Sure, here are my reasons:
1. It’s clear from the text that Ned was strongly attracted to Ashara Dayne at the Tourney at Harrenhal. Ned’s an honorable man, but he’s someone with sexual passion and romantic desire too. And as neither he nor she was betrothed, their liaison is hardly dishonorable.
2. I also think it feeds well into the central themes of Ned’s character – especially his being torn between honor and family, between duty and desire – and the overarching themes that GRRM is interested in (the human heart at war with itself). If Ned never felt anything for a woman before Catelyn, we don’t have the kind of conflict that we had in Catelyn’s case. In fact, wrt to the whole “promise me, Ned” thing, if Ned had nothing to do with Ashara Dayne, there’s no reason for her to exist as a red herring when you already have Wylla to perform that function.
2a. If he did, then we have a better case of those themes at work. Ned was in love with one woman, but honor forced him to marry another. Then his desire to protect his family destroyed the woman he loved, and then poisoned his marriage.
3. It also creates a nice parallel between Ned and Catelyn – both of them got married for the sake of their families, both of them entered into the marriage while being in love with someone else, and neither of them were in love with or particularly attracted to the other partner initially, and then grew to have more.
4. I think it also works better to explain Ashara Dayne. If all she is to Ned is one of Brandon’s exes, why does he care about her? Why insist that her name not be mentioned, when he goes to some lengths to ensure that Wylla’s name is spread around? Why have there be rumors or have her in the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, when Lyanna is really the main point of that story? Likewise, it makes her eventual fate and Ned’s final meeting that much more meaningful – it’s a lot less tragic for her ex’s brother to kill her brother than for her lover to kill her brother.
5. I also think it works to explain Brandon Stark’s character. It’s one thing for him to be a hot-headed horn-dog who Ned somewhat resents for being daddy’s favorite and having to live Brandon’s life for him. It’s another thing for him to be an emotionally abusive asshole who encourages his brother’s affections for Ashara Dayne only to turn around and immediately seduce her. Why would Ned build a tomb against tradition for the latter?
I’m not sure if we can take Ned’s reaction as evidence that he had an affair with Ashara, as I always thought the sore spot here is Jon, not Ashara, who comes almost as an afterthought in the sense of “why the hell are you nosing around, my lady?”. He is mad at Catelyn for asking something he already gave an explanation for, and for buying into the gossips of the servants who, for all he knows, could be making all kinds of speculation around Jon’s parentage, including the ones in the right direction. So he scares her for good which has the expected result – the whispering stops altogether and no one in Winterfell talks about Jon’s mother again. I feel like Ned’s uncharacteristically angered reaction makes much more sense if we think what the stakes are for keeping Jon’s parentage secret – if the truth is discovered, then Jon might be killed and Ned himself would be in serious trouble with the king – rather than Ned just being angsty about a lost love of his youth, no matter how tragic it was.
If the sore spot is Jon not Ashara, why doesn’t he flare up around Wylla? He’s got no problem throwing her name around with Robert. If he didn’t care about Ashara, then gossip about her is good – it distracts from Lyanna being a possible mother for Jon.
RE: your targets, If Ned wasn’t betrothed, there’s no reason for the child to be a bastard. Everyone would understand if they got married and then Ashara had a conveniently large “premature” baby. There’s no dishonor there.
Catelyn and Brandon were not really in love. She maybe had an attachment to him and/or thought he was hot and/or romanticized him, but GRRM has said that she didn’t know him very well.
I didn’t think they were in love, but certainly mutual attraction. Hence the quote from ASOS.
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