Her Secret Affair (3 page)

“’Tis the memoirs, isn’t it?” Minnie said from behind. “You’ve found Aurora’s memoirs. And you’re using them to some foolish purpose.”

Isabel spun around to see the middle-aged woman standing in the doorway, her hands on her ample hips. “How did you know about Mama’s journal?” Isabel blurted. “I only just discovered it a month ago.”

Minnie shrugged. “I remember she did a lot of writing in that little book. Though she never would talk much about it.”

Isabel had come across the slender volume hidden deep within the clothespress. “I’m sorry. I should have told you when I found the memoirs, but…” She paused, biting her lip. For once she hadn’t wanted to share her thoughts with her “aunts.” The diary had been too scandalous, too explicit. And too revealing of her mother’s follies.

Minnie stood motionless. “What overblown nonsense did Aurora describe in her book?”

“She related stories about … the men who had shared her life over the years. That’s all.” In her typical giddy style, Aurora had been vague on dates while waxing poetic on her torrid love affairs with a series of noblemen.

Isabel had read the book from cover to cover while locked in the privacy of her bedroom. She had been stunned by the eye-opening peek into her mother’s risqué life. It was one thing to imagine her mother entertaining gentlemen callers; it was quite another to learn the details of her sexual exploits. And when Isabel had turned the last page, her queasy fascination had been eclipsed by the shock of that final, damning entry …

“Are you blackmailing his lordship, then?” Minnie’s broad features looked somber, disapproving. “Have you threatened to publish those memoirs unless he pays up?”

Minnie had guessed only part of the truth—the wrong part. Isabel hedged. “Mama didn’t leave much else of value. You know how thoughtlessly she spent money. It would be wonderful if we could move out of London—you and Aunt Callie and Aunt Di and Aunt Persy. Aunt Persy especially needs the fresh air of the country. And the rest of us … we need to be free of all
this.
” Isabel waved her hand at the frivolous room with its rose-pink satin and gilt doves and lacy frills. It was like living atop a wedding cake, a dismal reminder of her mother’s lost dreams.

“That’s not the whole of it,” Minnie said slowly. “I wonder if you’re curious about your father. What did the diary say about him?”

Isabel’s stomach gave a sickening lurch. Walking to the window, she parted the curtains and gazed out into the dusk-darkened street. “Mama called him Apollo. She didn’t give his real name—she only said he was a gentleman.” Despising the twinge of yearning inside herself, she asked in a low voice, “Are you sure Mama never spoke of him to you?”

“No.” Minnie loosed a heavy sigh. “Aurora could keep a secret, I’ll say that much for her. She lived alone here till the time of your birth. By then, he’d abandoned her—and you.” She paused. “But Lynwood is not your father, if that’s what you’re thinking. Aurora didn’t meet the duke until after you were born.”

Isabel had known as much from the memoirs. She kept her face averted, for Minnie had always been able to read her so well. “Thank heaven for small favors.”

“’Tisn’t wise, this course you’re following, girl.” Minnie’s mournful voice came from behind, along with the sounds of her shuffling around the bedroom, rattling the quill pens on the desk and then thumping the pillows on the bed. “Your father isn’t interested in you. He never once bothered to visit you—or even to tell you his name.”

“He sent money to Mama for my schooling.”

“Humph. The minute Aurora died, he stopped those paltry payments. But we’re not in the poorhouse yet, so you needn’t go looking for him.”

“I never said I was looking for him,” Isabel retorted.

She kept a firm grip on the velvet drapery. Long ago when she had been young enough to believe in fairy tales, she had fancied her father the king of a magical realm. When the village children jeered at her, she yearned to prove she was indeed a princess. She waited until a rare visit to London, waited until the moment Mama enfolded her in a perfumed embrace, and then she let her questions pour forth.

She would never forget the way Aurora’s face had crumpled. Weeping, she had retired to her bedroom. Watching her vivacious mother overtaken by melancholy had shaken Isabel, and her youthful pain hardened into a lasting scorn for the man who had forsaken them. She had no interest in him as a father—not now or ever.

But she had another reason for wanting to find him. A reason that had nothing whatever to do with money. If all went well, soon he would know she had deduced his identity from reading the memoirs.

“You still look overwrought, child.” Minnie’s voice intruded, her gaze sharp and searching. “Did Aurora by chance write about her final illness?”

Isabel’s mouth went dry. “Only one brief passage.”

“And what did she say?” Minnie ventured closer. “Tell me, dearie. You can trust your auntie. I’ve always had your best interests at heart.”

That soft, coaxing voice soothed Isabel’s misgivings. She hadn’t told Minnie the whole truth, lest her aunt try to stop her. She hadn’t admitted that one purpose made her determined to enter the upper echelon of society no matter what the risk. She had made her vow upon reading that last, frightful entry in the memoirs.

Yet perhaps she
should
tell. Aunt Minnie would find out soon enough, anyway.

Resolutely, she turned to face her aunt. Minnie stood with her mobcapped head cocked to the side, her doughy features radiating concern. Taking a tremulous breath, Isabel put her terrible suspicion into words. “Mama wrote … that someone wanted to stop her from completing her journal.”

Minnie’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Stop her? Who?”

“One of her gentlemen lovers.” Willing away the quaver in her voice, Isabel voiced the horror that had haunted her day and night for the past month. “You see, he poisoned Mama. She was murdered.”

April 1821

Zeus came to me last night.

His impromptu visit to my boudoir startled and delighted me, for it was as if no time had passed since our dreadful quarrel all those years ago. Like myself, His Grace of L—— has endured the ravages of age. Yet he seemed eager once again to play the bull to my Europa, and I was most happy to lead him on a merry chase. Only after he had conquered me most gloriously did his true purpose come clear: he ordered me to cease writing these memoirs.

I cannot fathom how L—— learned of my secret pursuit, for I had not spoken to him in many years. Perhaps I might have found out the name of his spy had I not been so angered. Like Hera in her highest fury, I sent my Zeus away with a wicked cuff to his ear.

And now that one has learned my secret, the others may well follow. They will not care to see their exploits in print, these naughty old lovers of mine. They are men in high places, as mighty as the immortal gods on Mount Olympus for whom they are named—and as lusty a mélange as any woman could ever hope to know.

Indeed, the longer I ponder the possibilities, the more ardently I anticipate a reunion with each and every one of them.

—The True Confessions of a Ladybird

Chapter 2

It was
her.

Staring out the window of the Lynwood coach, Kern leaned forward, his body charged with awareness. Only moments ago, he had exited Westminster Palace, having left the Lords Chamber during a debate over an agricultural bill. Unlike the heirs to other titles who idled away the hours at gaming tables, Kern believed in preparing for the time when he would take his rightful place in Parliament. But today a restlessness had made it impossible to sit still. Today his mind kept wandering from politics. With irritating persistence, he found himself thinking about
her.

As the coach started out of the government complex and into the neighboring slums, he reached by habit to close the curtains. When the vehicle slowed at the intersection of two narrow streets, he saw her.

A woman strolled the pavement beside the ramshackle brick buildings. A slanting shaft of late sunlight set fire to her dark hair.

Though he could see only the woman’s back, he recognized that slender form and hip-swaying gait. It was the same figure that had haunted his dreams for the past three days and nights.

She veered toward a husky, bearded man who beckoned from an alleyway. The lout offered her a bottle. As she snatched it up and drank greedily, he yanked her to him and fondled her backside.

Kern grasped the door handle. His legs tensed from the urge to spring to her aid. Then the coach passed the couple, enabling him to see her face. She had the coarse, sallow skin of a slattern. Gin dribbled from the corner of her thin mouth. Shadows robbed the glory from her hair.

The talons of tension eased, releasing Kern. He forced himself to relax against the leather cushions. How ridiculous to mistake a common streetwalker for the beautiful and cunning Isabel Darling.

Moodily, he gazed upon the teeming masses of people; the thieves and coiners and beggars; the whores who prowled for customers within sight of Westminster Abbey. Miss Darling had no reason to ply her trade here in Devil’s Acre. She owned a fancy brothel several miles away. And she stood to make a tidy profit by publishing her mother’s memoirs.

Scowling, Kern shifted position on the seat. He could well imagine the sensation such a book would cause. All of London would scramble to purchase a copy and read about Aurora’s noble lovers. The scandal would rock society. It would bring shame upon the time-honored name of Lynwood. As head of the family during his father’s chronic illness, Kern braced himself for the coming crisis.

And there was something he must do. Now. Before he was tempted to put it off again.

Kern dreaded the task. Yet he felt duty-bound to warn George Jeffries, the Marquess of Hathaway. All of his life he had regarded Lord Hathaway as the model of propriety and gentlemanly behavior. Hathaway was a venerable statesman who had the ear of the prime minister. Over the years, he had been more a father to Kern than the Duke of Lynwood.

The ties between the two families stretched back for generations. Kern’s grandfather had fostered Hathaway and his infant brother as orphaned youths, and later Hathaway had returned the favor by providing Kern with the guidance sorely needed by a boy whose father disappeared for weeks—even months—at a time, squiring one mistress after another, reappearing only long enough to get another child on his beleaguered duchess.

Kern remembered his mother as an unsmiling madonna who had kept to her chambers. She had wept at the slightest provocation, and he’d known, even as a lad in leading strings, not to bother her. Yet still he had adored her, and he had lived for the rare times when she’d half-smothered him with attention. He could understand now the sorrow that had ruled her life. She had endured a worthless lecher for a husband. And Kern was the only one of her six children to survive infancy.

She had died when he was ten years old. He had the hazy memory of seeing her lying in the coffin, her slim hands crossed over her white bodice. When it came time to close the lid, he had panicked, imagining her shrouded in darkness, defiled by worms. He had thrown himself against the vicar. He had kicked and screamed, and Lord Hathaway had borne him outside, holding him until he cried himself to exhaustion.

Lynwood had not been present. He had been off on a jaunt to the Continent, and though he’d rushed home upon receiving news of his wife’s grave illness, he had arrived a week too late for her funeral.

Likewise, on the morning Kern was to set off for his first term at Eton, his father had been insensible after a night of carousing. Hathaway had stopped by to slip Kern a purse of gold coins and to wave adieu as the coach set off.

Kern had always known he would wed Hathaway’s only daughter when she came of age. Like him, Lady Helen Jeffries had lost her mother at a tender age. Helen was eighteen now, and he was twenty-eight. They were to marry in two months’ time, near the close of the Season. The match was utterly satisfying to him, for Lady Helen was both genteel and sweet-tempered, and the alliance would join two great dynasties.

If
Hathaway still considered him an acceptable son-in-law.
If
Kern could weather the storm whipped up by one Isabel’ Darling.

His fingers tensed around the tasseled hand strap as the carriage turned the corner into Grosvenor Square. Curse the blackmailing purveyor of smut. If ever he saw her again, he might be tempted to strangle the bitch, to put an end to her scheming once and for all.

The horses came to a stop in front of a stately town house built of pale stone. A footman carrying a lighted torch opened the door of the carriage. Donning his hat, Kern stepped out onto the paving stones and paused a moment, breathing the cool evening air scented by the ever-present tang of coal smoke. He braced himself to face Hathaway.

Discretion was the marquess’s most valued trait. Now Kern had to inform him that his daughter, by virtue of her betrothal, could be made an object of ridicule. And Kern was honor-bound to offer to withdraw his suit.

His steps leaden, he mounted the stairs to the pillared doorway where a servant ushered him inside the elegant entrance hall. He knew this place as well as his own house, from the marble stairway to the ancestral portraits on the paneled walls. He said to the footman, “Is Hathaway in?”

The man took his cloak and hat. “Aye, m’lord, but his lordship is engaged with an out-of-town guest.”

Blast. Kern was impatient to see the unpleasant task over with and done. Now he would have to cool his heels. “Show me in, then.” Hearing the hum of voices, he motioned the servant forward, following him into the high-ceilinged drawing room with its green-striped chaises and gilt chairs.

“Lord Kern,” the footman intoned.

Kern’s gaze was drawn to the mantelpiece where his host stood. A small yet imposing man, Lord Hathaway exuded the prideful presence of a war hero. His bushy white eyebrows were drawn into a frown, his salt-and-pepper hair unnaturally rumpled.