Her Secret Affair (29 page)

She frowned as if reserving judgment. “Then perhaps the intruder was the Reverend Lord Raymond. Perhaps he heard about the dowry and decided things had gone too far. He had to get the memoirs back.”

“I spoke with him this morning when he came by to pray at my father’s bedside. I’d stake my life that he hadn’t known about the dowry.” In fact, upon hearing the news, Lord Raymond had uttered a colorful oath that would have shocked his more gently bred parishioners.

But was he a murderer? And if he was not, then why had Hathaway granted a marriage portion to Isabel?

Try as he might, Kern couldn’t picture Hathaway’s brother laying waste to this bedroom, then stabbing a woman. “He’s a respected clergyman. He wouldn’t break into a brothel in the middle of the night.”

Isabel plucked an ostrich feather fan from the floor. She attempted to straighten one crooked white feather, drawing it through her fingers over and over. “Yes, he would. He’s done so before. My mother said as much in her memoirs.”

“He’s done
this?
” Disbelieving, Kern waved his hand around at the destruction. “Give me the memoirs. Let me read that passage.”

“No, you misunderstand me.” Isabel lifted the fan, her brown eyes peering over it like a concubine peeking out from behind a veil. “Suffice it to say he preferred to visit my mother under cover of darkness. When no one of consequence would notice his sin.”

“A late-night assignation is a far cry from vandalism and assault. That brand of stealth belongs to a scoundrel like Terrence Dickenson.”

She dipped the fan until the feathery tips brushed her breasts. He found his gaze fixed there, found himself envying the fan. “We cannot discount Trimble,” she murmured in a curiously emotionless voice. “I suspect he knows more than he lets on.”

He knows Apollo.

Kern refrained from reminding her of the father she so despised. “There are plenty of men who would love to see the memoirs vanish.”

She lowered the fan to a place just below her waist. “They won’t find the memoirs,” she said confidently. “Trust me, they won’t.”

Her coy maneuvering of the fan aroused Kern. In defiance of his willpower, heat scorched his groin. Was she deliberately enticing him?

He turned and slammed a drawer shut. “There’s another possibility to consider,” he said. A thought gnawed at the edge of his mind. “How well did your mother get along with Diana and Callandra?”

Isabel frowned. “Well enough. They had their little spats from time to time, but no more than any close friends. What has that to do with the prowler?”

“The prowler could have been one of the women living here.”

The fan slid from her fingers and thunked to the floor. Her face frozen, Isabel took a step toward him. “You can’t think … one of my aunts…”

“It seems far-fetched. But I noticed the enmity between Callandra and Diana. If either of them resented your mother for whatever reason, they might have turned their malice on her things.”

“No.
No.
” Isabel shook her head for emphasis. The late afternoon sunlight picked out the fiery strands in her dark-brown hair. “That is utter nonsense. Aunt Callie and Aunt Di have always squabbled, but it doesn’t mean they’re sneaky and … and violent.” She shuddered. “It’s unthinkable. I’ve never seen any disloyalty between my aunts.”

Much as it pained him to do so, he had to shatter her illusions. “Isabel, the first time we met, here in this room, someone left the back door unlocked for me. Someone informed me when the other women would be at dinner so that I would find you alone. Someone betrayed you in exchange for a gold sovereign. That someone was Callandra.”

Isabel’s lips parted in a soundless O. He could see her incredulity and the beginnings of hurt, and he regretted it fiercely.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “But you may not know these women as well as you think. Can you verify Callandra’s whereabouts last night?”

As if suddenly weak, Isabel sagged against the bedpost. “She waited for me to return home from the opera. Then she went up to her room in the servants’ attic.”

“Or perhaps she slipped out of the house and came here.”

Isabel gave a snort of disbelief. “That’s absurd. Why would Aunt Callie want the memoirs?”

“Perhaps there’s something derogatory written about her. Or perhaps she wasn’t looking for the memoirs at all, but something else entirely.”

“Such as?” Isabel’s tone conveyed skepticism.

“Such as an outlet for her resentment of Aurora.”
She would have to be mad.
Kern didn’t voice that thought. Instead, he motioned Isabel into the boudoir and picked up an empty flacon of scent. “If the intruder was looking for a book, he—or she—couldn’t possibly have found it in this bottle. So why spill the perfume? And the cosmetics? Why slash your mother’s gowns? Those are acts of wanton hatred.”

“The prowler was frustrated by his failure to find the memoirs, that’s all.” Isabel reached for an empty jar on the dressing table. With jerky movements, she scooped powder back into the container. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you would vilify my aunts. You’d rather not believe one of your own kind could be so malicious. It’s much easier to blame a whore.”

Without thinking, he moved forward to grasp her shoulders. “That’s where you’re wrong. Believe me, I know that with provocation, even a civilized gentleman can turn savage.”

At the moment, he himself felt a feral urge that had nothing to do with violence—and everything to do with the instinctual act of mating.

Touching her was a mistake. The warmth of her skin seared him with desire. He wanted to slide his hands downward, to explore the slopes and valleys he had known only in his fantasies. He wanted to banish the tension in her, to shield her from the cold cruelties of hatred. Instead, he had added to her anguish by casting doubt on the women who had raised her.

“Dear God, the man who came here last night was a savage beast,” she whispered, her eyes deep pools of misery. “He could have killed Aunt Minnie as he killed my mother. And it would have been my fault. I was too obstinate to see the truth.”

Like a forlorn rag doll, she stood with her shoulders limp. Kern couldn’t bear to see her so desolate. It was all he could do to stop himself from shaking some sense into her. “Hindsight is always more accurate than foresight,” he said. “You couldn’t have known this would happen.”

“But I should have foreseen the consequences of going after a murderer. I should have realized he might try to kill again.”

“Are you saying you’ll drop the investigation, then?” he asked, deliberately trying to provoke a reaction from her. “You’ll stop seeking the villain who killed your mother? You’ll let him get away unpunished?”

She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know. Oh, Kern, I honestly don’t know where to go from here.”

The bewilderment in her voice tore at him, and once again her eyes showed the glint of tears. She had always been so strong, so dedicated, so ready to rise to a challenge. Now she looked pleadingly at him as if he knew the answers to all the questions inside herself. And with a fierceness that brutalized his self-control, he wanted to make her happy again.

“Isabel.” He slid his arms around her, his hands moving up and down her slender back, over her sweetly rounded bottom. She snuggled closer to him like a kitten seeking comfort. He would hold her for a few moments, let himself revel in the dark, fathomless need she stirred inside him. It didn’t matter that he was betrothed to another woman so long as he went no further. He concentrated on keeping his breathing even, his mind composed.

“Make me forget.” Isabel slipped her hands inside his coat and lifted herself on tiptoe. “Help me, Kern.”

His resolve wavered at the first forbidden brush of her lips on his. Despite all her experience, it was the kiss of a maiden, tender and questing, a compelling combination of innocence and immorality. On a groan, he succumbed to temptation. He would allow himself one kiss. And the pleasure of savoring the succulence of her mouth. The pleasure of touching her shapely form. The pleasure of holding her against his throbbing heat.

And the torture of anticipation. Oh, God. The torture of knowing he couldn’t—shouldn’t—take this embrace to its natural conclusion.

But he could venture to the edge. He could test the boundaries of his control and move into deeper waters. Nuzzling the smooth, fragrant skin of her cheek and throat, he unfastened the buttons down the back of her gown. He felt her small fingers at his coat and waistcoat, and realized she was performing the same task for him. Having fewer buttons to contend with, she succeeded first, reaching up to push both garments off his shoulders.

“This is wrong of me to want you so,” she whispered, her palms warm through the linen of his shirt. “Yet why does it feel so right?”

“Because you,” he muttered, “were made to be loved.”

The bodice of her gown slithered downward, and she made quick work of the fastenings of her corset and chemise until she stood before him, bare to the waist. He released a harsh breath. Bathed by the soft light of early evening, her skin glowed like rich cream and her breasts formed coral-tipped mounds. He could not imagine a more perfect woman. She embodied her namesake: Venus, goddess of love.

She brought his palms up to cradle her breasts, then closed her eyes and sighed. “I adore your hands. I adore the way they make me feel, all warm and shivery inside.”

She moved against him in the sinuous invitation of a siren. Desire blazed through his blood as she coaxed him closer to the limits of discipline. How could he not taste the feast she offered to him? He bent his head, closing his mouth around one taut nipple, then rubbing his cheek against the velvety hills, exploring the sweet-scented valley in between. He caressed her with his teeth and tongue, encouraged by her murmurings of delight.

He would stop in a moment. He would walk away from her. Honor demanded it of him.

But not yet. Not while her fingers tangled in his hair and moved down the column of his neck to loosen his cravat. Not while she unbuttoned his shirt. Not while she whispered his name and pressed a kiss to his bare throat. He could feel the trembling in her hands and in his, too, as he touched her. Isabel wanted him. As much as he wanted her.

Want.
What a pale word to describe the pounding in his chest, the fever in his blood. His loins were locked in an everlasting purgatory, halfway between heaven and hell. He was no longer so certain that salvation held any worth or meaning. How could he aspire to a heaven without Isabel?

Let his soul be damned, then.

He gazed down at her lovely face and saw his own desperate desire reflected there. Paradise awaited him here. Now. With the one woman who set fire to his heart.

Ablaze with need, he guided Isabel out of the boudoir and into the bedroom. As they neared the bed, her steps faltered and she looked up at him with haunted eyes. “Kern, this is wicked. You know why—”

He pressed his finger over her soft, reddened lips. “If I’m doomed to burn, then by the devil, I’ll burn with you.”

She gave a little sigh. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Yes.”

Their mouths met in another frantic kiss. Her breasts strained against him until he felt scourged by the erotic torture of flesh on flesh. Their partial nudity frustrated him. Groping inside her gown, his fingers tangled in the unfamiliar fastenings of undergarments, the myriad of tapes and hooks. His thumb snagged on a string circling the satiny curve of her waist. In one swift jerk he broke the cord, and an instant later his fevered brain registered a muted bump as if something had struck the floor.

She gasped and squirmed away. “Turn around,” she whispered. “Please. Just for a moment.”

“No.” Like a stallion coaxing a shy mare, he nuzzled her throat, inhaling the musk of her arousal. Her attack of modesty baffled him. Unless she was still suffering doubts. “Isabel … I want to watch you undress.”

He worshipped at the shrine of her bosom while her hands moved restlessly over his shoulders, his chest, venturing down to his waist and hips, skirting the swollen rod that strained against his breeches.
Oh God. Touch me. Touch me.

Her fingers danced upward again, cradling his neck and clinging tightly. The teasing she-devil. With a growl of frustration, he tried to pull her toward the bed, but she remained stubbornly in place.

“Wait,” she breathed.

He thought she meant to refuse him again, and he nearly howled with primitive male lust. Then she wriggled out of her gown and undergarments and dropped them where she stood. Only a garter around each slender thigh and a wisp of silk stockings saved her from nakedness.

His throat went bone dry. His mind went blank to all but the beauty of her. Alabaster flesh. Rounded hips. A tangle of dark curls.

His. All his.

She stepped out of the puddle of clothing, snuggled herself against him, and gave him a smile that was half seductive, half sweet. “Please. Will you take me to bed now?”

Mindlessly, he guided her down onto the linen sheets. He could wait no longer to touch her. His hand caressed a path up her thigh to skin as silken as her stocking … to feminine heat … and wanton wetness … to the satiny secrets of womanhood.

She tensed, but only for an instant. On a soft sigh of surrender, she opened fully to him and pressed herself against his fingers. When he found her most sensitive place, she twisted beneath him, her hands clinging to him. “
Oh
 … dear heaven … please…”

He relished her pleasure as if it were his own. She was so small, so delicately made for his loving. Hot blood scalded his veins and roared in his ears. More fiercely than his own fulfillment, he wanted hers. He craved her complete surrender.

Her impatient hands roved over him, clutching at his opened shirt. Her hips lifted to him in the sweetest of invitations. “Yes. Oh,
yes.
Oh, Kern … I love this … I love
you.
”

Even as her words fell like warm rain into his parched soul, she gasped his name once more and shuddered beneath him, convulsing against his fingertips.