Secrets of Seduction Read Online Free

surprisingly to Hawk, she quickly glossed over her loss to focus on her uncle.
    “At the time, Uncle Cornelius was a literary scholar of some note but gave up his bookish life to devotehimself to raising five unruly children. He is over sixty now and a dedicated bachelor. Even though he is the dearest man imaginable, I have always thought him rather dull and a Wilde only by name. For generations our family earned a reputation for our passionate romances, but Uncle never followed suit—or so I thought until last spring, when I was helping to organize his library. I found a packet of letters hidden there. They were written some twenty-five years ago—his correspondence with a young lady from a nearby district. Imagine my surprise to discover that my staid, elderly uncle had experienced a tragic love affair when he was a young man.”
    Lady Skye glanced at Hawk expectantly. No doubt she was counting on his natural curiosity to win her more time. When he gave her no encouragement, she went on doggedly.
    “When I questioned Uncle about his thwarted romance, he admitted that his true love had died. Apparently, she’d been forced into an unhappy marriage to a baron, and after giving birth to a daughter, she became so despondent, she flung herself into a river and drowned. Her death left Uncle Cornelius heartbroken and is the reason he never married. Except that … only recently I learned she didn’t die after all. In fact, I was able to obtain proof that her drowning was a ruse.”
    “I suppose you mean to tell me what happened to her,” Hawk said without enthusiasm.
    Lady Skye smiled a bit triumphantly for dragging a response from him. “I admit I was so intrigued by the letters that I decided to investigate my uncle’s secret past further. His correspondence held several clues. Themidwife who delivered the baby daughter also served as the go-between for Uncle Cornelius and the lady, and her name was mentioned frequently when arranging their rendezvous. The letters were franked from a village near Beauvoir, the family seat of the Marquises of Beaufort, where Uncle Cornelius grew up—and where he raised the five of us Wilde cousins. Beauvoir is not far from my home, Tallis Court. Two months ago, I went to the village to question the midwife. She is very old now and quite forgetful, but I managed to coax the story from her.”
    Hawk hid a wry smile. Even on so short an acquaintance with Lady Skye, he could well imagine her ability to cajole secrets from her unwitting targets.
    “I was shocked by the tale she told me,” Skye confessed. “The lady’s noble husband was beating her so badly, she feared for her life. To escape the abuse, she thought she had no choice but to stage her death with the midwife’s help. Once her daughter was born, she secretly fled to Ireland to live with sympathetic kin.”
    “It is not so easy to fake a drowning,” Hawk remarked. “Her body would have been easily identified.”
    “But it was not immediately found and was presumed to have washed away. Months later, when coincidentally a corpse was uncovered many miles downstream, it was thought to be the lady’s. So there was no further reason to search for her.” Lady Skye pursed her lips. “I don’t know for certain, but I think she may still be alive, living in Ireland.”
    “And you wish to find her.”
    “Yes. If it is at all possible, I would dearly love to reunite my uncle and his true love. But, actually, my goal is more complicated than that.”
    Hawk raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
    Her charming smile flashed again. “I thought you would never ask. I believe the baby daughter was actually my uncle’s child and not the baron’s.”
    “What makes you think so?”
    “First, the timing of her birth. She was born barely nine months after the lady’s marriage. But there are other indications—certain of the daughter’s mannerisms and features. The set of her eyes bears an uncanny resemblance to my uncle’s, for