Her Secret Affair Read Online Free Page A

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    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,