Книга - Mistress by Midnight

Mistress by Midnight
Nicola Cornick


“To have one unfaithful wife could be construed as a misfortune. To have two would be worse than careless. ”London, November 1814 Merryn Fenner is on a mission to ruin the Duke of Farne. A beautiful bluestocking with a penchant for justice, Merryn has waited ten years to satisfy her revenge against sensual, mysterious Garrick Northesk. Her family name had been tarnished at his hands, her life destroyed. And now she intends to return the favour – by finding the true heir to the duke’s title and disinheriting Garrick.Yet when a disaster traps Merryn and Garrick together, white-hot desire stirs between the two sworn enemies. Her reputation utterly compromised, Merryn is forced to do the one thing she cannot bear: accept the scandalous marriage proposal of the man she has vowed to ruin.










Nicola Cornick’s novels have received acclaim the world over

“Cornick is first-class, Queen of her game.”

—Romance Junkies

“A rising star of the Regency arena.”

—Publishers Weekly


Praise for THE SCANDALOUS WOMEN OF THE TON series

“A riveting read.”

—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney on Whisper of Scandal

“One of the finest voices in historical romance.”

—SingleTitles.com

“Ethan Ryder (is) a bad boy to die for! A memorable story

of intense emotions, scandals, trust, betrayal and all-

encompassing love. A fresh and engrossing tale.”

—Romantic Times on One Wicked Sin

“Historical Romance at its very best is

written by Nicola Cornick.”

—Mary Gramlich, The Reading Reviewer

Acclaim for Nicola’s previous books

“Witty banter, lively action, and sizzling passion.”

—Library Journal on Undoing of a Lady

“RITA


Award-nominated Cornick deftly steeps her latest intriguingly complex Regency historical in a beguiling blend of danger and desire.” —Booklist on Unmasked




Author Note


Like the other books in this trilogy, Mistress by Midnight is inspired by real-life events. In this case, the London Beer Flood of 1814, when a vat on top of the brewery in Tottenham Court Road exploded, flooding the nearby streets with beer and claiming several lives. One of those was a man who died of alcohol poisoning from drinking too much of the flood.

Mistress by Midnight tells Merryn’s story. The younger sister of celebrated society hostess Lady Joanna Grant, Merryn is a bluestocking whose scholarly activities hide a secret life working for the private investigator Tom Bradshaw. Merryn also has a vendetta to pursue against Garrick, the new Duke of Farne, the man responsible for her brother’s death. When the Beer Flood traps Merryn and Garrick together and they are in fear of their lives, a new sort of connection develops from their bond of hatred—this time a bond of wild passion. But will it outlive the terror of the flood?

I have adored writing these three books in the Scandalous Women of the Ton series and there is much more background history and exciting detail to explore on my website at www.nicolacornick.co.uk. Look out for more in the Scandalous Women of the Ton series. Coming soon!


Don’t miss the rest of the Scandalous Women of the Ton trilogy,available now!

WHISPER OF SCANDAL

ONE WICKED SIN

Browse www.nicolacornick.co.uk for Nicola’s full backlist


“Ah Love! Could you and I with fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire

Would not we shatter it to bits—and then

Re-mould it nearer to the heart’s desire!”

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, verse 108, translated by Edward Fitzgerald


Mistress by Midnight



Nicola

Cornick
















www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For my mother, Sylvia




CHAPTER ONE


London, November 1814

“WE WERE NOT expecting you, your grace,” Pointer, the butler, said.

Garrick Northesk, Duke of Farne, paused in the act of loosening his greatcoat. The raindrops on the shoulders glittered in the dim candlelight of the hall like dusty diamonds before sliding down to splash on the tiled floor.

“Lovely to see you again, too, Pointer,” he said.

The butler’s expression did not waver. Evidently, Garrick thought, his late father had not been given to jokes with the servants. Of course he had not. The eighteenth Duke had been famed for many things but a sense of humor was not one of them.

“We have had no time to prepare your chamber, your grace,” Pointer continued, “nor is there any food in the house. I only received your message a few hours ago and there was no time to engage any staff.” He gestured at the shrouded furniture and grimy mirrors. “The house has been closed. We have not had the opportunity to clean.”

That was manifestly obvious. Long cobwebs trailed from the chandelier in the center of the vast hall. The dust and grit of the London streets crunched beneath Garrick’s boots as he crossed the floor. The ghostly covers on all the statuaries and the veiled furnishings only added to the sense of Gothic mystery. A mere two candles burned in the sconces, throwing long shadows. And it was cold, very cold. Garrick wished he had kept his coat on.

“I don’t require anything tonight, thank you,” he said. “Only a candle to light me to my bed and some hot water.”

“You have no luggage, your grace?” Pointer’s long nose, so appropriate to his name, twitched with disapproval.

“It follows,” Garrick said briefly. No carriage could have kept up with his hell-for-leather ride.

“And your valet?”

“Gage follows, too.”

Garrick took a candle from the sconce, leaving Pointer fluttering around in the dark hall like a monstrous moth. He was tired, exhausted really, the fatigue bone-deep, his limbs aching from riding hard all day. He had buried his father only five days before in the family mausoleum at Farnecourt on the west coast of Ireland. Trust the old devil to choose to be buried on his Irish estates with all pomp and circumstance and maximum inconvenience to his family. The late Duke had never cared a fig for Farnecourt in his lifetime, deploring the beautiful Irish countryside as barbarous and the people as heathens. It was no wonder that few people other than his closest family had turned out for the funeral and those who did had probably only come so that they could be sure the old man really was dead. Well, the vault was sealed now and not even the eighteenth Duke could come back from beyond the grave.

He was Duke of Farne now, with no son to follow him.

Nor would there ever be one.

His first marriage had been disaster enough. He had no inclination to try again.

Garrick paused halfway up the shallow staircase that led to the first floor. The intricately inlaid parquet steps were dull with dirt. The elegant curls and swirls of the iron banisters were festooned with thick white cobwebs. The house was like a tomb. How appropriate.

His father, the eighteenth Duke, had been furious to be dying in such an untimely fashion, with half his life’s ambitions still unfulfilled. He had railed against his mortal illness, a reaction that had in all probability carried him off all the quicker. So now Garrick was master of this mausoleum and twenty-six other houses in ten counties, plus an obscenely large fortune. It was more than one man had any right to possess.

Out of habit rather than choice, Garrick pushed open the door of the sixth bedchamber on the left-hand side down an endless corridor that stretched away into darkness. On the rare occasions that he had stayed at his father’s house in London this had always been his room.

It was smaller than the state chambers albeit not one whit cozier. Farne House had been designed to awe and impress not to welcome. It would be possible for a small army to be lost in the labyrinth of passages for a number of days. The grate was empty and the whole room cold and inhospitable, although there was an odd scent of smoke in the air as though the candles had recently been snuffed out. A copy of Mansfield Park lay on the floor. Garrick picked it up absentmindedly and returned it to the table.

There was a knock at the door; a housemaid with blessedly hot water. Evidently Pointer had managed to drum up at least one servant to help him. The girl placed the ewer of water carefully on the side table and dropped him a frightened curtsy. Her wide-eyed gaze searched his face before sliding away when he turned to thank her. Perhaps she was afraid of him in case he was like his sire. Rumors of the late Duke’s behavior must have made their way into every servant agency in London. Garrick’s father had seen the rape of the maidservants as one of his privileges rather than as a heinous crime. The eighteenth Duke had beaten his servants and kicked his dogs, and vice versa. Garrick felt his stomach cramp with disgust and revulsion at the memories.

Once the girl had run away he eased off his boots with a heartfelt sigh. As he had no valet to attend him it was fortunate that he was no dandy. He liked fine leather but he did not want a pair of boots that were so tight they had to be removed by brute force. Nor did his jacket require coaxing from his shoulders. He had even mastered the art of tying his own neck cloth with tolerable ease. It had always struck him as supremely impractical to be incapable of dressing or undressing without help, like a child or an invalid. Besides, for many years he had lived and traveled in places where not even the most devoted servant would ever follow.

The hot water removed the dirt of his journey and made him wish suddenly for a bath to ease his saddle-sore body, but it was late and he had no intention of disturbing the servants again. Tomorrow he would have to start the tedious business of mastering his father’s affairs. That was his duty. Being a Duke was a privilege, or so he had been told from the cradle. It was a pity, then, that he saw it as a monstrous burden. He would not shirk it, though. He understood all about duty and service. Now, though, he wanted nothing more than to sleep.

There was a decanter on the dresser. On impulse he poured a glass of brandy, hoping it might warm him a little. It did more than that; it burned fire down to his stomach, reminding him he had not eaten for at least a day. No matter. He refilled the glass, knocked the liquid back again, once, twice? The combination of strong drink and weariness set his head spinning but now at least he might be able to sleep.

He expected the bed to be damp but to his surprise the sheets were cool and smooth but quite dry. He slid between them with a heartfelt sigh and turned his head against the softest of down pillows. A scent arose, elusive, sweet, the smell of a summer garden with shifting perfumes of bluebells and honeysuckle. It filled his senses, heating him from the inside out, awakening urges that were as unexpected as they were unwelcome. Suddenly the silken slide of the sheet felt like a lover’s caress against his bare chest. He could taste temptation, sweet, dark and provocative. His body hardened into arousal.

He was dreaming. Fantasizing.

With a groan Garrick rolled over and willed his errant body into submission. Mind over matter. It was easy. He had done it a hundred times before. But this time the desire was too strong and it had come upon him too hard and fast. It swirled about him sinuously until he was helpless in its grip. He lay back and breathed deeply but that merely filled his lungs with that wistful scent of flowers. If it had not been so fanciful he would have sworn that someone had been sleeping in his bed, a wraith, a ghost, imprinting her very presence on him.

It was a trick of the senses. It could be no more. He was tired and drunk, and he had not had a woman in a long time and now his body was rebelling, reminding him of all that he had rejected.

Once, before his marriage, he had been a rake and after his wife had died he had returned to that life for a while. He had tried to drown his grief and guilt in debauchery. It had not worked. Now he lived like a monk. Some physical frustration was therefore inevitable. Or so he told himself.

The ton gossiped about him. They had done for years. He knew it. He ignored it.

Garrick Farne, the man who murdered his best friend, his wife’s lover.

It was twelve years but even now he could not remember without a lurch of the heart and that familiar drag of guilt and grief. Which was as it should be. Penance was not meant to be easy.

As he rolled over to blow out the candle the book caught his eye once more. It had a deep red cover and black lettering. Below it, on the nightstand, was tucked a small pair of spectacles. Garrick raised his brows. Had Pointer used this room to escape with a good book? Garrick thought it unlikely. The very proper butler would surely not make free with the ducal bedroom, nor would he approve of fiction for that matter.

He took the book in his hand and turned to the flyleaf. There was an inscription there, the initials M and F entwined, and from the pages came the same elusive scent of flowers. Garrick laid the book aside on the coverlet and thought vaguely that he should perhaps check beneath the bed or inside the wardrobe for the spectacle-wearing, bluebell-scented intruder, but he was too tired. Tomorrow … tomorrow he would make a thorough search, but for now he wanted to slough off all the responsibilities of rank, forget his father’s grim legacy and sink into unconsciousness.

He was about to do so when the door opened again, most unexpectedly and without the courtesy of a knock first. In the doorway stood a vision of beauty. From her elegantly coiffed dark curls to her pink satin slippers she exuded sophistication and an unmistakable air of raw sexuality. Garrick shot bolt upright with an oath.

“Harriet? What the devil—” He was fiercely aware of his huge erection, which had not been roused by Harriet’s appearance but by his previous unrestrained imaginings. Thank goodness he had retained his trousers. He had no wish for the evidence of his physical state to be tenting the bedcovers.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. He should have locked the door, he thought. Except that this was his house and he had not expected a seduction.

He had last seen Harriet Knight five days ago at his father’s funeral, when she had been swathed from head to foot in irreproachable black rather than lightly dressed—or rather, undressed—in this thistledown confection of pale, transparent pink. So much for his belief that he had outrun the rest of the family in his headlong flight back to London. Harriet, his late father’s ward, was before him. And she really was standing before him, allowing the gown to fall from her shapely pale shoulders, down over her full breasts and lushly curved hips, to stand beside the bed in all her glorious nudity. Garrick’s head spun with drink, tiredness and shock. He had known Harriet was a minx, probably worse than a minx, but he had not thought her quite so brazen.

“Garrick, darling.” Her voice—that throaty, seductive purr—washed over him. “I’ve come to welcome the new Duke to his new … position.”

Harriet, Garrick thought, had long wanted to be the next Duchess of Farne. She had made no secret of it. She simply had not previously resorted to such sledgehammer tactics.

She stepped up to the side of the bed and he was almost knocked flat by the powerful scent of her perfume. It banished the other softer, sweeter scent of bluebells with the subtlety of a mallet. He almost fell over against the pillows.

“Did Pointer let you in?” he demanded. “At this time of night? Dressed like that?”

Of all the foolish questions … A naked Harriet was sitting down on the edge of the bed, a foot away from him, and he was discussing issues of etiquette? He was disorientated, drunk and disturbed. Harriet’s left breast brushed his bare arm and he flinched. He was getting confused now. He was weary and more than a little cast away, and he was aching for a woman who was not this one, a woman who was no more than a wraith, a dream. But Harriet was all too real and she did have magnificent breasts …

She also had an enormous desire to be a Duchess and he was in extreme danger. He eased away from her beneath the sheets. She wriggled voluptuously in pursuit.

“Where is your chaperone?” he demanded, breathlessly. “I cannot believe that Mrs. Roach would countenance this—”

“I’ll send for her if you desire a threesome.” Harriet’s narrow green eyes glittered like a feral cat. “Darling Garrick, shall we celebrate?”

“My father’s death is hardly a matter for celebration,” Garrick said. His mind was spinning. “Harriet, no—”

“On the contrary.” She had thrown one thigh over him now and was pinning him down. Her moist warmth seared him through the sheet. “We are all absolutely thrilled that he has died,” she said. “Why pretend? And now you and I can have our own, very special little reunion, Garrick.” She slid a hand down over the bedcovers until it met his erection. “Oh, good, you have started already.”

She wriggled down upon him, simultaneously pressing her lips to his. “Brandy,” she murmured. “Delicious.”

She, in contrast, tasted a little sour. Garrick felt as though he was being smothered by a cushion. He groaned in protest. Harriet seemed to interpret this as enthusiasm. Her hands were all over his naked chest now, her lips clinging to his, her thighs gripping him through the bedcovers. In a moment she would surely slip under the sheets, slide down on top of him, and then …

And then there would be the most almighty scandal and Harriet Knight would be Duchess of Farne and his life would be ruined a second time over.

To have one unfaithful wife could be construed as a misfortune. To have two would be worse than careless. He did not want a wife with fashionable morals. He did not want a wife at all.

Suddenly Garrick was very awake and very sober. His body might desire Harriet—it could be very indiscriminate at times—but his mind most certainly did not. He had had enough of mechanistic, emotionless couplings and he was not going to be trapped into marriage via another one.

“Harriet, no.” He took her arm and pushed her away from him with more force than finesse. She gave a little bounce and a squeak as she tumbled from the bed onto the floor.

“You do me too much honor,” Garrick said smoothly, leaping out after her and scooping up her negligee. “I understand your need for comfort after the shocking death of your guardian. I am privileged beyond measure that you thought to give me your virginity—” God forgive him for two lies in one short sentence “—but I cannot take such a sacrifice. You are distraught.”

He wrapped the gaping beauty roughly in the diaphanous material and gave her a shove toward the door. But Harriet was stubborn.

“I shall tell Mrs. Roach,” she said, glaring. “I shall tell your mama. I shall tell everyone that you seduced me.”

Garrick shook his head. “I don’t think you will, my dear.” There was steel in his tone now.

She stood staring at him for a moment. Garrick wondered what she could see in his eyes. Was it the coldness of a man who had long ago ceased caring?

For a moment Harriet looked frightened.

“Damn you, Farne,” she said. Garrick shrugged. “If you wish.” Harriet whirled around and slammed out of the door. Silence settled again.

It was then that Garrick heard the sneeze.

UNDER THE LARGE tester bed, Lady Merryn Fenner lay with her face pressed against the dusty floorboards. She had been trapped for a half hour. In a short but varied career working for the private investigator Tom Bradshaw she had never been in a situation quite like this one. She had never been caught before.

Merryn had been reading when the Duke of Farne had entered the bedroom and had had a bare few seconds to take cover. She had hoped to escape when he fell asleep. Then the woman had come in. Merryn had heard the husky seductive tones, seen the robe fall to the floor, felt the bedsprings give and had known she was in for a thorough education in a matter in which she had previously been in almost total ignorance.

She had rolled over, pressing her face against the floor, eyes screwed tightly closed. She had shoved her fingers in her ears and prayed that Garrick Farne’s ardor would be both quick and exhausting, that the lovers would wear themselves out swiftly and fall into a sex-induced stupor. The sounds and the movements she could not quite block out had made her feel very hot and bothered. She could feel her body radiating a warmth that was part embarrassment but also something else infinitely more disconcerting. Her clothes felt tight and restraining and she wanted to squirm. It was most odd.

Then she had inhaled a cobweb and the harder she tried to hold back a sneeze the more it tickled her before it burst out with explosive force.

Oh, dear. There was no escape now. That would have disturbed even the most ardent lovers.

Sure enough, a second later, someone reached down, grabbed her arm and dragged her from under the bed. She was hauled roughly to her feet. Eyes watering, another sneeze threatening, she drew herself up to her full five-foot height.

How to explain? No, forget the explanations, how to escape?

“My bedroom seems an unconscionably popular venue tonight,” the man before her drawled.

Garrick Farne, best friend to her brother Stephen. Her brother’s murderer …

Merryn shivered. Once—pitiful to remember now—she had had a schoolgirl crush on Garrick Farne. He had been like a god to her, a creature who inhabited a different world. While Merryn and her sisters had lived a circumscribed life, educated at home, their existence bounded by the village of Fenridge and their parents’ immediate acquaintances, Stephen and his friends, including Garrick, had studied at Oxford, gambled their patrimony away in London, lived, according to the gossip, for women and drink and vice. Oh, how she had lapped up that scandal. It had all sounded frightfully exciting to a thirteen-year-old girl who had never traveled farther than Bath in her life.

Garrick had never noticed her, of course. Why should he? Merryn had two beautiful elder sisters who drew all the eyes, all the attention and all the compliments. Besides, Garrick had been betrothed from the cradle to Kitty Scott, the daughter of his father’s political friend and ally; it was simply a matter of when Kitty and Garrick wed, not if they wed. Kitty was a beauty, too, the toast of the town. Which was no doubt why Stephen had fallen in love with her, too …

A shock ran through Merryn now, like lightning, like recognition, setting her shaking as though she had an ague. Garrick Farne. His name had become a byword for evil in her family, a murderer, a man who had ruined her life and those of her father and her sisters. While he had been abroad, in exile, it had been just about possible for her to put him from her mind, to ignore, if not forget, the events of that hot summer so many years ago. Then, fifteen months ago, Garrick had come back, back to a society that instead of trying him for murder had welcomed him like a hero; back to be lauded as the most handsome, wealthy and eligible nobleman in the ton.

In contrast it seemed to Merryn that no one remembered her brother Stephen at all. He was gone, irrelevant, forgotten. They had not one single memento of him left, for every picture, every possession, had been swallowed up to pay off the debts when their father died. The Earldom of Fenner was extinct, the family lands lost while Garrick Farne was wealthy, titled and, most importantly, alive. Garrick’s return to England had sparked something within Merryn, awoken all those unbearable memories from the time that Stephen had died, and suddenly the past was real and painful to her once again, as raw and ragged as when it had first happened.

Merryn rubbed one hand across her streaming eyes and looked around for Garrick’s mistress, the woman with the husky voice, imaginative ideas and overpowering perfume. But it seemed that they were alone.

“Oh!” she exclaimed involuntarily. “She has gone!”

Garrick raised one dark brow. “Did you not hear me throw her out?”

“I had my fingers in my ears,” Merryn said. “I did not want to hear anything, thank you. Being squashed by the bouncing of the bed was quite bad enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Garrick said politely. “Had I known that you were there I would, of course, have ejected her all the sooner.” His gaze swept over her, lingering on the cobwebs.

“It is very dirty under your bed,” Merryn said defensively.

He bowed ironically. “Again, I apologize. Next time you plan to take refuge there I shall ensure the room is swept clean.”

“That would be appreciated,” Merryn said.

Why are we having this conversation? she thought. This was quite wrong. This was not how she had imagined an encounter with the Duke of Farne would be.

She looked at him. Actually she had not imagined any encounter, at least not here and now, which was why she was so frightfully unprepared. She had thought Garrick would be safely out of the way in Ireland for at least a further week. He had buried his father less than seven days ago, after all. It was perfectly reasonable to assume that the house would remain empty.

Garrick was standing between her and the door. He looked enormous. In part that was because she was quite small. It was also because he was over six foot and he had a powerful physique—she could see that quite clearly since he was half naked. His chest was broad and bare, and his trousers were molded to muscular thighs.

At least he had his trousers on. Thank God.

Merryn felt quite faint with relief as she realized it. Light-headed, she closed her eyes for a second. After the scene with his mistress she had expected him to be completely naked …

“Are you quite well?” His voice cut through her mental image of what a naked Garrick Farne might look like and her gaze flew up to meet his own sardonic one.

“Perfectly, I thank you,” she said.

He had dark brown eyes under straight black brows, high cheekbones and a very hard line to his jaw. It was an austere face, Merryn thought, cold and remote, enough to make one shiver. The rest of him was russet and gold—smooth golden skin, tousled auburn hair, an intriguing scattering of more wiry dark red hair across his chest, and down toward the band at the top of his trousers. Merryn found she was staring. She had never seen a man in a state of undress before. It was fascinating. She felt the urge to touch so strongly that she was already reaching out a hand toward him before she realized it. She turned scarlet and hoped the dust on her face would conceal her embarrassment. In the same instant she remembered that she hated him.

A shudder racked her.

“Well? I await the explanation of your presence here.” Farne’s voice was as sharp as a lash and Merryn jumped. She really had to get out of here before matters got any worse. Because of course she could not tell him her purpose in searching his house. She could hardly say, “I discovered three weeks ago that you lied to everyone about my brother’s death. It was bad enough that you killed him … I hated you for that. But now I know you covered up the truth as well and I want justice. I want you to hang …”

No, indeed. It would not do to alert Garrick Farne to her purpose.

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I did not realize that you required an explanation. You had not said.”

Garrick’s mouth curled up at the corner into a beguiling smile. Chill ripples ran across her skin. Revulsion, she thought. That is the effect he has on me now. Hatred. Disgust …

“My good woman, any right-thinking person would demand to know your business.” He paused. “Or should I call you a girl rather than a woman? You do not look very old—” Before she had chance to escape him, he had raised a hand and brushed the cobwebby dust from her cheeks. His touch was gentle. She shivered again, stepping back.

“I am five and twenty,” she said with dignity. Why am I offering this information? Why am I even speaking to him? “I am not a girl.”

“Woman, then.” That disquieting smile in his eyes deepened. So did the curl of heat in her stomach, the one that she wanted to attribute to hatred.

Concentrate. You have to get out of here.

“I suppose,” she said hastily, “you think it odd in me to be in your room.”

“I do.” He had not taken his eyes from her face once during their encounter. “I am fascinated to hear your explanation.”

“Well, I …” No useful lie sprang to mind. Merryn was not very good at dissembling. She never normally needed to bother. No one ever noticed her because she took pains to appear small, plain and insignificant. No one ever really saw her.

“I thought the house was empty,” she said. “I needed somewhere to sleep.”

It was partially true. She had been sleeping in Farne House for several nights while she made a leisurely search of the premises, hunting for something, anything, which might throw fresh light on the circumstances of her brother’s death. At first it had happened by accident. She had been exhausted and had dropped off to sleep in an armchair in the library, waking hours later both amazed and amused that she had not been discovered. She had known that a skeleton staff of servants lived in the house but they had not troubled her. No one had even realized that she was there. Farne House was huge and had been neglected for months, ever since the late Duke had been taken ill on his Irish estates back at the start of the year. And so the idea had come to her that she could stay at Farne House while she hunted for the evidence to incriminate Garrick Farne. In an odd way sleeping in Garrick’s house had made her feel closer to him. It had fed her hatred and hardened her determination to find out the truth.

Farne’s brows had snapped down at her words. “You broke in here because you are destitute?” He rapped out. “Homeless?”

“Yes.” Merryn thought that she might get away with the story. London was full of tumbled down and abandoned houses. It was common knowledge on the streets that if you had no roof over your head you would be able to find shelter under the cover of the Fleet Market or in the abandoned workhouse in Dyot Street. But there were those beggars who were more daring and who squatted in the houses of the nobility. Plenty of these mansions were barely used, closed when the family was out of London, neglected and empty.

It seemed, however, that Garrick was not convinced. He took a step closer to her. His hand was on her shoulder. She flinched, but he was only fingering the fine wool of her gown, testing it. Unfortunately the dust was insufficiently thick to conceal its quality.

“A good try.” He sounded grimly amused. “But this is not the attire of someone who is down on their luck.”

Devil take it, he was sharp.

“I stole it.” Now she had started with the deception it seemed she had a more vivid imagination than even she had thought. “From a washing line.”

He was nodding thoughtfully. “What a fine liar you are. Most imaginative.”

Damnation. He had not been taken in even for a second. But he had at least moved away from the door.

“Who are you?” he said. “Why are you here?”

“I cannot tell you that,” Merryn said, reverting to her true character after her brief and unsuccessful foray into deception.

“You mean that you do not want to tell me.” He had his head on one side, still watching her. Those brown eyes were very perceptive. She felt a little dizzy. Discovery felt a little closer.

Concentrate. Three steps to the door …

“That’s right,” she said. “I do not want to talk to you at all.”

“Yet you are not in a position to refuse.”

“That’s debatable.”

He laughed. “You want to debate?”

“No,” Merryn said. “I want to leave.”

He shook his head. “I should hand you over to Bow Street for housebreaking.”

“And then you would still get no explanation whatsoever.”

His eyes gleamed. “A fair point.” He shrugged those broad shoulders. “Then there is nothing for it than that I keep you here until you tell me the truth.”

Merryn glanced around. He was going to keep her imprisoned in his bedroom? The big tester bed, so wide, so inviting, seemed to mock her. She remembered the cool smoothness of the sheets and the yielding softness of the mattress. For one scalding moment she had a vision of Garrick’s naked body bearing hers down into that silken embrace, of his hands against her bare skin, of his caresses … She looked from the bed to Garrick. He raised his brows a fraction of an inch and Merryn felt her body suffuse with heat.

“You could read your book,” he said gently, “to pass the time.” He held out her copy of Mansfield Park to her.

“Thank you,” Merryn said. She put out a hand to take it. He held on to it. She gave it a little tug. Garrick allowed her gesture to bring him a step closer to her. Their fingers were practically touching now on the deep red cover, hers slender and pale, his tanned and strong. She remembered his touch against her cheek and closed her eyes on a long shiver.

He took the final step. They were very close now. He was frowning, his gaze fierce beneath the dark brows. And then he leaned closer and sniffed her, delicately, as though she were a flower.

“Bluebells,” he muttered. He shook his head, sniffed again; looked up again, incredulous. His gaze had narrowed to an intense black stare.

“Have you been sleeping in my bed?” he demanded.

“I …” Suddenly Merryn’s mouth was dry and her wits seemed to have gone a-begging. “Yes, I have …” She licked her lips and tasted dust. His gaze had gone to her mouth and fastened there, his eyes darkening with an intensity that had her stomach knotting.

“An extraordinary intimacy,” he murmured.

Merryn had never been kissed but she knew with an instinct deep as time itself that in another moment Garrick Farne would kiss her, cobwebs and all. The fierce heat she could see in his eyes trapped and held her. Her heart hammered.

He closed the remaining distance between them and his lips brushed hers. Soft, so soft, and barely a touch at all and yet the caress seemed to awaken something fierce and burning inside her. Her head spun. She could smell his masculine scent and for some reason it made her knees tremble. Her whole body was alight with a sensation she had never experienced. Her lips parted on a little gasp of shock.

Garrick stood back, a look of stunned surprise on his face. Merryn seized the moment. She grabbed Mansfield Park from out of his hand and hit him squarely with it on the side of his head. Garrick gave an oath. The spine of the book was fragile and the pages came loose, showering him in paper like confetti, blinding him for a moment. It was all that Merryn needed. She whisked through the door and out into the passage. The key was in the outside of the lock. She turned it. And then she ran.




CHAPTER TWO


“POINTER,” GARRICK SAID, sitting at his father’s desk the following morning, “do you think it would be possible to break into Farne House? Is it vulnerable to intruders?”

“Your grace?” The butler sounded faintly anxious.

“I only ask, you understand,” Garrick said, “because I found a strange female in my room last night.”

“Lady Harriet—” the butler began.

“Ah, yes,” Garrick said. He had packed Harriet and her chaperone off to stay with his mother in the country. Since the Dowager Duchess’s household would be in deep mourning for the foreseeable future, this seemed punishment enough for the promiscuous minx.

“Pray do not admit Lady Harriet to my presence again, Pointer,” he said. “Not under any circumstances.”

“No, your grace.” Pointer sounded subdued. “I did try to stop the lady but she was the late Duke’s ward and is much given to following her own desires.”

“She is indeed,” Garrick said. “Lady Harriet can be very persuasive. But this other woman—”

He stopped. What could he say?

I found a woman under my bed. She was small, with blue eyes that glow like agates and pale golden hair likea swatch of silk. She smelled of bluebells. I kissed her and she tasted of dust and innocence, and I have never wanted to bed a woman more in my life …

No, decidedly he could not tell Pointer his thoughts. Such vivid fantasies had no place in the life of a Duke shackled to duty and responsibility. Nevertheless Garrick shifted as he remembered the shape of the girl’s lips beneath his, the tiny gasp she had given when he kissed her, the shocking sensation of wanting to catch her in his arms and tumble her onto his bed and strip those cobwebbed clothes from her to discover the pleasures of her body beneath. He wanted to taste that tempting mouth again, to kiss her senseless. He felt his body harden into arousal.

Hell and the devil.

Pointer cleared his throat and Garrick jumped.

“Your grace …”

“Pointer?” Garrick said.

“Perhaps she was one of the servants, your grace, come to make sure you were comfortable,” Pointer said. He looked shifty. “I will ask the housekeeper to tell the maids not to trouble you.”

“That would be appreciated,” Garrick said. He knew his intruder had not been a servant. She had spoken with the instinctive confidence of a lady regardless of her pretense to be a waif from the streets. This morning he had found other evidence of occupation in his bedroom, too. There were the charred remains of a letter curling in the grate. There was a stick of striped candy on the dresser, wrapped in a twist of paper. He had found that rather endearing. There were even some female unmentionables neatly folded on a shelf in the wardrobe. Those had given him pause. How long had she been making free with his property and sleeping in his bed?

Pointer was waiting. Garrick sighed. “To return to my original question. Is the house secure?”

“I will check, your grace.” Pointer sounded very stiff at the suggestion that he was not in control of every aspect of security at Farne House. “If there is nothing more, your grace, I shall go and do so at once …” Garrick knew the butler was mortally offended. They had already disagreed once that morning. The first thing Pointer had offered to do after breakfast was to visit the employment bureau in order to recruit more staff to open up Farne House again. When Garrick had told him that he did not intend to use Farne House as his London home, he had thought Pointer might well burst with disapproval.

“But, your grace—” the butler had forgotten himself sufficiently to protest “—Farne House is the … the flagship of your Dukedom, the very pinnacle of your position! It is the feather in your cap, the summit of your status—”

“Farne House is ugly, old, draughty and expensive,” Garrick had said. “I do not care for it, Pointer. I shall not be entertaining, nor do I have a Duchess who requires a social setting. I will return to my own house in Charles Street as soon as I have set my father’s affairs in order.”

“Charles Street!” Pointer had said, as though Garrick had suggested he would be returning to the London stews. “That may have done very well for you when you were the Marquis of Northesk, your grace, but you are the Duke now. You have a dignity to uphold. Your father—” He had fallen silent as Garrick had pinned him with a very hard look.

“I,” Garrick had said, “am not my father, Pointer.”

Now he waited as Pointer retreated, outrage evident in every stiff line of his figure.

When the door had closed behind the butler, Garrick turned back to the desk and sorted methodically through the papers, making a note of the people he needed to contact and the actions he needed to take. Regardless of the dislike in which he had held his father—actually, hatred would probably be a better word—he had to give the late Duke credit for being extremely well organized. All the papers were in order, the income from the Farne estates was up-to-date and clearly notated and everything appeared to run like a smoothly oiled machine, a tribute to the late Duke’s rather vulgar grasping after every last penny that could be squeezed from his lands.

The clock on the mantel chimed twelve. Suddenly restless, Garrick got up and walked across to the dirty window. Dusty drapes shuttered the room. His mother, who might well have taken Farne House in hand, had not been to London for years. Tired of her husband’s famously indiscreet infidelities, she had become a dowager before her time and had retired to a house in Sussex. Garrick wondered vaguely how she would greet the arrival of the ungovernable Harriet on her doorstep. No doubt she would have the vapors. It was her usual mode of response to any crisis.

Outside the day was bright and clear, the sort of November morning that had slanting sunlight and scurrying white clouds. Garrick felt as though he were trapped here in this cobwebbed mausoleum. He wanted to take his stallion and ride out, not in the park among the chattering crowds, but somewhere wild and empty where he and the beast could both let go of all restraint. He had lived abroad for many years and had a taste for empty spaces and the hot blue skies of Portugal and Spain. And though he had been back in London for over a year, still the city felt cramped and cold and strangely repressive to a man who only really thrived in the open air.

Duty called him back to the pile of estate papers. He was Duke of Farne now and regardless of how disappointing he was as upholder of the family dignity, he could not escape his responsibilities. He had had that drummed into him since he was a child. He strode back to the desk. In his study in the house on Charles Street he had plenty of work waiting, too, research relating to his academic studies into seventeenth-century astronomy, documents to translate for the War Office. He had worked for Earl Bathurst, the Secretary of State for War, during his time in exile. He had also done plenty of other, less official, work for the government as well. It was one of the reasons that his father had raged against him, the heir to the Dukedom of Farne, trying and consistently failing to get himself killed in the service of his country. But what was he to do? For years he had carried the burden of taking a life, that of Stephen Fenner. He had tried to give his own in reparation, but the gods appeared uninterested in taking it.

He picked up his pen. He put it down again. What he really wanted to do, he found, was to discover the identity of the woman who had penetrated his house and his defenses, his midnight visitor, she of the vivid blue eyes and the porcelain fair skin. She had run from him like a fairy-tale Cinderella.

He wandered over to the oak bookcases that lined two walls of the study. Here he paused, the hairs on the back of his neck rising with a curious feeling of awareness. Someone else had perused these shelves, and recently. There were tiny marks in the dust, as though someone had carefully drawn out the books and replaced them without wanting to leave a trace.

He turned back to the desk. Had she been rifling through the papers here, too? If so, what could have been her purpose?

He wondered how, in the whole of London, he might find one elusive lady. There were always the inquiry agents, he supposed, though he could give them precious little to work on. A physical description, based on all the things he had found so seductive about her, would not be particularly helpful.

Shaking his head in exasperation, Garrick resumed his work, untying the red ribbon that held the next set of estate papers.

“Title to the estate of Fenners in the County of Dorset …”

Garrick felt chilled. Icy memory trickled down his spine. He had had no idea that his father had bought up the Fenner estates. He ripped the ribbon away and sifted through the papers. His father, it seemed, had purchased not only the house of Fenners but also the land and all associated coal-mining rights. He had done so ten years previously when the estate had been broken up after the last Earl had died. The mining had proved lucrative; it had brought in a sum approaching a hundred thousand pounds.

The cold hardened inside Garrick, deep and dark. His father had profited by the death of Stephen Fenner and the subsequent extinction of the Earldom. While he had been trying to atone for Fenner’s death his father had been turning it to financial advantage. How utterly typical it was of the late Duke to act with such vile cupidity. Garrick felt sick and revolted. It was intolerable to inherit an estate that had come to him through violence and bloodshed, even more so when it was blood that he himself had shed. With a sudden burst of anger he brought his hand down and scattered the deeds across the floor.

He threw himself down into his chair and tried to think. He had been back in society for fifteen months, long enough to know that the eldest of the Earl of Fenner’s daughters was the famed hostess Joanna, Lady Grant, married to the equally famous Arctic explorer Alex Grant. The middle sister, Teresa Darent, was notorious, a widow who had run through four husbands already. Naturally enough he had not met either Lady Grant or Lady Darent socially; they would scarcely invite to their balls and routs the man who had murdered their brother in a duel. Ton society might be extraordinarily flexible, but it was not that flexible. He thought there was also a third girl, the youngest, but he knew little of her. She was unmarried, reputedly a bluestocking, almost a recluse, if gossip was to be believed.

Garrick reached for pen and ink and began to write. After he had finished the letter, sealed it and addressed it, he picked up again the papers relating to the Fenner estate but after a moment he let them drift from his hand down onto the desk before him.

Stephen Fenner had been his best friend at Eton and Oxford. He had been a rake, a gamester and a noted whip. His handsome face and winning charm had allowed him to cut a swath through the bedrooms and boudoirs of a number of ton ladies. It had been amusing to be one of Stephen’s friends, part of a dazzling raffish crowd who had lived for pleasure. Garrick had been seduced by the glamour of it all. It was such a far cry from the life of service and obligation that he had been raised to embrace. But then Stephen had chosen Garrick’s bride as his latest conquest and friendship had disintegrated into betrayal and disgrace …

There was a knock at the door; Pointer, Garrick thought, had evidently overcome his disapproval sufficiently to resume his duties.

“I have ascertained that a window in the east wing has been forced, your grace,” the butler said, looking with disfavor at the scattered pile of papers. “It is possible that an intruder may have found ingress into the house that way.”

“She broke in through a window,” Garrick said. “I see. Thank you, Pointer.”

“I have made the house secure,” Pointer finished grandly, “so your grace need have no further concerns.”

“I am confident to leave the matter of household security entirely in your hands, Pointer,” Garrick said. He held out the letter. “If you would be so kind as to see this is delivered to the offices of Churchward and Churchward, the lawyers, in Holborn please?”

“Of course, your grace,” Pointer said, bowing with exquisite precision and proffering a silver tray on which Garrick could place the missive.

“And then,” Garrick said, “I would like you to find me an inquiry agent.”

Pointer’s long nose twitched with shock. “An inquiry agent, your grace?” He repeated, as though Garrick had asked for something so outrageous he had no idea how to respond.

“Your esteemed father,” he added, “would never have required such a person, your grace.”

“I know,” Garrick said, grinning. “You are going to have to get used to some changes, I fear, Pointer. If you could expedite the matter,” he added, “that would be appreciated. There is someone I need to find urgently.”

When he had found his midnight bibliophile, Garrick thought, he was going discover exactly what her business was with him. And this time he would not let her run away.

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR CUSTOM, Lord Selfridge. It was a pleasure to be able to provide you with the information you required.”

Merryn sat in a dark corner of the waiting room while her associate, Tom Bradshaw, ushered the peer toward the stairs. Selfridge barely noticed her and certainly did not recognize her. Merryn would have been astonished if he had. In her daily life, as the frightfully studious bluestocking sister of Joanna, Lady Grant, celebrated ton hostess, she was practically invisible. She seldom attended the high society events that both her sisters loved and when she did she hardly ever danced. Those people who took the trouble to engage her in conversation usually regretted it because she was only interested in erudite subjects and chose to have no small talk. Most young men were afraid of her, bored by her, or both. She was known as the Simple Ton by those society fashionables who deplored her bookishness and her lack of social graces.

Such insignificance made it far easier for her to live as she wished, pursuing an interest in all manner of scholarly activities on the one hand and working for Tom on the other. If her sisters had known that she worked for a living they would probably have had the vapors. If they had known she was employed by an inquiry agent the strongest smelling salts would not have been able to revive them. And if they discoverd that sometimes she stayed out at night to do her work and invented fictitious friends to cover for her … But then, Merryn thought, they never would find out. They would not guess because such thoughts were unthinkable.

Except … except that she had made a mistake last night. It was the sort of mistake that could lead to the unmasking of what she liked to think of as her secret life. She had committed the cardinal sin of being caught, and by Garrick Farne, of all people. If there was one time that she should have been particularly careful, it was when she was working against the man who had killed her brother and ruined her family. But it was too late now. Farne had seen her. Farne had kissed her. A little of ripple of disquiet, mixed with something more deep and disturbing, edged down her spine.

“Are you coming in or are we to talk out here?”

Tom was holding his office door open for her, his head tilted inquiringly to one side, eyes bright, a smile curling his lips. He was cocky, but Merryn liked him for it. Tom, the son of a stevedore who had worked on the Thames loading ships, still kept his offices within a stone’s throw of the river. He was one of the most successful inquiry agents in London, finding everything from missing heirs to servants who had absconded with the family silver. She had worked alongside him for the past two years.

Merryn uncurled herself from her seat and preceded Tom into the office. There was a chair but she knew from experience that it was uncomfortable so she remained standing. Tom propped himself against the edge of his desk.

“So did you find any papers relating to the duel?” Tom said. “Any servants paid off around that time, any proof of a cover-up, anything suspicious at all?”

“I’m very well, thank you, Tom,” Merryn said tartly. “How are you?”

Tom grinned, his teeth a flash of white in his face. “You know I have no manners.”

“Clearly,” Merryn said. She looked at him. No one would mistake Tom Bradshaw for anything other than what he was: the self-made son of a working man. The well-cut clothes could not conceal his innate toughness.

“No,” she said. She turned her face away. “I didn’t find anything.”

Three weeks previously Tom had come to her with some information that he had said he thought would interest her and when she had read it the shock and outrage had gripped Merryn like a vise. Tom’s information had been a tiny entry from an obscure local Dorset newspaper. He said that he had found it quite by accident when he had been working on a different case. The paper was twelve years old and there, between references to pig rustling and theft at a country fair, had been the report of an inquest into the death of Stephen Fenner.

Merryn could remember the piece word for word. She thought she would never forget it.

“The coroner at the inquest into the death of Stephen, Viscount Fenner, reported that there had been two bullets in the victim’s body, one in the shoulder and one in the back …” And then, farther down the page: “Daniel Scrope, gamekeeper on the Starcross estate, reported hearing an altercation followed by the firing of three shots …”

Merryn shook a little now as she remembered how she had frozen where she had sat, her gaze riveted to the tiny shred of news that contradicted all the official reports of her brother’s death. Before he had fled the country to escape the exigencies of the law, Garrick Farne had left a statement giving details of the duel. He had sworn that it had occurred over the elopement of his best friend, Stephen Fenner, with Kitty, Garrick’s wife of only a month. Two shots had been fired, Farne had maintained, one by Stephen, who had missed, and the other by himself, which had proved fatal. The doctor and the two men’s seconds had supported his statement. Farne’s second had even claimed that Fenner had fired early, an unforgivable piece of cowardice further blackening Stephen’s name.

The case had never gone to trial and public opinion had been very sympathetic to Garrick Farne. He and Kitty had been married for barely a month. Stephen Fenner had clearly played his best friend false, seducing Garrick’s wife, trying to entice her to run off with him and compounding his deceit by attempting to kill Garrick by firing before the flag was dropped. Besides, a duel was an affair of honor and society understood the rules that governed such cases. Garrick Farne was generally felt to have acted regrettably but understandably.

That had been appalling enough to Merryn, unforgivable, heinous, but when she had discovered that there had been three shots and two bullets in Stephen’s body, she had been consumed with grief and anger. Garrick Farne had lied, there had been no duel, only an execution, and he should have hanged for murder. She had hated Garrick before, hated what he had done, despaired over the way his actions had wrought such unhappiness and ruin on her family. Now, though, her anger was transformed. If the truth had been buried she would dig it out. She would show the world that Garrick was a liar and a criminal, and she would strip him of all honor and respect. She would find the proof that would mean his life was forfeit.

Merryn had searched like a woman possessed to find any other evidence such as the original inquest report, the findings of the doctor who had conducted it, the original witness statements of the seconds who had allegedly been present at what she now suspected was a fictitious duel. She had drawn a blank. All papers were lost. All witnesses had vanished. Merryn had been disillusioned but hardly surprised. She knew that the Dukes of Farne were rich enough and powerful enough to pay their way out of such a scandal. But she could not give up now. If there were the slightest chance that she could prove that Garrick Farne had killed her brother in cold blood then she would expose him. She wanted him to lose everything that had been built on his lie. She had lost so much when Garrick had killed Stephen. She wanted him to understand how that felt.

“You found nothing,” Tom repeated. He was looking annoyed, so irritated, in fact, that Merryn wondered if he might secretly have a client interested in her findings. It seemed unlikely but not impossible.

“You did search everywhere?” Tom persisted.

Merryn frowned. “Of course I searched everywhere. I’m not an amateur. I looked in the study, the library, the bedrooms—”

“In the bedrooms?” Tom said.

“I thought there might be papers concealed in a book,” Merryn said.

Tom gave her a quizzical look. “I repeat, in the bedrooms?”

“People read in bed,” Merryn said, a shade defensively.

“Do they?” Tom seemed surprised. “I don’t. I have more exciting things to do.”

Merryn rolled her eyes. “You and Garrick Farne both.”

Tom raised his brows. “What?”

“I was under the bed,” Merryn said, “when the Duke had a visitor. A voluptuous and eager lady called Harriet.”

Tom pursed his lips on a soundless whistle. “Harriet Knight, his late father’s ward?”

“I have no idea,” Merryn said tartly. There was a squirm of something in her belly that felt disconcertingly like … jealousy? “They were obviously beyond needing surnames,” she added.

“Poor you,” Tom said. “There’s nothing worse than voyeurism.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Merryn said. “Fortunately he threw her out before things became too embarrassing for me.”

Tom started to laugh. “Farne threw an eager seductress out of his bedchamber?” he said. “He really has changed. I assume you were able to get away when he fell asleep?”

“No,” Merryn said. She hesitated. It probably was not wise to tell Tom of her encounter with Garrick Farne. He would be furious because she had compromised not only her own safety but also his business. If Garrick were to discover her identity somehow and start asking questions he would discover that she worked for Tom and a powerful enemy like the Duke of Farne would be very dangerous for Tom’s livelihood. Besides, she was not sure she wished to relive the encounter. The unexpected affinity she had felt for Garrick, the pleasure of their quick-fire conversation, the sweetness that had ambushed her when his lips had touched hers in that infinitely tender caress … She had not expected to feel any of those emotions. She should not.

Tom was watching her. He was quick; he’d seen her hesitation.

“Well?” he said.

“Unfortunately I sneezed,” Merryn said, “and he dragged me out from under the bed.”

Tom’s reaction was predictable. There was a moment of silence and then he exploded. “Bloody hell, Merryn—”

“I know,” Merryn said hastily. “But I didn’t tell him who I was, or what I was doing there. You don’t need to worry. He doesn’t know I work for you. No one does.”

Tom clenched his fists. “Merryn,” he said, “the work you do is supposed to be secret. The clue is in the word.”

“Of course,” Merryn said quickly. “Sorry—”

Tom made a visible effort to get himself under control. He rubbed his forehead. “I warned you it was dangerous to go there,” he said. “I told you to be careful.”

“I was,” Merryn said defensively. “It was just bad luck.”

Tom gave a sigh. “Well, you have not been hauled up in Bow Street so evidently you got away,” he said. His tone had eased a little. He even managed to give her a half smile. “Did you kick him in the balls and run away?”

“Something of the sort,” Merryn said. She wondered how she had managed to retain any shred of innocence associating with Tom Bradshaw. Her vocabulary had certainly been broadened, if nothing else.

Merryn had never been quite sure how she and Tom had come to be as close as brother and sister. She had first met him three years before when he had broken into a house where she was staying. She had found him rifling through her host’s study and had held him at sword point—there had been a medieval claymore on the wall—until he had revealed to her that the purpose of his illicit visit was to reunite the government with some very sensitive papers pertaining to the war. She had been frankly intrigued by Bradshaw’s business and had thought it would be the perfect line of work to get into. She had a passion for justice, too little money, too much time and nothing to do that remotely interested her. Being a debutante was a tedious business; all the men she met wanted blandness in a woman, a pattern-card wife. Merryn, in contrast, did not want a man at all. She had never met one she preferred to her favorite books.

Tom had laughed at first when she had sought him out at his office and proposed that she work for him. Then he had remembered the claymore. And she had pointed out that she had the entrée into houses that he had to burgle. She could attend balls and routs, speak to people that he could not approach. They had been a partnership ever since.

Tom walked across to a side table that held a dusty crystal decanter and matching glasses. He gestured to them. Merryn shook her head. She was never quite sure what was in Tom’s decanter and suspected that it was villainously bad sherry. Tom poured for himself, took a mouthful and then looked back at her.

“It might be better if you drop this whole matter,” he said abruptly. “When I first found the reference I thought that you had a right to know the truth but now—” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I think it could get us all into trouble.”

“No!” Merryn said. She felt panicked. “It was an accident, Tom. I promise to be more discreet in the future.”

Tom did not answer for a moment. He sat down, placed his glass gently on the desk and leaned forward. “I think your determination to find out the truth leads you to take risks we cannot afford because you are obsessed with exposing Garrick Farne,” he said. “It is not only dangerous.” He took a breath. “It is unhealthy, Merryn. You should let it go.”

Merryn wrapped her arms about herself. She felt chilled and her stomach lurched a little with sickness. She always felt like that when she thought about her brother Stephen and the fate Garrick Farne had meted out to him. The scandalous shadow had dogged her steps for over a decade. She had been thirteen when Stephen had died and it had felt as though the sun had gone out. Everything had changed, every keepsake of Stephen lost when the estate was sold, every link with him wiped out. Stephen had blazed across her life like a wayward star and when Garrick Farne had extinguished that light her whole life had been plunged into darkness. The grief had been like a punch, leaving her stunned with the force of the blow.

“It’s not just about Stephen’s death,” she said. She rested a hand against the window glass. It felt cold beneath her fingers. Down in the alleyway below, two ragged children were playing with a hoop. “We lost our father as well, and our home. We had nothing left. Papa went into a decline and died because he was so broken to have lost his heir.”

“Then he should have valued his daughters more,” Tom said grimly. “He was a fortunate man to have other children, yet he did not appreciate it.” He looked at her. “I do wonder, though,” he added, “if your recollection of that time is quite accurate, Merryn. You were only a child—”

“I was thirteen,” Merryn said. Her stomach did a giddy little swoop. “Old enough to remember everything.”

She turned away so that Tom could not see her face. She had known exactly what had been going on between her brother and the newly wed Kitty Farne because she was the one who had carried their clandestine messages. She was the one who had led Stephen to his death. The old guilt stirred and she shuddered sharply, slamming the door to block out the memories and the pain. It was not her fault. She had never intended it to end in murder. She had to remember that she was not the one who had pulled the trigger and taken Stephen’s life.

“You sound guilty,” Tom said, frowning at her. “Why on earth—”

“Spare me your analysis,” Merryn snapped, angry that he had been acute enough to pick up on her feelings. “I don’t feel any guilt. Why should I? Farne was the one who killed Stephen. And if he did that in cold blood rather than in a duel then he has even less honor than I had thought and he deserves everyone to know it. This isn’t just about revenge, Tom. It’s about justice …” She stopped, gasping for breath.

There was a silence in the little room. “I’m sorry,” Tom said. “I accept that Garrick Farne’s actions were far-reaching.” There was a note of impatience in his voice now. He pushed his chair back from the desk. “But I still think your feelings affect your judgment, Merryn.” He gave a quick shake of the head. “I don’t know … I suppose that I cannot stop you pursuing Farne if you choose since it is not an official case.”

“No,” Merryn said, “it is not. But I think that you have an interest in it all the same. I’ve thought so from the beginning.”

Tom looked startled. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I know you,” Merryn said. “Don’t prevaricate with me, Tom. Is there a client?”

Tom stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. “I cannot tell you anything,” he said. “Client confidentiality—”

Merryn made an exasperated sound. “Tom!”

“Oh, very well,” Tom said. He moved the files around on his desk. “There is someone who is interested,” he said. “One of Farne’s brothers. There is no love lost there.”

“One of Garrick Farne’s brothers wants to see him hanged?” Merryn pressed. She had known that Garrick was estranged from most of his family but still she was shocked. “Why on earth …”

Tom shrugged. “I don’t ask questions like that. I simply take the money. But you see …” He paused, looked at her. “That is another reason why we cannot afford for Farne to know.”

“I understand,” Merryn said.

Tom ran a hand through his hair. “It is a pity that Farne saw you. He may start asking awkward questions. And he’s a dangerous man to cross. He worked for the War Office for years when he was in exile.”

“As a translator,” Merryn said dismissively. “It’s hardly the front line.”

“It is when you are translating between the British and the Spanish guerrillas,” Tom said dryly. “One might as well live on a powder keg. Farne was, and still is, a famed swordsman, a crack shot—” He stopped. “Sorry, that was tactless of me.” He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a file.

“I have found out a little more information,” he said. “I checked out the seconds at the so-called duel. Farne’s second was a man called Gabriel Finch. He went to Australia as a curate. And your brother’s second was Chuffy Wallington and we all know what happened to him.”

“He drank himself to death,” Merryn said. “I remember Chuffy. He was a frightful soak.”

“Easily bought off, I expect,” Tom said. “As for the doctor, he is locked up in the Fleet prison for debt. I might well pay him a discreet visit.”

“I’ll go,” Merryn said. “He will be more likely to talk to me.”

“Possibly not,” Tom said, “when he knows who you are.” He closed the file softly. “I have to admit,” he said, “that it looks very bad for Farne. Three shots, two bullets, one in the back … Reports suppressed and rewritten, witnesses disappearing, no doubt paid off … And he runs away abroad and then his father fixes it all with the authorities so that he never has to stand trial and can come home a decade later with everything forgiven and forgotten …” Tom shook his head. He paused. “Perhaps we should reconsider. We’re stirring up a lot of trouble. All this was buried years ago. People won’t like it.”

Merryn shivered. A little ripple of anticipation mingled with apprehension fluttered down her spine.

“I’m not giving up now,” she said. “I want to know the truth and I want Farne to face justice. But if he finds out …”

If Farne finds out there will be hell to pay …

She remembered the ruthlessness she had sensed in Garrick Farne the moment she saw him. Tom had been right: he was no ineffectual scholar, he was a man with a dangerous past.

Tom was watching her face.

“You had better make sure he does not find out,” he said, “but if you are too scared to do it—”

His tone was all the incentive Merryn needed.

“No,” she said. “No, I will do it. It will be my pleasure.”




CHAPTER THREE


“I HAVE FOUND YOU an inquiry agent, your grace, Hammond by name.” Pointer, his nose twitching in a manner that indicated that he could not quite believe how low he had stooped, stood back to allow the ingress of a man into the library at Farne House. The late autumn evening was already drawing in, darkness dropping over the streets of London and creeping into the room. Garrick had forced himself to work for another four hours on the Farne estate papers, acquainting himself with all the dependents on the Dukedom, all the pensions to be paid, the widows and orphans, the servants, estate workers, the whole panoply of his fiefdom. It was terrifying how many people depended upon him.

Despite the presence of a full branch of candles the room looked gloomy and bare, the bookshelves standing like sentinels. Garrick stood up and stretched, only now aware of how stiff he had become poring over the books for hours on end. He shook the newcomer by the hand and gestured him to a chair. The long mirror that stretched along one wall reflected back their images. It was easy to see why Pointer disapproved, Garrick thought. In the butler’s eyes the visitor would be categorized as most definitely not a gentleman. There was about him an indefinable air of seediness. It seemed soaked into his person, from the battered hat he held in his hand to the world-weary expression in his deep-set gray eyes to the cut of his clothes. He was the type of man Garrick had met on many occasions in his work in the Peninsular—the fixer, the intelligence man, for sale to the highest bidder, exactly the man Garrick needed now.

“Mr. Hammond,” he said. “How do you do?”

“Your grace.” The man did not bow. It was more a meeting of equals, Garrick thought. He needed a service Hammond could provide and the inquiry agent saw no need to be deferential.

“A drink?” Garrick offered. “Brandy?”

“Not on duty, thank you, your grace.”

That, Garrick thought, argued a certain discipline. He nodded. “You will excuse me if I do?”

Hammond’s smile indicated that he recognized this was merely a courtesy. He sat in one of the large wing chairs before the fire, his hat on his knee, politely waiting for Garrick to state his business. Garrick poured for himself—no sense in summoning Pointer simply to perform that function, although no doubt the butler would feel he should have preserved the formalities—and took the chair opposite, crossing one ankle over the other. Mr. Hammond raised an interrogative brow. Garrick paused, chose his words with care.

“I need you to find a lady for me, Mr. Hammond.”

Hammond snapped open a notebook with such alacrity Garrick jumped.

“Is she lost, your grace?”

“No,” Garrick said. “What I should have said is that I need you to identify a lady for me.”

“Ah,” Hammond said. “Semantics.”

“Quite,” Garrick said, warming to him. “There is a lady I have met, I do not know her name and I want you to find her and tell me who she is.”

Hammond nodded. “Description?”

“Small, fair-haired, blue-eyed …” Garrick struggled. A pocket goddess, beautifully rounded, soft, smooth skin, vivid blue eyes, hair like a tumble of golden corn …

Get a grip on yourself, he ordered himself.

“Age?” Hammond’s sharp gray gaze was unblinking.

“Twenty-five,” Garrick said, “or so she told me.”

Hammond nodded. “And you met …”

“Here,” Garrick said. “She broke into my house last night. Or rather,” he corrected himself, “I believe she might have been staying here for a little time.”

“Lady Merryn Fenner,” Hammond said.

Garrick blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Lady Merryn Fenner,” the inquiry agent repeated. “Sister to Joanna, Lady Grant, and Teresa, Lady Darent, and daughter of the late Earl of Fenner. Your grace.”

Lady Merryn Fenner.

Garrick felt as though someone had emptied a bucket of ice down his back. The woman he lusted for, the wraith who haunted his thoughts, was Stephen Fenner’s youngest sister. In a flash he remembered the initials in the copy of Mansfield Park, the entwined M and F. He remembered her eyes and saw the vivid blue of Stephen’s.

“How the devil,” he said slowly, “did you know? There must be a hundred small, fair, twenty-five-year-old ladies in London. Two hundred. A thousand.”

Hammond permitted himself a small, wintry smile that was nevertheless full of satisfaction. “Aye, your grace. Normally it would take me—” he paused “—oh, at least a day to come up with that information. But Lady Merryn Fenner works for Tom Bradshaw and we like to keep an eye on his business.” He waited, then as Garrick looked blank: “Bradshaw the inquiry agent, your grace. A rival company.” For a moment Garrick thought Hammond was about to spit but he clearly thought better of it in the ducal library. “Bradshaw’s a cocky fellow,” Hammond said. “Smooth as you like, but bent as a guinea note. A good job you didn’t approach him with your inquiry, sir. He would have taken your money and spun you a line.”

Garrick frowned. Oddly the thought of his midnight visitor working for a corrupt inquiry agent filled him with a strange sense of protectiveness. Merryn Fenner had seemed too innocent and too honest to be mixed up in crooked business. But clearly his instinct about her was wildly astray. She had broken into his house, after all, had been searching his library and his study and his bedroom. She was not a sheltered debutante. She was a burglar and very possibly a thief.

“So you knew,” Garrick said slowly, “that Lady Merryn Fenner had broken in here last night because you were watching her?”

“One of my men reported it,” Hammond said. “She’s been here every night for the past five days.”

Five days. Sleeping in his bed.

Garrick thought of the slide of the sheet against his body and Merryn’s scent enveloping him, soft, sensuous, seductive.

Five days. Searching his papers.

She had nerve. He would give her that. He thought about what Lady Merryn Fenner might be hunting at Farne House. The conclusion was inescapable. The connection between the two of them was her brother. The object of her search therefore must be something to do with Stephen’s death.

He got to his feet abruptly and strode over to the fire, stirring it to flame with his booted foot. The logs settled with a hiss.

He had feared this for twelve years. His father had told him that the matter was settled, all witnesses paid off, all evidence destroyed, all those who needed protection kept safe. The Earl of Fenner, Kitty’s father Lord Scott, and the Duke of Farne had buried the matter so deep they had believed it could never be revived. Manifestly, however, that was not true. Something—or someone—had started to stir matters up. It could be Merryn Fenner herself, he supposed, embittered over her brother’s death, bearing him an understandable and very real grudge. Or there could be more to this, someone else behind it, someone pulling Merryn’s strings perhaps. For the sake of all those who depended on him, he had to find out.

He turned to Hammond, who had been watching him gravely and in silence.

“This Bradshaw,” he said. “What do you know about him?”

Hammond laughed. “That he’s a bad lot. Brought up on the streets, knows the rookeries like the back of his hand. Made a bit of money—best not ask how—set himself up in business, not too fussy about the cases he takes if the payment is right.” He shrugged. “Rough, tough …”

“Dangerous to know?” Garrick said ironically.

“Without a doubt, your grace.”

Garrick pulled a face. There was no immediately obvious reason why Tom Bradshaw should be interested in a twelve-year-old duel so perhaps Merryn Fenner really was the instigator in this.

“I need to know where Lady Merryn plans to be tomorrow,” he said. Then, as Hammond nodded, “and I need to know more about Tom Bradshaw. Anything you think might be useful.”

“Aye, your grace,” the man said.

“Thank you, Hammond,” Garrick said. “You have proved yourself invaluable.”

Hammond grinned. It was startling and not particularly pretty. “Bradshaw thinks he’s the best,” the man said with satisfaction. “But he ain’t.”

“Of course, if Bradshaw spies on you as you spy on him,” Garrick said gently, “he will know all about our meeting.”

After Pointer had shown the inquiry agent out, disapproval in every quivering line of his body, Garrick went back to the desk and took out the papers relating to the Fenner estate, weighing them in his hand. Merryn Fenner would know that his father had profiteered from her brother’s death by buying up the family estate. It would be another reason for her to hate everything that the name of Farne stood for.

Tomorrow, he thought, he would seek Merryn out. He would find out what she knew and what she intended to do. He swore softly under his breath. Merryn Fenner had been determined and passionate and, he would wager, a total innocent. There was no more dangerous combination than honesty and passion when it came to someone set on discovering the truth. And he could never allow that truth to come to light.

MERRYN SMOOTHED DOWN her plain blue pelisse and took a slightly tighter grip on the worn leather handle of her briefcase. This afternoon she was very much in her own character, bluestocking and avid student of literature. She had arranged to visit the Octagon Library to peruse the catalog of periodicals in the collection. Alongside his extensive collections of classical, English and Italian literature, King George III had a rather less august selection of newspapers and periodicals. It was in one such obscure publication that Merryn hoped to find another reference to her brother’s death that might bear out the details in the Dorset newspaper Tom had found. Most reports she had read reported the official line on the duel but one or two might have written the truth—before the Farne family clamped down, suppressed the real version of events and paid off anyone who might have proved awkward.

“This way please, madam,” the clerk said respectfully, gesturing her through a doorway on the right and into the most marvelous library she had ever seen. “Sir Frederick will be with you shortly.”

The room was magnificent. Light fell from windows high in the octagonal white dome of the ceiling. On all eight walls the bookshelves stretched above head height with a wrought-iron balcony and further shelves on the first floor. Merryn had never seen quite such an impressive library. If she browsed for years she knew she could never be sated.

Sir Frederick Barnard, the King’s librarian, came over to shake her by the hand and lead her across to a seat at the center table. She had already written to ask for permission to scrutinize the catalog and she saw that it was now laid out in front of her. Sir Frederick explained how the entries were compiled then left her to leaf through at her leisure. A deep peace settled over the room, the sort of reflective silence that one found in libraries, broken only by the rustle of pages and the soft footfall as Sir Frederick or one of his clerks trod quietly across from one shelf to another.

After about ten minutes, however, a gentleman took the seat opposite Merryn. He was tall and broad, no dandy but elegant enough in a plain jacket and pristine buckskins. His hair, an unusual dark red, was disordered by the wind rather than the ministrations of his valet, and as she watched he raised a hand and smoothed it down. Then he looked up and his eyes met hers. They were deep brown eyes and so dark that they were unreadable.

Garrick Farne. The Duke of Farne was here, in the King’s Library.

Merryn’s heart stuttered for an instant and then began to race. She tilted her head down deliberately so that the rim of her bonnet sheltered her face from view. She knew that she had blushed. Or perhaps she had turned pale; she was not sure which, only that she felt hot even though her fingers seemed icy cold. Her hands shook a little, sending the precious documents scattering to the floor. A soft-footed clerk came forward to retrieve them and she murmured an apology. She had to compose herself. This was foolish, to be disturbed simply because Garrick Farne was sitting opposite her. He could not possibly know that she was the woman who had been in his bedroom two nights ago. Then she had been covered in dust and cobwebs. He had not even been able to see if she were young or old. That was the beauty of her indeterminate appearance. She was completely unmemorable.

And if he challenged her she had simply to deny it. She was Lady Merryn Fenner. She did not disport herself in men’s bedrooms in the dead of night.

Even so, it was the first time that anyone had come close to unmasking her and she felt anxious. Her fingers slipped and slid on the parchment and she found it unconscionably difficult to concentrate. She could walk out, of course. She could simply get to her feet, tell the librarian that she had a headache and would return on another occasion. Except that that would look odd given that she had been there only five minutes. And it was poor-spirited, and she was no such thing. She, Merryn Fenner, was scared of nobody and nothing. Gentlemen of the ton, in particular, held neither fascination nor danger for her. She had their measure. They never discomposed her. Only this man, with his perceptive gaze and his effortlessly authoritative presence, seemed to be able to disturb her, and that was only because for the past twelve years he had haunted her thoughts, and now that she knew that he had lied about her brother’s death she wanted to take from him everything he had—friends, reputation, respect.

She tried not to look at Garrick and found it disturbingly difficult. How had he known she would be at the Octagon Library today? It could be no coincidence. He was already a step ahead of her. A horrid thought struck her. Perhaps Garrick had gone to an inquiry agent like Tom and asked them to identify her. Merryn had no illusions about the sort of information that could be bought—or suppressed, for that matter—with enough money. She had seen it happen time and again.

She risked a glance at Garrick underneath the brim of her hat and then wished that she had not. He was not reading. His book lay discarded to one side, his quill idle on the desk.

He was watching her.

His gaze was thoughtful as it rested on her. It felt oddly as though he were studying her, learning her by heart. His eyes moved over her features, one by one: her hair, beneath the dowdy blue bonnet, the curve of her cheek, her mouth. He seemed to pause there for an inordinate amount of time and Merryn felt tightness in her chest and a constriction in her breathing. Her skin felt too sensitive, prickling from his nearness. It was odd and disconcerting. She kept her gaze on the page in front of her although the words danced before her eyes and made no sense. She knew even with her eyes averted that he was still watching her; she could feel his gaze like a physical touch, stroking her cheek, sliding along the smooth line of her jaw, brushing her lips like a kiss.

She caught her breath on the thought and, unable to resist the unspoken demand he was making, she looked up and met his eyes.

He was not looking at her at all. He was writing with every appearance of concentration. And as Merryn drew back, frowning a little, her body still humming with awareness, he glanced up and caught her staring. He raised one brow in a quizzical way Merryn could only categorize as insolent. A small smile tilted the corners of his firm mouth, a smile of such masculine self-satisfaction that she wanted to slap him.

Her face flaming, she bent furiously over the periodicals again. The Dorchester Advertiser, the Bournemouth Intelligencer … Not a single reference to Stephen’s death. It was as though he had been eradicated completely, as though he had never existed. She felt enraged. There was nothing for her here.

Then she had a thought, a flash of an idea. She turned back to the London periodicals for July 1802 with their record of routs and parties, events and guest lists. The season had been ending, the last glittering balls taking place before town emptied for the summer. And there on the guest list for a dinner at Lord and Lady Denman’s house on the night of July 25 was Chuffy Wallington, Stephen’s friend, the man who was supposed to have been his second at the fateful duel, who could not possibly have been in Dorset during the afternoon yet at a dinner in London that same evening …

Merryn’s hand shook so much as she scribbled down the details that her writing was barely legible. She closed the book carefully and got to her feet. She felt exhausted, her head aching. It was only a tiny scrap of evidence but it felt monumental to her, another fragment in the jigsaw that painted a very different picture of the events on the day of Stephen’s death.

She shuffled the papers together and got to her feet, placing the precious piece of paper in her pocket.

“I apologize,” she said to the hovering clerk. “I fear that I cannot concentrate further this morning. I will call to arrange another appointment. Good day and thank you for your assistance.”

She turned to go. Garrick Farne had not moved, not shown by one flicker of a muscle that he had even noticed her departure. Merryn slapped her gloves into the palm of her other hand and stalked toward the door. She resisted the urge to look back at Garrick even though she was sure he was watching her. Her nape tickled with awareness and the goose bumps rose over her whole body.

She was within three feet of the door when Garrick stepped out from behind the nearest bookcase and directly into her path.

NOW THAT SHE WAS CLEAN and it was daylight, Garrick could see that Lady Merryn Fenner was everything that he had imagined the previous night. She was a perfect miniature, tiny, blonde, beautiful. And she had the most vivid blue eyes that he had ever seen. There was something fierce in them, a challenge that was curiously at odds with the shabby bluestocking garb she wore. Her strength of character and intense spirit made a mockery of the dull blue gown, the dowdy bonnet and the demure gloves and reticule. They were just local color, disguise even. Garrick could see through her at once. She was not a simple society miss.

She had told him the previous night that she was five and twenty. It surprised him. He thought she looked younger. She was a good actress, he thought. That night in his bedroom she had looked small and defenseless, like the waif from the streets she claimed to be. He had been halfway to believing her story that she was homeless and in need of shelter. Had it not been for the cut-glass accent and the high quality of her gown he might have fallen for the lie. She was like quicksilver, changeable, slipping through his fingers. She had run from him before. This time, though, she would not escape.

He could see that she had absolutely no desire to speak with him. The stiffness with which she held herself and her furtive glances toward the nearest exit told him she wanted nothing more than to flee. That was understandable. And this was not, perhaps, the best place to force a confrontation, in the august surroundings of the King’s Library, with the King’s librarian and his assistants watching avidly from behind a stack of books. But that was too bad. He could not risk her running out on him again.

Her scent, that elusive fragrance of bluebells, wrapped about him and made his body clench with longing. Even without Hammond’s information Garrick thought that he would have known at once that she was the woman he had found in his bedroom, the woman who had slept in his bed, an intimacy that had haunted his thoughts ever since. He could picture Merryn between his sheets all too easily, her slight, lissom body lying where his had lain, her hair spread across his pillow, and her bare skin against the cool linen. He felt as though she had somehow imprinted herself on him and he could not break free.

She was looking at him with impatience and disdain, as though he was some importunate suitor or writer of particularly bad sonnets.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said easily, “in case I was the cause of your distraction this morning.”

He saw her bite her lip and knew that she was caught between the desire to give him a set down for his presumption and the equally strong desire to cut him dead and run away. The latter urge won out.

“I am sorry,” she said, “that it is quite impossible for me to talk to a gentleman to whom I have not been formally introduced. Excuse me.”

She made to pass him but Garrick put a hand on her arm. He lowered his voice and spoke softly in her ear. “Some might say that our informal introduction—in my bedroom two nights ago—would suffice as a basis for our acquaintance.”

He saw that she was a little shocked at his direct approach. No doubt she had not expected him to be quite so blunt. Gentlemen, generally, did not speak so frankly to a lady. Her body stiffened, her blue gaze narrowed. Her perfect bow of a mouth pursed in a way that made Garrick want to kiss her. The urge hit him hard, squarely in the stomach. He felt as though the breath had been knocked from his lungs, felt a hot pull of desire that went straight to his head and also lower down as well.

Something of his feelings must have shown in his face for he saw the blue of Merryn’s eyes heat and intensify for a moment as though responding to his need. Her lips parted on a tiny, startled gasp. He took a step forward, narrowing the distance between them to nothing. But already she was retreating, slipping away, the shimmer of desire in her eyes banished by cold disdain.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I think you mistake me for quite another lady.” There was the slightest emphasis on the word lady. “I am not the sort of woman to be found in any man’s bedchamber. That would be most inappropriate.”

She turned toward the door again and Garrick leaned one hand against the jamb to bar her way. “You ran away last time,” he said. “You are not going to do so now.”

Her blue eyes flashed ice. “I do not take direction from you, your grace.”

“So you do at least know who I am,” Garrick said gently. “I thought you were claiming that we had never met?”

She looked irritated to have been caught out. “I heard Sir Frederick mention your name, that is all.”

Garrick smiled. “How disappointing to discover that you did not deliberately seek to learn my identity,” he murmured.

She flicked him a look of polite scorn. “I am sure that your grace’s self-confidence will survive the blow.”

“I know your name, too,” Garrick said. “You are Lady Merryn Fenner.”

Now there was no doubting her dismay. She stiffened. Her lips pressed together in annoyance. Then she raised her chin and looked him straight in the eyes. She did not deny it.

“I am,” she said. “I am Merryn Fenner.”

Garrick admired both her frankness and her intellect. In that second she had evidently weighed up the fact that he knew her true identity and she had decided that there was nothing to be gained in denying it. Garrick doubted, however, that he had won anything beyond that one point. Merryn Fenner, he was beginning to suspect, would be a stimulating adversary.

There was a silence, as though she was waiting for him to say something. Garrick wondered if she expected him to apologize. He regretted Stephen Fenner’s death every day but any conventional words of condolence would seem at best hollow, at worst hypocritical. And he doubted that any words of his would make the slightest difference to Merryn’s feelings. He had killed Stephen. She hated him for it. He could tell. He could feel the emotion in her, heated, dark, driven.

“What were you doing in my house?” he asked. “Were you telling the truth when you said you were homeless? Sleeping on the streets? Forced to take shelter where you can?”

For a moment his imagination presented him with appalling scenes of the Fenner girls destitute because of his actions all those years before. He had known that the Earl had died a bare year after his son and heir but he had not known what had happened to the daughters. He had been living in exile then, trying to come to terms with the fact that he had failed to save Kitty from the demons and the misery that had haunted her, trying to die in the service of his country and salvage some honor from disaster.

Merryn Fenner was looking at him thoughtfully with those blue, blue eyes. “It is true that my sisters and I lost our fortunes after our father died,” she said, and the guilt that stalked Garrick’s footsteps tugged at him again.

“But that is not the reason that I … borrowed … your bed,” she finished. She turned away slightly, picking up a book from the stack on the table beside them, absently fingering the spine. “I was making a point.” She cast him a glance under her lashes. “Farne House is defenseless, your grace, easily taken.” Her voice was soft. If it had been anyone else Garrick would have thought she was making idle conversation but when she looked up and met his gaze her eyes were fierce. “You should be careful,” she said, “that your secrets are not so … vulnerable.”

Garrick straightened, his eyes narrowing. It was extraordinary that the conversation had moved so swiftly. Lady Merryn Fenner wasted no time. And she was very open in her hostility to him. He suspected that it was because she felt so strongly. He had met men who were as direct but seldom a woman. And with Merryn there was something else, some powerful bond between them that was as undeniable as it was unexpected. Perhaps it had been kindled by her hatred of him, but whatever the cause, it burned in her like a cold flame.

“Are you threatening me, Lady Merryn?” he asked slowly.

“I would do nothing so vulgar as to make threats.” She gave him a proper smile this time. It lit her eyes, making them even more spectacular. “I am warning you,” she said, “that those matters you thought were long buried are going to come out into the light and then …” She shrugged. “Well, you risk losing many of the things that you value, I think.”

“And what do you think that I value?” Garrick asked.

He saw the tiny frown that touched her forehead as she realized that she did not actually know, that she had made assumptions. “Your title? Your fortune?” she hazarded. “Your life?”

“Your title, your fortune, your life …”

Garrick cared little for the Dukedom, beyond the fact that he had a responsibility to all the people who served it. He had often wished it away, thought that one of his younger brothers would have relished the role so much more than he, would have sat in the House of Lords and reveled in his own pomp. As for his fortune, it enabled him to do the things that he wanted and it would be an ungrateful man who did not value that. It also enabled him to protect those who needed him. And then there was his life … He smiled ironically. After Stephen Fenner had died he had thought his life worth nothing. He had tried to discard it on many occasions. He could find nothing to do with it, no matter how he tried. He wondered sometimes if that was his penance for killing a man—that no matter how he tried to atone, nothing would seem good enough, no purpose great enough.

“Do you intend to take those things from me?” he asked now. “Do you seek my death? Because I killed your brother and ruined your life?”

Merryn did not flinch at his deliberately brutal choice of words. She put the book back on the pile very precisely. “Yes,” she said. “I loved my brother and I believe that he deserves justice.” For a moment Garrick saw her glacial coolness splinter into a thousand tiny fragments of pain. “I want to take everything away from you, your grace,” she said. “We lost everything because of you. You deserve to know how that feels.”

Garrick kept his eyes on her face. “What do you intend to do?” he asked.

She raised her brows. “I intend to find out the truth,” she said. “I know there was no duel. I know you shot Stephen in cold blood. I am going to find out what really happened and then …” She stopped and Garrick wondered if she really had the hardihood to go through with it, to see him hang. He saw her swallow hard, saw a tremor go through her.

“And then you will hand the evidence to the authorities and watch me swing on the end of a silken rope,” he said.

Her gaze jerked up. “I …” She blinked. Her gaze locked with his. There was confusion in the depths of her eyes. She looked very young. Garrick felt the most enormous compassion for her. Merryn Fenner was brave and she was honest and she wanted justice and he admired that. But he also knew that if the truth came out she would be horribly disillusioned, all her memories tarnished and her life in ruins once again. Besides, there were others who deserved justice, too, others he had sworn to protect on that terrible day that Stephen had died. He could not permit Merryn to expose them to all the horror that the truth would bring.

“You won’t find any evidence,” Garrick said, and saw the softness fade from her eyes to be replaced by triumph.

“I already have,” she said. For a moment her hand slid to her pocket in a brief, betraying gesture. “I have several pieces of evidence already and I will amass more. You may be sure of it.”

The only thing that Garrick was sure of was that he had to know what she had discovered and he had to stop her. It was fortunate, he thought, that he had not lost all of his rake’s instincts. Without any warning he pulled the ribbons of her bonnet and pushed it back off her head. She gave a little squeak of surprise, a squeak that was muffled against his mouth as he put an arm around her waist and drew her in for a ruthless kiss. Her lips parted on a gasp, opening beneath his. It was the response of an innocent who had never been kissed before. So he had been correct in his initial judgment of her—despite her somewhat unorthodox lifestyle Merryn Fenner was untouched. The realization shot Garrick through with a bolt of lust.

He made no concessions to her inexperience. The kiss was deep, irresistible, a possession. He slid his tongue into her mouth and felt her give a tiny groan. Garrick felt her heat and her response and for a moment he was so overwhelmed that he almost forgot what he was supposed to be doing. His world narrowed to the woman in his arms, the taste and the scent of her, the need to claim her with a primitive desire that all but shattered his control.

He pulled himself back from the brink, released her gently and watched as she opened her eyes. They were a deep, unfocused blue. She pressed her fingers to her lips. They looked plush and red and slightly swollen from his kisses. Garrick’s body tightened further. On one level the kiss had not been the wisest move since it had inflamed his already heated desire for her. On another he had achieved exactly what he had set out to do.

Merryn looked dizzy. Then she blinked the dizziness away and a look of fury came into her eyes.

“I’ve never been kissed before,” she snapped, “and I certainly didn’t want you to be the first.”

“I would apologize,” Garrick said, “but that would be dishonest of me.”

She gave him another look of searing scorn and he watched as she turned and walked smartly away from him, her heels tapping furiously on the marble floor. She went out and closed the door behind her with a sharp snap. Garrick moved across to the window. Presently she appeared again in the courtyard beyond, walking briskly away from the library. She had not replaced her bonnet and the autumn sunlight fell on her silver gilt hair, spinning it into bright, dazzling threads. She was rubbing her head as though it ached. The gesture gave Garrick an odd pang of compassion. She looked very small but upright, dauntless, brave.

Garrick did not take his eyes from her and after a moment she turned and looked over her shoulder, her gaze picking him out at the window. He saw her footsteps falter. For a second their gazes locked and then she raised her chin and turned smartly on her heel, whisking around the corner of the building and out of his sight.

“Your grace?” Barnard touched his arm, recalling him to the present. He was looking, Garrick thought, as flustered as a man might when a Duke had had the bad manners to kiss a lady in the King’s Library. “Your grace,” the librarian repeated, red in the face, spluttering. “Is all quite well?”

“My apologies, Barnard,” Garrick said smoothly. “I did not intend to cause a disturbance.”

Barnard shook his head. Garrick could tell that the librarian was torn between upbraiding him for his appalling want of conduct and the fear of upsetting one of the premier peers in the realm.

“It is no matter, your grace,” Barnard spluttered eventually. “I trust there is no problem with the young lady, though? I take it she is a lady? She had impeccable references so I had no hesitation in agreeing to her request for access to the catalog.”

Garrick almost laughed aloud. Evidently Barnard’s greatest concern was that he might have admitted a woman of ill repute to the King’s Library by mistake.

“Lady Merryn is a noted bluestocking and most definitely a lady,” Garrick said. “The unfortunate incident—” he cleared his throat “—should not be seen as any reflection upon her moral character or indeed her suitability to be permitted to use the King’s Library. I am afraid—” he tried to look appropriately penitent “—that I have a great admiration for Lady Merryn and in that moment it overwhelmed me. The fault is entirely mine.”

“Well,” Sir Frederick said, “I trust that it will not happen again, your grace. Such a shocking thing!”

“Absolutely not,” Garrick said. “My apologies once again.”

After the librarian, partially mollified, had retreated to his desk, Garrick went across to a quiet table and took a seat. He retrieved the piece of paper he had taken from Merryn’s pocket in the throes of their kiss. He unfolded it.

It was an entry from the London Chronicle of July 26, the day after Stephen Fenner had died, and it gave the guest list for a dinner at Lord and Lady Denman’s house the previous night. Garrick immediately saw the name of Chuffy Wallington and recognized the significance. He knew Merryn would have known it, too.

Garrick felt his apprehension tighten. He was sure that if he asked Sir Frederick Barnard, the librarian would confirm that Merryn was searching through all the magazines and periodicals that related to the period around her brother’s death. He wondered what else she had already found. He had thought that all the reports of the Fenner scandal told the same story. He had understood that his father, the Earl of Fenner and Lord Scott had made sure of it, suppressing all other reports. But it was so easy for something to be overlooked, for a detail to slip through the cracks. All it took then was for someone like Merryn, someone passionate about justice, to dig away and discover a discrepancy and for the whole house of cards to start to fall.

Garrick could see all the careful plans starting to unravel, all the innocents he had protected being exposed to the blinding light of scandal. Could he trust Merryn Fenner with the truth? The idea had a certain appeal because he knew instinctively that Merryn was an honest person and he wanted to meet her honesty with equal openness. He dismissed the idea reluctantly. It would surely be madness to trust her when she had expressed her desire to see him ruined, swinging on the end of a silken rope. No, the only thing that he could do was to continue to protect those who needed him and try to find out just what it was that she knew. Then he had to stop her pursuing the matter any further. He felt the apprehension tighten in his gut like a vise.

Garrick tucked the piece of paper into his pocket and went out. He could still hear Merryn’s voice, soft but full of accusation.

“We lost everything because of you …” He had not defended himself against any of her allegations. He could not. In one way or another they were all true.




CHAPTER FOUR


TOM HAD FELT RESTLESS after Merryn had left to go to the Octagon Library. He had managed to apply himself to several hours of paperwork but after a while he had pushed the documents aside and had wandered across to the window and stood looking out over the tumble of roofs stretching away to the east. The sun had gone and now the sky was a pearly-gray and the streets were slick with rain. The river looked sullen and dark, and evening was already closing in. Standing here, he could see exactly where he had come from, see St. Giles’s pier and the ships tied up for unloading, see the thicket of alleyways and narrow passages where once he had lived. He had come a long way; the quick, observant child had turned his talent for pickpocketing and shoplifting into a skill for finding items and catching people, poacher turned gamekeeper. But he liked to work here within a stone’s throw of the Thames. It reminded him of how far he had climbed—and how far he still had to go.

There was a knock and then the outer door of the office flew open imperiously. Tom turned to find himself confronting a young woman of about three and twenty, a very beautiful young woman, tall and statuesque. Amazonian would probably have been the word Tom would have used had he been a quarter as well read as Merryn. As he was not, and was also a man who appreciated good-looking women, his response was less intellectual and more physical.

“Mr. Bradshaw?” the woman said. Her voice was husky. It seemed to promise all manner of erotic delight. Or perhaps, Tom thought a little hazily, that was simply wishful thinking on his part. She crossed the office to him and held out a hand. Her perfume enveloped him, making his head spin. She was beautifully and expensively gowned but there was something not quite demure about her style, her skirts clinging a little too closely to her thighs, perhaps, with the material sliding over her like a seductive caress. The neckline of her gown plunged low and a diamond brooch sparkled between her breasts, accentuating the deep V-shape. Tom said the first thing that came into his head.

“You should not wear jewelry like that around here, especially after dark. You are asking to be robbed.”

She laughed. She did not seem remotely offended. “Good advice,” she said. She leaned closer. Tom could feel the heat of her skin. “All my jewelry is paste,” she whispered. “I sold the proper stuff years ago.”

A counterfeit lady in more ways than one, Tom thought. He took a step back and tried to concentrate.

“How may I help you, ma’am?” he asked.

She liked the courtesy. A small smile played about her lips. “I hear you’re the best,” she said.

Tom smiled back. “That depends on what you want.”

Her gaze swept over him comprehensively, making her needs quite explicit. “I’ve yet to meet a man who did not claim to be the best at everything,” she murmured.

“I’d rather be an expert in one thing than master of none,” Tom said. He held the chair for her then slid behind his desk. “I don’t believe you introduced yourself,” he added.

Her eyes gleamed. “I prefer not to do so.”

Tom shrugged. He had her measure now. She was a spoiled little rich, and possibly titled, girl, who had been indulged—or neglected—when younger and as a result had run wild. She was used to getting her own way and she was probably nowhere near as sophisticated as she pretended. He wondered what her parents or guardians were thinking to give her so much freedom to get into trouble. But then, she was not so young that she should not know better and the moral guidance of gently bred young women was not his affair.

“So how may I help you?” he repeated.

She gave him a sideways glance from slanting cat’s eyes. “I … need you to find someone for me.”

“Man or woman?” Tom said.

She bit her lip. “It’s a child.”

“Yours?” Tom asked.

Her look poured scorn. “Please! I’m not so careless.”

Tom was not sure he believed her. He could quite easily see her falling from grace as a young girl and being parceled off to give birth secretly. The baby would be given away, the matter hushed up. It was a story he came across often enough, secrets and lies, his bread and butter.

“Very well then,” he said. “If not yours, whose?”

“The Duke of Farne’s.”

Tom almost snapped his quill in half. “I beg your pardon?”

She frowned at him. “I want you to find Garrick Farne’s child.”

“Garrick Farne doesn’t have any children,” Tom said.

“Precisely.” She put her head on one side, looked at him. “I thought you were supposed to be good at this?”

“All right,” Tom said. “You’re alleging that Garrick Farne has an illegitimate child whose existence he has suppressed—for whatever reason—and you want to find out who the child is and where he or she is?”

She inclined her head. “That is correct.”

“Why?” Tom asked.

She fidgeted. “I did not think I was required to explain my reasons to you. I thought I only needed to ask. And to pay.”

Strictly speaking she was correct, Tom thought. He took plenty of jobs for the money and asked no questions, but in this case he was curious.

“Humor me,” he said.

She looked at him, sighed. “Look, my name is Harriet Knight and I am—I was—the late Duke of Farne’s ward.”

So this, Tom thought, was the woman Merryn said Garrick Farne had thrown out of his bedroom. He looked at the clinging silk gown, the straining breasts and the knowing glint in her eyes. Perhaps the rumors about Farne were true, Tom thought, that he had buried his heart with his wife, that he had renounced the reckless libertinism of his youth and that he lived like a monk. A man would have to be made of stone not to have some sort of physical response to Harriet Knight.

“Why do you want to find Farne’s by-blow?” he asked bluntly.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “To care for him or her?”

Now it was Tom’s turn. “Please!” he said. “Do I look as though I would fall for that?”

She gave him a long, slow smile. “All right. The truth is …” She paused. “I’m curious. I heard things—about an affair, about a child. When Garrick’s wife died I was only young, but I was inquisitive. I used to listen at doors. And I heard the Duke, my guardian, talking about a baby, finding a place for it with a respectable family, paying them an income … Even though I was only in my teens I knew that Garrick was a terrible rake.” Her eyes sparkled. “Truth to tell, it made him most frightfully attractive to me.” The sparkle died. She sounded sulky. “So I thought I would like to know what happened to it, one way or the other.” She sat back and looked expectantly at him.

“Why now?” Tom said. “Why wait so long to ask questions?”

Harriet shrugged. “Well, I want to know because …” She fidgeted with the clasp of her reticule, avoiding his eyes.

“You want to know because it will give you a hold of some sort over Farne,” Tom said. “You want to embarrass him for some reason.”

Harriet looked pained. “That’s very frank.” Her eyelashes fluttered. For a second she was the perfect facsimile of the delicate society debutante. “I wanted to marry Garrick,” she said. “He turned me down and sent me away. He thinks I am on my way to Sussex now to stay with his mother.” Her lip curled. “Do I look the sort of girl who wishes to rot in the countryside with a dowager aunt?”

“Not at all,” Tom said dryly. “How unappreciative of Farne to reject you.” Harriet Knight, he thought, must have wanted Garrick Farne for a very long time, probably since those teenage days when she had had a tendre for him. No wonder she nursed such resentment. He stood up and came round to the front of the desk. “Take my advice, Miss Knight—”

“Lady Harriet,” she corrected.

Tom grinned. “Take my advice, Lady Harriet. Seeking to get back at Garrick Farne through broadcasting information about his bastard child will not give you the satisfaction you crave, nor will it persuade him to marry you.”

Harriet pouted. “It would make me feel better,” she said. “I like revenge.”

“You’ll have to stand in line,” Tom muttered.

Harriet’s big green eyes opened wide. “I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing,” Tom said. He sighed. “Surely the best revenge would be to show Farne what he was missing? Make a spectacular marriage, run off with someone else instead of hankering after him—”

“He wouldn’t care,” Harriet said sulkily. “He cares for nothing. I want him to notice me.”

“Well, he will surely do that if you make him the talk of the ton,” Tom said dryly. He shook his head. “Lady Harriet, please reconsider—”

She shook her head, silencing him. “If you do not help me,” she said, “I will simply go to someone who can.”

That, Tom thought, was a problem. The information that Harriet had provided was very interesting. It might prove useful to him. Her involvement, on the other hand, was a complication he could do well without. But Harriet Knight, he thought, was spoiled and willful and unused to people turning her down. If he refused her custom she would take it elsewhere, and just at the moment Tom really did not want another investigator digging into Farne’s business. They might discover what Merryn was doing. They might even discover his own interest in the case. And then all hell would break loose.

“Very well,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll take your business.”

Harriet gave a little, excited wiggle. There was no doubting that she was pleased.

“There is just one small thing …” she murmured. She stood up and came over to him, pinning him between her body and the desk. Her breasts pressed against his chest, soft and warm and very large.

“I can’t afford to pay you,” she murmured again, as Tom tried not to fix his gaze on her cleavage. “I have already outrun my allowance for this quarter. So—” she slid a hand down his chest “—we shall have to come to some other arrangement.”

“That isn’t how I do business,” Tom croaked.

“Who said anything about business?” Harriet said. Her hand slid over his thigh, cupping his crotch.

“How lovely,” she breathed hotly into his ear. “You are endowed with more than a quick intellect.”

She kissed him before he could object again, her naughty tongue darting into his mouth and killing his protests, such as they were, stone dead. She kissed him avidly, insatiably, her hands roaming over his chest, slipping beneath his shirt, burrowing under the band of his pantaloons. Tom thought faintly that his initial assessment of her as more innocent than she appeared had been embarrassingly at fault.

After that it all became very fast, slippery, heated and, when Tom looked back on it, utterly unbelievable. Harriet pushed him back so that he was sitting on his desk and opened his pantaloons with such seductive efficiency that his cock sprang out, already rock-hard. She climbed on top of him, knees braced on each side of him on the desktop, and slid down, engulfing him in her tight, slick warmth. Tom’s groan almost shattered the windows and certainly caused the sleeping seagulls to rise from the roof with angry cries. He quickly discovered that Harriet was wearing no underwear of any kind and she pulled down the neckline of her gown so that her generous breasts bounced in his face with each thrust and slide. She came quickly and jumped off him, leaving Tom almost speechless with thwarted desire. But then she turned and bent over the desk in mute invitation. Tom was not slow to take the offer. He pulled up her silken skirts and plundered her body deeply, the inkpot and quills flying as the desk rocked, the pile of client folders spilling all their secrets onto the floor in a cascade of paper.

Afterward Harriet gave him a little smile. “My guardian’s groom first had me when I was sixteen.” Her eyes gleamed. “I’m afraid that I have had a taste for the lower orders ever since.”

Which, Tom thought, made his place explicitly clear.

She kissed him lingeringly and was gone.

It took Tom a fair while to recover the thinking part of his anatomy and even longer to tidy his office and mop up the inkstains, but when he was finally sitting at his desk again and drinking a restorative glass of brandy his mind returned to the idea of Garrick Farne’s by-blow. If Harriet had been in her teens at the time of Kitty Northesk’s death then the timing of the revelations about a baby must have coincided closely with the scandal of Stephen Fenner’s murder. Tom had a good instinct for secrets and he felt strongly that the two scandals must be connected in some way. If the information on the child was as deeply buried as that relating to the Fenner duel it would be difficult but not impossible to find it out. Harriet had not been mistaken; he really was the best.

Tom wondered when Harriet would return for an update on his progress. He looked forward to exacting more payment. His body felt replete and even though his mind was telling him that mixing business with pleasure with the rapacious Lady Harriet was possibly the most ill-judged action of his life, he could not really regret it. He knew that he needed to keep a clear head for the Farne case, but Harriet had proved too tempting to resist. She had fallen into his lap like a gift in more ways than one and he had never been a man to turn down an opportunity.

He sat back in his chair and looked out across the river. He was sure he could manage this situation, complex as it was becoming. Merryn was investigating the circumstances surrounding the duel and it was easy to manipulate her because she hated Farne and wanted justice. Tom was not particularly taken with the concept of justice himself; he thought it was ridiculously idealistic. Still, it served to keep Merryn on his side. Meanwhile Harriet had provided him with some additional information that he would look into and then he would keep anything useful for himself. And after that … Tom paused in contemplation of his grand plan. After that he might blackmail Farne if it served his purposes, or even allow Merryn to expose the Duke as a murderer if he chose. Having the power to decide, holding the Dukedom of Farne in the palm of his hand, would be the ultimate gift, all that he had ever wanted. He finished the brandy. It had been a very good day indeed.

MERRYN WALKED HOME quickly from the Octagon Library, the tap of her footsteps on the cobbles echoing the turmoil inside her. How dared Garrick Farne kiss her, and in such an abrupt, arrogant and utterly masterful manner that had, she was obliged to admit to herself, completely swept her away. The man was insolent and entirely disrespectful, following her to the library, unmasking her, challenging her over her plans to ruin him. He had expressed not one word of regret for Stephen’s death. For a moment Merryn thought about that and it hurt her horribly. Garrick Farne was indifferent to the tragedy he had caused and for that, she thought, he deserved to be punished.

She had the evidence now, another little piece to add to the pattern that was starting to show a very different picture from the official version. She felt hot and triumphant. Garrick might discount what she was doing, he might confidently claim that she would find no evidence to prove him a criminal, but she knew otherwise. She slid her hand into the pocket of her pelisse, her gloved fingers searching for the little piece of paper with the newspaper entry recorded on it.

There was nothing there.

Merryn stopped dead, causing a young solicitor’s clerk to cannon into her and rebound with an apology and look of surprise. She ignored him, searching frantically now, turning the pocket inside out. Nothing. The empty space mocked her.

Perhaps she had dropped the paper somewhere along the way, in the library, or out here in the street. Her heart missed a beat. What a confounded nuisance if she had. If it were in the library then there was an outside chance that Garrick Farne might pick it up … She stopped again.

“The low, despicable, devious, loathsome, odious toad!” she exclaimed. A lady and gentleman passing by, arm in arm, looked at her with some concern. Merryn stamped her foot. It hurt. It did not relieve her fury.

She could see it all now. Tears of anger and frustration stung her eyes. She replayed in her mind the exchange with Garrick.

You won’t find any evidence …

I already have …

How had he known where to find the paper? Had he seen her slide it into her pocket in the library? But she had been so careful … She started to walk again, hands thrust deep into her pockets, her head down, shoulders hunched. It did not matter how Garrick had known. What mattered was that now he knew what she was doing. He knew she was gathering evidence and he knew her intention. As soon as he realized she was a threat he had moved to discover exactly what she intended. He had hired someone to identify her and then he had come after her.

Tom had been right. Garrick Farne was a dangerous man. She had underestimated him.

Merryn bit her bottom lip hard. It was still tender from Garrick’s kiss and for a moment an echo of sensation coursed through her, heating her skin, making her burn with a mixture of hopeless arousal and complete mortification. She hated Garrick Farne but for a second she had thought, foolishly, wildly, that he might have kissed her because he wanted to. She had enjoyed it far more than she should have done and that had puzzled her. Now she felt fury as well as shame. Garrick Farne had once been a rake and he had used every ounce of that experience to trick her. He had kissed her with deliberate intent, to manipulate her—to pick her pocket





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