A Secret Affair

“I can get there on my own, young man,” Ward said, “if you will hand me the cane propped against that chair. I thank you for your kindness, but I like to do things for myself while I can. I could have walked outside with my cane, but I was not going to refuse an offer to walk arm in arm with a lady instead, now, was I? And me a mere dock worker all my life.”

He chuckled and Constantine smiled.

“We will leave now,” the duchess said as the old man walked slowly away. “I hope the time has not been tedious for you.”

“It has not,” Constantine assured her.

Ten minutes later they were on horseback again and on their way back to Copeland. They did not speak until he had let them into the meadow beyond the lawn and shut the gate behind them and ridden half across the meadow.

“I think, Duchess,” he said, “that house is filled with happy people.”

She turned her head to smile at him.

“Mrs. Broome is a perfect manager,” she said. “And she has a wonderful staff.”

And she was happy when she was at that house, he thought. It was her marriage to the elderly duke that had brought her there.

The pattern of life.

And the pattern of Jon’s life had led to Ainsley, though he had not lived to see it.

And his own? Had he been born two days early—two days before his parents married—so that he would be illegitimate and unable to inherit the title himself? Had he found a better, more meaningful purpose for his life than he would have found as Earl of Merton? Was he better off, happier, than he would otherwise have been?

It was a dizzying thought.

Perhaps the circumstances of his birth had not blighted the whole of his life after all. Perhaps his secret affair with Jon’s dream was what his life was meant to bring him.

Perhaps he had benefited as much from Ainsley as the people who had passed through it.

“You are brooding,” she said.

“Not at all,” he assured her. “It is just my Mediterranean looks.”

“Which of course are quite splendid,” she said, sounding more like the old duchess. “No man without them could brood half as well.”

He laughed.

They rode onward in companionable silence until they came close to Copeland.

“I’ll take you back a different way,” she said. “There is something I want you to see.”

“Another cause?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she said. “Quite the opposite. A pure self-indulgence.”

And instead of riding into the park and across it on the shortest route to the house, she skirted about its outer wooded edge until by Constantine’s estimation they must be quite far behind the house. She drew her horse to a halt.

“It is best to go by foot from here,” she said, “and lead the horses.”

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 winner.”

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

He grinned lazily.

“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