A Secret Affair

He distracted his mind with conversation and a more careful perusal of the latest report from Harvey Wexford at Ainsley than he had been able to give it at breakfast.

One of the lambs had died—but it had been sickly from birth. The others were all flourishing. So were the calves, except for the two that had been stillborn. The crops were coming through nicely, the weather having been warm for a whole month and the rains having come when they were needed—though they could do with another right about now. Roseann Thirgood, the teacher who had once worked at a London brothel, had purchased a dozen new books for the schoolroom since several of her pupils, both children and adults, could read through the primers that had been bought last year with their eyes shut. Kevin Hurdle had had a rotten tooth pulled and had been walking about house and farm ever since with a large, progressively graying handkerchief tied over his head and beneath his jaw. Dotty, Winifred Baker’s young daughter, who was well suited to her name, had skipped all the way back to the kitchen from the henhouse one morning, swinging her basket of three eggs in wide arcs, with the result that egg yolk and egg white had dribbled all over the kitchen floor that Betty Ulmer had just scrubbed, and the basket was smeared almost beyond redemption. There was a fox paying the farmyard nocturnal visits, though so far it had gone away hungry each time. One of the plow horses was lame, but the offending thorn beneath its shoe had been found and disposed of, and the horse was on the mend. Winford Jones and his new wife sent their heartfelt thanks for the wedding gift Mr. Huxtable had sent them in a separate package last time he wrote.

He closed his eyes and, like the baby, slept for a while.

And then they were there. The carriage turned sharply between stone gateposts, waking them all, Constantine suspected, except Stephen, who had been holding the baby with steady concentration and keeping his shoulder firm for Cassandra’s right cheek to rest against.

The carriage bowled along a very straight driveway, lined with elm trees like soldiers on parade. It ran flat for a while and then sloped upward toward the gray stone house at the crest of the hill. Manor, mansion—it could qualify as either. It was about the same size as Ainsley and square, with a pillared, pedimented portico centered at the front and a flat roof bordered with an ornately carved stone balustrade. Long, narrow windows decreased in size from the first floor to the second to the third. It was a curious and pleasing mix of Jacobean and Georgian in design. The walls were liberally covered with ivy.

The park, Constantine could see, fell away from the house in every direction over lawns, through copses, to denser woods. There was a glimpse of water in the distance. It seemed to him that the elm-lined driveway was the only formal feature in the park.

He liked what he could see of it.

“How perfectly delightful it all is,” Cassandra was saying. “It seems very peaceful here.”

“A child’s paradise,” Stephen said. “I can see what the duchess meant when she told Meg that. An adult’s paradise too. Much as I love London, it always feels good to escape to the countryside once in a while. This house party was an inspired idea of the duchess’s. Would you not agree, Con?”

“Certainly. The air smells clean,” Constantine agreed, “even with the carriage windows shut.”

The driveway ended at a square, graveled courtyard below the wide steps and the imposing pillars. Miss Leavensworth was standing on the lawn to one side of the courtyard with Mr. and Mrs. Park and Mr. and Mrs. Newcombe, whom Constantine had met at the Tower of London.

Katherine and Monty were standing on the lawn at the other side, young Hal astride Monty’s shoulders. Sherry was a short distance away, holding Alex’s hands above his head while the child toddled across the grass to destinations unknown. Margaret and a few other unidentified persons—no, one of them was her daughter, Sarah—were strolling up from the direction of the water. Toby, Margaret and Sherry’s elder son, was up a tree with a larger boy—one of the Newcombe twins.

His own group was, Constantine guessed, the last to arrive.

Hannah was partway up the steps. She was wearing sunshine yellow. And piled curls that looked as though they might tumble down at any moment—though Constantine would wager they would not. And a wide smile and flushed cheeks and sparkling blue eyes.

He sucked in a breath and then hoped it had been inaudible.

He had not seen her for three days. She had come out here early to make sure everything was ready for her guests. It seemed to Constantine more like three weeks.

She looked like a girl. No, like a very young lady new to the world and full of optimism and hope and joy.

She stepped down into the courtyard when the coachman had opened the carriage door and set down the steps and handed Cassandra down.

“Lady Merton,” she said, “welcome to Copeland. I positively refused to worry about you after Lady Montford explained to me that you had to stop on the road more often than the rest of my guests because you are nursing the baby. Even so, it is so good to see the last of my guests safely arrived.”

She offered her right hand, and Cassandra took it.

“I am very happy to be here,” she said. “How inspired someone was to build the house just here. One cannot imagine a lovelier spot.”

“One cannot,” the duchess agreed and turned to Stephen. “And Lord Merton. Welcome. Oh, and the baby.”

She took a step closer and peered gingerly at him.

“Oh, he is beautiful,” she said, and she was more than just a woman enthusing over another woman’s child because it was expected of her.

“He is lovelier to hold,” Stephen said, smiling, and he laid the blanket-bound bundle of his son in her arms.

She looked startled, alarmed, and …

And suddenly there was a raw, naked look on her face for which Constantine could find no words. She was no longer smiling. She did not need to.

And then she did smile again … slowly.

“He is adorable,” she said. “I believe I am in love. What is his name?”

“Jonathan,” Stephen said.

“Oh.” She looked up at him and then at Constantine.

“With Con’s permission,” he added and took the baby back from her. “My predecessor, Con’s brother, was Jonathan too. Has he told you?”

“Yes,” she said. And she turned to him at last and held out both her hands. “Constantine. Welcome.”

“Duchess,” he said. “Thank you.”

He grasped her hands and kissed one of her cheeks. And smiled.

She was smiling back.

And Lord. Oh, good Lord.

He withdrew his hands and turned to look about. He drew air slowly into his lungs.

“I can see why you love Copeland and want to show it off,” he said. “It is a fine place.”

“Yes,” she said softly. Wistfully?

Sarah came whizzing up ahead of Margaret and her group, clutching a bunch of daisies in one hand.

“Uncle Con,” she yelled. “For you, Your Grace.” She thrust the daisies into Hannah’s hand. “Uncle Steve. Let me see the baby.”

Constantine looked at Hannah again. She was smiling down at her daisies. Which became her more than the diamonds she usually wore. Her eyes came up to meet his once more, and they both smiled.

This, he thought, was perhaps not a good idea after all.

He did not ask himself what this was.

***

IT SEEMED AN AGE TO HANNAH, an eternity since she had seen Constantine.

And then, when she did see him, she realized how much her perception of him had changed over time. He was no longer the dark, mysterious, possibly dangerous, and very attractive near- stranger she had been half aware of for a number of years, the man she had decided over the winter would be her first lover, the aloof, somewhat mocking man she had seen in Hyde Park earlier this spring, riding with Lord