Her Secret Affair (27 page)

Clenching his teeth, he resisted the plunge into dark memory. The past didn’t matter anymore, except where it had been his teacher, shaping him into a man of honor.

He would not behave like Lynwood. He would not.

Turning on his heel, Kern stalked from the bedroom, giving a nod to the attendant waiting in the antechamber. Renewed resolve sustained Kern as he went down to his waiting carriage and set out for Hathaway House. This morning, he’d had another unproductive interview with the Reverend Lord Raymond Jeffries. Kern needed to inform Isabel that the clergyman still professed to know nothing about the murder.

Besides, he had promised Hathaway to keep a close watch on Isabel. For that purpose alone, Kern had to conquer his infatuation with her. He would begin by reminding himself of all the reasons why Helen suited him better than a beautiful, lying upstart.

And he would do so now.

Upon reaching the spacious town house in Grosvenor Square, he paced the drawing room while a footman scurried to announce his arrival. Kern felt restless, charged with energy as he waited for the two young women. Beyond a few words in private to Isabel in regard to the investigation, he intended to heed only his fiancée.

But when Helen breezed into the drawing room a few minutes later, she came alone. M’lord trotted at her heels, which surely meant Isabel would follow soon. She wouldn’t have gone out without her precious mongrel.

Helen picked up the puppy and cuddled him in her lap. Her bright-eyed features made Kern feel guilty for neglecting her. “Justin! You’ve missed Papa—he’s gone off to Parliament today. And you almost missed me, too. I’m going out shopping in a short while. Would you care to accompany me?”

He kissed the smooth back of her hand. “I’m afraid I haven’t the time today.”

“It’s your father, isn’t it?” The corners of her mouth drew downward in sympathy, and she touched his sleeve. “Papa told me the duke has had a relapse. I’m ever so sorry.”

“He’s resting now. There’s nothing any of us can do.”

“Our wedding is little more than a month away. Shall we delay it, do you think?”

The prospect tempted Kern, but just as swiftly, he denied the shocking impulse. He led her to a striped chaise and seated her beside him. “Of course we shouldn’t delay. He’ll recover within the fortnight. Dr. Sadler has assured me of it.”

“Oh, I’m so glad.” She leaned forward as if in confidence. “I would not wish the least unpleasantness to mar our nuptials. Oh, it is going to be the most perfect of all days. Let me tell you the menu I’ve chosen for our wedding breakfast.”

She launched into an enthusiastic description of lobster salads and sugared raspberries and champagne sorbet. He listened for a time, offering comments where necessary, yet all the while he found himself looking at Helen, really looking at her. She had a small, pretty face framed by upswept fair hair, the classic English beauty. Her animated blue eyes and smiling mouth lent her an appealing, girlish quality, and she regarded the world as a garden perpetually bathed in sunshine, never seeing the dark side of night. Trivialities excited her—parties and shopping and mundane social duties.

Ten years separated them in age, yet he felt far older, almost ancient by comparison. Was this what his life with her would be like, endless chatter about menus and fashion and gossip, never delving deeper, always skimming the surface of matters? The prospect left him weary. Denying a restless unease, he reminded himself that Helen was chaste and loyal and modest, all the qualities of an excellent wife. She had a good heart, too—look at how she had convinced Hathaway to settle a dowry on Isabel.

Isabel. Kern felt a jolt of energy. The thought of her seared him with a powerful yearning. Where the devil was she? She had better be upstairs, primping herself for the shopping expedition.

If she’d gone haring off to question another suspect, he’d have to chase her down. If she’d foolishly endangered herself, then by God he would put her under lock and key. And let her argue till doomsday that she wasn’t his to command.

After an elaborate accounting of the trouble Helen had gone through in deciding on the perfect wedding cake, he could contain his impatience no longer. “Is Isabel going shopping with you?”

“Oh, no. She isn’t here today.”

His muscles tensed. “Not here?”

“She went off in a hurry this morning to visit an acquaintance of her mother’s who has fallen ill. I offered to go with her, or at least send Gillie, but Isabel insisted on having only her maid accompany her.” Frowning in perplexity, Helen stroked the mongrel’s ears. “She said she might be gone the night. Isn’t that odd? I didn’t realize she even knew anyone in London so well.”

Kern set his jaw. He didn’t find her disappearance odd in the least. Truth be told, he knew exactly where to find Isabel Darling.

*   *   *

Isabel balanced the tea tray on her palm while opening the bedroom door with her other hand. She walked into the shadowy chamber with its hangings of crimson velvet and placed the tray on the bedside table. “Here you go,” she said in her cheeriest voice.

“Ah, there’s my good, dear girl,” Aunt Minnie said fondly. “Not too proud to fuss over your old aunties.”

Minnie sat propped against the pillows. A mop of graying ginger hair straggled down past her shoulders, and a voluminous red nightdress encased a body that had gone soft and fleshy over the years. She looked like an enormous cherry tart.

“Of course I’m happy to fuss over you.” Isabel poured a cup of steaming tea, adding a dollop of cream and a lump of sugar. She started to hand the cup to Minnie, then hesitated, eyeing the dressing that wrapped the length of Minnie’s forearm. “Can you manage the cup?”

“I think so—only just.” Using the fingers that poked out of the end of the bandage, Minnie carefully grasped the saucer that Isabel guided into her hand. With her uninjured arm, Minnie picked up the cup and lifted it to her lips. Her movements were slow and measured as if the pain and shock of the attack still lingered.

Watching her, Isabel felt stricken. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “How is your arm feeling?”

“Sore as the dickens. But it’ll mend, don’t you fear. ’Tis lucky I am the bastard took fright and ran. Only think, he might’ve stuck his sharp knife straight through my heart.”

Isabel’s own heart lurched at the grim possibility. In changing the dressing, she had seen the ugly gash that ran the length of Minnie’s forearm. The sight had made her shudder. “I should have been here,” she said for the umpteenth time. “I should have helped to chase him off. I could have called for the Watch. We might have caught the villain.”

“Mother of God, there’s nothing you could have done,” Minnie said, wincing slightly as she set the teacup in its saucer. “Certainly we’d like you to come home, where you belong. But what’s happened, happened. There’s no sense in beating a dead dog.”

Minnie’s calm acceptance failed to boost Isabel’s spirits. “I can’t help feeling responsible. It’s my fault that awful man came here. And … and he hurt you.” Her throat seized up and she bent her head, her mind haunted by the destruction in Aurora’s boudoir.

“There, there, dear.” Minnie patted Isabel’s back. “We’ll set things to rights. You just go on back to your big fancy house and forget about us.”

Isabel lifted her head. “I haven’t forgotten you. I could never forget you.”

“But maybe you’ll get to liking the soft life of a lady so much you’ll never want to return here.” Minnie sighed, her bosom lifting and falling. “You can’t blame an old woman for fearing so.”

A fresh wave of guilt broke over Isabel. She thought of the dowry and her secret dreams. “I know where I belong, aunt. I
do.
” Or did she? Was she letting her yearning for a prince overcome her good sense?
Kern. Oh, Kern.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” Callie posed in the doorway. She had discarded the white apron and unbuttoned the high neck of her gown, revealing the white half-moons of her breasts. Her blue eyes danced with delight. “Don’t look so glum, you two. We’ve company, so put on your naughtiest smiles. Especially you, Isabel.” In a stage whisper, she added with a wink, “It’s Lord Kern.”

As she vanished out the door, Minnie turned to Isabel. “What’s this? You’ve a nobleman caller?”

Isabel knew she was blushing. She felt hot all over. As if she had conjured him, Kern was
here.
“I’ll see him downstairs.”

“Wait.” Minnie grasped Isabel by the wrist. An age-old wisdom lit her hazel eyes, as if she could peer straight into Isabel’s heart. “You’ve a hankering for this man—now don’t deny it, I can see it on your face. Your Aunt Minnie’s always known you better than anybody.”

“Yes,” Isabel whispered. “I do … have feelings for him.”

“Ah, girl, ’tis nothing shameful, wanting to lie with a man. You’re a woman now, with a woman’s needs. It’s time you accepted that.”

Was Aunt Minnie urging her to succumb to Kern? Despite her astonishment, Isabel felt the tug of an exquisite longing. How glorious it would be to let him make love to her. To experience the delights she had heard her aunts gossip about …

Footsteps sounded out in the corridor and Callie reappeared, stepping inside to let their guest enter.

Kern stood in the doorway, a big, dark figure framed by the gloom of the corridor. His haughty green gaze swept over the gaudy crimson decor, then settled on the bed where Isabel sat with Minnie.

A chill descended over Isabel, and she felt exposed to him in all her vulnerability. She should have known he would show up; he had a knack for finding her, no matter where she went. But this time she wanted him gone before he saw the results of her wanton negligence, her headstrong foolishness. Her throat tightened again, and she swallowed hard. “We can talk downstairs,” she told him, rising from the mattress. “If you’ll excuse me, Aunt Minnie.”

“Don’t run off with our gentleman caller,” Minnie chided. “First, I’ve a mind to have a nice chat with his lordship.”

“And so you shall.” Kern walked to the foot of the bed and regarded the older woman. “When I heard someone was ill, I assumed it was Persephone. But something’s happened to you.”

“’Tis a dreadful tale,” Callie put in, shivering deliciously. She settled herself on the stool before the dressing table and primped her skirts, artfully lifting her hem so that her trim ankles showed. “I wasn’t here, of course, but Diana told me all the screaming jolted her out of a sound sleep—”

“It’s no concern of his lordship’s,” Isabel interrupted. Willing him to go away, she straightened the bedcovers and took the teacup from Minnie, placing it on the tray, all the while glowering at Kern. “Don’t you have a speech to give at Parliament? Or an auction to attend at Tattersall’s? If nothing else, Helen would love for you to take her shopping.”

He frowned slightly at the mention of his fiancée. “My most pressing business is to find out what’s happened here,” he said. “Minnie? Will you be so kind as to enlighten me?”

“I’d be delighted,” she said, as dignified as a grande dame holding court. “And do sit down, girl. You’re making me nervous, hovering about so.”

Only a few moments ago, Minnie had commended her for fussing. Feeling sick inside, Isabel lowered herself to a straight-backed chair near the bed. What else could she do, short of physically pushing Kern out of the bedroom? Not that she could succeed against his strength.

No, he would poke and pry until he’d heard the whole sordid story. And he would know how she had endangered the women who’d helped to raise her.

Minnie cradled her injured arm to her bosom. “A terrible event happened last night,” she began in a dramatic tone. “A noise awakened me, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what I’d heard. But seeing how Persy’s been ill, my first thought went to her, that maybe she’d awakened and called for me, needing a dab of her tonic to help her back to sleep.”

“What time did this happen?” Kern asked.

“In the wee hours—not too long before dawn. Soon’s I heard the noise, I rose out of my bed and opened the door. The passage was black as Satan’s heart, but I felt my way along as I’d done many a time before. That’s when it happened.” She paused, her face grim. “Near the staircase, a man rushed out of the darkness and knocked me flat.”

“A man,” Kern repeated. Scowling at Minnie, he walked back and forth at a measured pace. “Did you get a look at him?”

She shook her fading ginger curls. “It was dark, like I said. I saw only his shadowy shape. When he pushed me down, I made a grab for him, hoping to catch the thieving bugger. I didn’t know he had a knife till it was too late.”

“Was he a big man? Or small? Stocky? Thin?”

“I can’t say as I noticed.” Wincing, Minnie eased her injured arm onto the counterpane. “The pain was so fearfully bad, I don’t remember anything else. Except the blighter got clean away.”

“You screamed,” Callie reminded her. “Diana said the toffs likely heard you all the way over to Mayfair. And you near scared poor Persy out of her wits.”

“Are they here?” Kern asked. “I’d like a word with them.”

Callie rose. “I’ll fetch them, m’lord.”

As she minced out of the room, Isabel sat frozen with misery. Kern didn’t know the whole story yet. He didn’t realize the intruder was no common thief. That was the part she dreaded him finding out, the part that caused her such heartache, the part that implicated
her.

A few minutes later, Callie returned, supporting a little gray-haired woman in a frilly pink dressing gown. Aunt Persy smiled and twittered upon seeing Kern, and he sprang to her aid, assisting her onto a chaise with all the care a gentleman might give his maiden aunt.

Isabel wanted to curl up into a ball. What if the prowler had attacked Aunt Persy instead? She lacked the strength to withstand the shock. She might have died. And it would have been Isabel’s fault.

Diana sauntered into the bedroom, a waterfall of copper hair flowing to the waist of her honey-brown wrapper. Not even the fine lines of age could disguise her willowy beauty. She cast a resentful look at Kern and settled herself beside Minnie on the bed, making no move to draw down her hem when it rode up to her knees.