Her Secret Affair (32 page)

“I told you not to bother her,” Minnie snapped, gingerly clasping her bandaged arm to her pillowy bosom. “She’s old enough to watch over herself. ’Tis none of your concern what she chooses to do in private.”

“None of my concern? We raised her to behave better than the rest of us.” Diana brushed past Isabel and Kern and marched into the bedroom. Isabel reluctantly followed and the other aunts trailed along, whispering like a flock of gossiping geese.

Halting by the bed, Diana held the lamp high, illuminating the small, rusty brown spots on the sheets. The women gathered around, exclaiming to one another.

“No wonder they had the door shut for so long,” Callie said, casting an envious look at Isabel.

“Our dear little Venus is a woman at last,” Minnie murmured. She shook her head as if in wistful wonder.

“Oh my,” Aunt Persy said in dismay, wilting onto a stool. “Your lordship, we had thought to invite you to sup with us. But I don’t suppose that would be wise now.”

Diana curled her fingers into fists and spun around toward Kern. “Blackguard! You seduced her. You’ve ruined any hope she had of marrying well.”

He stood square-shouldered and grim-faced in the shadows, offering no excuses for his actions.

Mortified, Isabel yanked the covers over the telltale stain. She didn’t want Diana’s defense or Persy’s anxiety or even the approval of Minnie and Callie. “Enough, all of you,” she snapped. “Lord Kern did nothing I didn’t want him to do. And that is all I intend to say on the matter.”

Silence shrouded the lamplit room. The aunts stared uncertainly at Isabel, and she knew they must be shocked by her vehemence. Yet she felt not a fragment of regret. It was time they realized she had grown up.

Callie trotted forward to put her arm around Isabel in a soft, motherly embrace. “You’re right, we shouldn’t pry,” she said. “I only hope you were careful. Did you use a French sponge?”

“A … what?”

“We’ll explain in a moment,” Minnie said. Pointedly staring at Kern, she added, “For now, I’m sure his lordship would like to take his leave of us.”

His arms folded across his chest, Kern appeared discomfited by the discussion. He made a formal bow. “If you will excuse me.” He aimed one last intense glance at Isabel, and for a moment her spirit soared with the hope that he would come and kiss her, give her some sign of his affection. But he turned and strode out the door.

As the sound of his footfalls faded away, Isabel wanted to run after him. She wanted to recapture their glorious sense of closeness. She wanted him to hold her in his arms and never let go.

Yet with wrenching awareness she knew she could not be sure he would return to her. Ever.

I can’t make you any promises. It would be wrong of me.

“You look worn out, my dear,” said Aunt Persy in her quavering voice. “I remember being rather sore after my first time. You should soak in a hot bath.”

Isabel managed a smile. If only the remedy could ease the pain in her heart as well. “Thank you. Perhaps I shall.”

The other women gathered around, clucking over her. “Do sit down,” Aunt Di advised, guiding Isabel to a chair. “I’ll set the water to boiling in the kitchen.” She hastened out the door.

“Don’t add too much cool to the tub,” Callie called after her. To Isabel, she confided, “The heat of the water can also help prevent conception. Though the sponge works best.”

“How … so?”

“’Tis soaked in vinegar to stop the man’s seed from taking root,” Minnie said. She went on to explain in a practical, efficient manner how to place the device over the inner mouth of the womb.

Isabel listened with wary fascination, and her fingers crept surreptitiously over her belly. Even while her logic could see the sense in taking precautions, she felt the leap of a wild, instinctive yearning. Did her body already nurture Kern’s baby? A little boy with black hair and an impish smile … or a daughter with elfin green eyes …

Had her mother wished so much for Apollo’s child?

Isabel suddenly did not want a hot bath. She did not want fussing, either. She needed to escape from the well-meaning advice of her aunts. She needed time to think, to sort through the new and myriad emotions crowding her heart.

She shot to her feet. “I’m afraid I’ve tarried here long enough. I really must return to Hathaway House.”

“Diana has upset you, hasn’t she?” Aunt Persy asked. “My dear, you mustn’t run away because you feel you’ve done something wicked. We aren’t angry with you, only concerned because we love you.”

Isabel bent down and hugged Persy’s frail form. “I love you, too. All of you.”

Minnie sat down heavily on the bed, the ropes creaking. “Then stay here with us,” she urged. “Everything’s changed now. You can’t pretend to be a lady anymore. You should move back with your family, where you belong.”

Isabel’s throat seized up.
Did
she belong here in this shabby house with the kind women who had raised her? Or did she belong in Kern’s glittering realm of high society? Aunt Minnie was right; everything
had
changed. Yet Isabel felt caught between two worlds, and somehow she had to feel her way through the darkness. “I have no choice but to go back,” she said. “How else will I find the man who murdered Mama?”

Callie picked up a frilly pink gown from a heap of ruined clothing. The lace had been ripped, the skirt gored by a knife. “I don’t suppose you and his lordship figured out who did all this.”

“Not yet.” On a cold nudge of memory, Isabel recalled what Kern had said.
The prowler could have been one of the women living here.

The possibility horrified her. She looked at Callie, who poked through the litter of shoes and fans and undergarments. With a chill, Isabel remembered another revelation Kern had told her.

Someone betrayed you in exchange for a gold sovereign. That someone was Callandra.

Chapter 17

For the first time in his twenty-eight years, Kern was drunk. He sat in the library at Lynwood House, his boot-heels propped on the mahogany desk where ofttimes he studied bills proposed in Parliament or scrutinized the account books for his estate in Derbyshire. Now, by the light of a branch of candles, he leaned back in his chair and counted the cracks in the ceiling.

The mindless act was more productive than contemplating the wreck he had made of his life. Or worse, the wreck he had made of Isabel’s life.

Blackguard. You’ve ruined any hope she had of marrying well.

Diana’s accusation rang in his mind, worsening the drumbeat of guilt pounding in his head. He groped for his glass. His fingers closed around the fine crystal and he brought it to his lips. Empty.

“Bloody
hell,
” he said through gritted teeth.

His feet came crashing to the floor. Pushing back the leather chair, he rose rather unsteadily and wove his way to the sideboard. He disliked the woozy drift of his mind, his inability to employ logic rather than rash sentiment. He disliked the way his thoughts kept circling back to Isabel, back to the incredible moment when he had stroked her to climax and she had cried out to him from the depths of her heart.

I love you.

Heat prickled behind his eyelids as he stared down into his empty glass. No wonder he never got drunk. It didn’t dull his pain. It made him maudlin, dangerously so. Nevertheless, he poured another generous draught of whiskey from the decanter and tossed back a burning gulp.

He had ruined Helen’s life, too, though she didn’t know it yet. In the long hours since he’d left Isabel, the other women clucking around her like mother hens, he had come to a difficult, inevitable decision. He must alter his plan for his life. He could not marry Helen.

He felt no lifting of relief, only the dread of hurting her. She admired him, trusted him as only a naïve girl could. And no matter that he would take full responsibility for breaking their betrothal, she would suffer the humiliation of rejection before all the
ton.

He could do nothing to ease her pain. Though the news of his philandering would devastate Helen, he could not stand before God and vow to honor and cherish her. Not while another woman enslaved him, body and soul.

I love you.

Desperate to stifle his longing, he hurled the glass at the marble hearth. His aim was off and the crystal shattered against the wall, shards spewing over the floral carpet. But he could not destroy the aching need inside himself. The need for Isabel.

He stumbled to a chair and sank down, raking his fingers through his hair. He could almost smell the rainwater freshness of her skin. He could almost see her sensual smile. He could almost feel the hot velvet glove of her body enclosing him. One night of passion had not sated him; it had increased his desire a hundredfold. He could not live without her.

I love you.

Her soft words battered his heart. She deserved a good husband, but Kern could never be that man. He could never take her to wife. Such a
mésalliance
simply wasn’t done. Yet for her, he would abandon his integrity, his principles. For her, he would become like Lynwood.

Honor be damned. Though she would be the ruin of him, he would possess her.

He would make Isabel Darling his mistress.

*   *   *

“You are a lazybones,” Helen declared.

At the laughing comment, Isabel opened her eyes to see the blond girl standing by the bedside, M’lord in her arms, his tail wagging madly. A dull daylight blanketed the bedroom, and the breeze through the opened casement carried the cool portent of rain.

“M’lord and I have been awake for
hours,
” Helen went on, ruffling the dog’s ears. “Callie says you returned rather late last night. Did your acquaintance recover from her illness?”

Nothing in her smiling face revealed any knowledge of the momentous events that had kept Isabel away for the evening. Her breast clenched with guilt and dread and fierce, shameful envy. Oh, to be Kern’s betrothed! Did Helen fathom how very lucky she was?

She realized that Helen awaited a reply. “My acquaintance? Oh, the friend of my mother’s.” Thinking of Aunt Minnie’s ordeal, Isabel concealed a shiver. “She … suffered a minor accident, but she’s better now. Thank you for being so understanding in letting me go.”

Helen made a playful grimace. “I’ve no hold over your time, Cousin. But certainly I missed your company yesterday. Shopping with Gillie can be rather tame, though I found the most cunning pink bonnet for my trousseau.”

As she described the items she had purchased in anticipation of becoming Kern’s bride, Isabel waged silent war with jealousy and despair. The intimacy of the previous night seemed like a wistful dream now. Reality was Helen, chattering of her wedding clothes in blissful ignorance.

Dear God. If Helen knew the truth, she would hate Isabel.

Her throat tight, Isabel rose from the bed. She caught herself before reaching for the small pocket she kept under her pillows, remembering she’d given the memoirs to Kern for safekeeping.

It’s the least I can do to protect you.

His words shone through the cloud of her misery, and her heart thrilled to his masculine guardianship. Not because she thought herself weak and incapable, but because he cared enough to shield her from harm. He made her feel wanted. Cherished. Her body glowed in the aftermath of his lovemaking. She felt utterly transformed today, a girl initiated into the mysteries of womanhood. And she dared say nothing about it to Helen.

“I ordered five more traveling gowns for our honeymoon trip to the Continent,” Helen said. Holding the dog, she twirled around, her blue skirts flying. “Oh, I can scarcely wait to see Paris and Venice and Rome, all the places I’ve longed to visit. Did you know that bandits still roam the passes through the Alps? And that brave men fight bulls in Madrid?”

Helen had never looked more animated. Isabel struggled to keep a pleasant look on her face when she was dying inside. The honeymoon. She would sell her soul to know such happiness with Kern.

Going into the dressing room, she only half listened to the girl’s cheerful prattle about the journey. As she donned her clothing, she couldn’t stop her quick, furtive thoughts of Kern: the feel of his big warm hands caressing her curves, the keen pleasure of his mouth on her breasts, the joyous ecstasy of being one with him. And afterward, he’d held her in his arms as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.

I’ve never wanted any woman as much as I want you.

“You’re smiling,” Helen accused from her seat on the dressing table stool, M’lord ensconced in her lap. “I can’t think there’s anything amusing about missing breakfast.”

“Missing breakfast?” With a guilty start, Isabel realized she’d lost the thread of their conversation.

“Silly, you haven’t been listening,” Helen chided on a giggle. “I said, it’s nearly time for luncheon. Come here, I’ll put up your hair for you.”

Isabel sank onto the dressing-table stool that Helen vacated. Helen deftly wound Isabel’s hair into an elegant chignon, securing it with tortoiseshell pins. Her manner of friendly affection twisted the knife of remorse more deeply into Isabel. How could she have betrayed the girl who had become like a sister to her?

Yet how could she have denied her boundless love for Kern?

She had tossed and turned for most of the night, torn between yearning for Kern and anxiety over the future. The burden of their secret weighed heavily on her conscience. Should she admit the truth to Helen?

I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve fallen madly in love with your fiancé. Last night we consummated our passion for each other.

The words stuck like thorns in her throat. Helen would be shattered. She would call off the betrothal. Was it fair of Isabel to destroy the happiness of a dear friend?

No. She could confess nothing. That decision belonged to Kern. But would he, too, keep silent?

The unpalatable thought sat sourly in her stomach. Perhaps upon reflection he would realize he needed a lady for his wife. Perhaps, like so many other noblemen, he would decide that love didn’t matter in a marriage. Perhaps he would go on with the wedding and the honeymoon. He might disappear from her life forever.