A Secret Affair

predicted it would happen. And you would be a little sad too, perhaps? I am happy. And a little sad. But you are with your love, and I will be with mine. And always a little part of us will belong to each other.”

She set the ring down carefully inside the box, hesitated a moment, and then closed the lid resolutely and set the box back in the portmanteau.

She reached for her bonnet.

And suddenly there was such a welling of excitement within her that her fingers all felt like thumbs as she tied the ribbons into a bow beneath her right ear.

***

THE CHAPEL WAS CROWDED to capacity, as Constantine had known it would be even though there were very few guests apart from family. There was the slight buzz of hushed conversation behind him and the fidgetings and louder, higher-pitched voices of all the children.

So many of them. The family was growing. And it had not stopped yet. Katherine and Monty were in the process of doubling the size of their family. Cecily was expecting to give birth any day now.

And it was not just family. Phillip Grainger’s wife was large with child and had two others in the pew beside her. Phillip, one of Constantine’s oldest friends, was his best man.

It all felt very comforting, somehow. Family. And this morning he was to become a married man himself. A family man. Oh, he hoped he was to be a family man.

But he was not even married yet.

Would Hannah be late? It would be strange if she were not.

There were five interminable minutes to wait even before she was late. What had he said about cultivating patience?

He wished he had eaten some breakfast.

He was thankful he had not.

And he was, dash it all, getting nervous.

What if she was having second thoughts?

What if an old duke had popped up out of a deep chair somewhere in Finchley and eloped with her?

And then there was the sound of carriage wheels—after all of the guests had surely arrived. It was only three minutes to eleven.

The carriage stopped. Of course. There was nowhere else to go along this trail except the chapel.

There was a greater hush within. Everyone had heard what he had heard.

And then the vicar appeared in the doorway and instructed the congregation to stand. And he walked down the aisle toward the altar and left the doorway clear for Delmont, Hannah’s father, and for Hannah herself.

A vision of all that was beautiful in soft pink.

His bride.

Oh, Lord. His bride.

He took half a step toward her and stopped. He was supposed to stay where he was. She was supposed to come to him.

And she did so until she stood beside him, her arm still drawn through her father’s though she was smiling at him through the froth of a pink veil that was draped over the brim of her straw bonnet.

He smiled back at her.

And why they had spent so much time discussing where they would marry and how many people they wanted as their guests he really did not know. It did not matter where they were. And for the moment it did not matter who was there to witness them exchanging vows that would bind them in law and in love for the rest of their days.

It did not matter.

“I do,” he said when the vicar had asked him what he was prepared to do in order to make Hannah his wife forever.

“I do,” she said in return.

And then he was reciting vows, prompted by the vicar, and she was reciting them in her turn. And Phillip was handing him the shiny gold band of her wedding ring and he was slipping it onto her bare ring finger. And suddenly—

Ah, suddenly it was all over, the anticipation and the excitement, the baseless fears.

They were man and wife.

And what God had joined together, no power on earth could put asunder.

“Hannah.” He lifted the veil back from her face and gazed into her eyes.

They gazed back into his own, wide and guileless and trusting.

His wife.

And suddenly he was aware of shufflings and murmurings, a child’s piping voice, a single cough. And he was aware again of where they were and who was here with them. And he was glad that family and friends were here to celebrate with them.

He felt a warm rush of pure happiness.

Hannah—his wife—smiled at him, and when he went to smile back, he realized that he was already doing it.

***

THERE WERE NO CARRIAGES outside the chapel. They would all walk back to Warren Hall, the bride and groom leading the way.

But not immediately.

When they had stepped outside the church, Hannah looked at her new husband, her hand slipping from his arm so that she could clasp his hand instead.

“Yes,” she said softly as if he had said something.

Her husband. Oh, he was her husband.

And they turned together, as if they had discussed it beforehand, and made their way into the churchyard. They stopped at the foot of one small and simple mound of grass. A headstone bore the five-line inscription, Jonathan Huxtable, Earl of Merton, Died November 8, 1812, Aged Sixteen Years, Rest in Peace.

They stood side by side, looking down at it, their hands clasped tightly.

“Jonathan,” Hannah said softly, “thank you for living a life so rich with love. Thank you for living on in Constantine’s heart and in your dream at Ainsley Park.”

Constantine’s clasp on her hand was almost painful.

“Jon,” he said, his voice a whisper of sound, “you would be happy today. But you were always happy. Go in peace now, brother. I have kept you too long. I always was selfish. Go in peace.”

A tear dripped from Hannah’s chin to the neckline of her wedding dress. She dried her eyes with the gloved fingers of her free hand.

“I love you, Hannah,” Constantine said almost as softly.

“I love you too,” she said.

And they turned toward their wedding guests, who were crowded about the path outside the chapel doors, talking and laughing. Children darted about, their voices raised in high-pitched chatter.

Constantine laced his fingers with Hannah’s and they walked toward their family and friends, smiling with exuberant joy.

And the air rained rose petals.

Epilogue