A Secret Affair (35 page)

Or was it something else? Had her guests seen during the past few days what she was seeing now? Simply herself?

Was she able to inspire love, or at least liking and respect, as herself?

She was not the
only
beautiful woman in the world, after all. Even here. Cassandra and her sisters-in-law were all strikingly good-looking. Mrs. Finch was pretty. So were Marianne Astley and Julianna Bentley. Barbara was lovely.

Hannah sighed and got to her feet. She was
so
glad there had been this house party. She had enjoyed it more than she could remember enjoying anything for a long while. And there was this evening left. Tomorrow she would be back in London. She and Constantine would be able to spend the night together. Unless, that was, he felt it necessary to hurry down to Ainsley Park to see that all was well with his farm hand.

She hoped for the sake of both him and Constantine that that situation would resolve itself soon.

“T
OMORROW NIGHT,”
he said, gazing up at stars too numerous to count. “My carriage at eleven o’clock. At my house by quarter past—
not one second later. And in my bed at twenty past.
Not
to sleep. Be prepared for an orgy to end orgies.”

She laughed softly, her head on his arm.

They were lying on the bank of the lake. Everyone was pleasantly weary after the children’s party and picnic and quite content to sit about the drawing room after dinner, conversing or listening to whoever had the ambition to play the pianoforte or sing. Four people were playing cards. The duchess had clearly felt no qualms about leaving her guests to their own devices when Constantine invited her to step outside with him. Indeed some of his cousins had actually smiled indulgently from one to the other of them.

His
female
cousins and Cassandra were actually calling her
Hannah
, he had noticed during the day.

“You must not expect to hear any argument from me,” she said now. “But having made such a boast, Constantine, you must live up to expectations. I insist upon it.”

“I’ll be going down to Ainsley the next morning,” he said. “I must go. Everything is probably settled happily by now, but I must go in person to smooth things over with Kincaid and the other neighbors. And to thank Wexford for handling the matter on my behalf. And to assure Jess that I am certainly
not
disappointed in him. I may not see you for a week or more.”

“That will be tiresome,” she said. “But I daresay I shall survive, you know. And I daresay you will too. You must go.”

Suddenly the end of the Season seemed not very far off at all. Indeed, if it were not for his affair with the duchess, he would probably decide that it was not worth coming back to London this year. But he could not contemplate putting an end to their affair quite yet. And perhaps …

Well, he would think of that some other time.

She had told him this morning that she loved him. What
exactly
had she meant by that? It was not a question he could ask aloud, though he would dearly like to know the answer.

“In the meantime …” He slid his arm from beneath her head,
raised himself onto one elbow, and looked down at her. “Tomorrow night seems a long way away.”

He bent his head and kissed her—a lazy exploration, first with his lips, then with his tongue deep inside her mouth.

“It does,” she agreed with a sigh when he raised his head again.

He rubbed his nose back and forth across hers.

“I will respect your wishes, Duchess,” he said, “even though your guests probably have their own idea of what is going on between us out here. Let me love you without dishonoring those wishes.”

“How?” She reached up one hand and set her forefinger along his slightly crooked nose.

“No penetration,” he said. “I promise.”

“And so respectability will be preserved,” she said. “Everything
but
penetration, and our guests believing the worst. It is the story of my life.”

He rose up onto his knees and straddled her body. He slid her gown off her shoulders and beneath her breasts and smoothed his hands over her, fondled her, rolled her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, lowered his head to suckle them one at a time, and kissed her mouth again, his fingers tangling in her hair, his tongue sucked deep and then luring hers into his mouth to be suckled in its turn.

Her hands pressed over his back, under his shirt, down inside his drawers.

She was hot with passion.

He was throbbing with need.

Not
a good idea after all. And what the devil difference would it make if he entered her and rode to completion with her? It was what they both wanted. It was what they had both lived without for far too many days and nights.

He moved to one side of her, his mouth still on hers, and slid a hand beneath her skirt, up over the smoothness of her silk stockings, along the heated flesh of her inner thighs and up …

“No.”

Surprisingly, the voice was his own.

He withdrew his hand, lowered her skirt, and raised his head.

“Damn you, Constantine,” she half shocked him by saying. “And thank you.”

And she wrapped her arms about his neck and drew his head back to her own. She kissed him softly and warmly. He could feel her heart thudding in her bosom, the heat of her arousal, the determined effort she was making to return their embrace within the bounds of decorum.

“Thank you,” she said again a minute or two later, hugging him close. “Thank you, Constantine. I am not sure I would have been able to resist. You are
so
gorgeous. I was perfectly right about you from the start.”

Did that mean he might have …?

He was glad he had not.

But dash it all, he deserved some sort of medal of honor.

There was probably not a person in the drawing room who did not believe he was enjoying everything there was to enjoy with her.

She had a strange—and touchingly wonderful—sense of honor.

They strolled arm in arm back to the house, and he remembered again the words she had spoken this morning—and not since. Because he had not said them back to her?
Could
he?
Would
he?

They were the most dangerous words in the English language when strung together. They were so completely irrevocable.

He would have to think about saying them.

Perhaps tomorrow night.

Or when he returned from Ainsley.

Or never.

Coward.

Or wise man.

“I will have to go up to my bedchamber before returning to the drawing room and ordering the tea tray brought up,” she said. “I probably have grass clinging to my person from head to toe. My hair surely looks like a bird’s nest. I must look thoroughly tumbled.”

“I wish you were,” he said with a loud sigh.

She laughed.

“Tomorrow night,” she said. “And the promised orgy.”

He escorted her upstairs to her room and went along to his to comb his hair and make sure that
he
did not look as if he had been rolling in a haystack somewhere.

H
ANNAH SHOOK OUT
her dress, adjusted it at the bosom, washed her hands, and repaired her hair as well as she could without taking it all down, and peered dubiously into the mirror above her dressing table. Were her cheeks as flushed as she thought they were? And her eyes as bright?

Ignominiously, she wished he had not kept his promise outside. That way she could have enjoyed all the pleasure without assuming any of the guilt. She could even have scolded him afterward.

But really that
was
an ignominious way to think. She was very glad—very glad indeed—that he
had
kept the promise.

Oh, how she loved him!

She hurried across her dressing room and reached out a hand to open the door. Someone rapped on the other side before she could do so and opened it without waiting.

Ah, impatient man!

She smiled before two things registered on her mind. Constantine was as pale as a ghost. And he had changed during the minutes since he had left her outside the door. He was dressed for travel in a long cloak and top-boots. He held a tall hat in one hand.

“I must ask a favor of you, Duchess,” he said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “I did not bring my own carriage. I came here with Stephen and Cassandra. I must beg the loan of a horse—Jet, if I may, to get me back to London. I’ll get my own carriage there and proceed on my way.”

“To Gloucestershire?” she said. “Already?
Now?”

Foolishly, all she could think of was that he did not want the promised orgy of lovemaking after all.

“There was another letter waiting in my room,” he said. “They are going to
hang
him.”

“Wh-a-a-t?” She gaped at him.

“For theft. As an example to other would-be thieves,” he said. “I have to go.”

“What are you going to
do?”
she asked him.

“Save him,” he said. “Talk sanity into
someone
. Good God, Hannah, I do not know
what
I am going to do. I have to go.
May
I take Jet?”

His eyes were black and wild as he raked the fingers of one hand through his hair.

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“You most certainly will not,” he said. “A horse?”

“The carriage,” she said, and she opened the door again and swept out of the room ahead of him. “I’ll give the orders. Take my carriage and go directly to Ainsley Park. It will save you at least half a day.”

She went out to the stable and carriage house herself, as if her physical presence could hasten him on his way. Horses and carriage were readied with great speed, though it seemed agonizingly slow to Hannah, and to Constantine, who paced, like a caged animal.

She took his hands in hers again when she saw that the carriage was almost ready, and the coachman was hurrying up, dressed in his livery.

But she could not think of anything to say. What
did
one say under such circumstances?

Have a safe journey?

I hope you get there in time?

But in time for what?

I hope you can talk them out of hanging poor Jess
.

You probably will not be able to
.

She drew his hands to her face and held them to her cheeks. She turned her head and kissed his palms one at a time. Her throat was sore, but she would not shed tears.

She looked up at him. He stared blankly back. She was not even sure he saw her.

“I love you,” she whispered.

His eyes focused on her.

“Hannah,” he said.

Her name again. It was almost like a declaration of love. Not that she was consciously thinking of such trivialities.

He turned and climbed into the carriage and shut the door behind him, and within moments the carriage was on its way.

Hannah raised a hand, but he did not look out.

H
IS PRESENCE
at Ainsley would achieve nothing, Hannah thought with a great sinking of the heart as she watched her carriage disappear at some speed down the straight driveway.

That poor man was going to hang for theft. And Constantine would never forgive himself for taking him in to live at Ainsley and then somehow failing to keep him safe from harm. This was something from which he would never ever recover even though, of course, it was all
none of his fault
.