Mistress by Midnight (22 page)

He pulled back. “Do you want me to stop?” he demanded roughly.

“No.” Her word was a whisper. “Don’t stop.” He felt her make an effort. “But…”

“Yes?” He paused, his lips hovering over the ruffle that edged the neckline of the scandalous gown.

“The gown…” She sounded dazed, bewitched. “It was supposed to come off.”

Garrick took the neck of the gown, gave it one sharp tug and freed her breasts.

“Oh!” Her eyes opened wide in shock and pleasure, and Garrick’s body quickened in response.

“Oh,” she said again, this time on a whisper, as he took her nipple in his mouth, licking, sucking until she squirmed. She arched to the touch of his lips, bent back like a bow, and Garrick allowed his hands and mouth to plunder her, caressing, demanding, roaming now over the soft skin of her breasts and brushing the quivering tautness of her belly. Her skin felt hot and so sensitive. She vibrated beneath his touch. Garrick watched her face, dreamlike in its delight and discovery, and felt humbled by the openness with which she gave herself up to him, utterly exposed, utterly vulnerable. Desire tugged at him again but he leashed it, repressing his own needs ruthlessly as he continued to pleasure her until she was visibly trembling and crying out helplessly to him.

The gown, obliging as ever, fell open as he pulled it up. He parted her thighs, his fingers finding her core, stroking, sliding deep. The caress wrenched a gasp from her and Garrick covered her lips with his again, a reassurance as well as a demand. He felt her respond; she reached for him then, to draw him close, but he held her off for a moment, fumbling with his breeches with hands that shook so much he thought he would never manage it. He was utterly undone, aching, desperate, yet the need to treat her gently even in the center of this maelstrom of desire had him exercising a fierce restraint.

He felt Merryn stiffen slightly at the first touch of his body against hers, as though she had suddenly realized how vulnerable she was in this position. He opened her gently, pushed upward, and felt her body start to yield to him.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered.

He saw the precise moment that Merryn caught their reflection in the mirror, the dark, erotic image of herself seated on the edge of the table, thighs pale, widespread, skirts about her hips, breasts bare, her golden hair falling about them both like a silken curtain. She gave a keening cry and he slid deep inside her and felt her body sheathe him so tightly he almost came. He held still for a moment and felt her ripple and clench about him and the bliss was so intense he thought he might fall. He grasped after control against the barrage of sensation that assaulted him, withdrawing from her a little. He stroked her again and felt her whole body tighten in response. She grabbed his hips and pulled him into her, and Garrick could resist no longer. He claimed her, sinking deep, pulling out, driving them both fiercely onward. Possessiveness flared in him, the need to claim her surrender and to know she was irrefutably his. Yet alongside his triumph was a vulnerability that terrified him. She could bring him to his knees. She had already done so. He was lost.

It was his last thought. Merryn’s body clenched and released him again, sending shards of exquisite pleasure tumbling through him. It tore a harsh groan from his throat as he finally relinquished control and emptied himself into her. The pleasure flowered through him, a flood tide of passion that swept him to madness, a sweet delight he had never imagined. He drew her close and held her to his heart for a timeless interval.

Finally he released her. He was still breathing so hard he could not speak. Merryn lay back on the table, the books and papers scattered about her like petals in a storm, the candlelight shifting and shimmering over her body in bars of light and shadow. She made no effort to move or to cover herself and seeing her lying there so abandoned, so beautifully decadent, made Garrick want her all over again with a hard, fierce need that drove him to despair.

So it had not been enough. He had almost lost his mind. He had been driven to the edge by the force of his release. He had taken Merryn, mastered her body again, claimed her undeniably as his, and yet… And yet something was missing. It prowled along the edge of his consciousness, taunted him from beyond his understanding.

He wanted more. This was not enough.

Merryn shifted. As he watched her, his cock twitched and the lust tightened in his gut. This time he ignored them. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her across to the nearest chair, sitting down with her on his lap, pushing the tangled hair away from her face.

“Was that what you wanted?” he demanded.

She turned her head and a slow smile played across her lips. “Not precisely, your grace. Though…” she gave a languorous little wriggle that made Garrick grit his teeth against the new onslaught of temptation “…it was very, very nice.” She sat up a little. Her hair fell like a rich golden curtain about her face, hiding her expression.

“I had planned to stop at a crucial moment and ask you some questions,” she said.

Garrick gave a snort of laughter. “You planned to stop?”

She cast him a sideways look. “I see that I miscalculated.”

“You did,” Garrick said. “That was never going to work.”

“I realize that now. In my inexperience I misjudged the situation.” She stood up, moving away from him in a tangle of swirling hair and pale limbs. She lifted the cloak and swung it about her shoulders. It enveloped her. Her fingers were steady as she secured each little fastening. Only when the entire garment was sealed up to her neck did she look up and meet Garrick’s eyes. It felt odd to see her distance herself from him so deliberately. He wanted to take her upstairs to his bed, to hold her in the darkness of the night as both protection and protector, to make love to her again, to keep her with him all night and for as many of the following days and nights as he could. Merryn, on the other hand, looked as though she wanted to leave. Something cold and hard settled in Garrick’s stomach. Fear crept down his spine.

“I was going to ask you,” Merryn said slowly, “if it was Kitty who killed Stephen. I think she did. I think there must have been a terrible accident and that you took the blame.”

The shock slammed into Garrick with physical force. Lost in the welter of his feelings for her he had almost forgotten her quest to seduce the truth from him. But Merryn, of course, would never forget. Merryn was completely single-minded. And she was so close to the truth now—so close and yet so utterly wrong.

The silence stretched so taut that the ticking of the grandfather clock seemed almost to split his eardrums.

“You are mistaken,” he said hoarsely, when he could speak. “Kitty did not kill Stephen.”

“I don’t believe you,” Merryn said. She was holding the material of the cloak tight about her neck now, like a shield. What he saw in her eyes now was different from all the other times she had confronted him. There was no anger anymore, no frustration. There was nothing but shining hope, so pure and confident, and—he shuddered to see it—love. Garrick could not bear for her to love him, not with what he had done. Not when he was so undeserving. Not when he was about to smash her hope and her faith once and for all. He could taste bitterness in his mouth.

“I have been looking at things the wrong way around,” Merryn said. “You are good and noble, Garrick. You have always done your duty—”

Garrick knew he had to stop this now, before Merryn stumbled onto the truth. He felt as though his heart was snapping in two. “I am neither of those things,” he said gruffly. “You are deluded, Merryn. I am neither good nor noble and I thought I had just proved that to you.”

She shrugged an indifferent shoulder. “I have no complaints that you could not resist me,” she said. She took a step closer to him and placed a hand on his arm. “I love you,” she said softly. “It is that simple. And I could not love you if you were the cold-blooded murderer you claim to be.”

I love you…

Garrick flinched. “No,” he said. He shook. This was too much; he could not accept it. Once he would have given so much for the love of a woman like Merryn Fenner, before Kitty’s betrayal, before Stephen’s murder. Now it was too late. He had killed a man and destroyed too many lives to deserve such generosity of spirit, especially from Merryn. The images danced before him, vicious memories. Kitty screaming, Stephen dying, lives changed in a second, hideous consequences stretching over the years. Those could never be wiped out by Merryn Fenner’s love. It was impossible. He looked into her face, saw her determination and the clear, pure love in her eyes and felt his heart snap.

“No,” he said again. “Merryn…” He cleared his throat. “You think that you are in love with me,” he said, “so you want me to be all that is good and heroic. The truth is that I am not. I never was and I can never be.”

She shook her head. “I cannot believe that—”

“Believe it,” Garrick said harshly. “Because I killed your brother and in the end that is the only thing that matters and it will always come between us.”

She shook her head. “No—”

Garrick thought savagely of the letter. There was only one way to end this, he thought. He had to tell her what he had done, what Stephen had done, but keep Kitty’s secrets.

“Merryn,” he said. He knew he was going to break her heart and shatter her illusions, but there was no other way. “Please listen to me,” he said. He tried to make his voice as gentle as he could even as he knew there was no gentle way of telling her. “I did kill Stephen,” he said. “There was no duel. You were right about that all along. I found Kitty and Stephen together. There was an argument. Stephen tried to kill Kitty and I shot him. That is why I am not the honorable man you want me to be.”

He saw the shock explode in her eyes. She backed a step away from him. There was an anguished, frozen moment. Merryn’s face, so rosy with animation a moment before when she had laid her heart beneath his feet, was now so pale he was afraid that she would faint. Her eyes were dull, opaque. “No,” she said again. She pressed her hands together and Garrick saw how much she was shaking. He wanted to touch her, to take her in his arms, to offer comfort for the grievous hurt he had inflicted but the torment in her eyes warned him to stay away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Merryn, I am so sorry—” But he could tell she could not even hear his words.

Her voice was a whisper. “Stephen loved Kitty. I
know
he did! He would never hurt her.” Her voice rose. “He would never hurt the woman he loved.” Her eyes were wild. “You’re lying to me. You must be!”

Garrick watched the hurt curl within her like a flower scorched in the sun, bending, withering. It was worse than ever he had imagined. He had thought Merryn would be distraught to be so disillusioned about her brother. Not for one moment had he believed that she would meet his words with so flat a denial. It was as though she simply could not accept what she had heard. Or did not want to accept it. Perhaps, despite what she had said about recognizing Stephen’s weaknesses, she had still seen her brother as a hero. Garrick’s heart ached for her. He watched her fingers tighten on her cloak until the knuckles showed white. She backed away from him toward the door.

“It was not meant to be like that,” she said and she sounded lost. “They were supposed to run away together—” She stopped. “Stephen would never do that,” she repeated. Her voice sounded raw. She was so open a person that now she had no defenses to hide behind, no way to conceal her pain.

Garrick watched her face crumple. “It cannot be true,” she said. It was more a plea than a protest, begging Garrick to deny what he had told her. He said nothing, clenching his fists at his side.

Merryn paused as though she were hoping for a reprieve and the moment stretched out unbearably, a torture to Garrick beyond whatever he had imagined.

“I thought you had some honor at the very least,” she said. “You gave Fenners back. You saved my life. Now you defame the memory of a dead man.” The candles fluttered in the draft from the door. She was gone.

Garrick took the letter from the desk drawer, threw it into the fire and watched it burn. He did not need it to remind him of his obligations. They felt like locks on his soul.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I
T WAS THE MORNING OF
the wedding, very early morning, dark and cold.

Merryn was sitting in her bedroom. Beside her on the bed the Fenner estate records lay scattered like snow. She had sought them out for comfort, hoping to find among the old documents something to anchor her to the past as she remembered it, to the happy days of her childhood, to the memories of that last summer. But it was too late. Something had changed. Everything had changed.

When she had fallen in love with Garrick she had wanted to exonerate him. She had wanted him to be a hero. But he was not. He really had killed Stephen and he had claimed that it had been because Stephen had tried to murder Kitty in an argument. Such a terrible slander, that Stephen had tried to kill the woman he had loved. It was surely impossible.

She did not believe it. She did not want to believe it. She could not believe it because it would mean that everything she had done to help Kitty and Stephen had been a terrible mistake, based on no more than a lie. And that she could not bear. She tried to close her mind to it. Except that she could see Joanna’s face and hear Joanna’s words.

I am not sure that Stephen did love Kitty. Certainly he never loved anyone as much as he loved himself…

A sob caught in her throat. Garrick had killed Stephen. She did not doubt it for one second now. She had wanted him to be innocent, to have taken the blame for Kitty, because that way he could have been guiltless and she could have absolved him. But once again she had been naive. And even if he had killed Stephen to protect Kitty—she allowed herself to think about it for one second and the crack in her heart gaped wide with pain and fear—there had been no duel, Garrick had lied for years and covered up the truth, he had run away rather than having the courage to face justice, so how could she ever respect him or trust him or love him again? Garrick had been right—he was not the man she wanted him to be.

Merryn’s agitated fingers scattered the papers on the bed, catching the edge of one of the estate books and sending it tumbling to the floor. She had read through all the papers and the books days ago, when she had been looking for evidence against Garrick. She had found nothing of note other than the rather odd reference to a meeting between her father, the Duke of Farne and Lord Scott in the days after Stephen’s death. Now she could see that something was poking out of a corner of the book, a document that had been half hidden beneath the cover, one she had not seen before.

It was her father’s will.

She had never read it and she wondered if Mr. Churchward had included it in the papers by accident. Lord Fenner had declared on his deathbed that none of his daughters should have sight of it and it had remained with Mr. Churchward ever since. Merryn had assumed that her father had been so ashamed of the poverty of the estate that he had not wanted to distress them with it. She read the dry legal language. There had been so little for Lord Fenner to leave because by now the estate had been bankrupt. It was why all Stephen’s possessions had been disposed of, why Merryn had not a single memento to remember him by.

“To my daughters…”
A few sticks of furniture, the ugly little table that Joanna, for all her elegance and style, still kept in the hallway.

“To the servants…”
A few shillings scraped together in return for a lifetime’s service.

“To Lord Scott of Shipham Hall in the County of Somerset, the miniature of my son Stephen…”

Merryn gave a little gasp of pure shock and pressed a hand to her mouth. Why would her father have left his daughters not one item to remember their brother by and yet give the precious miniature of Stephen to a man they barely knew? It was extraordinary. It made no sense at all.

She stared at the words until they danced before her eyes. Why had her father given away so cherished a keepsake as Stephen’s miniature? Lord Scott must surely have hated Stephen for ruining his daughter. What possible reason could there be to give him so precious a token? Merryn rubbed her temples where a headache pounded. She would never be able to ask her father that question now. He was dead and gone, as was the Duke of Farne. Only Lord Scott remained of those three men who had met after Stephen’s death for whatever mysterious purpose. Lord Scott…

He was the only man who could help her now.

Merryn moved quickly and quietly after that, gathering together a few items for her journey, filling one small portmanteau since, unlike her sisters, she did not need a baggage train when she traveled. The house was quiet. Tess and Joanna, no doubt worn-out with discussions about her trousseau, were asleep. Merryn tiptoed down the stairs, passed the dozing night porter, closed the main door very softly after her and went out.

The streets were cold at this time of the morning. A very pale gray dawn was barely starting to creep in from the east, turning the clouds soft as a pearl. Merryn reached the White Lion in Holborn with barely five minutes to spare before the Bath Flyer departed. The coach was not full. It was too late in the year and the roads too bad. No one wanted to travel on the roof.

The guard was checking his watch. With profuse apologies Merryn wedged herself into a gap between a buxom lady and a stick thin girl and then they were away.

G
ARRICK HAD NOT SLEPT
and when Pointer knocked softly on the door he was lying fully clothed on his bed staring up at the ceiling. He knew before the butler spoke exactly what he was going to say. Pointer’s long, thin face looked even more lugubrious than ever, his nose twitching with sympathy.

“Lord and Lady Grant are here to see you, your grace.” His nose twitched again, this time in disapproval, as he took in the frowsty room and Garrick’s unkempt appearance.

“Would you like to shave before you meet them, your grace?” Pointer’s voice implied that only the ill-bred would decline such an offer to make them look halfway presentable for company.

“No, thank you, Pointer,” Garrick said. He grabbed his jacket and shrugged himself into it. It was barely light. Lady Grant was known for keeping late hours, which was one of the reasons that the wedding had been set for the afternoon. Only the direst of emergencies could have impelled her from her bed at dawn.

Garrick knew exactly what that emergency must be.

He ran a hand over his hair to smooth it down and went out onto the landing. Farne House looked even more like a barracks at this time of day with the gloomy light barely wreathing the high ceilings and failing to reach the dark corners. Over the past week Pointer had employed a veritable army of servants to clean and scrub and polish in anticipation of the arrival of the new Duchess of Farne. The result had been to make a neglected Gothic horror of a house look like a shining Gothic horror of a house. Garrick felt a pang for the servants and for all their hard work. There would be no new Duchess to approve their industry now.

Alex and Joanna Grant were waiting for him in the library. Pointer had lit two branches of candles—Garrick doubted that his father had ever been so extravagant as to require more than one—but the effect was to give the huge barnlike room a quality of even greater gloom, the bookcases looming over the space in oppressive shadow, the speckled mirror only serving to make the room look twice as large and twice as lonely.

Joanna Grant, neat as a pin in a striped gown and matching spencer, was perched on the edge of vast armchair but she jumped up as soon as he entered the room. Her face was white and strained.

“Your grace—” she said, and her voice broke.

“It’s all right,” Garrick said. “I know. Merryn does not wish to wed me.”

His record was deteriorating, he thought. At least his first wife had waited a month before leaving him. This one had not even made it to the altar.

“I’m sorry, Farne,” Alex Grant said. He sounded, Garrick thought in vague surprise, as though he genuinely meant it. “It’s worse than that, though,” Alex added, as his wife shot him an anxious look. “Merryn has run away. She left no note. We do not know where she is.”

Garrick thought of Merryn alone in the dark on the streets of London and felt the fear grab his throat. This was his fault, he knew. He had callously rejected her love. He had told her the truth about her brother’s perfidy and she had been unable to accept it. It was little wonder that she had run rather than wed him.

“Oh, if only we had not forced her to marry!” Joanna said. One hand was pressed against her lips, the other held in Alex’s strong clasp.

“We did not,” Alex said. He gave his wife’s hand a squeeze. “Joanna, you told Merryn you would love and support her whatever she chose to do. You could not have done more.” He turned back to Garrick. “I do not think,” he said slowly, “that Merryn has run away to escape the wedding, Farne.”

Garrick looked up sharply.

“I am not saying that she wanted to marry you,” Alex continued, crushing the flare of hope that Garrick had felt for one brief moment, “merely that there is something else behind this.”

Joanna was staring at her husband, her eyes a bright vivid blue with both distress and surprise. “You did not say this to me earlier,” she accused.

“Yes, I did,” Alex said dryly. “You were not in a state to listen to me.”

Garrick could imagine how it might have been in Tavistock Square with both Joanna and Tess Darent in hysterics over their sister’s disappearance. He gave Alex a brief sympathetic grimace. Alex actually smiled.

“Well!” Joanna said. “If Merryn is not running away to escape an intolerable match—” she looked at Garrick “—I beg your pardon, your grace, but this is no time to beat about the bush—then what
is
she doing?”

“I think I might know,” Garrick said slowly.

They both looked at him.

“Before we were trapped together in the beer flood,” Garrick said, “Lady Merryn warned me that she was working to ruin me.”

Joanna’s face puckered. “She wants to
ruin
you? Oh, this is much, much worse than I had thought!”

“Joanna, darling,” Alex said gently, “wait until we understand everything before you have the vapors.” He looked at Garrick, his dark eyes narrowing. “Was this because of her brother’s death, Farne?”

“Yes,” Garrick said. He looked at Joanna. She did not have any of Merryn’s blind obstinacy or her quest for truth and justice, he thought, but she did, unexpectedly, have some of her sister’s strength of character. She was not having the vapors after all.

“I am sorry, Lady Grant,” he said gently. “The facts of the case are well-known. I killed your brother and I have never tried to pretend otherwise.”

“No,” Joanna said. Her blue eyes, so like Merryn’s, swept his face with surprising perception. “And yet you have never spoken of what happened.” She paused. “Did Merryn ask you about it?”

“Yes,” Garrick said. “She asked me several times.”

Joanna pressed her hands to her cheeks. “You refused,” she whispered.

“I could not tell her the whole truth,” Garrick said. “I should have realized that she would never settle for half measures.” He rubbed a hand over his face. He could see that so clearly now, now that it was far, far too late.

“Merryn will not wed you without knowing everything,” Joanna said. She gave a little exasperated sigh. “Oh, that is
so
like her! She has probably gone on some wild-goose chase to try to unravel the past. She is too stubborn and too principled. She can never see that sometimes it is better to let matters lie.”

“But Merryn cannot live like that,” Garrick said. “I have to find her. The only problem is that I have no notion where she might have gone.”

“Perhaps Bradshaw might know,” Alex suggested, leaning forward. “She might have shared her plans with him when they worked together. He seems to be a man quick to capitalize on anything that might work to his advantage.”

Garrick looked at him. “I had not thought of that,” he admitted. “And there is only one way to find out.”

Alex pulled a face. “If he has a vested interest, he may not tell us.”

“We could try to persuade him,” Garrick said.

Alex laughed. “I like your thinking, Farne, but Bradshaw is a tough nut to crack.”

“We could send Tess,” Joanna said. “He is terrified of her.”

Alex looked at Garrick, raised his brows. “Worth a try,” he murmured.

Garrick was thinking fast. “We’ll all go,” he said. “Lady Darent can try first. If Mr. Bradshaw proves obstinate…” He shrugged and saw Alex smile.

“Will you come back with us to Tavistock Street to fetch Tess?” Joanna asked. She sighed. “It may take a little while for her to be ready, I’m afraid.” She smiled at Garrick, a limpid smile that for some reason made him feel very, very wary. “And while we wait for her,” Joanna said, “you can explain to me what it is you refused to tell Merryn about Stephen’s death.” She paused. “I never hero-worshipped my brother,” she said, very precisely. “I know he was an unmitigated scoundrel, if that makes it any the easier for you.”

Garrick hesitated. “Lady Grant,” he said, “I cannot. I am under oath not to tell—”

He fell silent at the steely look in Joanna’s eyes. “Then you will explain to me as much as you can,” she said.

Alex laughed. “Best admit defeat, Farne,” he said. He gave Garrick a consoling slap on the shoulder. “You thought it was just Merryn, but it is not,” he said. “All the Fenner women are as stubborn as mules. Since you are to be a member of the family—” he smiled “—it is best you understand that from the start.”

H
ARRIET
K
NIGHT WAS IN A
bad mood and had been for a whole week, since the news of Garrick Farne’s precipitous engagement and imminent marriage to Lady Merryn Fenner had reached her ears. It had fired her temper and Tom had reaped the benefits of that in several ways but now, as he sat in his office chair in a state of great disarray with a partially naked Harriet squirming on his lap, he reflected that this must be the last time. He had extracted every last ounce of useful information from Harriet and some delightful sexual favors as well, but now he had urgent business to deal with. His bags were packed, sitting in the corner of the office, and he was traveling to Somerset later that day. His departure, he thought, would give him the perfect excuse to break matters off with Harriet.