Her Secret Affair by Barbara Dawson Smith Page B

Darling.”
    “Haven’t you heard? Miss Darling is dead.”
    For an instant, his mouth went dry with horror. Then he caught her meaning. “The younger Miss Darling.”
    “She’s busy.”
    The redhead started to slam the door, but he blocked it with his foot. “I brought her here just now. Let me in at once.”
    The woman sullenly obeyed, admitting him into the gloomy foyer. By the light of the candle in her manicured hand, she glowered as if he were the devil himself. “Minnie won’t like you being here. This house is closed to rakehells.”
    It struck him as amusing, to be mistaken for a libertine. If only she knew, he wanted to howl out his frustration at the moon. “You’re Diana, aren’t you?”
    “Who gave you my name?”
    On his first visit here, the person he’d paid to leave the door unlocked had told him all about the women who lived in this house. “Never mind. Tell Miss Darling that Lord Kern awaits her.”
    “Tell her yourself. She’s up there.” Diana shrugged her shoulder in the direction of the stairway. “Just don’t get underfoot—we’ve a sick woman in the house.” Taking the candlestick with her, she mounted the stairs, her hips undulating in an exaggerated sway.
    Kern paced the dark foyer. He had no intention of invading a strange woman’s bedchamber. Of course, such qualms hadn’t stopped him the last time he’d been here, when he had confronted Isabel in the boudoir.
    Despite the lateness of the hour, he felt restless, charged with energy. He glanced upstairs, but saw no sign of life in the gloom. An indistinct murmuring of voices came from the upper floor. Hands on his hips, he roamed into the darkened parlor.
    No coals glowed on the hearth, and the grate had been swept clean. Although night shadowed the room, he could see that it was decorated with the same gaudy lack of taste as the rest of the house: statues of half-clad gods and goddesses, pink and gold draperies on the windows, chaises arranged in coy groupings—for orgies, no doubt. His mind conjured the image of himself reclining there beneath Isabel. Her skirts would be drawn to her waist, her slim white legs straddling him, her skin silken to his exploring touch …
    Muttering a curse, he threw himself into a gilt chair and stretched out his legs, crossing his boots and loosening his cravat. On the mantelpiece the clock tick-ticked into the silence. By strength of will, he subdued his inner beast. He would not torture himself with carnal reverie. He would not imagine the lecherous pleasures indulged in this house. He would discipline his mind, concentrate on nothing at all …
    *   *   *
    “Asleep at last,” Isabel whispered.
    Weary, she gazed down at the woman lying in the bed. Aunt Persy looked shockingly old, her pale cheeks sunken and her closed eyelids laced by spidery blue veins. A nightcap half swallowed her thinning gray hair. Her shallow breathing barely stirred the quilted counterpane.
    Aunt Minnie beckoned Isabel toward the door. Picking up the candlestick and an empty teacup, Isabel tiptoed out of the room and joined Minnie in the gloomy corridor.
    The plump, middle-aged woman shook her head. “The first rest she’s had in two days, the poor dear. And all the while calling for you.”
    “You should have sent word sooner,” Isabel murmured, fighting a deep-seated guilt. “I would have come immediately.”
    “What, and leave your fancy friends while you cared for a shopworn ladybird? I thought you’d forgotten all about them who helped to raise you.”
    “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I’ve been gone for only a fortnight.”
    Minnie took the teacup from her and set it on a small table beneath a painting of Cupid and Psyche. “Hmph. And not a single visit in all that time. Methinks you’ve tasted the good life and now you’re getting ideas far above your station.”
    “I want to find the man who killed my mother.” She swallowed hard, wondering if Trimble’s kind temperament masked a