Mistress by Midnight (19 page)

She ached more deeply, too, in her heart and soul, with a rawness that was so profound it made her want to cry. She knew she was still tired and that she was suffering from shock, but then there were other hurts that could not simply be intellectualized or explained away. How could she have done what she did with Garrick Farne? How could it have been so glorious in the moment, how could it have given her such dizzying pleasure, such excitement, such new and stunning awareness, and yet be so painful to recall now? And how could she forget it, as she had sworn she would, when she had thought about nothing else in the long darkness of the night when she had lain awake and remembered the press of Garrick’s body on hers, the sense of him within her, the way that she had felt possessed and completed and utterly claimed as his?

Merryn fidgeted as a wave of heat rolled through her, making her stomach melt with a fiery longing. She had never been troubled by physical desire before she had met Garrick. She had read about lust, studied the differences between Eros, passionate and sensual desire, and Agape, deep, true love, and had thought how interesting it was and how clever language was to be able to separate and define the two. She had looked on it all as an academic exercise and had not felt anything but intellectual curiosity. But now she burned. She burned for Garrick and to learn and explore all those wonderful sensations she had only just discovered. It had been like a door opening into a richly colored fantasy world. She wanted to run through that door and greedily grasp after every new discovery.

She hated herself for it.

A wave of shame and self-reproach tumbled through her, making her feel physically sick.

You lust for the man who killed your brother…

“I am sorry, Joanna,” she said. “I am sorry that I deceived you about working for Tom Bradshaw.”

She saw Joanna frown. “It made me wonder,” Joanna said, “whether I really know you at all.” She fixed Merryn with her big blue eyes. “You have been working for Mr. Bradshaw for several years, so I understand. When I thought you were attending lectures or scientific talks you were undertaking assignments from him.”

“Not always,” Merryn said, feeling defensive. “I have done a great deal of study as well.”

Joanna swept on as though she had not spoken. “I used to imagine you as so unworldly and intellectual. I thought that I had to protect you.” She gave a short laugh. “Do you remember when John Hagan threatened to destroy us all if I did not become his mistress, and I went to Alex for protection? I did that for you as well as for myself, Merryn. I thought I had to care for you! It turns out you were nowhere near as naive and defenseless as I had thought.”

“I think,” Merryn said, with painful honesty, “that I have been extremely naive.”

Joanna’s gaze considered her. “We shall come to that in a moment,” she said pleasantly. “For now, please permit me to get this off my chest.” She drew a deep breath. “When I was abroad and thought you safely staying with friends you were apparently undertaking other assignments for Mr. Bradshaw. Indeed, I am wondering if any of your friends actually exist! Last night, when you did not return home, we sent to a Miss Dormer’s house because you had said you were attending a concert with her. We found that Miss Dormer did not live at the address you gave.” She looked at her sister and Merryn’s heart did a little dive to see the hurt and disappointment in Joanna’s eyes.

“You lied to me, Merryn,” Joanna said precisely.

“Frequently. Repeatedly. I find it difficult to forgive.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Merryn started to say. She felt wrenched with distress to see Joanna’s unhappiness. “I thought that if I told you about my work for Tom you would stop me,” she said defensively.

“So you did not trust me,” Joanna said. “I am sorry for that. As the eldest I have always felt a responsibility for both you and Tess but until now I had not realized quite how badly I had failed.” She made a slight dismissive gesture with her hands. “We shall leave that discussion for now. I think there are more urgent issues.”

She got up and walked across to the window. The autumn sun burnished her hair to copper and chestnut and gold.

“Garrick Farne has made you an offer,” she said, over her shoulder. “Alex is speaking to him. He is downstairs. He awaits your answer.”

“No!” Merryn felt quick, suffocating panic. “It is impossible!”

“To marry him?” Joanna half turned toward her. Her expression was blank. “And yet you seem to have found it easy enough to sleep with him.”

“It wasn’t like that!” Merryn said. Her voice broke a little. She felt the tears swell in her eyes. “It is difficult to explain.” Even her vaunted facility with language failed when she tried to explain to Joanna what had happened between herself and Garrick. “I was very scared,” she said hesitatingly, “of the dark and of being trapped and Garrick saved my life, and the beer fumes were very strong—”

“So you were drunk,” Joanna said impassively, after a moment.

“Yes… No!” Merryn said. “I’m not making excuses for myself. I will not. I cannot explain it, Jo. I was terrified and Garrick protected me and I was so grateful and relieved to be alive and he…” Her voice trailed off.

There was a long silence.

“It was a most generous way to show your gratitude,” Joanna said, very understatedly.

Merryn made a little hiccupping sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “I wanted him,” she said. She closed her eyes. “I had no idea I could feel like that, Jo. I was desperate to have him and it was so exciting and unbelievably pleasurable. I had no notion! But then—” a tear squeezed past her closed lids “—afterward I could not believe what I had done, and I felt cheapened and sick and I despise myself for it. Such weakness—”

“You are too hard on yourself.” Merryn heard a rustle of silk and then Joanna had come back to sit beside her. She felt her sister put her arms about her. Merryn could not believe it, could not believe that Joanna could forgive her when she was unable to forgive herself. It felt such an enormous comfort. She leaned in to Joanna’s arms and sobbed.

“Extreme fear and indeed extreme relief can cause us all to do strange things,” Joanna continued. She was stroking Merryn’s hair now, cradling her like a child. “And you are not to be blamed if you have discovered something you enjoy more than academic study.” There was a thread of laughter in Joanna’s voice now. “Physical pleasure can indeed sweep you away.”

“And yet I cannot bear to feel that for Garrick Farne,” Merryn said wretchedly. She pulled away, sat up. “Farne, Joanna!” She sniffed, rubbing her wet, sore eyes. “He ruined all our lives! How could I do such a thing? How can I bear it? I hate him! And yet—” She stopped. “I also care for him,” she said forlornly. “I cannot deny it. There is something between us that I do not understand…” She shivered. “I am so confused, Jo.”

“Yes,” Joanna said. “I understand you might feel like that.” She paused. “I suspect that you are right. You do not hate Farne, Merryn. You may hate what he did to Stephen, but you do not necessarily hate Garrick Farne himself. Quite the contrary, I suspect.”

Merryn rubbed her brow. Her forehead felt hot and her head ached. Her eyes were stinging and prickled with unshed tears.

“I don’t understand the difference,” she said. “All I know is that it feels wrong. I feel as though it is pulling me apart.”

“Maybe you will see it clearly in time,” Joanna said.

“I understand that
you
might hate me for it,” Merryn said bitterly.

Joanna shook her head swiftly. “Merryn dearest.” There was a little catch in her voice. “We all make mistakes.”

“Not ones of such monstrous proportions,” Merryn sniffed.

“Once again you see things too starkly,” Joanna corrected. “You met a man who roused a passionate response from you. The fact that it is Garrick Farne is—” She stopped, shrugged. “Complicated, perhaps. One might even say unfortunate. It is like fate playing a trick on you.”

“I cannot marry him, Jo,” Merryn said wretchedly. “It feels like a most appalling betrayal of everything I have believed for the past twelve years.”

Joanna was silent for a moment. “I won’t seek to persuade you,” she said. “If you feel you cannot wed Garrick then I will give you all the support that you require.”

“But what if there is a child?” Merryn clutched Joanna’s hands convulsively, at last giving voice to the deepest fear that had stalked her through the night. She had told herself that there would not be a child, that it would not happen, but the truth was that she did not know. Oh, she understood the principles; she had read all about procreation in many different books, fiction and nonfiction, but when it came to the reality she had only just started to understand how woefully ignorant she was. She felt afraid. The fear started as a tiny pattering in her stomach and swelled to a huge panic that threatened to swallow her whole.

“I’m afraid, Joanna,” she burst out. “When will I know if I am pregnant?”

She saw a shadow touch Joanna’s eyes and castigated herself for her insensitivity. Joanna had spent years and years of her first marriage desperately hoping for a child and believing she was barren. Merryn had seen—but not understood then—the anguish that her infertility had caused her. Yet here she was now asking for her sister’s love and support when she might have carelessly, wantonly conceived a child out of wedlock under such appalling circumstances. And yet still, it seemed, Joanna had the strength and the love to be there for her.

“It depends,” her sister was saying carefully, “on where you are with your courses.”

Merryn had never paid much attention to them. She struggled to remember. “I think… I believe about the middle of the second week,” she ventured.

She saw Joanna pull a face. “Then that might be dangerous. It is impossible to tell. You will know in a few weeks, perhaps, or maybe a little more.”

Merryn felt frighteningly adrift, as though there were suddenly no certainty left in the world. “Then I could perhaps wait and see—” She started to say, and once again saw the shadow in Joanna’s eyes, and thought of all the months Joanna must have waited and been desperately disappointed. It seemed vicious and cruel that Joanna had been disillusioned each month when she had failed to conceive whereas she would be desperately waiting and hoping that there would be no child.

“I’m sorry, Jo,” she said brokenly. “So sorry.”

Joanna shook her head. “Do not be. I have Shuna now, and Alex and I have the prospect of more children if we are fortunate. And if we are not so blessed, well…It is enough to have their love.” She loosed her sister. “I cannot tell you what to do, Merryn. You must try to make the right decision yourself. But I am always here if you need me.”

“I have been so stupid, Jo,” Merryn said. “I thought that I was clever—far cleverer than you—but you are wise and kind and far more generous than I.”

Joanna smiled and squeezed her hands before letting her go and standing. “If you are to refuse Farne,” she said, “at least do him the courtesy of telling him to his face. You owe him that, Merryn. I will send your maid to help you dress.”

“I can’t marry him,” Merryn said wretchedly. “Jo, you know I cannot.”

Joanna did not reply at once. “I know how attached you are to Stephen’s memory,” she said. “Probably more than either Tess or I because you were younger and he was a hero to you.” She smoothed her skirts thoughtfully, as though she was choosing her words with equal care. “Stephen was very kind to you,” she added, after a moment. “It surprised me, because he was not, as a rule, a kind person. Oh, he could be charming and attentive and make any woman think she was the center of his world. But—” She stopped.

“I know that Stephen could be very bad,” Merryn said. “But that does not mean that he deserved to die.”

“No,” Joanna said. “Of course not.” She shook her head. “He should never have seduced Kitty Farne, though.”

“They loved each other,” Merryn said defiantly. “She was unhappy in her marriage.”

“Stephen seduced her long before she wed,” Joanna said, and for a second she sounded very cold. “And I am not sure that he did love her. Certainly he never loved anyone as much as he loved himself.”

Merryn stared. “But he must have done!” she burst out. Her thoughts were tripping over themselves, shock mingling with resentment at the abrupt way that her sister had wrenched her memories apart and set them in a different frame. “I saw them together,” she protested. “He adored her! Why else would he—” She stopped.

“Why else would he take her from Garrick Farne?” Joanna finished for her. “He did it for fun, Merryn,” she said gently. “He did it because he could.”

“No,” Merryn said. Her heart gave a little flutter of fear. If Stephen had not loved Kitty then everything that she had believed in was based on a lie. It was not possible. She could not accept it.

“I don’t believe it,” she said stubbornly. “I saw them, Jo! They loved each other! They were meant to be together.”

Joanna shrugged. “Perhaps you are right and I am wrong,” she said.

“You must be,” Merryn said. She drew the bedclothes about her and held them tight. “You must be,” she repeated, half to herself.

“I remember when you were in your teens you had quite a
tendre
for Garrick Farne.” Joanna paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Oh, we all thought he was handsome but you…” She smiled. “You were quite bowled over, were you not?”

Merryn looked up, startled. “I did not think anyone knew about that,” she said involuntarily, the color flooding her face.

Joanna laughed. “It was very clear, Merryn,” she said gently, “even if Garrick himself never knew.” She went out and closed the door softly behind her.

Merryn let the bedclothes slip through her fingers. So everyone had known about her
tendre
for Garrick Farne. How naive she had been to think it a secret. But in one respect Joanna had been quite wrong. She had thought Merryn’s feelings had been a childish infatuation, no more, when in fact they had been so forceful and passionate, so dangerous, that they had almost consumed her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

W
HEN
M
ERRYN ENTERED
the library, Garrick was standing by the window looking out over the gardens. He did not turn immediately at her entrance. She was not even sure he had heard her. She stood for a moment and looked at him, while her heart beat a violent tattoo against her ribs.

This was the man who was responsible for her brother’s death yet when she looked at him all she could remember was his kiss, his touch on her skin, the broken endearments he had whispered to her as he had made love to her with such searing thoroughness and delight. In some ways she barely knew him and yet in others she knew him so intimately that the knowledge made her tremble. And it was not simply that she had so strong a physical awareness of him. Honesty prompted her to admit that something bound her to Garrick Farne so deeply that she could neither explain it nor escape it. It had been so from the start.

She saw that Garrick had done her the honor of dressing immaculately. His broad shoulders were encased in a coat of brown superfine. Buff pantaloons molded his thighs and his boots had a high polish. He had shaved closely. The stubble was gone. The thought that Garrick had done this because he was intent on proposing to her gave Merryn the oddest lump in her throat. And then he turned, and she saw that his face was pale with a livid bruise on the temple and a cut down one cheek, she saw the bandage at his wrist, and she remembered the darkness and the terror of their imprisonment and the intimacy it had forced them into, and she wanted to run.

Instead of fleeing she came forward into the room, drawing on all the strength and courage she could muster.

“Lady Merryn,” he said. His voice was very deep. “You are well?”

He had taken her hands in his. Heat and awareness enveloped her instantly. She felt the abrasions of his raw skin against her fingers. Instantly she was back in the tumbled ruins of the beer flood with Garrick’s body shielding hers from the falling masonry. He had defended her against all peril. Misery twisted within her. Impossible choices…

“I am…tolerably well, I thank you, your grace,” Merryn said.

She saw a spark of amusement light his eyes at her formality. No wonder, when the last time they had met she had been naked in his arms while he took the most outrageous liberties with her willing body. The thought made her feel faint. She wanted to pretend it had never happened. She wanted to do it all over again. She did not know what she wanted but she felt as though she was being torn apart.

She took a deep breath. “I appear to have compromised you, your grace,” she said.

The smile in Garrick’s eyes deepened, warm and tender. Merryn’s composure faltered, hanging by a thread.

“That is a novel way of expressing it,” Garrick said. “It is generally the gentleman who takes the responsibility.”

“I think we must both do that,” Merryn said. “I do not blame you in any way for what happened between us.”

Garrick’s smile faded. He still held her hand. “How very just and fair you are, Lady Merryn,” he said, “but it was my loss of control. I knew what I was doing.” His eyes darkened. “You did not.”

“I could have stopped you,” Merryn whispered. Her heart was beating erratically, butterflies fluttering in her throat. “But I did not wish to do so.”

The gentleness in his eyes was almost her undoing. “Always so honest,” he said. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her palm. She shivered.

His tone changed. “Merryn,” he said again.

Merryn wished that he would not use her name so informally and speak it in such gentle tones. Something in his voice struck the deepest chord within her and undermined all her defenses. It reminded her of the way in which he had whispered her name in the hot darkness. Of the way he had shouted it, with an edge of desperation, when he had urged her to throw herself into his arms. It reminded her of the intimate connection there was between them, the ties of memory and desire that she wished did not exist. But they did exist and she could not escape them.

She turned her face away from him, suddenly unable to meet his gaze.

He went down on one knee before her. Oh, dear, this was bad—this was like a proper proposal rather than one borne of necessity and scandal. Merryn bit her lip and forced back the unexpected tears.

“Merryn,” he said, “will you marry me?”

Merryn felt the most insane urge to put a hand out to touch the crisp auburn hair that curled over his collar. His head was bent. She could see the line of his eyelashes against the straight slash of his cheek. Fair lashes, like hers. Any child of theirs would not have the thick dark lashes so beloved of artists and the fashionable ladies of the ton.

“I cannot marry you, Garrick,” she whispered. “I am sorry.” She closed her eyes against the pain inside her and the thought of a little girl—or boy—blessed with fair eyelashes.

Garrick had straightened up but he had not moved away from her. She felt as though his physical presence engulfed her. “May I beg you to reconsider?” His voice was strained. “Society will destroy you if you do not accept my offer, Merryn. I cannot allow that to happen.”

“I do not pay any regard to the opinions of society and I never have,” Merryn said fiercely.

“Yes,” Garrick said. Despite everything she could hear a tinge of humor in his voice. “I do know that.”

“I’ll find something else to do,” Merryn said desperately. She took a few agitated steps away from him. “I can see that I can no longer work for Tom but perhaps I could gain employment elsewhere—” She stopped. There was an expression on Garrick’s face that could only be described as pity.

“Merryn,” he said again. “Not this time.”

There was a silence.

Everyone is talking scandal… It is in all the papers…Caught naked in a brothel in bed with the Duke of Farne…
Merryn could hear Tess’s whispered words. She knew she was the most notorious woman in London.

Ruined.

Compromised.

She liked words but she did not like this one with its overtones of suspicion and disrepute. Her reputation was sullied, her virginity lost. Even if she did not bear a child, the proof of her fall from virtue, gossip and scandal would cling to her name forever. No one would offer her employment. She knew that, in her heart. If she did not marry Garrick she would become an outcast, shunned by all except her own family. The lectures and talks, exhibitions and concerts that she had relished would become events where she ran the gamut of public gossip. She had gone from being invisible to being the most visible, the most talked about, person in the ton.

“I wonder,” she said bitterly, “if it would have been different had it been a flood of champagne?”

“Much better ton,” Garrick said with a faint smile, “but I fear that in the end the effect would have been the same. You would have to marry me.”

“I cannot marry you,” Merryn said. She took several more paces across the room.

“Merryn,” Garrick said. “Please reconsider.” His tone had changed. There was iron in it now, absolute, immovable. “If there is a child,” he said, very deliberately, “I cannot—I will not—let it be born out of wedlock.”

“But there may not be a child,” Merryn said eagerly. Hope and desperation warred inside her. “We can wait,” she said. “In a little while we shall see…” Her voice trailed away unhappily. She knew it would not serve even as she saw Garrick’s expression.

“We wait what—a month, two?” His voice was extremely polite but the look in his eyes was not. It was furious. “Then if you are not pregnant we congratulate ourselves on a lucky escape, and if you are, we marry one another quickly, quietly, with everyone counting days and months and gossiping about us?” His mouth twisted. “That is too shabby. I will not do it.”

Merryn looked into his dark, implacable eyes. She knew Garrick was correct—she could not take the risk of condemning a child to the stigma of illegitimacy, another bastard Farne offspring, like father like son. She pressed her fingers to her lips to hold back the hysteria that suddenly threatened her. Confronted with such cruel choices she felt smothered with guilt. She wanted to run.

But she could not. She had to face what she had done.

“You must marry me,” Garrick said. “Good God, Merryn—” Suddenly there was raw anger in his voice. “I already have your brother’s death on my conscience,” he said. “I have no intention of adding to the scandal by giving the gossipmongers ammunition to claim that I have destroyed your life, too.” He took her hand and she could feel the tension that gripped him. “This way I can atone,” Garrick said. His voice was rough. “I tried to do that when I gave back Fenners and your fortune. I righted one small wrong. If you wed me—”

“It will not put right Stephen’s death,” Merryn said heatedly. “Nothing can do that.”

“No,” Garrick said, “but it will right you in the eyes of the world. And that way we can present the marriage as a further step toward reconciliation between our two families instead of simply a way to prevent scandal. Have you thought—” he let her go abruptly and turned away “—that many people may well imagine that you have been my mistress for some time?”

This time the silence was taut with emotion. Merryn sank down heavily onto one of the chairs. She had not imagined it for one moment. It cut her to the heart.

She remembered Lord Croft’s carelessly cruel words in Bond Street. He had implied that she had been willing to overlook Stephen’s death in return for a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. How much louder, how much more salacious, would be the gossip that she was Garrick’s mistress. She could almost hear the whispers, the hiss of silken skirts withdrawing from her. She could see the flick of fans as the delicious
on dit
sped through the ton. Nothing could be more scandalous than the suggestion that she had turned to the bed of the very man who had ruined her family.

Garrick was right. Marriage would at least put a respectable gloss on a deeply unrespectable situation.

“Perhaps a marriage of convenience…” She started to say. “In name only. To promote the fiction that this is indeed an alliance intended to mend the breach between our families—” She stopped as she saw the look in his eyes.

He took a step toward her, and another. “A marriage in name only,” he said softly, mockingly. He took her chin in his hand and turned her face up to his. His touch was featherlight but Merryn felt it echo through her whole body. She closed her eyes for a moment against the potency of it.

“Do you think you could do that?” he asked in the same tone that had the shivers chasing down her spine. “For I could not. I warn you now—I would not even try.” He bent his head until his lips brushed hers. The heat flared inside her.

“Could you do that?” he repeated, his lips an inch from hers. His mouth took hers before she could reply and he was kissing her with skill and a mastery that set her shaking from head to toe. Her body recognized the taste and the touch of him now and responded to him with an eager need she could neither hide nor deny, opening to him like a flower to the sun. It shamed her all over again that she could be so avid for his touch when her mind was so cloudy and confused with grief and misery.

Garrick deepened the kiss and Merryn caught hold of his jacket to steady herself in a world that was spinning. The material of it slipped beneath her fingers and his arms came about her, steadying her, holding her close. His kiss was a statement of possession and intent, and Merryn recognized it as such. She would be his wife in every way possible. There was no escape.

He released her and stood back. He was breathing hard and his eyes glittered with desire.

“I already have a special license,” he said. “We will be wed within the week. Oh, and Merryn—” There was an odd pause. “I should be very grateful,” Garrick said, a little formally, “if you were able to honor your wedding vows.”

Merryn stared at him for a moment uncomprehending. For all Garrick’s forcefulness and the blazing passion between them she had sensed raw anguish in his voice then. Her heart jolted to hear it.

“Kitty,” she whispered. “You do not wish for another unfaithful wife.”

“It would be most unfortunate,” Garrick agreed, and there was a thread of humor in his tone that did not quite disguise the hurt. “I fear I am most unfashionable in that regard. The somewhat…flexible…morals of some members of the ton do not suit my taste. Although,” he added bitterly, “I can see that it would also be the most perfect revenge for you to marry me and then betray me. Life comes full circle.”

Merryn shook her head abruptly. She was shocked by this insight into Garrick’s pain. He had always seemed so confident and so supremely sure of himself, so unapologetic for what he had done in the past. In the dark intimacy of their confinement she had tried to provoke him by goading him about Stephen and Kitty’s love. He had responded by telling her that he regretted his wife’s betrayal of him every single day. She had heard his pain and disillusion then. Now, looking into his eyes, she felt it, believed it.

She swallowed hard. “I am not the sort of woman to do that,” she said. “If I give a promise I keep it. I would never dishonor you.”

She saw a flash of something in Garrick’s eyes, some emotion so profound that she felt shaken. “Yes,” he said. His tone had warmed a shade. “I believe you. You are too honest to play me false. You keep your promises.”

“You did not wish to wed again,” Merryn said, watching his face. She felt as though she was learning something new, stumbling along a strange path. She knew that insight was not her strong suit. Tom’s betrayal had pointed that up rather painfully. But now with Garrick she found she wanted to learn and understand.

Garrick shook his head. “No. I never wanted to marry again.”

Merryn understood that now. It had not occurred to her before that Kitty’s unfaithfulness must have damaged Garrick so badly that he would never remarry. She had thought he had not cared. She realized that she had been wrong.

“But surely you need an heir?” she said.