Mary Balogh - A Secret Affair

She clasped her hands rather tightly in her lap. She would not let go. The looming heartache, not to mention heartbreak, would be just too much to bear. The other couple was married. They had a young baby sleeping up in the nursery. When this house party was at an end, they would return to London together. At the end of the spring, they would go home together. Even tonight they would lie in each other’s arms.

“You are perfectly right, Con,” the earl said after several minutes, sounding surprised.

Constantine’s hand came to rest lightly on Hannah’s shoulder.

She felt like weeping.

Or leaping to her feet and dancing in the moonlight.

EVERYONE SEEMED EXCITED next morning at the prospect of the children’s party during the afternoon, even those guests who had no children. After breakfast a few of the men, led by Mr. Park, went out to mark out a cricket pitch not far from the lake. Julianna Bentley and Marianne Astley went with Katherine, who was looking only very slightly pale, to stake their claim to a piece of level land upon which various races would be run. Barbara Leavensworth headed a self-proclaimed committee to plan a treasure hunt. Lawrence Astley and Sir Bradley Bentley offered to test out the boat, which had been repaired and painted last year but never actually rowed out onto the water. Jasper, Lord Montford, took the older children riding to get them out from underfoot. A few of the mothers as well as Stephen and Mr. Finch stayed in the nursery to amuse the younger children.

A total of twenty-two children of various ages from the neighborhood were expected to arrive soon after luncheon. Their parents had been invited too for a picnic tea out on the grass beside the lake.

Hannah was in the kitchen consulting the cook, unnecessarily in Constantine’s estimation. But she was more excited than anyone else. She had positively glowed at breakfast. Her cheeks had been flushed, her eyes bright.

He had been on his way out to look at the boat with Bentley and Astley, but he had been delayed by the arrival of a letter from Harvey Wexford at Ainsley. It had been sent on from London. He might have ignored it until later except for the fact that he had received a report just a few days ago and had not expected another so soon. Curiosity got the better of him and he stayed on the terrace to read it.

Hannah found him there when she came through the drawing room and out through the French windows on her way to check on the others at the lake.

Constantine smiled at her and folded the letter.

“Your cook has everything under control?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “I was made to feel very welcome as a guest provided I did not step too far into her domain and get in the way.”

She laughed and looked at him, and from him to the bustle of activity farther from the house. She glanced at his letter.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked.

“No, nothing.” He smiled again.

She sat on the seat beside his.

“Constantine,” she said, “what is wrong? I absolutely insist upon knowing.”

“Do you, Duchess?” he said, narrowing his eyes upon her. She sat there waiting.

“There can be no relationship like this,” she said at last.

“Is there a relationship?” he asked. “We sleep together, Duchess. We take pleasure of each other. That hardly qualifies as a relationship.”

She stared blankly at him for a long moment.

“We slept together,” she said at last. “We took pleasure of each other. Past tense, Constantine.”

And she got to her feet and walked away in the direction of the lake without another word or a backward glance.

It was ingrained in him, was it not? This deep need to protect himself from harm by turning deeply inward. The knowledge had been there for as far back as he could remember that he was inadequate. He had left his mother’s womb too soon, two weeks earlier than expected, two days before his father could both acquire a special license and marry her. His mother had complained to him, perhaps believing that he was too young to understand, that her yearly pregnancies and her yearly miscarriages or stillbirths would have been unnecessary if he had only waited to be born at the right time. His father had complained to him, even when it must have been perfectly obvious to him that his son was old enough to understand, that his wife’s failures would not have been so tiresome if he had waited a few days to be born legitimate. Even his good health had been an inadequacy. It had accused his parents in their efforts to produce another, healthy, legitimate son and heir.

And Jon, whom Constantine had hated because he could have done so much better a job of it had he become Earl of Merton on the death of their father. And his agonized love for Jon. The guilt of feeling hatred when he had wanted only to love. When he had only loved.

And then the need to protect Jon’s grand scheme for Ainsley, to make sure that nothing and no one stopped him just because he was an imbecile in the eyes of the world. And the refusal to let even Elliott in on the secret because Elliott, surprised by the suddenness with which he had succeeded to his own title and responsibilities, would surely have chosen to protect Jon from himself.

And Elliott’s terrible betrayal, lashing out with accusations instead of simply asking questions.

Would Constantine have answered the questions truthfully even if they had been asked, though? Perhaps not. Probably not, for Elliott would still have felt it his duty to put a stop to what Jon wanted done. Elliott would have felt it necessary to protect the estate intact. It was what guardians did. It was not that Elliott did not have a heart, but after his father’s sudden death, that heart had become subordinate to duty. At least at that time it had. He seemed to have rediscovered his heart since marrying Vanessa, but the damage had been done by then. Jon was dead, and a lifelong friendship had been ruined beyond repair.

And so secretiveness, hiding within himself, had become part of Constantine’s nature. And now he had been cruel to someone who did not deserve his cruelty.

Good God, he loved her!

A fine way he had of showing it. Was cruelty, coldness, part of his nature too? Was he that much like his father?

He got to his feet to go after her. But he had not noticed that she had doubled back. She came and stood in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“We do not just sleep together,” she said. “We do not just take pleasure from each other. There is more than that, whether you admit it or not. I will not put a name to it. I am not sure I can. But there is more, Constantine, and I cannot bear to be shut out of your deepest pain. You know mine. Or, if I have never been quite specific about it, this is it. I grew up hating my beauty because it set me at a distance from people I wanted simply to love. My sister was jealous of me, though I tried and tried not to give her cause, and finally she hurt me terribly perhaps because I had hurt her. Perhaps she had always loved Colin. Or perhaps she loved him only because I did and I got him. My father was caught in the middle and did not know how to cope after my mother died, and he ended up letting me down dreadfully, taking Dawn’s side when it ought to have been obvious to him that she had behaved badly, that my heart was breaking. Oh, very well, maybe not one of them, even Colin, was an out-and-out villain. Maybe they all felt justified in what they did and said. Who knows? But they ought to have known that I had feelings, that I could be hurt as deeply as the ugliest girl on earth, that beauty is no buffer against pain and loss. Thank God—and I do not blaspheme—thank God for Barbara, who knew me and loved me all my life, and for the duke, who saw through my outer looks to the broken, frightened child who was disturbing his peace in that room by weeping noisily and without dignity.”

“Duchess,” he said.

“He taught me to rescue and nurture and strengthen that broken person within,” she said, “so that she could be strong again. He enabled me to love myself again, without vanity, but with acceptance of who I was behind the appearance that has always attracted so many in such a very superficial way. He taught me that I could love again—I loved him—and that I could trust love—I trusted his. He left me still a little fragile but ready to test my wings. That was my pain, Constantine. It still is my pain. I hover a little uncertainly behind the invulnerable armor of the Duchess of Dunbarton.”

He swallowed against a gurgle in his throat.

“Jon’s dream is threatening to turn to nightmare,” he said. He held up the letter, which was still in his hand. “Jess Barnes, one of the mentally handicapped workers at Ainsley, left the door of the chicken coop unlatched one night and a fox got in and made off with a dozen or so chickens. My manager claims not to have scolded him too severely—Jess tries so very hard to please and he is one of the hardest workers on the farm. But Wexford told him that I would be disappointed in him. Jess went out the next night and helped himself to fourteen chickens from my closest neighbor’s coop. And now he is languishing in jail even though the chickens have been returned unharmed and paid for, and Jess has made a tearful apology. That particular neighbor has disapproved of me and my project ever since it began. He never loses a chance to complain. Now he has all the evidence he needs that it is a reckless project, doomed to failure.”

She took the letter from his hand and set it down on the table before taking both his hands in hers. He had not realized how cold his were until he felt the warmth of hers.

“What will happen to the poor boy?” she asked.

“The poor boy is forty years old or thereabouts,” he said. “Wexford will sort it out. It is clear that Jess did not intend to steal but only to please me by putting right his mistake. And Kincaid has been more than adequately recompensed, though I cannot blame him for being angry. It has always been the worst fear of my neighbors that they are not safe with so many unsavory characters living close to them. I just hate the thought of poor Jess in jail, though, and not quite understanding why he is there. I had better go down to Ainsley next week, after we go back to London.”

“Do you want to go today?” she asked.

He looked into her eyes. “There would be too many questions to answer here,” he said. “And I want to spend the rest of today here with you even if you do insist that we abstain from … pleasure.”

He grinned at her.

She did not smile back.

“Thank you, Constantine,” she said. “Thank you for telling me.”

And good God, devil take it, he felt tears welling into his eyes. He drew his hands from hers hastily and turned to pick up Wexford’s letter. He hoped she had not seen. That was what happened when one let go a little and confided in someone else.

He ought not to have burdened her with his problems. She was preparing for a party.

“I love you,” she said.

He turned his head sharply, tears notwithstanding, and gazed at her, startled.

“I do,” she said softly. “You need not feel threatened by it. Love does not deck the beloved in chains. It just is.”

And she turned about and strode across the lawn again. This time she did not turn back.

Devil take it!

Idiot that he was, he felt frightened. Now wouldn’t the ton be fascinated to know that the devil himself was frightened by love? Though perhaps it made theological sense, he thought with wry humor.

I love you, Con. I love you more than anyone else in the whole wide world. I love you forever and ever. Amen.

That had been Jon, on the night of his sixteenth birthday.

The following morning he had been dead.

I love you, Hannah had just told him.

He closed his eyes. Pray God Wexford had got Jess safely out of jail by now. And it was a prayer. The first one in a long, long while.

***

THE CHILDREN’S PARTY was long and chaotic and excruciatingly noisy. The children all enjoyed themselves enormously, with the possible exception of Cassandra’s baby and another babe in arms, who both slept through most of the proceedings as though nothing very special was happening at all.