At the moment she was doing it again. She was standing on the lawn not far from the orchard, her hand on the arm of Lord Hardingraye, one of her old lovers with whom she had arrived half an hour ago. They were surrounded by other guests, both male and female, and she was giving the group her full attention as she twirled a confection of a parasol above her head. Inevitably it was white, as was everything else she wore. She almost always wore white, though she never looked the same on any two occasions. Amazing, that.

She had not once looked Constantine’s way. Which might mean one of two things—she had not seen him yet, or she was no longer interested in pursuing any sort of connection with him.

He knew very well that neither possible explanation was the real one.

She was determined to have him. And she had certainly seen him. She would not have so studiously not looked at him if she had not.

He was amused again.

He sipped his drink and carried on a conversation with a group of his friends. He was in no hurry to approach her. Indeed, he had no intention of making the first move. If she wished to ignore him all afternoon, he would not leave brokenhearted.

But as he talked and laughed and looked about at all the new arrivals, smiling at some of them, raising a hand in greeting to others, he mulled over the question that had been bothering him for the past three days.

Did he really want the Duchess of Dunbarton as a lover?

He had said a very firm no to that question in Hyde Park, and he had meant it.

Most men would have thought the question a ludicrous one, of course. She was, after all, one of the most perfectly beautiful women anyone had ever set eyes upon, and, if it was possible, she had improved with age. She was still relatively young, and she was as sexually desirable as she was lovely. She was much sought after—an understatement. She could have almost any man she chose to take as a lover, and that did not exclude many of the married ones.

But …

Something made him hesitate, and he was not quite sure what it was.

Was it that she had chosen him? But there was no reason why a woman might not go after what she wanted just as boldly as a man could. When he decided upon a woman, after all, he always pursued her with determined persistence until she capitulated—or did not. Besides, was it not flattering to be singled out by a beautiful, desirable woman who could have almost anyone?

Was it that she was too available, then? Had her lovers not been legion while the old duke lived? Were they not likely to continue to be numerous now that she was finally free, not only of the duke but also of her obligatory year of mourning? But he had never balked at the prospect of competition. Besides, if it turned out that she expected to keep other lovers as well as him, he could simply walk away. He was not looking for love, after all, or anything like a marital commitment. Only for a lover. His heart was not going to be involved.

And she had said in so many words at the Heaton concert that while he was her lover no one else would be.

Was it, then, that she was too much of an open book, as he had told her at the concert? Everyone knew all about her. Despite the bedroom eyes and the half-smile she kept almost always on her lips, there was no real mystery about the woman, nothing to be uncovered a layer at a time, like the petals of a rose.

Except her clothing.

One never knew exactly what a woman was going to look like unclothed, no matter how many times one’s eyes roamed over her clad body. One never knew exactly what she would feel like, how she would move, what sounds she would make …

“Constantine.” His aunt, Lady Lyngate, his mother’s sister, had come up behind him and laid a hand on his arm. “Do tell me you have not been down by the river yet. Or, if you have, do lie about it and tell me you will be delighted to escort me there.”

He covered her hand with his own and grinned at her.

“I would not be lying, Aunt Maria,” he said, “even if I had been down there a dozen times already, which I have not. It is always my pleasure to escort you anywhere you wish to go. I did not know you were in town. How are you? You grow lovelier with every passing year and every newly acquired gray hair. More distinguished.”

He was not lying about that either. She was probably close to sixty years old and a head-turner.

“Well,” she said, laughing, “that is the first time, I believe, I have been complimented on my gray hair.”

She was still very dark. But she was graying attractively at the temples. She was Elliott’s—the Duke of Moreland’s—mother but had never cut their acquaintance just because her son rarely talked to him. Neither had Elliott’s sisters.

“How is Cece?” he asked of Cecily, Viscountess Burden, the youngest of them and his favorite, as he led his aunt off the terrace and down the broad steps to the lawn. “Is her confinement to be soon?”

“Soon enough that she and Burden have remained in the country this year,” she said, “much to the delight of the other two children, I am sure. What a good idea it was to set up tables on the terrace down there. One may sit and enjoy refreshments and be right by the water.”

They proceeded to do just that and sat for ten minutes or so before being joined by three of his aunt’s friends—a lady and two gentlemen.

“You will take pity on me, if you will, Lady Lyngate, and if your nephew can spare you,” the single gentleman said after they had all chatted for a while. “We came down here to take out a boat, but I have always had an aversion to being a wallflower. Do say you will make up a fourth.”

“Oh, indeed I will,” she said. “How delightful! Constantine, will you excuse me?”

“Only with the greatest reluctance,” he said, winking at her, and he watched as the four of them climbed into a recently vacated boat and one of the men took the oars and pushed out into the river.

“All alone, Mr. Huxtable?” a familiar voice asked from behind his shoulder. “What a waste of a perfectly available gentleman.”

“I have been sitting here waiting for you to take notice and have pity on me,” he said, getting to his feet. “Do join me, Duchess.”

“I am neither hungry nor thirsty nor in need of rest,” she said. “Take me into the greenhouses. I wish to see the orchids.”

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.”