Mary Balogh - A Secret Affair

“Were they idle questions?” Hannah asked. “The ones he asked, I mean?”

“I don’t believe so,” Barbara said, and tears welled in her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. “No, I don’t believe so. He wanted to know, and so he asked a country bumpkin unwise in the ways of the ton. I am so sorry.”

“Silly goose,” Hannah said, setting one hand against the back of Barbara’s bowed neck. “You told him nothing but facts he could have discovered some other way with the greatest ease. You did not exactly inform him that I was a murderess or a bigamist or a … What else might I have been that would have made for a ghastly revelation indeed?”

“A highwayman?” Barbara suggested through her tears.

“Or a highwaywoman,” Hannah said. “You told him almost nothing at all. And really, there is not a great deal to tell anyway, is there? Only a lot of sordid nonsense. There is no grand secret. If I have guarded the details of my past, it is only because I have chosen to do so. I have nothing to hide. Or to hide from.”

“Then why—” Barbara began to ask.

“I am not in hiding, Babs,” Hannah said. “It is just that I am living a new life now and like it infinitely better than I liked the old. I choose not to look back, not to listen to any reminders, not to do anything to revive that life.”

“You are angry,” Barbara said, and her tears flowed faster.

“I am,” Hannah admitted. “But not with you, Babs.” She rubbed her hand harder across her friend’s neck. “I am angry on your behalf. I am angry with a certain gentleman who is going to have to find another waltz partner this evening. He certainly will not be waltzing with me.”

Barbara dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose.

“I should have left here sooner,” she said, “and gone back to the ballroom and smiled. You know I do not approve of your liaison with Mr. Huxtable, Hannah, but I would not be the cause of any dissension between you.”

“If there is dissension,” Hannah said, “you are not the one who has caused it, Babs. Oh, goodness, your eyes are red. Even your nose is.”

“I do try never to weep,” Barbara said. “This is what always happens when I do, especially the red nose.”

Hannah laughed suddenly.

“Do you remember,” she said, “how we used that fact to our advantage on more than one occasion when we were children? When we broke a window of the greenhouse by playing ball too close to it, for example, and the gardener was stalking toward us breathing fire and brimstone?”

“You told me to cry,” Barbara said, smiling through her tears.

“Your face turned almost instantly red,” Hannah said. “Everyone immediately took pity on you. And how could they punish me if they were petting you and assuring you that it was an accident and you must not upset yourself.”

“Oh, dear,” Barbara said, “we were quite shameless.”

They both laughed. Indeed, for a few moments they sounded remarkably like those very young ladies who had already returned to the ballroom. Music was playing there. The third set was in progress.

Hannah stood up. She had distracted Barbara’s mind slightly, but she was still angry. Furiously so, in fact.

“We will go home,” she said. “I am tired, and you have a red nose. Those are reasons enough.”

“But Hannah—” Barbara looked instantly dismayed.

Hannah was speaking to the maid, though, and the maid was scurrying away to have the duchess’s carriage brought up to the doors.

“Let’s go home,” Hannah said, turning to Barbara with a smile, “and have a cup of tea and a comfortable coze before we go to bed. I will not have you with me for very much longer—unless you want to write to tell your vicar that you have changed your mind about being a vicar’s wife and have decided to remain with me forever and ever, that is.”

“Oh, Hannah—” Barbara said.

“No,” Hannah said with a mock sigh. “I thought you would not. And so I must make the most of your company while I have it.”

“Are you going to … to end your connection with Mr. Huxtable?” Barbara asked.

“I shall deal with that connection and with Constantine Huxtable tomorrow,” Hannah said as she swept from the room.

Barbara went after her.

***

THE DUCHESS OF DUNBARTON was playing games again, Constantine decided. She disappeared early from the ballroom. When he strolled into the card room after the fourth set—the waltz they had agreed upon was next—she was not in there either.

Miss Leavensworth was missing too.

He stayed until the end of the ball. He danced every set, including the waltz. And he went straight home afterward and slept for what remained of the night.

Let her play her games.

But she would make the next move. He was certainly not going to run after her.

She made the move early. There was a note from her beside his breakfast plate the following morning, along with the lengthy weekly report from Harvey Wexford, his manager at Ainsley.

The duchess had bold, rather large handwriting, he saw. And she wrote very much as she spoke. There was no greeting at the top of the note, only his name on the outside.

“You will join my other guests for tea this afternoon,” she had written, “and then you will drive me in the park. H, Duchess of Dunbarton.”

He pursed his lips. She did not invite. She commanded. Were the notes to her other guests similar to this one? And would all obey?

Would he?

But of course he would. He was not ready to let her go yet. He was enjoying her as a lover despite the shock of that first night’s discovery, and there was a great deal more sensual satisfaction to be had from their liaison before he would be content to see her go. But more than that, he was unexpectedly intrigued by her. He wanted to know more of what lay beyond her apparently shallow exterior.

Why would a woman give up ten years of her life solely for the acquisition of position and wealth, only to give away a large portion of that wealth to unnamed “causes”? And why would she remain faithful to a sham of a marriage? And even give the impression now that she might have been fond of the old duke? Why would a worthy woman like Miss Leavensworth have remained faithful to their friendship all these years? And why would the duchess write to her weekly, keeping up a friendship that could be of no material value to her?

And why was his head so full of such questions?

No, he would not give her up yet. He would answer the summons and go to Dunbarton House for tea this afternoon.

And he would drive her in the park afterward.

And tonight? Well, they would see.

In the meanwhile, he turned his attention to Wexford’s report, which he always devoured whole and then went back over to read more slowly and with greater attention to detail.

WHEN CONSTANTINE ARRIVED at Dunbarton House, he discovered that there were several guests already in the drawing room, all of whom he knew with varying degrees of familiarity. The only two he really saw, though, were Elliott and Vanessa, Duke and Duchess of Moreland.

Hannah came toward him, right hand extended. Her customary half-smile and slightly drooped eyelids were firmly in place.

“Mr. Huxtable,” she said, “how charming of you to come.”

“Duchess.” He bowed over her hand, which she slid from his grasp before he could carry it to his lips.

“You know everyone, I would imagine,” she said. “Do fetch yourself some tea and cakes and mingle.”

She gestured vaguely toward a table where a maid was serving tea.

And she was gone to join Elliott and Vanessa, with whom she sat and talked for a while to the exclusion of everyone else.

This was deliberate? Constantine wondered.

But yes, of course it was.

Elliott, who had pokered up considerably when he walked into the room, was soon engaged in the conversation. He looked relaxed, interested, happy. He surely smiled far more than he had used to do. Although inevitably the two of them found themselves in a room together fairly frequently during the spring Season and were even sometimes forced to come face-to-face and be civil to each other, Constantine rarely looked at his former friend these days. But it was true, and he had seen it before without really analyzing it. Elliott was happy. He had been married for nine years, he had three children ranging in age from eight to less than one, and he was contented.

Constantine could remember the time when Elliott had viewed marriage as a leg shackle to be avoided for as long as it was humanly possible to do so. In the meantime he had squeezed enjoyment out of every moment of every day. They both had. The wilder the escapade, the better they had liked it. The death of Elliott’s father had changed all that—and him. For suddenly he had been a viscount and a duke’s heir—and guardian of Jonathan, Earl of Merton. And suddenly he had become grim and humorless and consumed by an excessive devotion to duty.

Constantine took his plate and his cup of tea and mingled, as he had been instructed to do. He was good at mingling. But what lady or gentleman was not? The ability to engage in social chitchat was an essential attribute of gentility.

One thing about chitchat, though, was that it left the mind largely free to wander and engage in any thoughts or observations it pleased.

Vanessa was aging well. She must be in her thirties now. She had never been as beautiful as her sisters, but she had always been warmhearted, vivacious, and fun-loving, and those qualities transcended mere physical good looks. Constantine had liked her from the start. When she had arrived at Warren Hall with Stephen and her sisters not very long after Jon’s death, he had been consumed by hatred and resentment. He had stayed for their arrival only because Elliott had ordered him to leave. But the strange thing about losing Jon was that he had not gone away when his body had been consigned to the ground in the churchyard. He had taken up residence somewhere in Constantine’s being that felt suspiciously close to his heart, and it was impossible to look at certain things and people and not see them as Jon would have done.

Jon would have adored discovering new cousins. New people to love.

And Vanessa, even more than the other three, had been very easy to like, impossible to dislike.

For years now he had tried not to think about Vanessa at all. He had hurt her. He had deliberately introduced her to Elliott’s ex-mistress at the theater one evening soon after her marriage, and then he had escorted the ex-mistress to a ball hosted by Elliott and Vanessa. The whole of the ton had seen her there. He had done it to embarrass Elliott, of course. But he had ended up causing Vanessa humiliation and untold suffering. Elliott had told her other unsavory things about him, and in the very direct way with which she seemed to confront all the problems in her life, she had taken him aside at Vauxhall one night and told him exactly what she thought of him and added that she wished she might never see him again and that she would never willingly speak with him in the future. It was a promise she had kept.

The memory of it all still needled at his conscience. And there was no mortal thing he could do about it. He had apologized at the time for deliberately exposing her to such humiliation. She had refused to forgive him. There was nothing else to be said.

Why had the duchess invited both him and them here this afternoon when she knew they were estranged? What game was she playing? And for how long would he allow it to go on?

Not long, he decided. He would make that clear to her when he drove her in the park later. Not that there would be much chance for private conversation there. He would just have to make some.

The duchess did not spend all her time with Elliott and Vanessa. She circulated among her guests and proved herself to be a warm and welcoming hostess. Constantine had attended a few of her balls in the past, but he had never before been at any of her more intimate gatherings.

Lord Enderby asked her if she would do him the honor of driving in the park with him later.

“But I must decline,” she said, “with regret, Lord Enderby. I have already accepted an invitation from Mr. Huxtable.”

All eyes turned his way, Constantine realized. If anyone had discounted the gossip that must have been circulating for the past week or so, then they probably doubted no longer. For he certainly had not invited her here during her tea, had he? It must have been prearranged, then.