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—and she, silly little innocent that she was, had melted under his touch. She had been so distracted that she had not noticed what he was doing. She had responded to his practiced seduction and then she had stalked out, her senses full of nothing but him, her head still spinning at his touch, and he had gained exactly what he desired. He had won.
Merryn raised her chin. He would not find her so easy a target next time.
The cold wind tugged at her bonnet, stinging her cheeks. She wished she could anticipate Garrick’s next move. In some ways he was a chameleon just as she was; she sensed a very different man under that cool, controlled exterior. He was unpredictable, enigmatic. There was also a forceful masculinity about him that she had observed in few other men. Her brother-in-law Alex possessed it, too, but Merryn had merely noted that—and noted the effect that Alex’s powerful attraction had on her sister Joanna. Like all of her observations of life it had been objective, completely without emotion. But with Garrick… A shiver skittered across her skin. With Garrick that ruthless masculine appeal felt personal. It seemed to fill her with awareness. She could not explain it nor could she shake it off but it made her acutely vulnerable. She gritted her teeth. It was the reason that Garrick had been able to take advantage of her response to him.
She turned the corner into Tavistock Street. At the moment she was lodging with her sister Joanna and Alex in their rented town house. It was warm, comfortable and quiet. There were servants to attend to her every need. The only thing that was lacking was her freedom. Merryn was not accustomed to accounting to her relatives for her every move. It was one of the reasons she had invented various friends with whom she pretended to stay when Joanna was out of town. Her sister had never questioned her. Joanna had no notion of the type of life she really led and her work for Tom Bradshaw. She trusted Merryn. And until recently, Merryn had never felt guilty over her deception. Now that Joanna was back in town, however, and Merryn was misleading her on a daily basis, her conscience was starting to trouble her.
She had reached number twelve. A footman bowed her inside the house. A small white terrier threw himself on her with excited abandon and she bent to give him a hug. Merryn’s sisters, Joanna and Tess, were in the sitting room reading, respectively The Ladies Magazine and The Ladies Monthly Museum or, more accurately, looking at the pictures. There was a library in the house but the only person who ever picked up a book other than Merryn herself was her brother-in-law, Alex. Merryn had sometimes wondered what it was that Alex saw in Joanna. Theirs had been an arranged marriage in the first instance but was now well and truly a love match. It seemed incomprehensible to Merryn that a man like Alex with broad scientific interests and a sharp incisive mind could possibly love her sister who had no interest in anything except shopping and was about as incisive as a sponge cake.
“Merryn darling!” Joanna cast aside her magazine and gave her sister a radiant smile. “Come over to the fire. You looked chilled to the bone! What have you been doing this afternoon?”
“I’ve been to the library,” Merryn said, without bothering to specify which or what for.
“Well, how lovely, darling,” Joanna said vaguely. “Would you care for some tea?”
Another cup was brought. Tess poured for her. Merryn let the heat of it warm her and the strong flavor revive her. Tess and Joanna were talking about winter fashions now. They were seated together on the sofa, heads bent. The firelight flickered over their glossy brown curls. Suddenly Merryn was transported back to the nursery parlor where two little girls were turned out as pretty as china dolls for visitors to admire. She could have made a third, perhaps, a pale imitation of their prettiness, except that she had already been up a tree, knees scraped, skirts torn, reading a book. Joanna and Tess, older, wrapped up in themselves and happy in each other’s company, had never paid her a vast amount of attention. Neither had Garrick, on those rare occasions when he had been down from London with Stephen and the two of them had brought laughter and vitality and a sort of masculine vigor to the household that had felt so very different from the humdrum everyday life Merryn was accustomed to. Merryn remembered seeing them coming in, spattered with mud from riding hard, Garrick’s auburn hair whipped by the wind, his face tanned brown. She remembered the impromptu boxing match he and Stephen had held in the paddock; Miss Brown, the governess, had clucked and shepherded all the girls away but not before they had all seen Garrick stripped to the waist, muscular and broad, much as he had been when Merryn had seen him that night in his bedroom…Merryn shifted in her chair, feeling a bolt of something fierce and wicked shoot through her. She bent her head o
ver her teacup, aware that she was more than a little flushed.
Alex came in. He greeted Merryn warmly. She watched as he bent to kiss Joanna. For a second she saw a look in Alex’s eyes, dark and intense, that mirrored the heat that had been in Garrick’s when he had looked at her. Suddenly Merryn felt hot and breathless again as though the drawing room had been drained of air. Joanna had blushed, too, a pretty color that stung her cheeks and made her look very young. Alex was smiling at her. The atmosphere seemed to sizzle. Merryn felt supremely uncomfortable and quite out of her depth. For years she had viewed love as a literary phenomenon, something she read about on the page and analyzed with the same intellectual curiosity as she viewed philosophy or language. Yet now it was as though something had awoken inside her and could not be put back to sleep. She closed her eyes for a second and felt again the caress of Garrick’s fingers against her cheek, his touch firm and sure, his mouth on hers, hungry, possessive.
She gave a little squeak and jumped to her feet.
Everyone looked at her in surprise.
“I think I will go and rest,” she said quickly. “I feel a little tired.”
“You look rather flushed,” Tess said. “Have you caught a chill?”
“No,” Merryn said. “I don’t believe so. I…” She stopped. I do not understand what is happening to me…
“There was a letter from Mr. Churchward this morning,” Joanna said, after a moment. “He asks us all to visit his chambers tomorrow morning as a matter of urgency.”
Merryn paused, one hand on the door. “Must I go? I had plans for tomorrow.”
A frown briefly marred Joanna’s serene features. “It is a matter that affects all of us, so Mr. Churchward said. Something to do with our father’s estate.”
“Jo, do look at this design for a spotted muslin gown,” Tess interrupted. “Do you think it too young for me?”
Joanna obligingly turned her attention to The Ladies Monthly Museum and Merryn was left with nothing more than a vague feeling of disquiet. It was Garrick Farne who possessed the Fenner estate now. Surely this could have nothing to do with him.
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