Her Secret Affair by Barbara Dawson Smith Page A

him, to turn in the saddle and wrap her legs around his waist.
    “You’re lying,” he said flatly.
    She had to think a moment before remembering he referred to her meeting Charles Mobrey. “I’m not.”
    “I can prove it by seeking out Mobrey’s carriage right now.”
    “Then do so if you like. You won’t find him.”
    “So where were you going, then? And don’t repeat that nonsense about taking a stroll.”
    Desperate to be shed of him, she blurted out, “It’s my Aunt Persy. She’s taken ill and she needs me.”
    “Where does she live?”
    “At the brothel—with my other aunts.”
    “Ah, your aunts. ”
    “Yes. You might scorn them, but they’re all the family I have.” To her chagrin, a telltale heat stung her eyes. Jerking around before he could notice, she strained against the iron fetters of his arms. “Now let me down so I can be on my way. There’s no time to waste.”
    “For God’s sake, sit still.” He snapped the reins and the roan gelding set off at a trot. “I’ll take you there.”
    “I don’t need your help.”
    “You’re getting it, anyway. So quit arguing.”
    He shouldn’t believe her, Kern told himself as he guided his mount through the foggy streets. Isabel Darling was a liar, an extortionist, a fortune hunter. But no matter how immoral her character, he couldn’t let a woman strike off alone in the middle of the night.
    Curse his sense of decency.
    And his soft heart. For a moment there, he could have sworn she’d had tears in her eyes. Tears.
    Her close proximity dissolved his powers of reasoning. Even though she sat as stiffly as a tailor’s mannequin, her feminine form drove him mad … the cradle of her hips … the lushness of her bosom … the friction of her soft bottom rubbing against him. For once, just once, he wanted to be free of scruples. He wanted to whisk her off to an inn and make violent love to her. He wanted to take her again and again until she ceased to plague him, mind and body.
    It is better to give in to passion than to deny its existence.
    Devil take it. He didn’t deny the existence of passion. How could he, when his loins burned like the fires of hell? But if he let his animal urges rule him, he would become like his father.
    His breath made harsh plumes into the chilly air. His palms were sweating inside his thin riding gloves. It had been far too long since he had tasted the forbidden ecstasies of the flesh, that was all. He needed a wife, and soon. He needed gentle, innocent Helen. Then he could rid himself of these dark fantasies. Fantasies filled with the witchy Miss Darling.
    By the time they reached the town house in a quiet neighborhood west of Regent Park, Kern had worked up more of a lather than his horse. He lifted Isabel down to the ground, and she went dashing away even before he dismounted. With a twitch of her midnight-blue cloak, she opened the front door and disappeared inside the house.
    With no groom available, Kern walked the horse in the darkness, seeking to cool himself down as well. “There now, what do you think of that?” he growled, rubbing the horse’s neck. “She’s run off without so much as a thank you for my pains.”
    The roan blinked its dark eyes and snuffled as if in sympathy.
    “No doubt she expects us to wait out here in the cold for half the night. As if we’ve nothing better to do.”
    The horse shook its silky mane.
    Kern secured the reins to the iron fence rail. “Deuced females,” he muttered. “You’re lucky you’re gelded.”
    This time, the horse stamped a hoof and snorted.
    After giving the animal one final pat on the neck, Kern strode up the front steps and rapped on the door. He paced the small porch until the latch rattled and the white-painted panel opened a crack.
    A tall, willowy woman in dishabille glared out at him. A waterfall of red hair curled down to her silk wrapper, and her brown eyes snapped with hostility. “Who are you?”
    “I’ve come for Miss