Read Her Secret Affair for Free Online Page A

more experience with the world than me. I’ve been confined to the schoolroom these past eighteen years, learning the accomplishments of a lady.” Her face lightened and she smiled winningly. “I am to be married on my nineteenth birthday, June the tenth. Did you know that?”
    Eighteen going on nineteen. Isabel sat unmoving. Her own birthday was June the twelfth. Helen was mistaken—by strange coincidence, they were the exact same age, born two days apart. Yet how vastly different their lives had been, she growing up with a courtesan for a mother and whores as her aunts, while Helen had known the security and respect due a high-born lady.
    “No,” she said softly, “I didn’t know.”
    “I am to have the most splendid wedding. It will be the pinnacle of the Season.” Holding the blue gown, Helen twirled around the dressing room. “Only imagine, me walking down the aisle of St. George’s, the choir singing, the roses blooming, everyone smiling. It will be as wonderful as a fairy tale.”
    Watching her, Isabel felt the tug of wistful yearning. A long time ago when she was five, she had dreamed of being a princess. The fantasy lured her, sweeping over her again in a warm, compelling wave. She would grow up to have silky blond hair and sky-blue eyes and skin as soft and white as the petals of a lily. She would live in a palace and never have to eat mashed turnips. She would have a dog to romp with during the day and to cuddle with at night. After all, her father was the king.
    By the time Isabel turned eight, she knew the fallacy of fairy tales. She had plain reddish-brown hair and dirt-brown eyes, and her skin freckled if she ventured too long into the sunshine. She lived in a rustic country cottage and dutifully ate mashed turnips. Dogs were dirty creatures and she mustn’t beg for one. After all, she had no father, only a distant mother who couldn’t be bothered with selfish requests. Thus proclaimed pinch-mouthed Miss Dodd who lectured her on the accomplishments of young ladies.
    By the time Isabel turned twelve, she knew she was no lady, either. She had been born, not in a fine mansion, but on the wrong side of the blanket. She endured the jeering of village gossips because she had been banished from the city. After all, her mother was busy doing wicked acts with rich gentlemen.
    But on rare occasions Aurora sent for her daughter, and oh, what visits those were! In a mad flurry of extravagance and kisses, Mama would dress Isabel in laces and silks as if she were a fashion doll. In the afternoons they would watch the lords and ladies promenade in Hyde Park, and at night they would stroll past glittering mansions where the gentry dined on cream and cake, with nary a mashed turnip in sight.
    Isabel had sighed along with her mother, caught up once more in the yearning to be a princess. As she grew to womanhood, her fancies expanded with the hope of meeting a prince. He would fall in love with her at first sight and carry her away on his noble steed to the castle where they would live happily ever after. She would bring Mama there. Together, they would be great ladies admired and adored by all the people in the realm.
    Of course, her mother had died and reality had intruded. It always did. And here Isabel sat, at long last a resident of the palace. Except that she was not the princess. Lady Helen filled that role.
    Beautiful, sweet, naïve Lady Helen, who whirled around the dressing room as if waltzing with an invisible prince.
    “It’s dangerous to believe in fairy tales,” Isabel felt compelled to say. “You might suffer a rude awakening someday.”
    “Oh, my dear.” Her face full of sympathy, Helen danced to a halt in front of Isabel. “You’ve had so many terrible things happen, what with your parents’ passing and you being left all alone. But I’ll show you how wonderful life can be. And to make things even more perfect, you shall be one of the attendants at my wedding.”
    “I don’t think