“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.