A Secret Affair

“I am deeply in your debt,” he said. “For everything.”

Elliott gri

“Do you imagine for one moment,” he said, “that I am going to let you forget it?”

Constantine chuckled.

“No,” he said. “I know you from of old.”

“Are you going to marry her?” Elliott asked.

And there it was. The idea his mind had been skirting about for days.

He wanted to marry. He wanted to have children. He wanted all those things he had avoided for years. He wanted to settle down.

But—with the Duchess of Dunbarton?

With Ha

It was like thinking of two different persons. But she was one and the same. She was both the duchess as he had always known her and Ha

“The idea had not crossed my mind,” he said.

“Liar!” Elliott was still gri

“What made you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you wanted to marry Vanessa?” Constantine asked.

“I didn’t,” Elliott said. “She proposed to me, and I was so shocked that I said yes before I knew what I was doing and was stuck with the decision forever after.”

“If you don’t want to tell me,” Constantine said, “you can just say so, you know.”

Elliott held up his right hand.

“Honest truth,” he said. “By the time I loved her more than life, I was already married to her and didn’t have to go through all the agony of deciding how and where and when and whether to make my offer.”

“She might laugh at me,” Constantine said.

“It is a distinct possibility,” Elliott conceded after thinking about it for a moment. “She is a formidable lady, is she not? Not to mention beautiful. She could probably have any unmarried man in the realm she chose to set her sights upon. She might laugh at your suit, Con. She might also weep. That would be more promising.”

“The Duchess of Dunbarton, Elliott,” Constantine said. “I would have to be mad.”

“Why?” Elliott said. “You have much to offer, Con, and you are considerably more eligible today than you were a week ago.” He gri

Constantine shrugged.

“Vanessa swears,” Elliott said, “that there is passion beneath all that sparkling white ice, Con, and that when the duchess finds an object upon which to focus it, she will be as constant as the north star. Vanessa tends to know these things. I would not dream of arguing with her upon such matters. I would turn out to be wrong, and she would gallantly refrain from saying I told you so, and I would feel like an idiot.”

“Hmm,” Constantine said.

“For your edification,” Elliott added, “she says that you have become that object, Con. You had better come with me to Moreland House as soon as we get back to town, by the way, and make your peace with Vanessa before you go off to Dunbarton House.”

“Right,” Constantine said before setting his head back and pretending to sleep so that there would be no more such talk.

He dozed off while wondering if she would laugh or weep if he offered her marriage.

Or whether he would give her the opportunity to do either.

Chapter 21

HANNAH THOUGHT she must have been right to fear that Constantine would stay at Ainsley and so avoid the issue of their affair and the words she had so incautiously spoken to him when they were at Copeland. He did not return to London the day after the Earl of Merton or even the day after that.

But, she discovered after three days, neither did the Duke of Moreland. They were both still out of town. Ha

So perhaps he would return after all. The duke certainly would.

In the meantime, it did not take Ha

This, at least, was the gossip that was doing the rounds of London clubs and drawing rooms. It would have been amusing had she not been so consumed with anxiety lest she be the one abandoned.

There was nothing to be done, however, but to live up to expectations while she waited. She was certainly not going to stay at home like a recluse any longer. On one brilliantly su

Barbara and the Reverend Newcombe accompanied her. It was their last day in London. Tomorrow they would return to Markle, Babs in a carriage with her maid, the vicar on horseback beside it so that all the proprieties might be observed. Ha

They were soon surrounded by people, most of them male, though not all. Margaret and Katherine were together in an open barouche and stopped to talk for a while. Katherine, upon learning that Barbara was to leave the next day, insisted that Ha

“We have almost but not quite persuaded Duncan’s grandpapa to come with us,” she said. “If he knows you are to be of our party, Ha

“Then tell him I have accepted only on condition that he does too,” Ha

Barbara and the Reverend Newcombe were talking with Mr. and Mrs. Park and another couple.

The barouche drove on, and Ha

And yet it was a part that could not be played indefinitely. She had not realized that until now. She certainly had not realized it at the start of the Season. Playing the part had been easy and even enjoyable while the duke had lived. There had been his company, his companionship, and—yes—his love in which to bask when she was not on public display. But now? There was only loneliness to look forward to after she went home. And Babs was leaving tomorrow.

Would new friends and old be enough in the coming days and months—and years?

Oh, Constantine, where are you? And are you going to avoid me if and when you return?

She was laughing at something Lord Moodie had just said and tapping him sharply on the sleeve of his coat when her court parted down the middle to let a horse through. A queer sort of hush descended too.

It was an all-black horse.

Constantine’s.

Ha

Constantine. All in black except for his shirt. Narrow-faced. Dark-eyed. Unsmiling. Almost sinister. Almost satanic.

Her dearly beloved.

Goodness, where had those fanciful words sprung from? The marriage service?