A Secret Affair

farther into the room. He took a chair some distance from Hannah’s. “You were telling me, Margaret, that they too hated to leave the children behind.”

“I will,” she said just as the tea tray was brought in. “You know Constantine, Grandpapa.”

“Huxtable?” he said. “Merton’s grandson? I knew your grandfather. A fine man. Didn’t much care for his son, though. Your father, I suppose that was. You don’t look like him, which is fortunate for you. You must take after your mother. Greek, was she not? Daughter of an ambassador?”

“Yes, sir,” Constantine said.

“I went to Greece in my youth,” the marquess said. “And Italy and everywhere else a young man was supposed to go in those days before the wars spoiled everything. The Grand Tour, you know. I fancied the Parthenon. Can’t remember much else except great expanses of blue sea. And the wine, of course. And the women, though I won’t pursue that topic in the ladies’ hearing.”

They all chatted amicably for half an hour before Hannah rose to take her leave.

“You must come to see me again, Hannah,” the marquess said. “It does my heart good to look at your pretty face. And never let that ancient fool of a butler of mine try to tell you I am from home.”

“If he should ever attempt anything so foolish,” she said, going to take one of his hands in both of hers, “I shall sweep by him and run up the stairs and burst in upon you unannounced. And then when I have left, you may scold him to your heart’s content and threaten him with dismissal.”

“He would not go,” he said. “I have tried retiring him with a hefty pension and a home to go with it. Duncan has tried. Margaret has tried. There would be no point at all in dismissing him. He would refuse to be dismissed.”

“Looking after you and guarding your home from invasion is what keeps him active and alive, Grandpapa,” Lady Sheringford said. “Your Grace, it has been very good of you to come here this morning. I will send you a definite answer by tomorrow morning, if I may. We all will.”

Hannah bent over the old man’s chair and kissed him on the cheek before straightening up and releasing his hand.

“Thank you,” she said to Lady Sheringford.

“I will escort you home, if I may, Duchess,” Constantine said. “Though I am on foot.”

What was he doing here? The countess had been in the nursery with her children. Had he been there too? With the children?

“Thank you, so am I,” she said and swept out of the room ahead of him.

She took his arm when they were out on the pavement, and they walked for a while in silence. What a strange morning, she thought. She was still not quite sure why she had come. But oh, how lovely it had been to see the Marquess of Claverbrook again. One of the duke’s contemporaries.

“The marquess told me about a duel the duke fought years and years ago,” she said, “over the other man’s wife, with whom he had been accused of committing adultery. Funny, is it not? The marquess told me he was the very devil in those days.”

“But you tamed him,” he said. “I heard that much.”

“That is funny,” she said. “When I decided to have you for a lover, Constantine, I told myself then that I would tame the devil. I did not realize that I had already done it—with another man.”

She laughed.

“And have you tamed me too?” he asked.

“Oh,” she said, “most provokingly, Constantine, it has turned out that you are not the devil after all. And I cannot tame what does not exist.”

She turned her head to smile at him.

“Disappointed?” he asked.

Was she? Life would be so much easier—so much more as she had planned it to be—if he really were the ruthless, dangerous, sensuous devil she had taken him for. There would have been all the challenge of pitting her wits against his, of conquering him, of enjoying him. And leaving him and forgetting him when summer came would have been the easiest thing in the world.

But was she disappointed? Or was she being challenged in other ways? Challenged to conquer him, after all. And challenged to conquer herself and the person she had thought she had become.

She was no longer sure who she was. She was not the girl she had been, that was for sure. She was long gone. But she was not the person she had thought she had become either—not now that she was alone to live the life of that person.

She was not nearly as hard as that woman was. Or as certain of her destiny or the route she must take to get there. But the duke had never taught her to be either hard or certain. He had taught her to like herself, to take charge of her life, to be immune to the worst of the jealousies and gossip that were certain to follow her about wherever she went, and …

And to wait for that someone who would be the center of her life’s meaning.

Was Constantine that center?

But her mind turned from the thought in some dismay. Heavens, did she have no sense of self-preservation even after eleven years?

But he was not the devil.

She felt as if she had a whole arsenal of windmills in her head.

“Does that mean yes?” he prompted.

He had asked if she was disappointed.

“Not at all,” she said. “I promised myself the best lover in all England, and I have no reason to suppose I have not found him. For this year, anyway.”

“That’s the spirit, Duchess,” he said. And his eyes laughed into hers again from a face that remained in repose. Not in mockery, she thought, but more in …

Affection?

Well.

But … affection?

The windmills turned in her mind again.

“Now what,” he asked her, “is this about a children’s party at Copeland?”

Ah, yes, and there was that. A purely spur-of-the-moment plan that she must now make a reality.

She never spoke impulsively. Nothing with her was spur of the moment.

Except this visit to the Countess of Sheringford.

And the children’s party at Copeland.

Constantine laughed softly.

“Duchess,” he said, “if you could just see your face now.”

“It will be the best party ever,” she said haughtily.

He laughed again.

Chapter 14

HANNAH LEFT FOR COPELAND with Barbara three days before any of the house guests were expected to arrive. Not that their presence there was needed. The housekeeper was an exceptionally competent lady who had complete control over her staff and the running of the household. She also had the advantage of being a likable person, to whom all the servants were devoted.

Hannah was well aware that for those three days, as she prowled restlessly about the house, she was in danger of getting under everyone’s feet and possibly on their nerves too. It was somewhat provoking to discover that her household did, in fact, run so smoothly, even under the stress of an imminent house party, that her