“Hold still,” he said, “while I think about it.”
And he rode up alongside her until his knee dug into the side of her thigh, leaned across the gap between them, and kissed her on the lips. Jet snorted and sidled away.
It was perhaps the briefest and least satisfactory of all their kisses. But it was the one that informed Hannah very clearly indeed of what she had known for some time now, though she had avoided admitting it.
She was in love.
Which was very careless and incautious of her. And might well cause some pain at the end of the Season if she had not succeeded in falling
But she could not feel as sorry as she knew she ought. She felt as if eleven years of her life had somehow rolled away and left her young again and happy again—and in love again. Not in love with love this time, though, but with a real man, whom she liked and could actually
She would not be
But, oh, to have a lover, and to be in love for the whole of a springtime—it made her want to leap from Clover’s back and dance in the meadow beneath the pine tree, her face and her arms lifted to the sun.
How wonderful it was to be young.
“You may smile,” he said. “That was the sorriest prize ever awarded the victor of a horse race, Duchess. Before this day is over, I am going to demand a
She gave him her best haughty duchess look.
“You have to catch me first, Mr. Huxtable,” she said. “But look. You can just see Land’s End from here.”
She pointed ahead and they moved off together, side by side, at a walk this time. It was visible through a gap in the trees, a solid, quite unremarkable manor that was in many ways as dear to her as Copeland.
“How did you finance Ainsley?” she asked him.
“I am not poverty stricken,” he said with a shrug. “I was left well provided for.”
“But not well enough, I would be willing to wager,” she said. “I know something of what it costs to finance such a project. Did your brother help? You said the whole thing was his idea.”
She thought he would not answer. He looked dark and brooding again for some time. And then he laughed softly.
“The truly funny thing is,” he said, “that we did it exactly as
“You say
He turned his head to look steadily at her.
“The Huxtable jewels were not mine to sell, Duchess, or even to
“I wish I had known him,” Hannah said softly. “Jonathan, I mean.”
“And then one morning,” Constantine said, “he came bounding into my bedchamber and shook me awake— literally. He was bursting with excitement, bubbling over with it,
“Mule?” she said. “Could he have been like his elder brother by any chance?”
“Ten times worse,” he said. “The only way I could have stopped him was to run off and tell tales to my uncle behind his back. But I wanted what Jon wanted too, you see, and I was too weak to do what was undoubtedly the right thing. For years I had been sickened by what Jon had just discovered. I knew about it all my life, it seems. I watched my mother dwindle with unhappiness and the repeated loss of children, and my father debauch everything in skirts. He was not a pleasant man, Duchess. And he hated Jon, whom he called an imbecile, sometimes to his face. I beg your pardon. One ought not to say anything aloud against one’s parents. Anyway, none of the jewels I sold for Jon was part of the entailed property. But several of them had been in the family for a few generations, and all were costly and fully documented. A good case could have been made to say that Jon had no right to dispose of those pieces without the express permission of his legal guardian. And even if he had lived to his majority I daresay the powers that be would have declared him incompetent to make his own decisions unaided.”
“He was stealing from himself, then?” she said.
“He knew what he was doing,” he said. “Jon was no fool. Sometimes I believe he was the only truly wise one among us. What is more important? Those ancient jewels locked up in a safe at Warren Hall, or those people at Ainsley?”
She laughed. “You would never be able to guess my answer, would you?”
They were getting close to Land’s End. There was just a meadow to cross and then the wide lawn to one side of the house.
“You have told no one all this?” she asked. “No one but me?”
“No,” he said. “Not even the king.”
“And so everyone thinks you are a villain,” she said, “who stole from his helpless brother in order to purchase a home for himself in Gloucestershire, where he lives in the lap of luxury.”
He shrugged.
“I believe,” he said, “Elliott must have been as closemouthed as I have, except perhaps with Vanessa. If he had not, I do not suppose Stephen or his sisters would still be on speaking terms with me, would they?”
“Or trying to protect you from me,” she agreed.
He looked at her and smiled before stooping to open the gate leading from the meadow into the park. They walked their horses through, and he shut the gate behind them.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you ought to tell the Earl of Merton what you have told me. He seems to me to be a gentle, honorable soul.”
He raised one mocking eyebrow and shot her a glance.
“You believe he would forgive me?” he asked.
“I believe,” he said, “he might assure you that forgiveness is not necessary. It is Jonathan he needs to forgive rather than you, anyway, is it not?”
He nudged his horse to a slightly faster pace and moved ahead of her until she made the effort to catch up.
“That is what you fear most?” she asked. “That no one will be able to forgive your brother? Perhaps you need to give them more credit.”
He turned to look fully at her again, and his features looked very taut, his eyes very black.
“Have you told anyone about
“No,” she said.
“Why not?” he asked. “Why did you not invite all your guests to come here this afternoon?”
“I have a reputation to protect, Constantine,” she said.