Lady Catherine's Secret: A Secrets and Seduction book Read Online Free Page A

eventually fade when the truth finally comes out, but there is still a great deal of gossip back in Oxford. In fact, I think her father may still look to me for a solution to his problems. You see, the girl—” He shook his head.
    Catherine caught her breath. “What do you mean? What happened to her?”
    “This is the part that Mother doesn’t want you to know.” He stopped speaking. Catherine knew better than to plead with him. Either he would tell her or he wouldn’t, and nothing she could say would sway him, so she let the silence stretch between them.
    The residential area surrounding Bernini’s was behind them, and now they were traveling through a business district, shuttered for the night. When the storefronts closed, an entirely different sort of environment came to life in its own sordid way. As they passed a pub, someone opened a door, letting out a blast of raucous laughter that was abruptly silenced when the door fell shut. Gaslights illuminated the night-dwellers in scattered vignettes as she rode along. Here, a man stumbled out of a tavern; there, a woman leaned against a lamppost. Catherine blushed. She knew why the woman with the painted face lingered on the street. Mother had no idea of the things she’d seen.
    “The girl is ruined, Catherine,” Charles said at last. “The scoundrel didn’t marry her and has disappeared. When her father tried to track him down, he discovered that the man’s credentials and letters of introduction had been fabricated.”
    Catherine’s jaw went slack. “What of the girl?” she asked, her voice sounding faint.
    “I don’t know for certain,” he said. Catherine could tell he was still keeping something from her, so she waited for him to continue. “Mother and Father thought it best for me to stay away from Oxford this term. Especially since her father is a professor. I also have the misfortune of sharing the same first name with that odious man, which has muddied the waters regarding my involvement. Mother and Father hope that by next term, the stories will have died down enough to allow me to return to my studies.”
    Catherine examined her brother. Despite his cavalier attitude, he looked worried. “You know that if there’s anything I can do to help...”
    “I know. Brothers in arms, right, Gray?”
    Catherine mulled over the problem as they rode past another lady of the night. She was young, much younger than Catherine’s twenty years. Her face was hard, with no girlishness remaining in it. How had she come to be here? Could she have been like the girl from Oxford? After all, the man who’d seduced her faced no real repercussions. But the girl? She was ruined. Ruined by a scoundrel. He’d been the one to wrong her, and she’d be the one to pay.
    Catherine chafed against the unequal rules faced by her gender. At least she’d been able to find a way to subvert them, even if she had to hide it from her mother and the rest of the outside world. But if she was discovered, wouldn’t she be ruined just the same? Society wouldn’t approve of a young woman entering a men’s dressing area, or of her spending time alone with men with no chaperone to watch over her.
    In front of them, a horse started forward from an alleyway with a jolt, pulling a nearly empty wagon out onto the street. Catherine and Charles swerved to avoid it. The sharp scent of spilled ale and raw pine boards told her it was a delivery wagon dropping off its barrels at a pub. Perhaps the smell of fresh pine accounted for its presence so late at night. It had probably undergone repairs and been delayed.
    They rode another twenty minutes before returning to the wealthy neighborhood surrounding their home. The houses here were old and stately, much larger than most of the newer ones in London, and Kensington House was rather imposing. Once they arrived, Charles turned openly toward the stables at the rear of their home, but Catherine stayed along the side of the house, retreating into the