Her Secret Affair (26 page)

He couldn’t halt the lascivious turn of his mind. It was like a fever in him, burning out of control. He wanted to put an end to his torment. He wanted to make love to her—here. Now. In this murky little dressing room. While hundreds of patrons beyond the door listened to the opera.

The thought held an erotic appeal so powerful he forced himself to draw back. He pushed her away and held her at arm’s length. With distance, a measure of anger returned to him. “What the devil are you doing here? Did you learn nothing from your first encounter with Dickenson?”

She thrust up her chin. Her sherry-brown eyes shone in the faint light. “I wasn’t in danger. Didn’t you see all the people out there? Besides, you might compliment me for disabling him.”

So that explained why Dickenson had been clutching his crotch. Horror and fury overshadowed any admiration Kern might have felt. He skimmed his hands over her dainty shoulders to assure himself she was unharmed. “Tell me what that son of Satan did to you.”

He felt a faint shudder run through her, and she glanced away. “It was nothing I couldn’t handle. Though I’d feel safer if you returned my dagger.”

“You shouldn’t walk into situations where you need a weapon,” Kern said through gritted teeth. “Now answer me. Did he force himself on you?”

“He made an unsavory offer.” Bitterness tinged her voice and she held herself stiffly, with a pride that sliced into his heart. “Exactly the sort of offer gentlemen make to a woman of my background.”

A fog of rage descended over Kern. His throat felt choked with venom. His chest throbbed with the need to draw blood. Dickenson’s blood.

Releasing her, he swung toward the door. Visions of violence consumed his mind. He would make that bastard pay. He would send the rotter to hell …

Isabel darted in front of him, pressing her back to the closed door. “Where are you going?”

“To find Dickenson.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Give him his choice of pistols or swords.”

She choked out a gasp. “Kern, you
mustn’t.
You can’t challenge him to a duel.”

“I can, indeed. I’d kill him with my bare hands for touching you.” His fingers flexed of their own accord. He saw himself throttling the life out of Dickenson, hearing him beg for mercy, watching his face turn purple …

Isabel’s hands cupped his face, cool against his fevered skin. “
No!
That’s out of the question. He didn’t touch me.”

“He insulted you, and that’s enough.”

“You can’t kill a man over an insult to
me.
Think, Kern. Think of the scandal. Think of what it would do to Helen. She can’t know what we feel for one another. She must never, ever know.”

Helen. The pounding in his veins began to subside. The haze over his reason gradually dissipated. Reality slapped him with the truth of what he had almost done. He released a harsh breath.

He had almost forsaken his fiancée. He had almost betrayed the sweet girl who, for the past year, had planned their wedding.

He had almost declared himself the champion of a trollop.

Isabel gazed steadily at him, her eyes expressive with concern. Even with her dark hair mussed and her lips reddened from his kiss, she bore herself with dignity. No, he couldn’t label her in derogatory terms. She was as much the natural daughter of a gentleman as she was the bastard of a whore.

Releasing her, he closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. Even now, she tempted him. His arms ached to hold her. The womanly scent of her lingered on his skin. She answered a dark need in himself, a need he dared not fathom. With a peculiar horror he realized he wanted her so much he had been ready to renounce Helen.

She can’t know what we feel for one another.

What
did
he feel for Isabel? Lust, certainly. But his emotions went deeper than that, far deeper. And he could not allow himself to dive into the darkness lest he drown.

Dear Reader,

You might fancy the life of a courtesan is filled with endless pleasures. Certainly we indulge often in the delightfully wicked vices of the flesh. Yet like most ordinary souls, we also have the tedium of our daily lives, those times when our men have gone back to their world and we women are left to fend for ourselves.

It was shortly after Apollo forsook me that Minerva joined my household. I had lived alone until then, believing myself content, able to manage on ample funds left to me by Apollo. With the approach of my confinement, however, I realized the need for feminine company.

Upon advertising, I procured a companion, and when she found out my true vocation, she resolved to follow the same path, taking the name Minerva, or Minnie, as we so fondly call her. Minnie proved herself a great help upon the birth of my dear daughter. I do believe she was as proud as I to take the baby on outings to the park or to marvel at her first smile. And Minnie was as sad as I to say good-bye that dismal day we safely settled Apollo’s daughter in Oxfordshire.

Over the years, other ladies joined our household: Diana, who fled from a brutal husband; Callandra, who sold her body to buy bread for her orphaned siblings; and Persephone, who was seduced by a footman and cast out by her merchant father. I have found great comfort in their friendships. We are Goddesses. And we are family …

—The True Confessions of a Ladybird

Chapter 14

Her body burned for him. Shameless longing made her move restlessly. Her clothes melted away, and his big hands ravished her, stroking her breasts, then moving lower, to pleasure the aching place between her legs. At last, she could freely give herself to him. The joy of it carried her higher and higher. She felt him kissing her ear, her cheek …

Someone was licking her face. Isabel opened her eyes and blinked into the early morning sunshine streaming past the curtains. She lay in her bedroom at Hathaway House. And her enthusiastic assailant wasn’t
someone.
It was M’lord.

The puppy snuffled eagerly against her ear, his tongue leaving a wet trail across her cheek. With a wry laugh, she scooted to a sitting position against the pillows and gathered him into her arms. Tail wagging, he continued to bathe her neck and chin in slobbery kisses.

“You stop that now, do you hear?” She moved him to her lap, petting his spotted gold coat until he rested quieter. “Silly dog. You ruined a perfectly wonderful dream.”

It
had
been wonderful. Almost ecstatic. A residual heat throbbed within her, an eternal flame burning for Kern. Ever since he had kissed her at the opera house the previous night … nay, ever since she’d met him, she had been doomed to a purgatory of perpetual frustration. She could no longer deny that she wanted him, body and soul. She wanted what she had sworn never to take—a noble lover.

She wanted the one man who could cause her downfall.

Giving herself to Kern would send her down the immoral path her mother had taken. Worse, it would ruin Isabel’s investigation, end her chance to find the man who had killed her mother. For if ever she let him make love to her, how could she remain here, knowing she had betrayed Helen, the girl who had become like a sister to her?

Isabel hugged the puppy closer, deriving comfort from his warmth. She had grown accustomed to the quiet elegance of this house. Her eyes drank in the spacious room with its hangings of pale-blue silk, the canopied bed, the dainty mahogany furniture. In the evenings, when the house lay silent, she liked to sit and read in the armchair by the marble fireplace. And in the mornings, she liked to lie here and fantasize about being a lady … enjoying comfort and respect … belonging in this world forever.

The thought lured her like a shining dream. She could have that life. She could accept Hathaway’s dowry. Though it wasn’t much by the standards of many members of the
ton,
five thousand pounds would secure her a fine gentleman as a husband.

But lately her flights of fancy had taken a dangerous turn. When she imagined sharing her marriage bed, she thought of Kern. Only Kern.

Even if he were free, he would never wed her. He knew her past. He knew the trickery she’d used to inveigle herself into this household. He knew she was not a lady. To him, she would always be the daughter of a whore.

Yet in the heat of the moment, he had kissed her with all the hunger of a man holding his beloved. He had been ready to fight Dickenson for insulting her. Until he’d remembered.

She gave M’lord another hug, pressing her cheek to his soft coat. One radiant thought illuminated the gloom in her heart. Kern wanted her. Even if an illicit affair was out of the question, he still desired her. As much as she desired him.

As for Hathaway’s offer, she wouldn’t accept the money, of course. She couldn’t. Even if it were freely given, without the disreputable price of bribery attached, she could never, ever take such a sum from any nobleman.

With one final pat, she set the puppy aside and threw back the counterpane. It was no use dreaming impossible dreams. The day would come when she had to depart this life. Though the dowry tempted her, she would return to her own world. Where she belonged.

The reason lay beneath her pillows.

Reaching beneath the feather-stuffed mound, she drew out the slim linen pocket that held her mother’s memoirs. The familiar square of the book with its brass clasp reassured her. She followed the right course; she would find justice for her mother.

Padding into the dressing room, Isabel performed her morning ablutions, then slipped out of her nightdress and donned a fine chemise. Beneath it, she securely tied the long strings of the pocket around her waist. Then she rummaged in the wardrobe for a petticoat.

An ache lingered in her heart. Selfish or not, she wanted the loving husband and the respect due a lady. She did not need a palace, just a comfortable cottage in the country to raise a family of her own. Closing her eyes, she clutched the petticoat to her breasts. The dream wafted over her again, her children romping on the lawn with their father … and when she ran to join them, the smiling man who greeted her with a kiss was Kern.

Was it love, this warm feeling she had for him? The thought made her shiver with desire and danger. How could she have fallen in love with the one man who was so wrong for her?

The outer door burst open. M’lord set up a loud yapping. Isabel peeked out into the bedroom to see Callie hurry inside. Though clad in a severe black gown covered by a crisp white apron, Callie managed to appear less than respectable. Her bosom strained against the seams of her bodice. Curls of brassy blond hair escaped her mobcap. She moved with a naturally seductive sway to her broad hips. No doubt she caused friction among the male servants, and Isabel could only hope Callie heeded her promise not to bed any one of them.

“So you’re awake.” Callie stalked to the window and jerked open the curtains. “Good. There’s no time for lolling in bed this morning.”

Her urgent tone startled Isabel. Quickly she stepped into the petticoat before Callie spied the pocket hidden beneath her chemise. “Does Helen wish to leave early for our shopping trip? She didn’t mention it last night.”

“’Tisn’t her ladyship. There’s trouble at home. Bad trouble.”

The bottom dropped out of Isabel’s stomach. Her fingers froze in the act of securing the tapes of her petticoat. “Aunt Persy? Has she—?”

“Nay, she’s fine. ’Tis Minnie this time.” Callie dug into the pocket of her apron, extracted a square of paper, and slapped it into Isabel’s palm. “You’d best have a look at this. I don’t read so good, so maybe I took it wrong.”

Fingers shaking, Isabel unfolded the letter. She recognized Aunt Di’s elegant script even before seeing the signature at the bottom. The message was painfully brief.

Aunt Minnie had been attacked during the night by a prowler.

*   *   *

Kern stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at his father.

The Duke of Lynwood twitched restlessly in his sleep. Curled up like an infant, he lay huddled on his side beneath the covers. By the light of a candle on the bedside table, his cheeks had a shrunken, yellow cast and his nose showed a webwork of spidery veins. He looked curiously defenseless in slumber. A sick old man far past his prime.

Though noon had come and gone, the heavy curtains were drawn, rendering the chamber as dark as night. The sweetish odor of laudanum lingered in the warm air. Lynwood had suffered another seizure the previous evening, while Kern had been at the opera. The physician had hopes for the duke’s partial recovery, provided he was kept sedated for a few days to regain his strength.

His eyes closed, Lynwood quivered as if in pain. His lips moved as he groaned in his sleep.

Fighting an attack of compassion, Kern braced his hand on the bedpost. He shouldn’t care what happened to the reprobate. He shouldn’t wish he could ease his father’s suffering. The duke had earned his place in hell. Lynwood epitomized all the reasons Kern resisted his lust for Isabel Darling.

Heat arrowed to his groin. The mere thought of her had that effect on him. She obsessed his mind and possessed his body. No matter how he tried, he could not cudgel his brain into forgetting her for more than a few minutes at a time. Whenever he turned his mind onto safer ground, the crooked path of his thoughts led inexorably back to her. Back to her slender form and laughing eyes, back to the pouty lips that could as easily curse him as kiss him.

Last night he had been ready to kill a man on her behalf. He assured himself his foolhardy impulse couldn’t have been in defense of her honor. Rather, he abhorred the notion of any other man touching her. Even if he himself could not—should not—lay a hand on her tempting body.

He owed his allegiance to Helen. She was the lady of his choice, his future wife, the virtuous woman who would share his life. To Helen, he had pledged his word of honor. He had sworn not to be like other men, sowing his wild seed wherever he fancied. He had made that vow after the appalling incident on his fourteenth birthday.