Her Secret Affair (19 page)

A passing gentleman bowed to her, and she inclined her head in regal graciousness. Living as a lady fed a hunger in her soul. Illusion or not, she liked being regarded with respect and honor. Here, removed from the cruelties of her base birth, she felt secure and safe. When the charade ended—as end it must—she would go back to her real life. Back to being the sensible and unsuitable Miss Darling, virginal resident of a brothel.

You are who you are, a trollop’s daughter.

True though it was, she shut out Minnie’s pronouncement. Closing her eyes, Isabel memorized the moment—the rustling of silk and lace, the cool smoothness of the marble balustrade beneath her palm, the sound of cultured voices echoing in the vastness of the entry hall. Someday she would appreciate the fond memories of a time when she had been a lady …

“I say, Miss Darcy!”

Her eyelids snapped open to the sight of Mr. Charles Mobrey, shooting like a cannonball down the corridor. The elaborate folds of his cravat nearly swallowed his double chin. A corkscrew of sandy hair bounced against his brow as he skidded to a halt and bowed deeply to her.

“Good evening, Miss Darcy.” With nary a glance at the governess, he seized Isabel’s gloved hands in a fervent grip. “I’ve been waiting for you in an agony of hope. Will you be so kind as to grant me the opening dance?”

Isabel curbed a rush of impatience. He hardly fit her image of a prince, but she had to occupy herself until her quarry arrived. “As you wish. So long as Gillie does not object.”

Mobrey swung toward the older woman who hovered behind Isabel. “Pray, grant your approval, ma’am. Lest I expire here and now from a broken heart.”

Miss Gilbert fluttered her handkerchief. “My dear young man. Of course you may dance with my charge. You are eminently suitable.”

“Bless you for saying so.”

They were both so earnest, Isabel wanted to laugh. “For now, Gillie, let us find a place for you to sit away from the crush of guests.”

The immense ballroom was indeed beginning to fill with people. Golden candlelight from the chandeliers spilled over the assembly of dark-suited gentlemen and brilliantly gowned ladies, the unmarried girls clad in purest white. The musicians were tuning their instruments, and a palpable air of excitement eddied through the crowd. The scene looked like the staged rendition of a fairy-tale ball.

But Isabel wouldn’t meet her prince tonight. She had other plans. More important plans. She had a dragon to slay.

She guided Miss Gilbert to a cushioned seat near a tall window, where chaperones and matrons were gathering to gossip. “Mind you return to me after every dance,” Miss Gilbert said, her plain face screwed up in concern. “An unmarried lady always has her partners approved.”

Poor, dear Gillie. She would be bamboozled tonight, there was no escaping
that.
Pricked by guilt, Isabel leaned down to kiss Miss Gilbert’s aging cheek. “I shan’t bring shame upon you, I promise.”

She would try her level best to keep that vow. To do otherwise meant bringing disgrace not only on herself but on Helen and the marquess. And Isabel still felt shaken by Hathaway’s harsh censure, and by her own yearning to prove herself worthy.

Mobrey took her by the arm and led her toward the dance floor, where other couples were assembling. As they waited for the music to start and Mobrey cooled her with a breeze of overblown compliments, she found herself scanning the crowd for a certain tall earl too haughty for his own good.
Stay away, Kern,
she thought.
Don’t you dare interfere with my plans for tonight.

“Where, pray, is your guardian this evening?”

Isabel blinked at her officious partner. “I cannot know. Though with his fiancée ill, I’m sure he has no wish to attend.”

“Fiancée?” Mobrey’s mouth gaped open for a moment. “Ah, you speak of Kern. But I meant Hathaway.”

“Oh.” Isabel felt like the perfect fool. “I daresay the marquess is at his club.”

“A pity. I was intending to ask him for an audience at his earliest convenience.” Mobrey seized her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss. “You can guess why, can you not?”

An inkling of alarm came over her, but she shook her head. “Perhaps you’ve an interest in entering politics? I’m sure Lord Hathaway would be happy to guide you through the intricacies of Parliament.”

“My dearest Isabel, you mistake the source of my passion. Yet I cherish you all the more for your modesty.” He pulled her closer in the crush of waiting dancers, and he whispered in her ear, “Precious lady, I can remain silent no longer. Permit me to express my most ardent love and admiration for you, the woman I have chosen as my own from among all others.”

“Sshh.” Feeling her cheeks flush, she glanced around to make sure no one had overheard. Then she drew him to an alcove where the tinkling of a small fountain masked their conversation. “Please,” she hissed, “do not speak so recklessly in public.”

“Then let us forego this dance, my love. Let us steal out to the garden, where we may declare our true feelings for one another. ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes, /And I will pledge with mine; /Or leave a kiss but in the cup/ And I’ll not look for wine.’”

She wanted to box his silly ears, but she might scrape her hands on his high starched cravat. Oh, dear.
Oh, dear.
She hadn’t anticipated that Mobrey loved her with all the emotion in his self-centered heart. His attentions could put a crimp in her carefully laid scheme.

“We shall stay here and dance,” she said firmly, when he would have spirited her out of the ballroom. “And you need not address Lord Hathaway on my behalf. He has no jurisdiction over me.”

“But he is your guardian. Your closest male relation.”

“We share only a distant connection. Thus, I am mistress of my own fate.” Striving to let him down easily, she decided on a measure of honesty. “Please understand, I am not at leisure to marry you or any other man. To put it bluntly, I lack the means to tempt any gentleman.”

Mobrey reared back in an almost comical look of shock. “Hathaway has made no financial settlement on you?”

“None. And do not hold him to blame. He cannot be expected to endow every long-lost relation who appears on his doorstep.” She bit her lip, remembering how cold and disapproving Hathaway had been that morning. Yet he had allowed her to keep M’lord, and she wanted nothing more from him. “It is enough that he has given me this Season. When it is done, I shall return to the country, where I have a little cottage and a small stipend on which to live.”

It was a dreary tale, and too close to the truth for comfort. Predictably, Mobrey looked horrified—for all the wrong reasons. “I’ve income aplenty … but no marriage settlement? It is not to be borne.”

“It must be borne—and by me, not you. I fear you shall have to choose a bride elsewhere.”

“You are right! I must retract my offer until such time as I may ascertain why Hathaway thinks so little of you.” He jerked a bow and scurried off into the crowd.

So much for undying love.

Isabel spared no time for cynicism. Lifting her chin, she moved slowly through the ballroom, past the lines of graceful dancers in the center of the chamber. Whenever she spied an acquaintance, she made a discreet inquiry about the man she sought. The man who might be her mother’s killer.

Focused on her search, Isabel kept her ears open and her smile sparkling. She danced with a variety of partners and dutifully checked in with Gillie from time to time. More than once, she noticed Mobrey’s sulking glare as he spoke with other guests. Each time he did so, ladies murmured behind their fans. Gentlemen bent low to hear their whispers. At first with puzzlement, then with chagrin, Isabel intercepted their speculative stares and pitying glances.

Had everyone assumed she had money? Just because Hathaway had sponsored her?

A sense of loss ached inside her breast. Too late, she realized the inadvisability of showing kindness to Mobrey. The man was a cad of the first order, spouting poetry one minute and scandal the next. She should have known better than to trust a nobleman.

She squared her shoulders and kept smiling. Let him gossip. It would provide a relief from maintaining her facade. If word of her reduced circumstances got around, she would have fewer suitors to distract her. No gentleman, no matter how well positioned, would wed a woman without tuppence to her name.

As she made her way off the dance floor, a man stopped before her and bowed. Tall as a lamppost, he had sparse graying hair and thin, autocratic features that showed the inroads of age.

“Miss Darcy, I presume?” When she nodded, his foxy eyes looked her up and down in a way that made her skin crawl. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Terrence Dickenson. The man you’ve been seeking.”

Chapter 11

Kern spotted her across the crowded dance floor.

Wearing a sapphire gown that flaunted her fine white shoulders, Isabel blended beautifully with the throngs of aristocrats. She might have been born to hold court in a mansion like this one. The hint of fire in her dark hair mimicked the woman herself: elusive … mysterious … seductive.

And she was flirting again, damn her. Curving her lips in a come-hither smile, she touched the arm of a lanky, balding gentleman. He leaned closer to her, saying something that was lost to the noise of the ballroom, something that caused her to arch her throat and laugh.

Against his will, Kern felt drawn to her, his cool control decimated by the rise of desire. He wanted to spirit her away, to show her the advantages of choosing a younger man …

Recognition stabbed him. That old scoundrel was Terrence Dickenson, a former crony of his father’s. According to Minnie, Dickenson had engaged in a flaming, on-and-off affair with Aurora.

No doubt Isabel knew that, too.

His jaw set, Kern started through the swarm of guests. He had to save the fool woman from her own folly. He had taken only a few steps when an insistent tug on his sleeve halted him. He found himself frowning down into the worried face of Miss Gilbert.

The governess bobbed a curtsy, then lifted a handkerchief to her pale lips as if to hide behind the scrap of embroidered linen. “My lord, thank heavens you are here at last. I’ve been hoping that you would attend tonight.”

He patted her kid-gloved hand. “We’ll have a nice chat in a while. For now, duty requires me to dance with Miss Darcy.”

“But that is
exactly
why I must confide in you, my lord. You see, the most dreadful thing has happened.” She glanced from side to side, then whispered, “Everyone has found out.”

This time, Kern gave the governess his full attention. “Found out what?”

“I did not know it myself. Oh dear, what will Lord Hathaway say when he discovers how people are whispering?”

He balled his fists. “Tell me who’s calling her a fraud.”

“A fraud, m’lord? You misunderstand me.” Her brow wrinkled, the small woman leaned forward confidentially. “They’re saying our Isabel has no dowry. She is poor as a church mouse.”

“Ah,” he said, relaxing a fraction. So that was all. “The sorry scandal was bound to come out sooner or later.”

“But not in so public a forum, and without you or the marquess here to quell the gossip. Oh, mercy! How will the dear girl find a husband now?”

She won’t.
Kern kept silent, unwilling to voice any platitudes. It was true; society could be cruel to those in need of money. And even crueler to those who lacked the proper bloodlines.

“It is all my fault for not keeping a closer watch on her,” Miss Gilbert went on. “She is too unwise in the vagaries of the
ton.
” Peering through the crowd, she shook her head with its prim mobcap. “They are all gossiping about her. While she smiles as if her future is rosy.”

Isabel was smiling, all right. She was smiling at that randy old goat. From Kern’s preliminary investigation, he knew that a few years ago, Dickenson had wed a very rich and very jealous widow who kept him close to home. But his wife was nowhere in sight. “Calm yourself, Miss Gilbert. I’ll take care of the matter. No one will dare to denigrate her in my presence.”

“Bless you, my lord. Oh, bless you for a good, kind man.”

As he stalked away, Kern shrugged off a niggling guilt. Miss Gilbert wouldn’t think so highly of him if she knew exactly
how
he intended to take care of her charge. But then, Miss Gilbert didn’t have an inkling of Isabel’s true background.

Or her reckless purpose.

Kern knew. The chit lacked the sense of a flea. Eventually, if she went on prying into the lives of powerful men, she might get herself killed.
Killed.
All to avenge the death of a wanton mother.

A band of rage and frustration tightened around his chest. He’d left the brothel today with a guarded tolerance for Isabel’s spirit. Though he couldn’t condone her boldness, at least he could fathom her determination. She too had been raised in an atmosphere of moral decay. She too had not been given a choice in her parentage. It was strange to feel this connection to her, as if they’d shared a similar background—when in truth they’d been raised in utterly different worlds.

An acquaintance beckoned to him; he nodded politely but continued to wend his way toward Isabel. He would not stand idly by while she invited mayhem with her heedless questions. If necessary, he would bind and gag her and send her back to the brothel where she belonged.

Or
did
she belong there? She looked perfectly at ease here. She brought a fresh breeze of vitality into this otherwise tedious party.

She was laughing with her companion, her face shining and her eyes glowing. Then she turned her head and spied Kern across half the length of the ballroom. Their gazes locked. Her smile died. Even the music seemed to hush while violinist and flutist readied their instruments for the next set.

I need you.

The incautious thought seized him, tortured him with memory and fantasy … her lips softening to his kiss … her arms drawing him close … her legs parting to accept him … Ever since that interlude on the bed, he had dreamed of Isabel to the verge of obsession. He had craved the dark sweetness of her mouth, the wild passion of her body moving beneath him.