him as soon as he had set foot inside it, while Elliott had stood by the fireplace, one elbow propped on the mantel, one eyebrow cocked in amusement. “Not a word. Let us forgive and forget and start making up for lost time. Tell me about your prostitutes.”

Elliott had chuckled aloud.

“Ex-prostitutes,” she had added. “And don’t you dare laugh
at me, Constantine, just when we are newly friends again. Tell me about them, and the thieves and vagabonds and unwed mothers.”

She had linked her arm through his and drawn him to sit beside her on a sofa while Elliott had looked on with laughter in his eyes and on his lips.

“If you have an hour or six, Vanessa,” Constantine had said.

“Seven if necessary. You are staying for dinner,” she had told him.
“That
is already settled. Unless, that is, you have an engagement with Hannah.”

An unfortunate choice of words. And
Hannah
, was it?

“No,” he had said. “I have to work myself up to falling on one knee and delivering a passionate speech, and it is going to take some time. Not to mention courage.”

Elliott had chuckled again.

“Oh, but it will be worth every moment,” Vanessa had told him, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed. “Elliott looked very splendid indeed when
he
did it. On
wet grass
, no less.”

Constantine had looked up reproachfully at his grinning cousin.

“It was
after
Vanessa had proposed to me,” he had said, raising his right hand. “I could not allow her to have the final word, now, could I? She said yes before I did.”

Theirs might be a story worth knowing, Constantine had thought.

In going impulsively to Dunbarton House within two hours of his return to town, he had hoped to settle the matter with Hannah. And then, when he had found her from home but had learned she was in Hyde Park, he had gone in pursuit of her and had seen—without having to stop and think—the perfect way of declaring himself.

It had not struck him that she might refuse to mount his horse with him. And indeed she had not done so.

It had not occurred to him that after she had done so and after he had kissed her quite lasciviously and
in public
, and she had kissed him back, she might then refuse to marry him.

Not that she had refused.

It was just that he had not asked.

And he had not even realized that until she had pointed it out. Dash it, there was all the difference in the world between asking and telling, and he had
told
.

Just like a gauche schoolboy.

Why was there not a university degree course in proposing marriage to the woman of one’s choice? Did everyone mess it up as thoroughly as he had done?

And so he had had to spend three days making amends. Or three days procrastinating. It depended upon whether one was being honest with oneself or not.

But once he had started, he had to allow the three days to proceed on their way. He could hardly rush in with his proposal after sending just one rose and the declaration that he
lusted
after her, could he?

If she intended to refuse him, he really had been making a prize ass of himself during the three days.

But there was no point in thinking about that, he realized as he dressed to make his afternoon call at Dunbarton House on the third day. He could not possibly
not
go now to see this wretched ordeal to its conclusion either way.

What if she was not at home? There must be a thousand and one reasons for her to be out—picnics, garden parties, excursions to Kew Gardens or Richmond Park, shopping, strolling early in the park, to name but a few of the myriad possibilities. Indeed, he thought as he rapped on the door, it would be surprising if she
were
at home.

The baser part of his nature hoped she was out.

Except that he could
never
go through this again.

The butler, as usual, did not know the contents of his own domain. He had to make his way upstairs as if there were no hurry at all to discover if the Duchess of Dunbarton was at home or not.

She was at home. And willing to receive him, it seemed. He was invited to follow the butler upstairs.

Would she have Miss Leavensworth with her?

They passed the doors of the drawing room and climbed another staircase. They stopped outside a single door, and the butler tapped discreetly on it before opening it and announcing him.

It was a parlor or sitting room, not a bedchamber. She was alone there.

On a table beside the door were a dozen white roses in a crystal vase. On a low table in the middle of the room were two dozen red roses in a silver urn. Their combined scent hung sweetly on the air.

The duchess sat sideways on a window seat, her legs drawn up before her, her arms crossed over her waist. She looked startlingly, vividly beautiful in scarlet red, which matched the roses almost exactly. Her hair lay smooth and shining over her head and was dressed in soft curls at her neck, with wispy tendrils of ringlets at her temples and ears. Her head was turned into the room, and she regarded him with dreamy blue eyes.

He was reminded of the scene in his own bedchamber the night they became lovers. Except that then she had been wearing only his shirt, and her hair had been loose down her back.

The butler closed the door and went on his way.

“Duchess,” he said.

“Constantine.”

She smiled—also dreamily—when he did not immediately continue.

“I need your protection,” she said. “I have been receiving anonymous notes.”

“Have you?” he said.

“Someone,” she said,
“lusts
after me.”

“I’ll challenge him to pistols at dawn,” he said.

“He also claims to be in love with me,” she said.

“Easily said,” he told her. “It does not go very deep, does it, that euphoric, romantic feeling?”

“But it is one of the most lovely feelings in the world,” she said. “Perhaps
the
most lovely. I am quite in love with him in return.”

“Lucky fellow,” he said. “I am
definitely
going to call him out.”

“He says he
loves
me,” she said, and her eyes made the almost imperceptible but quite remarkable change from dreamy to luminous.

“What is
that
supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Mind to mind,” she said. “Heart to heart. Soul to soul.”

“And body to body?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice a murmur of sound. “And that too.”

“No barriers,” he said. “No masks or disguises. No fears.”

“None.” She shook her head. “No secrets. Two become one and indivisible.”

“And this,” he said, “is what your anonymous penman is saying to you?”

“In capital letters,” she told him.

“Ostentatious fellow,” he said.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Just look at all the roses he has sent me.”

“Hannah,” he said.

“Yes.”

He was still standing just inside the door. He strode toward her, and she held out her right hand. He took it in both his own and raised it to his lips.

“I
do
love you,” he said. “In capital letters and in every other way I can think of. And in every way I
cannot
think of for that matter.”

He heard her inhale slowly.

It was time. And he was no longer nervous. He dropped to one knee, her hand still in his. His face was on a level with her own. The color was high in her cheeks, he could see. Her lips were slightly parted. Her eyes were still luminous and very blue—like the sky beyond the window.

“Hannah,” he said, “will you marry me?”

He had been rehearsing a speech for three long days. He could not remember a word of it.

“Yes,” she said.

He had been convinced that she would tease him, that she would
play the part of Duchess of Dunbarton at least for a while before capitulating
—if
she capitulated at all. He had been so convinced, in fact, that he almost missed her response.

With his
ears
he almost missed it.

But with his heart?

“Yes,” she had said, and there really was nothing else to say.

They gazed at each other, and he raised her hand to press against his lips again.

“He used to tell me about it,” she said. “About love. And he used to promise me that I would know it for myself one day. I trusted him and believed him for every moment of my life from our first meeting to his final breath, Constantine, but I did not fully believe him in that. I believed that
he
had loved an extraordinary love for more than fifty years. But I was afraid to believe
I
ever would. I was wrong to fear, and he was right to be confident for me. I love
you
.”

“And will for more than fifty years?” he said.

“He used to say it was for eternity,” she said. “I believe him.”

He smiled at her, and she smiled back until he moved his head closer to hers and kissed her.