The adults were looking a little the worse for wear by the time all the neighbors had rounded up their offspring and herded them off back home and the house guests had picked up all the play equipment and debris and trudged back to the house with the remaining children.

“One always knows a children’s party has been a vast success,” Mrs. Finch said, “when one is so exhausted afterward that even putting one foot before the other takes a conscious effort. Your party has been one of the best, Your Grace.”

Everyone laughed—rather wearily—and agreed.

Hannah was feeling happy and proud of herself as she dressed for dinner an hour or so later. She had involved herself with the children all afternoon rather than standing back, as she might have done, playing the part of gracious hostess. She had even run a three-legged race with a ten-year-old girl who had shrieked the whole length of the course, leaving Hannah feeling slightly deaf in one ear as well as sore in all sorts of places from their numerous falls.

She was feeling happy.

She had told Constantine that she loved him, and she was not sorry. She did love him, and it had needed to be said. She expected nothing in return—at least, so she persuaded herself. But too many things were left unsaid in life, and their unsaying could make the whole difference to the rest of life.

She had told him she loved him.

They had scarcely spoken to each other all afternoon. It was not that they had avoided each other. But they had both been involved in playing with the children and conversing with the neighbors, and their paths had hardly crossed.

Of course, she had made no great effort to see to it that they did cross. She felt embarrassed, truth be told. She knew he would not laugh at her for telling him such a thing, but …

What if he did?

She was not going to brood. There was one whole evening of her house party left, and though everyone would undoubtedly be tired, they would also enjoy relaxing together in the drawing room, she believed. She was looking forward to relaxing with them.

And she believed she had female friends who would remain friends after they had all returned to London. Friends in addition to Barbara, that was. She had felt the friendships this afternoon—Cassandra and her two sisters-in-law, even Mrs. Park and Mrs. Finch. Both Lady Montford and the Countess of Sheringford had found a moment in which to invite her to call them by their given names. Katherine and Margaret.

If only she could find the courage to be her inner self as well as the Duchess of Dunbarton in London.

Life was complicated. And exciting. And uncertain. And …

Well, and definitely worth living.

“That will do nicely, Adèle,” she said, turning her head from side to side so that she could see her hair in the mirror. It was prettily piled and curled without being overelaborate.

She wore a gown of deep rose pink. She had intended to wear no jewelry, but the low neckline was too bare without anything. A single diamond pendant—a real diamond—hung from a silver chain. And on her left hand she wore the most precious of her rings, her wedding present, along with her wedding ring.

“That will be all, thank you,” she said, and she gazed at her image for a while after her maid had left the room. She tried, as she occasionally did, to see herself as others saw her. In London, of course, she always made sure that other people saw her a certain way. But here? She had felt friendship here during the past few days. Apart from the fact that she was the hostess, she had felt as if no one viewed her as being any more special than any of the other ladies.

Was it her clothing? She had not worn white even once. Or her hair? It was more formally dressed tonight than at any time since she had come into the country, but even now it was not as elaborate as she wore it in town. Or her relative lack of jewelry?

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.

***

“TOMORROW 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.

***

HANNAH 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?”