Mary Balogh: A Secret Affair

She waited.

There was no improving upon two dozen red roses.

There was no more to be said on paper either. He had even written the first three words of the last note in capital letters. The rest had to be spoken aloud, face-to-face.

If he could muster the courage.

Ah, her poor, dear devil. Tamed by love.

He would, of course, find the courage. And he would be quite splendid-when he came.

She waited.

THIS LOVE BUSINESS, Constantine had discovered over the past several days, could quite unman a person. He had a new respect for married men, all of whom had presumably gone through the ordeal he was currently going through. With the exception of Elliott, of course, who had been proposed to , lucky man.

Reconciling with Vanessa had been easy.

“Don’t say a word,” she had said, hurrying across the drawing room of Moreland House toward him as soon as he had set foot inside it, while Elliott had stood by the fireplace, one elbow propped on the mantel, one eyebrow cocked in amusement. “Not a word. Let us forgive and forget and start making up for lost time. Tell me about your prostitutes.”

Elliott had chuckled aloud.

“Ex-prostitutes,” she had added. “And don’t you dare laugh at me, Constantine, just when we are newly friends again. Tell me about them, and the thieves and vagabonds and unwed mothers.”

She had linked her arm through his and drawn him to sit beside her on a sofa while Elliott had looked on with laughter in his eyes and on his lips.

“If you have an hour or six, Vanessa,” Constantine had said.

“Seven if necessary. You are staying for dinner,” she had told him. “That is already settled. Unless, that is, you have an engagement with Hannah.”

An unfortunate choice of words. And Hannah , was it?

“No,” he had said. “I have to work myself up to falling on one knee and delivering a passionate speech, and it is going to take some time. Not to mention courage.”

Elliott had chuckled again.

“Oh, but it will be worth every moment,” Vanessa had told him, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed. “Elliott looked very splendid indeed when he did it. On wet grass , no less.”

Constantine had looked up reproachfully at his grinning cousin.

“It was after Vanessa had proposed to me,” he had said, raising his right hand. “I could not allow her to have the final word, now, could I? She said yes before I did.”

Theirs might be a story worth knowing, Constantine had thought.

In going impulsively to Dunbarton House within two hours of his return to town, he had hoped to settle the matter with Hannah. And then, when he had found her from home but had learned she was in Hyde Park, he had gone in pursuit of her and had seen-without having to stop and think-the perfect way of declaring himself.

It had not struck him that she might refuse to mount his horse with him. And indeed she had not done so.

It had not occurred to him that after she had done so and after he had kissed her quite lasciviously and in public , and she had kissed him back, she might then refuse to marry him.

Not that she had refused.

It was just that he had not asked.

And he had not even realized that until she had pointed it out. Dash it, there was all the difference in the world between asking and telling, and he had told .

Just like a gauche schoolboy.

Why was there not a university degree course in proposing marriage to the woman of one’s choice? Did everyone mess it up as thoroughly as he had done?

And so he had had to spend three days making amends. Or three days procrastinating. It depended upon whether one was being honest with oneself or not.

But once he had started, he had to allow the three days to proceed on their way. He could hardly rush in with his proposal after sending just one rose and the declaration that he lusted after her, could he?

If she intended to refuse him, he really had been making a prize ass of himself during the three days.

But there was no point in thinking about that, he realized as he dressed to make his afternoon call at Dunbarton House on the third day. He could not possibly not go now to see this wretched ordeal to its conclusion either way.

What if she was not at home? There must be a thousand and one reasons for her to be out-picnics, garden parties, excursions to Kew Gardens or Richmond Park, shopping, strolling early in the park, to name but a few of the myriad possibilities. Indeed, he thought as he rapped on the door, it would be surprising if she were at home.

The baser part of his nature hoped she was out.

Except that he could never go through this again.

The butler, as usual, did not know the contents of his own domain. He had to make his way upstairs as if there were no hurry at all to discover if the Duchess of Dunbarton was at home or not.

She was at home. And willing to receive him, it seemed. He was invited to follow the butler upstairs.

Would she have Miss Leavensworth with her?

They passed the doors of the drawing room and climbed another staircase. They stopped outside a single door, and the butler tapped discreetly on it before opening it and announcing him.

It was a parlor or sitting room, not a bedchamber. She was alone there.

On a table beside the door were a dozen white roses in a crystal vase. On a low table in the middle of the room were two dozen red roses in a silver urn. Their combined scent hung sweetly on the air.

The duchess sat sideways on a window seat, her legs drawn up before her, her arms crossed over her waist. She looked startlingly, vividly beautiful in scarlet red, which matched the roses almost exactly. Her hair lay smooth and shining over her head and was dressed in soft curls at her neck, with wispy tendrils of ringlets at her temples and ears. Her head was turned into the room, and she regarded him with dreamy blue eyes.

He was reminded of the scene in his own bedchamber the night they became lovers. Except that then she had been wearing only his shirt, and her hair had been loose down her back.

The butler closed the door and went on his way.

“Duchess,” he said.

“Constantine.”

She smiled-also dreamily-when he did not immediately continue.

“I need your protection,” she said. “I have been receiving anonymous notes.”

“Have you?” he said.

“Someone,” she said, “lusts after me.”

“I’ll challenge him to pistols at dawn,” he said.

“He also claims to be in love with me,” she said.

“Easily said,” he told her. “It does not go very deep, does it, that euphoric, romantic feeling?”

“But it is one of the most lovely feelings in the world,” she said. “Perhaps the most lovely. I am quite in love with him in return.”

“Lucky fellow,” he said. “I am definitely going to call him out.”

“He says he loves me,” she said, and her eyes made the almost imperceptible but quite remarkable change from dreamy to luminous.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Mind to mind,” she said. “Heart to heart. Soul to soul.”

“And body to body?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice a murmur of sound. “And that too.”

“No barriers,” he said. “No masks or disguises. No fears.”

“None.” She shook her head. “No secrets. Two become one and indivisible.”

“And this,” he said, “is what your anonymous penman is saying to you?”

“In capital letters,” she told him.

“Ostentatious fellow,” he said.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Just look at all the roses he has sent me.”