A Secret Affair

“I am feeling wonderful,” she said.

“And so you are to marry another aristocrat,” he said. “But a younger man this time. Is this one someone who is likely to bring you at least some happiness?”

Had he misunderstood all these years?

“I love him,” she said, “and he loves me. I expect a great deal of happiness from my marriage to Constantine. You will meet him later. He is coming for dinner. But, Papa, I knew a great deal of happiness in my first marriage. The duke was kind to me—more than kind. And I adored him in return.”

“He was old,” her father said. “He might have been my father. I have never forgiven myself for the part I played in causing you to act so impulsively as to marry him, Hannah. And I did nothing to stop you. I suppose at the time it seemed an easy answer to a nasty problem. Both my daughters loved the same man, and I wanted both to be happy. I thought you would more easily recover and find happiness with someone else since all the young men had an eye for you, and so I sided with Dawn. That was shortsighted of me, was it not? You married an old man you did not even know and went away and never came back and never wrote, and—Well. And I never had the courage to write either, did I?”

“Marrying the duke was the best thing I ever did,” she said. “And if I judged correctly at tea, marrying Colin was the best thing Dawn ever did.”

“They seem happy enough,” he said. “And my grandchildren are the light of my life. Perhaps—”

He stopped.

“Yes, perhaps,” she agreed. “I am only thirty, Papa. And a child is all I need to complete my happiness.”

“Thank you,” he said awkwardly, “for inviting us to your wedding, Hannah.”

“Constantine has no brothers or sisters,” she said, “but he has cousins on both sides of his family. And they are all very close. More than that, they are affectionate and welcoming. They have opened their hearts and their lives to include me. You could see that at tea, could you not, with Elliott and Vanessa, the Duke and Duchess of Moreland, and his mother and sisters? They have made me understand the importance of family. And Constantine persuaded me to reach out to my own again at last. I did not know if you would come. I believe I expected that you would not.”

He sighed deeply and audibly.

“I wept when your letter came,” he said. “There. I did not expect ever to admit that to a living soul. I felt—forgiven.”

She stepped forward and set her forehead on his shoulder. His hands came to her waist and held her.

***

HER CHANCE WITH DAWN did not come until the following morning—her wedding day. She was in her dressing room, holding her head still while Adèle curled a stubborn tendril of hair over her right temple more to her satisfaction.

She was wearing pale pink, a color she would not have expected to choose for her wedding. But when she had been shopping for fabrics, she had fallen in love with this shade. She had a new straw bonnet to wear with it, trimmed with pink rosebuds and greenery and pink silk ribbons a shade darker than the dress.

The sky, she could see through the window, was a clear blue. There was not a cloud in sight.

And then everyone, on their way to church, came to see her first. Vanessa and Averil and Jessica, Elliott’s sisters, exclaimed over her and smiled at her and declared they would not hug her and risk crushing either her dress or her hair. All agreed that Cecily, Elliott’s youngest sister, who was in imminent expectation of a happy event, would be very vexed indeed to be missing all this excitement. Mrs. Leavensworth clasped her hands to her bosom and declared that she had not been happier in her life—though she supposed she would be happier yet in three weeks’ time when it was Barbara’s turn.

Barbara did not care whether she crushed anything or not. She hugged Hannah tightly and wordlessly for a whole minute. Then she stood back and looked her over.

“This is what I have hoped and hoped would happen, Hannah,” she said. “I have even prayed about it. Laugh if you will. You have far too much love to give to squander it on mere flirtation. And Mr. Huxtable, or, rather, the Earl of Ainsley, is the right man. I thought so when we were at Copeland. I was almost sure when he scooped you up onto his horse in the park. And when I saw the two of you together at dinner last evening, well, there was no doubt left in my mind. And now that I have delivered that little sermon, I had better get off to church with Mama and Papa before the bride races us there.” She laughed.

“Babs.” Hannah hugged her again. “How would I have done without you all these years?”

“No better than I would have done without you, I suppose,” Barbara said. “Oh, there you are, Dawn. Mama and I are on our way out and will leave you with more room.”

And they were gone and only Dawn remained, standing uncertainly just inside the door.

“I am ready, Adèle,” Hannah said. “I can put on my own bonnet before I leave.”

Her maid slipped from the room.

“I don’t know how you do it, Hannah,” Dawn said, sounding almost aggrieved, “but you are more beautiful now than you were eleven years ago.”

“I am in love,” Hannah said, smiling, “and this is my wedding day. It is easy to be beautiful under such circumstances.”

“It is not just that,” Dawn said. “I used to think it was just your looks. But it was always what was inside you too. And now there is even more of that. The Earl of Ainsley is very handsome, is he not, though it is a pity about his nose. I should call him Constantine, I suppose, as he invited me to do last evening, but it seems presumptuous. You have done well for yourself, though it must have seemed that the old duke was going to live forever. That must have been a severe trial to you.”

“I suppose the whole world believes that,” Hannah said. “It is not the truth, but it does not matter if no one knows that but me—and Constantine. And now I am about to marry a man I love with all my heart. If you ever look back and feel a twinge of guilt, Dawn, let it go. All things happen for a purpose—sometimes a larger purpose than we can possibly see at the time. What happened led me to the duke and ten years of surprising happiness. And marrying the duke led me by slow degrees to today.”

“I don’t feel guilt,” Dawn said. “You could have had anyone if you had set your mind to it. You chose Colin, and he was dazzled for a while as all men are when they see you. But he really loved me, and I loved him. We have a good marriage, and we have good, healthy children—which is more than you have. I do not feel guilt.”

Hannah smiled.

“I am glad you are happy,” she said, taking a step closer to her sister. “And your children really are a delight, Dawn. I look forward to getting better acquainted with them as time goes on. I’ll be in Markle for Barbara’s wedding. We will be staying with Papa.”

“Barbara will be grand,” Dawn said, “having an earl and countess on her guest list. No one will talk of anything else for a month or more.”

Hannah took another step forward and hugged her sister. It was a reconciliation of sorts, she thought as Dawn’s arms came about her. They would probably never be as close as sisters ought to be. Perhaps Dawn would always resent her even though she had got Colin, of whom she seemed genuinely fond. And she had their five children, who really were good-natured and prettily behaved.

But at least now they had been restored to each other. At least now they could begin to build a new relationship with each other. There was the whole of the future ahead of them. There was always hope.

“I had better go,” Dawn said. “Colin and the children will be waiting for me.”

Hannah watched her go before closing the dressing room door. There was one more thing she needed to do before putting on her bonnet and going downstairs to join her father.

She reached down one side of her portmanteau and drew out a small square box. She opened it and set it on the dressing table while she looked down at her wedding ring and then slid it slowly off her finger. She held it for a moment and raised it to her lips.

“Good-bye, my dearest duke,” she whispered. “You would be happy for me today, would you not? You