Her Secret Affair Read Online Free

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