part of town. They did not need anything ostentatious.
Copeland, then, was to be their primary home.
He was happy about that, Constantine thought as he danced and watched Hannah dance. He would be happy actually to live in a hovel with her—though perhaps it would be as well if no one ever put that theory to the test.
And then it was suppertime and Stephen announced to the gathered
How many weeks was it, Constantine wondered, since he had ridden in Hyde Park with Monty and Stephen and seen Hannah for the first time in two years—and looked upon her with disapproval? It was not very many, but it was hard to remember quite how she had looked to him then. It was strange how very different a person looked when one knew her inside as well as out.
He had been starting to think about marrying even then. Little had he realized, though, as he looked upon her in the park, that she was the one.
The
His only love.
The dancing was late resuming. Everyone wanted to congratulate them and wish them well. A large number of men swore they would wear black armbands for a whole year, starting tomorrow. Hannah tapped them all sharply on the sleeve with her fan.
And then it was time to waltz.
It was a dance Constantine had always enjoyed, provided he was allowed to choose his own partners. Fortunately, men had more control of such matters than women did. But Hannah did not look as if she was complaining when he led her onto the floor.
“Happy?” he asked her as he circled her waist with his right arm and took her right hand in his left.
“Oh, I am,” she said with a sigh. “But I am not at all sure I am going to enjoy all the fuss of these wedding preparations. Perhaps we ought to have eloped.”
“My cousins would never forgive us,” he said, grinning at her.
“I know,” she said. “But I just want to be with
He had been trying valiantly to ignore similar feelings.
“You want to come tonight,” he asked her, “after the ball?”
She gazed into his eyes for several moments before sighing again.
“No,” she said at last. “I am no longer your lover, Constantine. I am your
He was disappointed—and relieved. There
“We will be good, then,” he said, “and look forward to our wedding night.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But it is not
He smiled at her.
“And I have just remembered something,” she said, brightening visibly. “The duke taught me that I should never say
The music began.
They waltzed beneath chandeliers bright with candlelight and among banks of flowers and ferns and about other dancers with their swirling satins and silks of many colors and their gleaming jewels, and they had eyes only for each other.
He had always felt that he lived on the edges of life, Constantine realized, watching everyone else living, sometimes helping them do it. He had been hurt so deeply by Jon’s death because he had tried to live his brother’s life and discovered at the end that it could not be done. Jon had had to do his own dying. Which was only right and proper, he knew now. Jon had lived his own life, and he had lived it richly and then died when his time came.
And now it was his, Constantine’s, turn. Suddenly, and for the first time, he was at the center of his own life, living it and loving it.
Loving the woman who was at the center of it with him.
Loving Hannah.
She was smiling at him.
He twirled them about one corner of the ballroom and smiled back.
Chapter 24
THE WEDDING of Hannah Reid, Duchess of Dunbarton, to Constantine Huxtable, Earl of Ainsley, was a small affair by
Most surprisingly, it was not only Constantine’s family that was in attendance. Her father came. So did Dawn and Colin, her sister and brother-in-law, and their five children—Louisa, aged ten, Mary, eight, Andrew, seven, Frederick, five, and Thomas, three. And Barbara came with her parents—the Reverend Newcombe was unable to get away so soon after the last time and before his own wedding and honeymoon.
Her father had scarcely changed, Hannah discovered when he arrived at Finchley Park the day before her wedding. The same could not be said for either Colin or Dawn. Both had expanded in girth and looked noticeably older. Colin had lost some of his hair and his youthful good looks. Dawn, in contrast, looked rosy-cheeked and placidly contented—though not at the moment of her arrival.
It had taken some courage for them to come, Hannah guessed.
She had decided ahead of time to behave as though there had been no estrangement, and they had made the same decision, it seemed. They hugged one another, greeted one another, and smiled. And they hid the embarrassment they must all be feeling by turning to the children, who were spilling out of another carriage.
She had two nieces and three nephews she knew virtually nothing about, Hannah thought as she gazed at each of them in turn as they made their curtsy or bow. She had never allowed Barbara to speak of her family.
Under slightly altered circumstances, Colin could now have been
“Do come inside,” she said. “There are tea and cakes awaiting everyone.”
“Aunt Hannah,” Frederick said, slipping a hand into hers as she turned toward the house, “I have new
“And mine,” Thomas said, trotting beside them as they entered the house.
“Then I am very glad I am having a wedding,” Hannah said. “We all need a good reason to have new shoes from time to time.”
Her heart constricted.
It was not until later that she had a chance to talk privately with her father. He was walking alone on the lawn beside the house after tea, when Hannah expected that he would be resting in his room as almost everyone else was.
She hesitated before going out to join him. But she had come this far toward reconciliation. Why stop now?
He looked up as she came to meet him and stopped walking. He clasped his hands behind his back.
“You are looking well, Hannah,” he said.
