Mistress by Midnight (18 page)

Garrick’s hands moved over her, stripping away her clothes, exposing her to his gaze and his touch. She felt strange, voluptuous, a creature of feeling and sensation where before she had been driven only by thought and reason. The fierce demand of her senses was like nothing she had known before. It was insatiable, a desperate need. She arched to each caress, helpless beneath the long, slow strokes of his hands. His mouth at her breast was exquisite torment, impelling her deeper into a dark spiral that wound her body as tight as a drum.

She felt him shift above her, spreading her thighs. The cool air touched her
there;
she moaned. There was an ache deep inside her that maddened her now, demanding release, and she grabbed his hips and pulled him down to her. She felt the slide of his skin against hers and knew he was naked and exultation burst inside her like the sun. A moment, and then he thrust hard, taking her with such consuming wildness that Merryn cried out in shock and fierce delight. She felt her body yield, surrendering to his, and felt the heat uncurl and spread through her, setting her trembling uncontrollably. He drove into her again, and again, his mouth ravaging hers, the rhythm of his possession a primitive beat in her blood. Her skin felt slick and hot, the muscles of her stomach jumping. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and lifted her body to meet the thrust of his and felt herself tangle in a swirl of sensation as the world shattered. Then she was falling and falling into star-spangled darkness. She heard Garrick groan her name, felt her body clasp his as he emptied himself into her, and clung to him desperately as the only safe thing in a tumultuous new world.

She was not sure how long she lay there, her mind utterly blank for once, all thoughts and reason fled, aware of nothing but shock and pure, wicked exhilaration. She had never felt like this before, never dreamed of feeling like this. For once she let her mind lie quiescent and simply allowed herself to experience sensation. Her body felt lush and ripe and replete. She had had no notion it could give her so much pleasure. She felt stunned to discover it.

She was dimly aware of Garrick lifting her, wrapping something about her, and then she sank deeply into the softest, deepest mattress she had ever known. She was so drained by bliss that she drifted between waking and sleeping. Somewhere at the back of her mind reality stirred, but she pushed any thoughts away before they could touch her with their cold truth.

After a while she opened her eyes and looked about her. The room was lit by the strengthening glow of the dawn now. In its light she could see Garrick stretched out beside her and her throat dried to look at him. He was masculine perfection, like the statues she had studied in the London museums. But Garrick was real, hard muscle and smooth tawny skin, his auburn hair tumbling across his brow, magnificent in his nakedness.

He leaned over and pressed soft kisses against her brow, her eyelids, her cheeks, her throat. His breath stirred her hair. She could smell the scent of his skin mingled with salt sweat and dust, and her head spun.

“It should not have been like that…” His voice was soft. “I am sorry.”

Dimly she understood what he meant. It had been wild and uncontrolled, no gentle introduction for a virgin to the art of love. Yet she had not wanted that. She had wanted him. She had wanted to celebrate their escape, the triumph of life over death. But now… The thoughts hovering in the shadows at the edge of her mind drew a little closer. She felt cold. Regrets, memories… She could not face them yet.

“Garrick—”

She reached for him, wanting to ward off the shade and drive away thought, if only for a little longer. She saw him hesitate. Then he brushed his lips against hers. Her heart fluttered. The shadows fled.

This time the kiss was slower, gentler. His mouth explored hers, teasing her, his tongue dancing with hers. Merryn quivered as an echo of their previous passion shook her. The heat and pleasure shimmered through her, softer this time, more persuasive, coiling through her body with seductive warmth. She reached for Garrick again but he shook his head, pushing her back against the bed, sliding his hands down her body in a caress that made her skin shiver and ache with need.

“Not now, not yet…” His head dipped to her breast and once again her mind swirled away to that hot dark place where pleasure drove her on. She felt his fingers against the soft skin of her inner thigh, parting her, touching her intimately. The heat built inside her as he stroked; Merryn dug her fingers into the bed and shifted against the covers, desperate to ease the torment.

Garrick slid something beneath her hips, raising her up. The rough silkiness of velvet abraded her. Tumbled on the bed, abandoned and unrestrained, she felt the brush of his cheek against her thigh, then the tip of his tongue at her core, trailing shattering pleasure. She arched helplessly, moaning with shock and delight. This was beyond any ecstasy she had experienced before. She felt as though her body was melting as white-hot rapture consumed her.

This time he entered her slowly while her body was still clenching with intense bliss and she gasped to feel him take her. It seemed impossible. She was tight; her climax still rippled through her belly in endless waves. She writhed beneath him and he held her hips down against the velvet and slid inside her gently, inexorably. Merryn had thought that her body could not take any further sensation but Garrick raised himself above her, pushing the tangled hair away from her flushed face, kissing her with the same deep intimacy with which he took her body.

“Open your eyes,” he said softly, and her lashes fluttered open so that she met the dark molten heat in his. His body plundered hers with slow, relentless strokes, his eyes held hers. She could not break the connection between them, did not want to, captured and held by the fierce passion beneath his gentleness. With aching tenderness he drove her to the edge again and she hung there for endless moments, her body strung out with acute desire, her mind reeling with the onslaught of unimaginable pleasure. And then she fell again, shocked beyond measure, powerless, her mind and body dazzled.

Delicious exhaustion washed through her. She could not move other than to curl against him and succumb utterly to sleep, Garrick’s arms about her, his body curved protectively about hers.

Merryn did not know how long she slept for but when she awoke it was to hear a hammering at the door and the sound of voices in the corridor outside and then the room was full of people. There was Joanna and Alex and Tess and a whole host of others whom she did not recognize but who were all staring at her, some in shock, some in horror, all in appalled surprise. Merryn blinked as she opened her eyes fully and the last shreds of the dream fled. Now she could not escape the thoughts that crowded back into her mind.

The room she was lying in was, self-evidently, a bordello. Either that or the owner of the house had very exotic tastes. The bed was covered in lush pink silk and draped with diaphanous curtains trimmed with silver and gold. On the dresser lay a wicked-looking whip with a shiny, carved handle. Rich velvet cushions lay scattered across the room. Merryn’s gaze fell on one lying on the bedcover and she blushed. The blush spread down her throat and across her whole body, naked as it was beneath the pink silk cover. She turned her head very slowly. Garrick was lying beside her still, despite the crush of people now in the room, deeply asleep. One strong brown arm lay possessively across her stomach, drawing her close to his side.

No wonder he was still sleeping. He must have been exhausted—for various reasons. The memories slid into her head like a disconnected pattern: Garrick comforting her when she had woken in terror in the darkness of the night, Garrick protecting her with his body when the walls had fallen, Garrick’s hands moving over her with such sure skill and endless pleasure. Garrick. Her lover.

She had slept with her enemy, the man who had killed her brother.

A wave of shock and self-loathing hit her so hard that she turned cold to her bones. The sickness rose in her throat. She was lying naked in a bordello with a man who was her sworn enemy. She had allowed him the most impossible intimacies with her body. She had lost her virginity. She was ruined.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“F
ARNE.”

Alex Grant’s tone was colder than the polar ice, his gray gaze hard as flint. In fact, Garrick reflected ruefully, he had had a warmer welcome from Spanish guerrillas than he was getting now from Lord Grant. Which was hardly surprising. He had comprehensively ruined the reputation of Grant’s sister-in-law and plunged the family into outrageous scandal. The only mystery was why Grant was wasting any time at all in speaking to him rather than simply putting a bullet through him.

“A glass of wine?” Alex asked, gesturing to the decanter that sat on the rosewood library table. “Or perhaps—” his gaze appraised Garrick’s face keenly “—we should make that brandy?”

“Thank you,” Garrick said. He felt a tiny amount of tension slip from his shoulders. So they were to be civilized about this. With a man such as Grant, who had allegedly wrestled a polar bear single-handed and had successfully saved his crew from certain death trapped in the Arctic ice, one could not be sure. Grant was a gentleman, of course, but Garrick was all too aware that he had broken every last tenet of honorable behavior and deserved no clemency.

“I cannot call you out,” Alex said precisely, as though reading Garrick’s thoughts. He strolled across to the decanter, poured for both of them and handed Garrick his glass. His gaze was still as cold as the polar sea. “Please do not misunderstand me,” he continued. “The idea has some appeal.” His gaze went to the pristine white bandage about Garrick’s left wrist. “Though I would wait until you were recovered, of course. Killing a wounded man is not my style.”

Garrick prudently kept quiet. He was not at all sure that Grant was joking.

“However,” Alex Grant continued, in a level tone, “there has already been one scandalous duel between our two families. I could not countenance distressing my wife with another.” He took a mouthful of brandy. “And then there is Merryn to consider. I do not believe that for me to kill you would help her in any way.”

“I would like to marry Lady Merryn,” Garrick said. He chose his words carefully. Others would not serve. “I want her. I wanted her from the first. I will always want her…”

He took a deep breath. There was nothing civilized about his thoughts or his desires or his need for Merryn Fenner, particularly now that he had taken her exquisite body once—twice—and burned for more.

He shifted in his chair. He knew that it was not simply desire that drove him, strong as that was. He had seen Merryn’s courage and her grace under pressure. He had held her in the darkest night and protected her from harm. He had saved her life and she had saved his. They were bound together now more tightly than they had ever been.

Regret raked him, opening old scars. He was not worthy to marry Merryn. He knew it. What could he give her, with his flawed honor and his equally damaged soul? Yet now he had to offer her marriage or be branded even more of a dishonorable scoundrel. He was trapped. There were no alternatives.

“I am aware,” he said, “that my behavior has not been that of a gentleman.”

“Not remotely,” Alex agreed, with an expressive lift of the brows.

Garrick gritted his teeth. Grant was right of course. He had lost control with Merryn, a circumstance that had never, ever happened to him before. He had been sworn to protect her and he had done so, but then she had kissed him and the desire had exploded between them and shattered every tenet of duty by which Garrick had tried to live his life. Grant was right. He had transgressed the code. He was angry with himself for it; he felt full of violence and it disturbed him. He had not felt like this for years, since the time Stephen Fenner had died. He had thought that such powerful feelings, such dangerous actions, were behind him. Yet Merryn had smashed his cold facade and brought every emotion burning to new life.

He wanted to see Merryn. It felt as though she alone could soothe the demons in him. Yet he knew it would not be that easy. He had no notion if she would even agree to see him again, let alone marry him. The hideous scene in the brothel had haunted his thoughts for an entire day and night. Merryn, throwing on her ruined clothes in a desperate frenzy of embarrassment and horror, looking at him with loathing and disbelief.

I regret every moment of what we have done and I hate myself for it…

Garrick flinched at the memory. Everything had disintegrated into tawdriness and scandal, spilling corrosive misery over an experience that had been profoundly sweet and intense. For a brief moment they had built something exquisitely tender. And then they had lost it again.

“I make no excuse,” Garrick said now, aware of Alex’s steady gaze on his face. “I take full responsibility for my actions. It was unpardonable in me.”

There was a silence. “Inexcusable, yes,” Alex said. “Inexplicable, no.”

Garrick blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

Alex shrugged. A small smile played about his lips. “Make no mistake, Farne,” he said. “I do not condone in any way what happened. But I am also no hypocrite. People died in that flood. You and Merryn had been trapped for hours, facing the possibility of death together. She told us that you saved her life. Twice.” He grimaced. “Such circumstances strain the self-control of even the strongest.”

Garrick felt a little more of the tension ease from his body. “That is more than generous of you,” he said, “but still I make no excuse.”

“Of course,” Alex said. “And I would not expect you to in all honor. So…” His tone warmed a little. “The question is what we are to do about this.”

Their eyes met. Garrick realized that he had passed the test and was glad. He was starting to like Alex Grant. Owen Purchase spoke highly of the man. Under other circumstances he imagined that they might have become friends.

“I am sincere in my desire to wed Lady Merryn,” he said, “and not simply because of the scandal. I have the greatest admiration for her.”

A small smile played about Alex’s lips. “I see,” he said, and Garrick had the disconcerting feeling that Alex saw rather more than Garrick had intended.

Alex put his glass down with a businesslike snap. “You speak well, Farne,” he said bluntly, “but you had best cut line with me. I imagine that Merryn is the last bride you would have sought under normal circumstances.”

“That’s true,” Garrick said, deciding to be equally blunt. Regret scored him again. “I did not seek to wed at all,” he said slowly. “I am not a good catch for any woman.”

Alex looked taken aback. “Surely you jest.”

“I do not mean materially,” Garrick said. “My marital history should be sufficient to dissuade any woman of sense—” He stopped.

“I’m not sure how much of that can be blamed on you,” Alex said, very dryly. “Though I would not dream of speaking disrespectfully of your first wife.”

There was a taut silence.

“As for Lady Merryn,” Garrick said after a moment, “I am responsible for this scandal and as such I accept I have no choice other than to offer marriage to her.” He looked up to find Grant’s gaze fixed on him. “As I said, I have the greatest admiration for her. I like her. Very much.”

“Evidently,” Alex said even more dryly. He fixed Garrick with a not-unsympathetic gaze. “I do not think she will accept you, Farne.”

“Because she hates me for killing her brother,” Garrick said.

“It is a not-inconsiderable stumbling block,” Alex agreed pleasantly. “Although…” A thoughtful note entered his voice. “I do not think she hates you, precisely.” He shifted. “Her feelings, no doubt like your own, are confused. If you want her, though, you may have to force the match. Joanna and I will not stand in your way. We consider you the lesser of two evils.” He flashed Garrick a smile that robbed the words of offense. “Without marriage Merryn is utterly ruined and only you can save her from that. Joanna will accept that for her sister’s sake.”

Garrick frowned. Alex’s words were not unexpected but they were unwelcome. “I’ll not force Lady Merryn to wed me if she is unwilling,” he said. “That would be the action of a scoundrel.”

Alex shrugged. “Your scruples do you credit but how else can you put matters right in the eyes of the world, Farne?”

“I’ll persuade her to accept my hand,” Garrick said.

This time Alex actually laughed. “Persuade? Merryn? Surely you know her better than that? She is without doubt the most stubborn member of the Fenner family, and that is up against some very stiff competition.”

“She is also strong and brave and spirited,” Garrick said.

There was an odd expression in Alex’s eyes. “Not the qualities that most men seek in their wives,” he said. He paused. “I did not know Stephen Fenner,” he added obliquely, “but my wife tells me he was…a charming rogue.” He met Garrick’s gaze very directly. “Joanna was older than Merryn when it all happened, of course. She sees things a little differently. And although she loved her brother she was not in the least blind to his faults.” His tone changed. “You could consider telling Merryn exactly what happened. Intimate relationships have a better chance of succeeding if they are based on the truth.”

“One day I hope to be able to tell her everything,” Garrick said, “but in the end the fact is that I killed Stephen Fenner. Perhaps the details make no odds.” He thought about Merryn’s pain and disillusion on learning the truth. He wanted fiercely to protect her from that. But Purchase had been correct, Alex was correct. Everything had changed now that he and Merryn were to wed. He did not want a marriage based on deceit. He thought of the letter that he had sent a bare two days ago and prayed for a swift and just outcome.

Alex gave him a very penetrating look. “Only you can be the judge of what is right,” he said. He held out his hand to shake Garrick’s. “Good luck, Farne,” he said. “I suspect you will need it.”

M
ERRYN LAY IN HER BED
watching the ripple of the winter sun across the floor and listening to the rattle of carriages in the road outside. A fire burned in the grate and beside her on the table sat a cup of cold tea. She had lain there for hours, all of the previous day, all night and now into the morning. She had not slept at all.

She could hear Tess and Joanna whispering just out of earshot.

“Merryn is totally ruined.” She caught the edge of Tess’s words. “Everyone is talking scandal, Jo. It is the
on dit
in all the papers this morning. Caught naked in a brothel in bed with the Duke of Farne! I can’t believe…” Her voice faded away. Merryn watched a sparrow that had perched on her windowsill. It was looking through the glass, its head tilted to one side, as though it, too, was full of questions and gossip.

There was a swish of silk and then Joanna appeared beside the bed. Her troubled blue gaze took in Merryn’s untouched cup. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“I haven’t slept,” Merryn said.

“No,” Joanna said. “I imagine not.”

Merryn waited. She felt odd—exhausted and yet wide-awake, her mind strangely blank and yet unable to rest.

Tess had followed Joanna across the room and was standing looking at her with a very odd expression in her eyes.

“I have to hand it to you, Merryn,” she said. “Joanna and I have done many a scandalous thing between us but you…” She shook her head. “I confess myself shocked.”

“Thank you,” Merryn said.

“Although you do look well on it.” Tess picked up one of Merryn’s curls and ran it through her fingers. “How shiny the beer has made your hair! I shall have to see if I can order a barrel from the brewery. Anyway…” She remembered what it was she had originally been going to say. “You will be glad to know that although everyone knows that you spent the night with the Duke of Farne in a bordello, no one outside the family has heard the shocking news that you have been working for Mr. Bradshaw.
That
is one secret we have managed to keep.”

“Thank goodness,” Joanna said ironically. “No lady works for a living.” She looked at Merryn, a frown puckering her brow. “Mr. Bradshaw tried to blackmail us, you know. He threatened to expose the truth about you if we did not pay him.”

It was the first time that anything had pierced the lassitude that had Merryn in its grip and she shot up in bed, almost spilling her tea. “What? Tom tried to extort money from you?” She looked from one sister to the other. “What happened?”

“I threatened to shoot him,” Tess said, with considerable satisfaction. “He reconsidered.”

Merryn slumped back against the pillows, shocked and bitterly upset. Quite evidently she had misjudged Tom Bradshaw. She had felt so close to Tom, united in camaraderie, fighting for justice. Or so she had thought. Clearly Tom had been working for something quite different. Treacherous, deceitful Tom…

She remembered Garrick telling her that Tom was corrupt and she felt hopelessly naive. She closed her eyes for a second wondering if all her judgments were so faulty. Today she was no longer sure of anything.

Joanna patted her hand. “I am sorry, Merryn.” She smiled at Tess. “Would you give me some time with Merryn alone, please, Tess? I think there are some matters we need to discuss.”

Tess nodded. She gave Merryn a spontaneous hug, which brought the tears prickling Merryn’s eyelids, and went out, closing the door softly after her. Merryn turned to look at her eldest sister. Joanna looked much the same as ever, stylish to a fault, although there were dark marks beneath her eyes that suggested that she, too, might have had a sleepless night. Merryn felt surprised by her sister’s self-possession. She had expected Joanna to be hysterical, to rail at her for her behavior and for the shame and dishonor that she had brought on the family. Merryn had been accustomed to thinking both her sisters shallow but now, looking at Joanna’s face, pale but perfectly composed, she was obliged to admit she had made a mistake, and about Tess, too.

“How do you feel?” Joanna asked expressionlessly.

“Very odd,” Merryn admitted. She felt sore today, not just from all the cuts and lacerations that her body had sustained in the flood. There were other aches, other soreness that was the result of Garrick’s lovemaking. The changes in her body made it impossible for her to pretend it had never happened. She felt different, aware of her physical self as she had never done before. It was odd and disconcerting and yet at the same time there was a wicked undertow of excitement and possibility about it that only served to confuse her further.