by Mary Balogh
“Positively rolling in riches,” she agreed. “And I am unlikely ever to acquire that ghastly title of dowager duchess as the current duke will almost certainly never marry. He has a mistress and ten children, ranging in age from eighteen to two, but he took her out of a brothel and will not, of course, marry her.”
“That is rather unsavory knowledge for a lady to have,” he said.
“Fortunately,” she said, “the duke—my duke—never did withhold the most interesting pieces of information from me. He heard all the most salacious gossip and came home and entertained me with it.”
“So,” he said, “no marital relations, Duchess. But what about the army of lovers you took during your marriage? Apparently took, that is.”
“You listen to too much gossip,” she said. “Or, rather, since we all listen, you believe too much. Do you really believe I would break marriage vows?”
“Even when you were getting no satisfaction from your husband?” he asked.
“I may be a merry widow now, Constantine,” she said. “Indeed, I intend to make very merry with you for the rest of the spring, though not again tonight. I may be a merry widow, but I was a faithful wife. And not because I was coerced into fidelity, though you may jump to that odious conclusion. It would be odious, you know. My duke was anything but a tyrant—to me, anyway. I chose to be faithful, just as I now choose to take a lover. I am always in control of my own life.”
He stared down at her in silence for a few moments, and for the first time it struck her that it must have taken enormous control on his part to withdraw from her when he was fully aroused, and then lie still and talk with her.
If she had said no in time, he would have stopped sooner, and they would not have had this conversation. That would teach her a lesson about hesitation.
It did not matter, though. Nothing was changed. Not for her. For him, perhaps. He had thought he was getting an experienced mistress.
“Well,” he said softly, “an outer petal falls away from the rose. Are there any more within, I wonder?”
He was not expecting an answer. He got none. Whatever was he talking about, anyway?
“I might have run the race with you with somewhat less, ah, vigor if I had known,” he said. “I might—”
“Constantine,” she said, interrupting him, “if you ever try to patronize me or be gentle with me or humor me as a delicate lady, I shall—”
“Yes?” he said.
“I shall drop you,” she said, “as I would a live coal. And by the next day I shall have another lover, twice as handsome and three times as virile as you. I shall not spare you another thought.”
“And that is a threat?” he asked, sounding anything but threatened.
“Of course not,” she said scornfully. “I never make threats. Why ever would I need to? It is information. It is what will happen if you should ever try to treat me as anything less than I am.”
“I was merely telling you,” he said, “that the way a man makes love to a virgin is different from the way he does it with an experienced woman. I would have given you no less pleasure, Duchess. Perhaps I would have given you more.”
His free hand, she realized, was stroking lightly over her abdomen. It was warmer than her own flesh.
“I suppose,” she said, “you make love to a virgin at least once a fortnight.”
She could see his teeth very white in contrast to the rest of his face. He was smiling. That was a rare enough event—and there was no daylight with which to see it properly.
“One hates to boast,” he said, “or exaggerate. Once a month.”
He bent his head and kissed her softly on the mouth.
“I am sorry,” he murmured.
She tapped him sharply on one cheek.
“You must never ever say you are sorry,” she said. “You must never even feel sorry. If you always act with deliberate intent, there is nothing to be sorry about. And if you act in ignorance, there is nothing to apologize for. I do not apologize for having been a virgin until an hour or two ago. It was what I chose to be. And I do not apologize for withholding the information from you. It is something you did not need to know. It was, as you said on the night of the concert when I asked about your quarrel with the Duke of Moreland, none of your business. And while we are on this topic, I will tell you now that for the rest of this spring, while we are having our affair, I will be faithful to you. And I expect that you will be faithful to me. I will go home now.”
“There may be no more petals on the bloom,” he said, “but there are certainly thorns enough on the stem. I do believe, Duchess, you may be quite confident of my fidelity for the next few months. I would not have the physical stamina to take on another one like you—or even unlike you, for that matter. Lie there for a while, and I will go and rouse my coachman. He will not be delighted. He expects to be called out early in the morning, but I believe this hour qualifies more as middle of the night than morning.”
He got out of bed as he spoke and pulled on his clothes.
Hannah lay where she was until he had left the room.
Well, this had been an interesting night. And not an altogether comfortable one. It had not turned out anything like what she had expected.
For one thing, the actual … experience had been far more carnal than anything she had imagined. Oh, and probably at least twice as pleasurable too, even if it had left her annoyingly sore.
But it had also left her with the uneasy suspicion that having a lover was going to involve a little more than just sprightly innuendo and vigorous bed sport. And she really had not expected or wanted more.
She suspected that this liaison with Constantine Huxtable was going to involve some sort of relationship, just as her marriage had.
She did not want a relationship. Not this time.
Except that she did. She just wanted it to be one-sided or on her terms. She realized that fact with some surprise. Right from the start she had wanted to know more about him—everything about him, in fact. She had told him so. He was such a dark, mysterious man. Certain things were known about him. But she did not know anyone who knew him. Her duke had not, though he had spoken of him from time to time. He had suspected that Constantine’s brooding darkness held hatred, that his often charming social manner held love, and that therefore he was a complex, dangerous, impossibly attractive man. He had actually said that.
It was probably in those words that she had found the seed of her decision to take Mr. Constantine Huxtable for a lover.
Tonight he had told her he had hated his young, mentally handicapped brother. And yet she could tell him with the greatest confidence that he had loved his brother too. Probably to the point of great pain.
What she had not realized until tonight, fool that she was, was that a relationship could not be an entirely one-sided thing. He had found out more about her tonight than she had about him.
Good heavens!
Her reputation would be in tatters if he told the ton what he had discovered tonight. Not that he would tell, of course.
But he knew.
How provoking!
She did not want a relationship. She wanted only … well, she must learn to use the word. The duke had always used it in her hearing, and she was not missish. She wanted only sex with Constantine Huxtable.
And it really had been glorious tonight, the sex. It had not even been painful until afterward. While it had been happening, it could have gone on all night as far as she was concerned. Poor Constantine. He would be dead.
Hannah snorted inelegantly as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and found her stockings.
SHE DID NOT WANT HIM to go with her, but Constantine gave her no choice. He handed her into the carriage and climbed in beside her. He took her hand in his and rested it on his thigh.
She looked more her usual self in her white cloak, the wide hood pulled up over her head.
He would never see her the same way again, though. Which was understandable, of course. H
e had seen her without the clothes and the careful coiffure. He had possessed her body.
But it was not just that.
At least in one respect she was not the woman everyone thought her to be, that everyone assumed her to be. The sort of woman she had surely gone out of her way to pretend to be.
Her marriage to the duke had never been consummated. That was not particularly surprising in itself. There had been endless speculation about it, in fact. But all those lovers she had flaunted before society—Zimmer, Bentley, Hardingraye, to name just a few.
Not lovers.
He had been her first.
It was a dizzying thought. He had never before been anyone’s first. He had never wanted to be.
Good Lord!
“You will need a few days to recover, Duchess,” he said as the carriage neared Hanover Square. “Shall we say next Tuesday, after the Kitteridge ball?”
She would never allow him the last word, of course—though she had at the garden party yesterday afternoon, had she not? It was her turn, then.
“Next Monday night,” she said. “The duke keeps a box at the theater, but there is no one to use it except me. I have promised Barbara that we will go. I shall invite Mr. and Mrs. Park too, and perhaps their son, the clergyman, if he is in town. You will escort me.”
“The perfect group,” he said. “A clergyman, a clergyman’s betrothed—though not to the aforementioned clergyman, the first clergyman’s parents, and the Duchess of Dunbarton with her new paramour, sometimes known as the devil.”
“One always likes to provide interesting topics for drawing room conversations,” she said.
Yes, he could imagine one did if one happened to be the Duchess of Dunbarton.
He lifted her hand to his lips as he felt the carriage turning into the square and then slowing and stopping. He lowered his head and kissed her mouth.
“I shall look forward to Monday night with the greatest impatience,” he said.
“But not Monday evening?” she asked.
“I will tolerate it,” he said. “Dessert is always more appetizing at the end of a meal, after all, as we discovered this evening.”
And he rapped on the inside of the carriage door to indicate to his coachman that they were ready to descend.
Someone had already been roused inside the house. The doors opened even as Constantine stepped down to the pavement and turned to hand the duchess down.
A moment later he watched her ascend the steps unhurriedly, her back straight, her head high. The doors closed quietly behind her.
This felt a little different from his usual springtime affair, Constantine thought.
A little less comfortable.
A little more erotic.
What the devil had he meant—I also hated him.
He had never hated Jon. Not even for the merest moment. He had loved him. He still mourned him. Sometimes he thought he would never stop grieving. There was a huge, empty black hole where Jon had been.
I also hated him.
He had spoken those words to the Duchess of Dunbarton, of all people.
What the devil had he meant?
And what else was she hiding apart from the minor, now-revealed fact that she had come to him tonight as a virgin?
The answer was absolutely nothing, of course. She had readily admitted that she married Dunbarton for the title and the money. And now she was using her freedom and power to take a little sensual pleasure for herself.
He could hardly blame her.
He turned and frowned at his coachman, who was waiting for him to climb back inside the carriage.
“Take it home,” he said. “I’ll walk.”
His coachman shook his head slightly and shut the door.
“Right you are, sir,” he said.
THE CLERGYMAN SON of Mr. and Mrs. Park was not in town. Mrs. Park’s younger brother was staying with them for a while, however, and was more than gratified to be invited to join a party in the theater box of the Duchess of Dunbarton on Monday evening with his sister and brother-in-law. Hannah also invited Lord and Lady Montford after she and Barbara met the latter at Hookham’s Library on Monday morning and stopped for a brief chat.
Lady Montford was Mr. Huxtable’s cousin.
“The opera and the theater both in one week,” Barbara said as she and Hannah sat side by side in the carriage on Monday evening. “Not to mention the galleries and museums and the library and the shopping. I find myself writing half a book each day to Mama and Papa and to Simon instead of just a letter. I will be running you dry of ink, Hannah.”
“You must come to town more often,” Hannah said. “Though I do not suppose your vicar will be willing to spare you once you are married, odious man.”
“I probably will not want to spare myself once we are wed,” Barbara said. “I so look forward to being the vicar’s wife, Hannah, and to living at the vicarage again. I shall persuade Simon to bring me here once in a while, though, and we will see you then. And perhaps you will come—”
But she stopped abruptly and turned her head to look at Hannah in the semidarkness of the carriage interior. She smiled apologetically.
“But no, of course you will not,” she said. “Though I do wish you would. And it is perhaps time—”
“It is time,” Hannah said, “to go to the theater, Babs.”
The carriage was drawing to a halt outside the Drury Lane, and they could see crowds of people milling about, many of them no doubt waiting for other arrivals so that they could go inside. Constantine Huxtable was among them, looking both elegant and satanic in his long black evening cloak and hat.
“Oh, there he is,” Barbara said. “Hannah, are you perfectly sure—”
“I am, silly goose,” Hannah said. “We are lovers, Babs, and I am not nearly finished with him yet. I would wager that detail has not slipped into your letters to the vicar.”
“Nor to Mama and Papa,” her friend said. “They would be very distressed. They may not have seen you for eleven years or so, Hannah, but they are still enormously fond of you.”
Hannah patted her knee.
“He has seen us,” she said.
And indeed it was Constantine who opened the carriage door and set down the steps rather than Hannah’s coachman.
“Ladies, good evening,” he said. “We are fortunate that this afternoon’s rain has stopped, at least for a while. Miss Leavensworth?”
He offered his hand to Barbara, who took it and bade him a civil good evening. Barbara’s manners were always impeccable, of course.
Hannah drew a slow breath. It was the first time she had seen him since last week. That night at his house seemed almost like a dream except for the physical aftereffects she had felt for a few days. And except for the alarming rush of sheer physical awareness that assailed her as soon as she set eyes on him again. And the longing for tonight.
Oh, goodness me, he really was quite, quite gorgeous.
Within minutes, of course, everyone who was at the theater this evening would know, or think they knew, that he was her newest lover. One in a long line of lovers. By this time tomorrow everyone who was not here tonight would know too.
Mr. Constantine Huxtable was the Duchess of Dunbarton’s newest paramour.
But this time, for the first time, they would be right.
Barbara was safely down on the pavement.
“Duchess?” He reached out his hand for hers and their eyes met.
She had never in her life seen such dark eyes. Or such compelling eyes. Or eyes that had such a weakening effect on her knees.
“I do hope,” she said, placing her hand in his, “someone has swept the pavement. I would not enjoy getting my hem wet.”
Someone obviously had. And someone had done some quick crowd control too. A path had opened up to allow them into the theater. Hannah half smiled about her as she stepped inside, her hand on Constantine’s right arm while Barbara’s was linked through his left.
The ducal box, which was o
n the lowest of three tiers surrounding the theater like a horseshoe, was close to the stage. Entering it was a little like stepping out onto the stage itself. It was doubtful that anyone in the house did not turn to watch them enter and greet the duchess’s other guests, all of whom had arrived earlier, and stand conversing with them for several minutes before taking their seats. Or to observe the fact that while the duchess’s friend eventually took a seat between Mrs. Park and her brother, the duchess herself sat beside Mr. Constantine Huxtable.
Her new favorite. Her first since the demise of the old duke and her return to town. Her new paramour.
It was not hard to interpret the slightly heightened buzz of conversation in the theater.
It was not hard either for Hannah to look around with leisurely unconcern, as she had done on dozens of other similar occasions when the duke was still alive. He had taught her to look about her like that instead of directing her gaze at her lap. The only difference this time was the absence of the slight amusement she had always felt to know how wrong the speculation about her male companion always was.
Tonight it was not wrong.
She was very glad of it.
She set one white-gloved hand on Constantine’s sleeve and leaned a little toward him.
“Have you seen A School for Scandal before?” she asked. “It is really quite an old play. I must have seen it a dozen times, but it is always amusing. You will not find it too dull or too long, I believe.”
“On the assumption,” he asked her, “that I am all impatience for it to be over so that we may proceed to the main business of the evening, Duchess?”
“Not at all,” she said. “But I thought you might have more of an interest in tragedy.”
“To suit my satanic looks?” he asked.
“Precisely,” she said. “Though you did, of course, explain to me how the dreadful tragedies of the opera are not really tragedies at all. I was reassured. I suppose next you will be telling me that the heroes of tragedy do not really die at the end of a play.”
“Reassuring, is it not?” he said. “You are looking dazzlingly lovely tonight in white. Indeed, you sparkle.”