by Mary Balogh
Did anyone ever say no to her, he wondered as he offered his arm. When she had announced at the Heaton concert that she would sit with him in the music room, had she even considered how embarrassed she might have been if he had refused to sit with her? But why should she fear rejection when even the crusty, crabby old Duke of Dunbarton had been unable to resist her after resisting every other woman for more than seventy years?
“I have been feeling dreadfully slighted,” she said as she took his arm. “You did not come to greet me when you arrived.”
“I believe,” he said, “I arrived before you did, Duchess. And you did not come to greet me.”
“Is it the woman’s part,” she said, “to go out of her way to greet the man?”
“As you have done now?”
He looked down at her. She was not wearing a bonnet today. Instead she was wearing an absurd little hat, which sat at a jaunty angle over her right eyebrow and looked—of course—quite perfect. Her blond curls rioted about it in an artless style that had probably taken her maid an hour or more to create. The white muslin of her dress, he could see now that he was close, was dotted with tiny rosebuds of a very pale pink.
“That is unkind repartee, Mr. Huxtable,” she said. “What choice did you leave me? It would have been too, too tedious to have gone home without speaking with you.”
He led her diagonally up the lawn in the direction of the greenhouses. And he gave in to a feeling of inevitability. She was clearly determined to have him. And for all his misgivings, he could not deny the fact that he was not at all averse to being had. Being in bed with her was going to be something of a wild adventure, he did not doubt. A struggle for mastery, perhaps? And mutual and enormous pleasure while they fought it out?
Sometimes, he thought, the prospect of extraordinary sensual pleasure was enough to ask of a liaison. The mysteries of a character that had some depths worth exploring could wait until another year and another mistress.
He really was capitulating with very little struggle, he thought. Which meant that she was very good at seduction. No surprise there. And he would not begrudge her that since it was beginning to feel rather pleasant to be seduced.
“Where is Miss Leavensworth this afternoon?” he asked.
“Mr. and Mrs. Park invited her to accompany them on a visit to some museum or other,” she said, “and she preferred to go there than to come here with me. Can you imagine such a thing, Mr. Huxtable? And they are to take her to dinner afterward and then to the opera.”
She shuddered delicately.
“You have never been to the opera, Duchess?” he asked. “Or to a museum?”
“But of course I have,” she said. “One must not appear an utter rustic in the eyes of one’s peers, you know. One must show some interest in matters of superior culture.”
“But you have never enjoyed either?” he asked.
“I really did enjoy looking at Napoleon Bonaparte’s carriage at … Oh, in some museum,” she said, waving the hand that held her parasol in a dismissive gesture. “The one in which he rode to the Battle of Waterloo, I mean. He could not ride his horse because he was suffering with piles. Did you know that? The duke told me and explained what piles are. They sound like dreadfully painful things. Perhaps the Duke of Wellington won the battle on the strength of Napoleon Bonaparte’s piles. I wonder if the history books will reflect that fact.”
“Probably not,” he said, feeling vastly amused. “History will doubtless prefer to perpetuate the modern eagerness to see Wellington as a grand, invincible hero, who won the battle on the strength of his grandness and invincibility.”
“I suppose so,” she agreed. “That is what the duke said too. My duke, that is. And he took me once to see the Elgin marbles and I was not at all shocked to see all those naked figures. I was not even vastly impressed by them. They were pale marble. I would far rather see the real flesh-and-blood man. Greek, that is. With sun-bronzed skin instead of cold stone. Not that a real-life man could ever be quite so perfectly beautiful, of course.”
She sighed, and her parasol twirled again.
The minx, Constantine thought.
“And the opera?” he said.
“I never understand the Italian,” she said. “It would all be very tedious if it were not for all the passion and the tragedy of everyone dying all over the stage. Have you noticed how all those dying characters sing the most glorious music just before they expire? What a waste. I would far prefer to see such passion expended upon life.”
“But since opera is written for a living singer and an audience of living persons rather than for a dying character,” he said, “then surely that is exactly what is happening. Passion being expended upon life, that is.”
“I shall never see opera the same way again,” she said, giving her parasol one more twirl before lowering it as they came to the first greenhouse. “Or hear it the same way. Thank you, Mr. Huxtable, for your insight. You must take me one evening so that I may hear it correctly in your presence. I will make up a party.”
It was humid and very warm inside the greenhouse. It was filled with large banks of ferns down the center and orange trees around the glass walls. It was also deserted.
“How very lovely,” she said, standing still behind the central bank and tipping back her head to breathe in the scent of the foliage. “Do you think it would be eternally lovely to live in a tropical land, Mr. Huxtable?”
“Unrelenting heat,” he said. “Bugs. Diseases.”
“Ah.” She lowered her head to look at him. “The ugliness at the heart of beauty. Is there always ugliness, do you suppose? Even when the object is very, very beautiful?”
Her eyes were suddenly huge and fathomless. And sad.
“Not always,” he said. “I prefer to believe the opposite—that there is always an indestructible beauty at the heart of darkness.”
“Indestructible,” she said softly. “You are an optimist, then.”
“There is nothing else to be,” he said, “if one’s human existence is to be bearable.”
“It is,” she said, “very easy to despair. We always live on the cliff edge of tragedy, do we not?”
“Yes,” he said. “The secret is never to give in to the urge to jump off voluntarily.”
She continued to gaze into his eyes. Her eyelids did not droop, he noticed. Her lips did not smile. But they were slightly parted.
She looked … different.
The purely objective part of his mind informed him that there was no one else in this particular greenhouse, and that they were hidden from view where they stood.
He lowered his head and touched his lips lightly to hers. They were soft and warm, slightly moist, and yielding. He touched his tongue to the opening between them, traced the outline of the upper lip and then the lower, and then slid his tongue into her mouth. Her teeth did not bar the way. He curled his tongue and drew the tip slowly over the roof of her mouth before withdrawing it and lifting his head away from hers.
She tasted of wine and of warm, enticing woman.
He looked deeply into her eyes, and she gazed back for a few moments until there was a very subtle change in her expression. Her eyelids drooped again, her lips turned upward at the corners, and she was herself once more. It had seemed as if she were replacing a mask.
Which was an interesting possibility.
“I hope, Mr. Huxtable,” she said, “you can live up to the promise of that kiss. I shall be vastly disappointed if you cannot.”
“We will put it to the test tonight,” he said.
“Tonight?” She raised her eyebrows.
“You must not be alone,” he said, “while Miss Leavensworth is off somewhere dining and attending the opera. You might be lonely and bored. You will dine with me instead.”
“And then?” Her eyebrows remained elevated.
“And then,” he said, “we will indulge in a decadent dessert in my bedchamber.”
“Oh.” She seemed to be considering. “But I
have another engagement this evening, Mr. Huxtable. How very inconvenient. Perhaps some other time.”
“No,” he said, “no other time. I play no games, Duchess. If you want me, it will be tonight. Not at some future date, when you deem you have tortured me enough.”
“You feel tortured?” she asked.
“You will come tonight,” he said, “or not at all.”
She regarded him in silence for a few moments.
“Well, goodness me,” she said, “I believe you mean it.”
“I do,” he said.
He did too. He had warned her before that he was no puppet on a string. And while a little dalliance was amusing, it was not to be perpetuated indefinitely.
“Oh,” she said, “I do like a masterful, impatient man. It is really quite titillating, you know. Not that I intend to be mastered, Mr. Huxtable. Not by any man. And not ever. But I do believe I am going to have to disappoint the gentleman with whom I promised to spend this evening. He has only dinner to offer without the dessert, you see. Or a decadent dessert, anyway. It sounds quite irresistibly delicious.”
“It is a sweet that can be consumed only by two,” he said. “We will consume it tonight. I shall send—”
She interrupted him at the same moment as he heard the door opening.
“But these are only ferns,” she said disdainfully. “I can find ferns in any English country lane. I wish to see the orchids. Take me to find them, Mr. Huxtable.”
“It will be my pleasure, Duchess,” he said as she took his arm.
“And then you may take me for tea on the upper terrace,” she said just before they nodded and exchanged pleasantries with the group of guests entering the greenhouse.
“The third greenhouse along for the orchids, Your Grace,” Miss Gorman said.
“Ah, thank you. How kind.” The duchess smiled at her. “We started at the wrong end.”
And so, Constantine thought as they emerged into the spring sunshine and went in search of the orchids, it appeared to be a done deal. He had his mistress for this Season. Which was very satisfying in many ways, especially as the liaison was to be consummated tonight. He had been celibate for quite long enough.
But … not in every way?
Despite the fact that she was a beautiful, alluring, fascinating creature? Who apparently wanted him as much as he wanted her?
He was not quite sure why this year felt different from any other.
YOU MUST ALWAYS be aware of the power of the unexpected, my dearest love, the duke had once told Hannah. You must also be aware that it ought not to be used at all frequently, or it no longer is the unexpected.
“The emeralds, of course, Adèle,” Hannah said now to her maid.
She had clothes and jewels in all sorts of bright colors, though she very rarely wore anything but white. It was what people expected of her—white garments and diamonds. And of course white, which included all colors of the spectrum, was always startlingly more noticeable in a crowd than all the myriad colors with which others bedecked themselves. The duke had taught her that too.
Tonight, though, she would not be in a crowd.
And tonight she would do the unexpected and throw the oh-so-complacent Constantine Huxtable off balance.
Tonight she wore a gown of emerald green satin. It was cut really quite shockingly low at the bosom, and it caught the candlelight with her every movement, shimmering about her person as it did so. And tonight she would wear emeralds instead of diamonds.
And tonight, most unexpected of all, she did not wear her hair up as she almost always did—as most ladies almost always did. She wore it in a sleek, shining cap over her head and held at the nape of her neck with an emerald-studded clasp. All the hair below the clasp billowed in untamed waves and curls halfway to her waist.
“You will not wait up for me, Adèle,” she said as she rose from the stool on which she had been seated before the dressing table, all her jewels in place to her satisfaction. “I shall be very late. And you will be sure to deliver my note into the hands of Miss Leavensworth when she returns from the opera.”
“I will, Your Grace.” Her maid bobbed a curtsy and left the dressing room.
Hannah looked at herself critically in the long pier glass. She straightened her spine, drew her shoulders back, raised her chin, and half smiled at her image.
She had not been quite sure about the hair. But she had made the right decision, she thought now. And if she had not, it did not matter. This was how she chose to present herself to her lover. And so it was the right decision.
Her lover. Her smile became almost mocking.
He would not look at her with his usual dark, inscrutable eyes when he saw her tonight. She would see in them the spark of desire that she knew he felt.
The devil was about to be tamed.
Which was a ghastly thought if she stopped to consider it. If she tamed him, of what further interest would he be to her? A tamed devil would be the most bland and abject and pathetic of creatures.
She wanted a lover. She wanted it all. Everything that the world of sensual pleasures had to offer even if she had to descend to the underworld with the devil himself to find it.
She was thirty years old. Why did that seem so very much older than twenty-nine?
What would Barbara have to say if she were here now, Hannah wondered as she turned from the glass and took up her cloak, which had been set over the back of a chair. She drew it on and clasped it at the neck and settled the wide hood carefully over her head. She picked up her small reticule. No fan tonight. She would have no need of one.
Barbara would probably not say anything. She would not need to. She would look with reproachful, slightly wounded eyes. Barbara would think she was about to do something dreadfully immoral. Hannah disagreed with her. She was no longer married. And Barbara would think she was about to set her feet on the road to heartbreak. Hannah disagreed again. She was merely going to sleep with a very, very attractive, experienced man. Almost every part of her body was going to be involved except her heart.
Very happily involved.
She was not making a mistake. This was all happening faster than she had intended, it was true. She was not quite sure she should have capitulated quite so easily this afternoon. He had probably not really meant that he would have nothing more to do with her if she refused to go to him tonight. And if he had meant it, so what? There were other men. But she had capitulated. She had wanted a masterful man, after all, one who was not going to be a mere lapdog, as Barbara had phrased it.
No, she was not making a mistake.
She glanced one more time at her image. There. She was all white again.
The carriage he had sent for her had already been waiting at the door when Adèle had been sent in search of the emeralds. It had arrived right on time.
Which meant that she was now about fifteen minutes late.
Just right.
She swept from the room and down the stairs to the hall, where a smartly liveried footman waited to open the door for her.
CONSTANTINE HUXTABLE did not take bachelor rooms in the area of St. James’s and all the gentlemen’s clubs, as many gentlemen did when they were in town alone. Instead, he leased a house each year in an area quite respectable enough for his status in society, but not quite fashionable enough to impinge upon his privacy.
Or so Hannah guessed as the coachman handed her down onto the pavement outside his door and she looked curiously up and down the street. It was still daylight. They were to dine relatively early.
A servant had already opened the door of the house. Hannah lifted the hems of her cloak and dress, climbed the steps, and swept past him into a square, spacious hall with a black and white tiled floor and landscapes in heavy gilded frames hanging on the walls.
Constantine Huxtable was standing in the middle of the hall, all in black, as usual, and looking really very satanic indeed.
“Duchess?” He made her an elegant bow. “Welcome to my home.”
“He will be dismissed without a reference tomorrow morning if he has not,” he said, stepping forward to take her cloak.
“How very ruthless you are,” she said and stood where she was, a few steps inside the door.
He pursed his lips slightly and came even closer in order to lower her hood and then undo the clasp that held her cloak closed at the throat. He removed the garment and handed it to the silent servant without taking his eyes off her. They moved very deliberately down her body and back up to her head and down to her eyes.
There was not a flicker of surprise in his eyes. But there was something there. Some suggestion of heat, perhaps. He had been taken by surprise.
Hannah wished that after all she had brought a fan.
“You are looking particularly lovely this evening, Duchess,” he said and offered her his arm.
He led her to a room that was small and square and cozy. Heavy draperies drawn across the window shut out the last vestiges of the daylight. The only light came from the fire crackling in the hearth and two long tapers in crystal holders set on a smallish table in the middle of the room. The table was set for two.
This was not the dining room, Hannah guessed.
He had chosen a more intimate setting.
He crossed to a sideboard and poured two glasses of wine before pulling on a bell rope. He handed one of the glasses to Hannah.
“On an empty stomach, Mr. Huxtable?” she asked. “Do you wish to see me dancing on the table?”
“Not on the table, Duchess,” he said, clinking his glass against hers in a silent toast.
She sipped her wine.
“But I need no encouragement to dance elsewhere,” she told him. “The wine will be wasted on me.”
“Then I hope that at least it tastes good,” he said.
It did, of course.
The butler and a footman entered with their food, and they took their places at the table.
The chef was excellent, Hannah soon discovered. They ate in near-silence for a while.