A Secret Affair

“I will walk,” she said. “The fresh air will do me good, and there is a pleasant breeze.”

The duchess surprised her by hugging her tightly before she left.

“You must come and have tea with me one afternoon,” she said. “I will send an invitation. Will you come? I have always wished I knew you better.”

“Thank you,” Hannah said. “I would like that.”

Where was he now, she wondered as she hurried away toward home. She did not doubt he had traveled through the night, stopping only for toll gates and a change of horses. She had warned her coachman to expect a nonstop journey. Would they be there by now? Or was he still on the road, wondering if he would be there in time, wondering if he could save his protégé?

And how soon could she decently present herself at St. James’s Palace, requesting an audience with the king himself?

Would he see her?

Would he even be allowed to know she was there?

But of course he would grant her an audience. She was the Duchess of Dunbarton, widow of the Duke of Dunbarton.

Expect something, he had taught her, and it is yours.

She expected to see the king within the next few hours. But she needed to hurry home first in order to garb herself in all her finest armor.

Not a fake diamond was to be in sight this morning. And not the merest hint of any color except white.

***

CONSTANTINE ARRIVED at Ainsley Park in the middle of a wet afternoon, weary to the bone and unshaven. He found everyone there pale and disconsolate, from Harvey Wexford on down to Millie Carver, the twelve-year-old kitchen maid whom he had rescued from a London brothel almost two years ago just before she was to be offered to the highest bidder for deflowering.

Jess Barnes had one week of life left.

Constantine bathed and shaved and changed his clothes—he did not sleep—before riding to the jail in a town four miles away. Jess looked unwashed but otherwise well cared for. He dissolved in tears when he saw Constantine, not because he was going to die, but because he had let his benefactor down and expected to be scolded.

Constantine took him in his arms, dirt and lice and all, and told him that he loved him no matter what, no matter where or when.

And then Jess smiled sunnily at him and was reassured.

“Everyone sends their love,” Constantine told him. “And cook has sent so much of your favorite foods that you will be fat if you eat them all. I am going to get you out of here, Jess, and take you back home. But not today. You will have to be patient. Can you do that?”

Jess could, it seemed, if Mr. Huxtable said he ought.

Not that he had any choice.

Constantine spent the following day in a futile attempt to get the charges against Jess dropped, to get the judge’s decision reversed, to get the sentence commuted, to get the defense of insanity admitted, to do anything to save Jess’s life and preferably to bring him back home to Ainsley.

Kincaid, his aggrieved neighbor, who had ended up with his chickens and their value in cash, would not look Constantine in the eye but was quite firm in his opinion that the harshness of the penalty was necessary both to remove a vicious evil from the neighborhood and to deter all the other potential threats to their peace and safety that were residing at Ainsley Park. If there was some way he could sue Huxtable himself for reckless endangerment to his neighbors or something else similar, then he would do it. He was still consulting lawyers on the matter.

Most of the other neighbors received Constantine with courtesy, even with sympathy, but none of them was willing to stand up against Kincaid. A few of them, Constantine suspected, were secretly cheering the man on.

A lawyer gave as his professional opinion that the plea of insanity would not accomplish anything since Jess Barnes showed no signs of madness, only of feeblemindedness. He had never denied stealing. He had never denied knowing that it was wrong to steal. There really was no defense, only a plea for mercy.

The judge himself received Constantine politely, even with some hearty good humor. But he would not budge on the Jess Barnes case. The man was a menace to society. The county—indeed the whole country—would be well rid of him when he hanged. The judge might have sentenced him to a few years of hard labor if he had been of sound mind, but under the circumstances …

Well, Mr. Huxtable had been clever in choosing to man his farms and his house with cheap labor and loose women to keep the men and himself happy, but he had to expect that things like this would happen from time to time. They were both men of the world and understood these things, after all.

At home, Wexford was incapable of doing any productive work. If he could change places with Jess, he told Constantine, he would do it gladly. It was all his fault. He had told Jess that Mr. Huxtable would be disappointed in him, thinking that of all things would teach Jess not to be careless in the future. But it had caused all this—and it was not even true. Mr. Huxtable had never been disappointed in anyone at Ainsley except the very few who had left of their own accord, unwilling to work for their keep or observe the few rules that were necessary for the community to exist happily and productively.

Constantine had squeezed his shoulder, but he could give no other comfort.

Everyone else was almost equally upset. Jess was something of a favorite with them all.

By the next morning Constantine was in despair. He could not recall when he had last slept—or eaten. He had ridden in to see Jess again and then ridden home. He did not know what else he could do. He could not remember feeling this helpless ever before.

There must be something.

He remained in the stable yard to brush down his own horse. He heard the approach of a carriage before he saw it. A painful hope caused his stomach to lurch. Was it Kincaid, perhaps? Had he had a change of heart? And would it do anything to change the judge’s mind?

He walked to the gateway and looked out when the carriage was close. He tried not to hope.

It was not a carriage that could be mistaken for any other. There was a ducal coat of arms emblazoned on the sides. The coachman and the footman beside him up on the box were in ducal livery. The whole conveyance must have caused a stir as it crossed the country—and as it passed through the village on the way here.

It was the carriage of the Duke of Moreland.

Elliott’s carriage.

Constantine was too weary to feel any great surprise. He felt only a dull anger.

Elliott had come to gloat.

Though why he should come all this way just to do that he did not try to analyze.

He strode toward the house, just behind the carriage as its wheels crunched over gravel and came to a stop outside the front doors.

The footman jumped down smartly from the box and made off in the direction of the steps leading up to the doors.

“There is no need,” Constantine told him. “I am here.”

The footman turned, bowed, and returned to the carriage to open the door and set down the steps.

Elliott descended to the terrace, and Constantine’s anger was full blown.

“You are lost,” he said curtly. “Your coachman took a wrong turn somewhere. He should ask at the village inn for directions.”

Elliott turned to him, and they stared at each other.

“It is Con Huxtable I am looking for,” Elliott said. “You look like an unkempt, haggard version of him.”

Someone else descended from the carriage.

Stephen.

Constantine turned his eyes on him.