A Secret Affair

Before he could dismount and help her down, she had jumped down herself. She patted her horse’s nose, looped the reins about one hand, and led the way among the trees. Constantine followed and soon there was the illusion of being deep in a wilderness, far from civilization.

She stopped eventually and lifted her face to the high branches overhead. They had not spoken for five minutes or more.

“Listen,” she said, “and tell me what you hear.”

“Silence?” he suggested after a few moments.

“Oh, no,” she said. “There is almost never true silence, Constantine, and most of us would not welcome it if there were. It would be a little frightening, I believe, like true darkness. There would be only a void. Listen again.”

And this time he heard all kind of sounds—the breathing of their horses, birdsong, insect whirrings, the rustle of leaves in the slight breeze, the distant moo of a cow, other unidentified sounds of nature.

“That,” she said in a hushed voice sometime later, “is the sound of peace.”

“I believe you are right,” he said.

“The wilderness walk, if there were one,” she said, “would surely pass this way. It is perfect for such a project. There would be benches and follies and colorful plants and vistas and goodness knows what else. It would be easily accessible and wondrously picturesque. But not peaceful. Not as this is peaceful. We are a part of all this as we stand, Constantine. We are not a dominant species. We are not in control of it all. There is enough control in my life. This is where I come to find peace.”

He looped the reins of his horse loosely about a low tree branch and then took the reins from her hand and tied them there too. He took her by the arm, turned her so that her back was against the trunk of another tree, and leaned his body against hers. He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her mouth.

Devil take it but he was in love with her.

He had thought he would be safe with her. Safer than with any of his other mistresses. He had thought her vain, shallow. He had expected to enjoy nothing but raw lust with her.

The lust was there right enough.

And it was damnably raw.

But she was not safe at all.

For there was more than lust.

He was afraid to admit to himself that there might be considerably more.

She kissed him back, her arms twined about his neck, and soon she was away from the tree and caught up in his arms, and kisses became urgent and fevered. He glanced down at the forest floor and saw that it would make about as unsuitable a bed as it was possible for a piece of ground to make. He spread his hands over her buttocks and pressed her against his erection. She sighed into his mouth and drew back her head.

“Constantine,” she said, “I will not dishonor my other guests by making love with you on Copeland land.”

“Making love?” he said, looking pointedly downward. “On this mattress? I think not, indeed. I was merely claiming what remained of the prize I won earlier. And a very generous prize it was, I must say. I will race with you any day of the week, Duchess.”

“Next time,” she said, “I will ride Jet, and you can ride Clover. And then we will see a different wi

“Never in a million years,” he said. “And if you did win, if I allowed you to, what prize would you claim?”

He gri

“If you allowed me to win?” She was suddenly all haughty duchess. “If you allowed it, Constantine?”

“Forget I said that,” he said. “What prize would you claim?”

“I would have you put a notice in all the London papers,” she said, “informing the ton that you had been bested in a horse race by the Duchess of Dunbarton, and that you had not allowed her to win.”

“You would make me the laughingstock?” he asked.

“Any man who is afraid to be bested by a woman once in a while,” she said, “is not worthy of her in any capacity whatsoever. Even as her lover.”

“Has your cook baked any humble pies today?” he asked her. “If so, I shall eat one whole as soon as we get back to the house. Am I forgiven?”

She laughed and tightened her arms about his neck and kissed him again.

“I am glad we are here,” she said. “More and more I discover that I am happier in the country than in London. I am enjoying these few days so very much. Are you?”

“Well,” he said, “they are sadly sexless, you know, Duchess. But enjoyable nevertheless.”

He tightened his arms about her waist, lifted her off the ground and twirled her once, twice about before setting her feet down again and smiling into her eyes.

They were sadly sexless days. Why, then, was he feeling so exuberant? So … happy?

They stared at each other, and suddenly the air about them pulsed with unspoken words. Words he was afraid to speak aloud lest he discover later tonight that he had been overhasty. Words she might have spoken aloud but did not. Did he imagine that she had words to say?

Could it be that this was more than the simple euphoria of being in love?

He did not know. He had never been in love before.

He certainly did not know that other thing, that love that went beyond the euphoria. That forever-after thing.

How did one know?

And so the words remained unspoken. On his side, certainly. And perhaps on hers too.

They retrieved their horses and wound their way through the trees until they came out onto open ground at one end of the lake. They walked side by side, easier though it would have been to walk single file. They were hand in hand. Their fingers were laced.

It felt more intimate than an embrace.

HANNAH HAD NOT PLANNED anything specific for the evening. She thought her guests would appreciate a quiet time in which they might do whatever they pleased. Maria

It went on for a couple of hours until some people began to drop out and declared their intention of merely watching.

Ha

“I am going to step outside onto the terrace for some air, if I may,” the latter said, indicating the open French windows. “Will you join me?”

Ha

“It is warm in here,” Ha

It was cool outside but not unpleasant enough on the bare flesh of their arms to send them scurrying inside for shawls.

Lady Merton linked an arm through hers, and they strolled across the terrace and a little way out onto the lawn, where the light from the drawing room still made it possible for them to see where they were going.

“Miss Leavensworth is a lovely lady,” Lady Merton said. “You and she have been friends all your lives, she was telling us earlier.”

“Yes,” Ha

“But she lives far away from you most of the time,” Lady Merton said. “That is unfortunate. I have a dear friend who was once my governess and was then my companion. But always she was my friend, the one in whom I could confide anything and everything. She married last year, just before Stephen and I did. She is happily wed, I am glad to say, and she lives in London most of the year with Mr. Golding, her husband. I miss her even so. Close friends need to be close.”

“I am always thankful,” Ha

“Yes,” her companion agreed. “But without Alice by my side almost every moment of the day last spring, I would have been dreadfully lonely. I was a widow, I was widely believed to have killed my husband, and I had been abandoned by my husband’s family and for a while by my own brother too.”