A Secret Affair

It was a strange moment.

She had spent eleven years acquiring wisdom and discipline, ten of those years at the hands of a man who had known all about those two attributes from a long life of experience. Wisdom and discipline. Always guarding one’s real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquillity within a thousand masks.

Life itself had become a secret affair. No one knew of the life she lived behind the appearance. The appearance was everything to the people surrounding her. It was all they knew. The reality within was everything to her.

But suddenly that cocoon was threatened. She had selected a man purely for the sensual delights he could offer, and she had … Oh, what was the word for what he had become to her instead? She had not fallen in love with him. But—

Well, she was somehow deeply involved with him. As his lover, yes. But lovers could be cast off, forgotten, exchanged. They could be kept at a safe distance from the heart. They were for pleasure, for fun.

He was more than her lover.

She had told herself from the start that this year she would devote to pleasure instead of the search for love and permanent happiness. She had told herself that she would cast him off, forget him after this Season was over. And, of course, she would do it. Indeed, she would have no choice anyway. She knew very well that he took a different mistress each year.

But—

But her emotions had somehow got caught up in what was supposed to be a purely physical experience.

The tranquil cocoon of her heart had been ruffled.

The duke had been right. He had warned her that it would happen one day, that cocoons were meant only to guard the fragility of a new life until it was ready to burst forth into the glory of full life.

She ought to have known better than to choose a man of mystery who intrigued her.

For of course his character was layers and layers deep. Some of it was not so pleasant—his sly, intrusive questioning of Barbara at the Kitteridge ball, for example, or his ridiculous pride that had perpetuated an u

Except the king when they were both drunk.

And now her because he owed it to her.

Oh, she was perilously close to doing something foolish that she would regret for the rest of her life. For Constantine Huxtable was not the right man for permanence. Suddenly she felt the emptiness of the duke’s absence as a great void. If only she could go home and tease him and be teased by him and put her hand in his elderly, arthritic one and be safe again. And ask for his advice. Or his interpretation of what was happening to her.

Yet he had taught her self-reliance, and she had thought the lesson thoroughly learned. He would not want her to be dependent upon him indefinitely. She did not want it.

They were gazing at each other, she and Constantine, she realized, the smile dying on both their lips.

“We could probably hang for treason for saying such things,” she said.

“Or have our heads chopped off,” he said. “Speaking of which—I told Miss Leavensworth that I would arrange to take the two of you to the Tower of London since she has not been there yet. Will you come?”

“I have not been there in an age either,” she said. “Will you come to Copeland for a few days if I arrange a brief house party there?”

“Asking, Duchess?” he said. “Not telling?”

“Well,” she said, “you asked about the Tower, and I could hardly allow myself to be outdone in civility.”

“You are not pla

“No.” She shook her head. “But ought you not to speak with him sometime soon anyway?”

“Kiss and make up?” he said. “I think not.”

“And so you will go through life unhappy,” she said, “merely because of a little pride.”

“Am I unhappy?” he asked.

She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again.

“And are you,” he asked, “going to go back to Markle, Duchess, perhaps for Miss Leavensworth’s wedding, and speak with your father and sister and brother-in-law? Is pride going to keep you away?”

“That is a different matter altogether,” she said.

“Is it?”

They stared—or perhaps glared—at each other in a silence neither seemed willing to break. He was the one to do it eventually.

“And so you will go through life unhappy,” he said softly, “merely because of a little pride.”

Touché.

But he had no idea—no idea what he was suggesting.

“I want to go home to Dunbarton House,” she said. “It is late.”

Or early.

He got to his feet and closed the distance between them. He set his hands on the arms of her chair, leaned over her, and kissed her openmouthed.

It was a horribly gentle, even tender kiss.

Horrible because it was the middle of the night, she had made love with him and slept with him, she had sat here and talked with him, and she did not know where her defenses were. If she could have located them, she would have wrapped them about herself and been safe again.

But again—safe from what?

He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. His own were shadowed and very dark.

“You had better go and dress, then,” he said. “My coachman might be scandalized if he saw you dressed like that, even if you are covered from chin to toes.”

“If I were to step out like this, Constantine,” she said, “he would see nothing but duchess. Believe me. People see what I choose to have them see.”

“Is that something Dunbarton taught you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “and he taught me well.”

“I believe,” he said, “he did. Whenever I have seen you over the years, I have seen nothing but duchess. Very beautiful, very rich duchess. I am only just learning the error of my perceptions.”

“Is that good?” she asked him. “Or bad?”

He straightened up.

“I have not decided,” he said. “I have seen you as a rose without the multiplicity of petals. But I have begun to realize my error. You have more layers than the most complex of roses. And the heart of the rose has yet to be revealed. I begin to believe that there is a heart. Indeed, I more than believe. Go and get dressed, Duchess. It is time to take you home.”

And contrarily, given the fact that she had been the one to say it first, she felt bereft. As if he did not want her to stay. And shaken. He saw her as a rose, and slowly but surely he was finding his way past the petals to the heart. If she allowed it. How could she stop it?

Eleven years of learning and discipline were in danger of crumbling within weeks of her setting out on her lone course in life.

It was not going to happen.

For he could not possibly be the one. Not the one the duke had promised she would find one day. And she needed to be heart-whole when she finally met that man. Perhaps after all she should not have dabbled in the sensual.

She got to her feet and turned toward the door.

“Like a child who needs her hand held?” she said haughtily. “I came alone in your carriage. I will return alone in it. Be sure it is at the door in ten minutes’ time.”

Her exit was marred slightly by the sound of a low chuckle.