Mistress by Midnight

by Nicola Cornick

  There was a whooshing sound as everyone released their breath at the same moment, turned away and pretended that they had not really been listening at all. Merryn felt herself go limp with relief. She dropped another slight curtsy.

  “Thank you, your grace.”

  The Dowager Duchess nodded. “Charming,” she said, and turned to acknowledge Joanna.

  “Lady Grant,” she said. “I congratulate you on the most beautiful design you created for Lady Drummond’s drawing room. Exquisite taste.” Her gaze moved on to Tess. “And Lady Darent…I congratulate you on once again being a rich widow.” She turned to Alex. “Now, Lord Grant. I have long wanted to make your acquaintance.”

  Garrick drew Merryn slightly to one side. His broad shoulders blocked out the inquisitive crowd.

  “Well,” Garrick said, raising his brows, “you seem to have made quite an impression. Aunt Elizabeth is not normally so fulsome in her praise.”

  “That was praise?” Merryn tried for a light tone. She put a hand on his sleeve. “Thank you for what you did,” she whispered.

  Garrick looked down at her, a smile lightening his dark eyes again, and Merryn felt a rush of feeling that left her light-headed and a little dizzy. “It was a risk,” he admitted, “but after I had explained everything to Aunt Elizabeth I trusted her to support us.”

  “Everything?” Merryn said faintly.

  “Almost everything,” Garrick amended. His gaze met hers, sliding over her, bringing heat in its wake. His smile was intimate, tender, for her alone, and it made her heart ache.

  “You look very beautiful tonight, Merryn,” he said.

  The Dowager had turned back to them. “Lady Merryn,” she said, her sharp black gaze traveling from her to Garrick and making Merryn feel as though her emotions were naked, “I have a fancy to see the Collins exhibition. You will accompany me.”

  Merryn shot Garrick an anguished look. He laughed.

  “I will come and find you shortly,” he said, a smile and a promise in his eyes. He leaned closer. “Remember she does not bite,” he whispered.

  “Pray do not interrupt us too soon,” the Dowager snapped.

  Merryn followed the Dowager’s ramrod-straight figure through the archway into the next, smaller exhibition room. There were fewer people here and those that were present took one look at the Dowager’s fierce expression and melted away, leaving the room empty. The Duchess stopped before a small portrait in the corner. It was a picture of a seated woman and might have been painted some fifteen years before. The subject was young, a girl of about eighteen or nineteen, exquisitely pretty, curvaceous, with dark hair curling softly about her face, limpid black eyes and a little smile just starting to dimple the corners of her mouth. A small dog sat a few feet away, gazing adoringly at the woman who looked as though she took such adoration for granted from animals and people alike.

  Merryn caught her breath on a little gasp and the Duchess looked sharply at her.

  “You recognize my nephew’s wife, Kitty Scott? This was painted just before their marriage.”

  Merryn’s heart was beating fast in her throat. “I…Yes, I do. We…met once or twice,” she stammered. “I was only a child…”

  The Duchess nodded. “Kitty was a pretty little chit. I liked her spirit but she had the most vicious temper when she was thwarted.”

  Merryn was shocked. She frowned, trying to match the memory of the Kitty she had known with the woman of the Dowager’s description. The Kitty Farne of her recollection had been the sweetest, kindest creature in the world, always giving her sweetmeats and little gifts, ribbons and thread, asking her what she had been reading, showing an interest in all the ordinary aspects of Merryn’s life that Joanna and Tess had been too wrapped up in themselves to care about. It was one of the reasons that Merryn had loved Kitty. And because Kitty had loved Stephen, of course…

  The Dowager Duchess was looking at her very directly. “My nephew has suffered a gross betrayal in his life and experienced a great deal of misery and loneliness,” she said. “I trust, Lady Merryn, that you will not add to his unhappiness.”

  I would not dare, Merryn thought. Pinned under the Dowager’s cold, dark stare she felt like a specimen on a slab.

  “I would never willfully cause anyone unhappiness,” she said.

  The Duchess nodded briskly. “I believe that. You seem a straightforward sort of gal, not in the common style.” Once again that faint smile touched her lips. “Garrick says you are a bluestocking. That is all to the good since he is a notable scholar. And being a Duke is a lonely business. One needs a helpmeet.”

  “Yes,” Merryn said. She thought of Farne House with its long, empty echoing corridors, devoid of life, of love. “Yes, I do understand that.”

  She looked back at the portrait, at Kitty Scott painted on that verdant summer day so many years ago, so soon before tragedy. Kitty had not been much of a helpmeet to her husband, that was for sure.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not realize that Garrick loved her.”

  The Dowager gave a dry laugh. “Oh, he did not. My brother sold Garrick into marriage to further his political ambitions. He was a blackguard, Claudius. It was a fine dynastic match and Garrick would have done his duty. A pity that Miss Scott’s heart and much else was already given elsewhere.” The Duchess’s voice was very dry.

  “Yes,” Merryn said. She felt a dull ache in the region of her own heart.

  Garrick would have done his duty…

  Merryn did not doubt it. It was the reason that she now found herself betrothed to Garrick, because he was a man who held honor and obligation above all things.

  She thought of what she knew of Garrick, the young rakehell who had been sold into marriage by his father for gain, who had been prepared to make the match work out of duty. She felt an enormous sadness. She looked up to see the Dowager Duchess watching her keenly, and with some other emotion in her eyes, something softer.

  “I am sorry,” she said again and she was not really sure what she was apologizing for. The Dowager Duchess actually patted her hand.

  “It was not your fault, child.” She paused. “But now you bear a huge responsibility. If you cannot love Garrick, you will, I am sure, do your best to honor and respect him.”

  If you cannot love him…

  Merryn jolted to a stop, staring blindly in front of her. Garrick had taken her body and left her heart shattered, torn with doubt and confusion. She had thought that it was because of guilt and grief and the impossible choices she had to make. But that was not the whole truth. She felt breathless, frozen with shock. How had she not realized that her feelings were involved? Perhaps it was because she had never loved before. Perhaps it was because Garrick was the last man on earth that she had wanted to love. Yet she knew she did. The truth beat through her mind until she wanted to cry out to try to drown the words. It was impossible but it was undeniable. She loved Garrick Farne.

  She had known it, in her heart. She had known there in terrifying dark when they had been trapped together and she had turned to him with absolute trust to hold her and protect her and keep her safe. She had known but she had turned the feelings away, reaching instead for her hatred and her grief to build a barrier and defend herself against him. Now, though, she could deny it no longer. And the thought brought a new wave of terror. Garrick had not wanted to wed her. He had been honest enough to admit that he had never wanted to wed again and without love those burdens of duty and honor and obligation that tied him to her could become the heaviest of shackles. She loved him but in return he could give nothing of his heart.

  “Lady Merryn?” The Dowager Duchess sounded impatient. “You are woolgathering, my dear.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Merryn said, blinking, pushing away the tumble of thoughts and emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. “I was thinking…” She realized that she was still staring at Kitty’s pretty painted face and that the Dowager had misunderstood her.

  “It was all a long time ag
o,” the Dowager said, “and nothing to do with you, child that you were. Don’t let it taint you.”

  Too late. She had let it taint her life for twelve long years.

  Merryn shuddered. She had made so many mistakes, taken so many false steps. What if she had been wrong about Garrick from the start? What if…

  What if it was not Garrick who had shot Stephen at all? What if there had been a terrible accident and Kitty had shot her lover and Garrick had taken the blame?

  Merryn’s heart started to hammer in long, slow strokes. She thought of the instinct that persistently told her that Garrick was an honorable man. She thought of his life raised in duty and service. She trembled at the enormity of what must have happened.

  Suddenly she was possessed with the most monstrous impatience. She had to speak to Garrick, to ask him to tell her the truth. She had to get him alone. Not even she could be so direct as to ask him in front of the assembled crowd at the Royal Academy whether his wife had shot her lover by accident and he had taken the blame.

  She looked across at Garrick. He was standing with Alex and Joanna, admiring a William Collins engraving, The Fishing Boys. His head was bent, his expression grave and thoughtful. He turned slightly to answer some remark of Joanna’s and for a second a smile lighted his eyes and Merryn felt a rush of emotion so strong and turbulent that it stole her breath. He had to be innocent of the heinous crime of which she had accused him. She was sure that she was right. She had to be right. Kitty had shot Stephen and Garrick, out of duty and honor, had protected her.

  Something urgent in her stance must have communicated itself to Garrick because he looked up and his gaze tangled with hers. For a moment they stared at one another while the crowd spun past them in a blur of color and noise. Garrick excused himself from Joanna and Alex and came across to her.

  “What is it?” he said, raising his brows. His brown eyes were very steady. He took her hand, entwining his fingers in hers.

  “I need to speak with you alone,” Merryn whispered.

  The Dowager bent a very disapproving look upon her. “Not before the wedding, Lady Merryn. That would be quite improper. You shall be chaperoned at all times.” She looked around, summoning Joanna and Tess with the merest glance.

  “It is time to take Lady Merryn home,” she instructed, making Merryn feel like a child. “I need hardly add,” she said, fixing Merryn with a very hard stare, “that the slightest sign of inappropriate behavior will destroy all the good work we have achieved tonight.” Her gimlet eye slid around from Merryn’s flushed face to Garrick’s rueful one. “Is that clear, nephew?”

  “As crystal, aunt, I thank you,” Garrick said. He raised Merryn’s hand to his lips and placed an irreproachably proper kiss on the back. “Good night, Lady Merryn,” he said. “I will call on you tomorrow.”

  As the coach trundled home Merryn sat between Joanna and Tess, the least proper chaperones in the world, she could not help thinking, and contemplated how on earth she was going to get Garrick alone now that she was watched over as closely as any virginal debutante. That was not her only difficulty. She could foresee that Garrick, who had guarded his secrets so well out of duty and honor, might not necessarily be willing to tell her the truth. She was going to have to make him talk.

  Merryn’s heart was suddenly thumping, shivers of equal nervousness and excitement skittering across her skin. She understood now the power she had over Garrick. She understood how much he wanted her. She wondered if she dared to use his desire against him.

  She had every intention of being very inappropriate indeed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS THE night before the wedding.

  Garrick sat in the library at Farne House. One candle burned on the desk before him beside a half-empty brandy bottle. The faint light reflected in the speckled pier glass above the fireplace and barely penetrated the darkness of the cavernous interior of the room, rank upon rank of shabby mahogany bookcases with uncut books on their shelves, dusty and ancient, a testament not to his father’s love of literature but to his need to impress. Tonight the Farne Dukedom hung like a lead weight about Garrick’s neck. Tonight he was not sure he could go on without someone to stand by his side and share that huge responsibility. He realized that he had wanted that person to be Merryn. No one else could take her place. But now—he flicked the letter lying on the desk before him—now he had either to let her go or be confronted by a hollow sham of a marriage with no true intimacy. There could be no honesty between them. His hopes were dashed.

  He looked down at letter although he already knew the contents off by heart.

  “We cannot accede to your request. It was agreed many years ago that no one should know… Think of the child… For her sake, keep your promise…”

  Sometimes Garrick felt as though he had done nothing but think of the welfare of the child for twelve years. She was the only reason to keep silence. He had robbed Stephen Fenner’s daughter of her father before she was even born so he had taken on himself the responsibility of fatherhood, of protecting her, keeping her safe. He, whose childhood had been so steeped in misery, had sworn that hers, despite its appalling start, would be better, happier than his own. And it had been. Stephen and Kitty’s daughter lived with her aunt in a family where love was plentiful. She was happy and healthy. She had a settled home. And Garrick would never do anything to put that happiness at risk.

  Kitty’s family, the Scotts, had been adamant from the start that no one should know Kitty had had Stephen’s child. Her reputation had already been sullied. It had been impossible to keep the affair a secret, too. Lord Scott had hated Stephen for ruining his daughter. The events of that day when Stephen had died had utterly destroyed his family. They had wanted nothing more to do with the Fenner family for the sake of both Kitty and her child. They had forbidden Garrick ever to speak and he, equally devastated by what had happened, had given his word.

  The grief hit Garrick then in a blinding wave. He had a choice, of course. One always had a choice. And perhaps if he had not been the man he was, he would sacrifice this older promise for the sake of his future with Merryn. But he could not. When Stephen Fenner had died he had sworn to do everything in his power to protect the innocent and the weak and to make recompense for taking a life. He could not abandon that principle now simply because there was something he wanted more. He could not be that selfish.

  So instead he must sacrifice his chance of happiness with Merryn. They would both pay for his sin in taking Stephen Fenner’s life. He reached for the brandy but then pushed it away in a moment of self-loathing. It was not the answer no matter how much it called to him to give temporary release.

  Merryn. He could not even think about her now without so sharp an ache in his heart that it stole his breath. He trusted her. He hated deceiving her. He wanted to tell her the truth. He was trapped.

  He would still wed her. He needed her too much to let her go. That was selfish, he knew, but it was time for him to take something for himself and he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. He wanted to have her shining spirit, her honesty and her courage and integrity to illuminate his darkness. Yet the danger was that this secret, the truth he could not reveal, would always come between them and in the end it would dull even Merryn’s brave spirit. And that would break his heart.

  Perhaps he should let her go. That would be the unselfish thing to do, not tie her to him for a life that was fettered by grief and regret. But if he released Merryn from the betrothal her reputation would be ruined forever. So he was trapped, destined to hurt her either way.

  A draft stirred the candle flame, sending shadows scurrying along the walls. The grandfather clock struck a quarter to twelve. Garrick turned, shoving the letter into the desk drawer. Someone was standing beside the door, a shadow in the deeper shade of the darkness.

  Merryn.

  How long had she been there? The anxiety crawled down his spine that she might have seen the letter.

&nbs
p; “You should not be here.” He stood up as she came toward him. She was cloaked in black, a wraith. “How did you get in?”

  “The way I always got in.” She put back the hood of the cloak and the candlelight shone on the spun gold of her hair. Garrick felt an irresistible urge to touch and clenched his hands at his side. Something softened, opened and trembled deep inside him. He fought it. It was pointless now to acknowledge how much he needed her when he could not be honest with her.

  “You are in a state of undress,” she said, allowing her gaze to drift over the shirt open at his neck to the coat he had discarded on the chair. “That could be useful.”

  “You should go,” Garrick said. His voice sounded rough. Was it because he was so desperate for her to stay?

  Her clear blue gaze searched his face. It felt so candid whereas he felt old and soiled and worn.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” she said, “but no one will let me see you alone. I had to buy Tess a copy of the new edition of La Belle Assemblée to distract her before I could creep out.”

  “We are not meant to be alone together because it is not proper,” Garrick said. He sounded pompous even to his own ears. Merryn laughed.

  “Stable doors, horses bolting,” she said. She loosed the cloak. It slid from her shoulders a little, revealing nothing but bare skin. Garrick stared.

  “I came to ask you about the duel,” she said. “But I expect you knew that. I expect you had realized that I cannot marry you without knowing the truth.”

  Garrick had realized it. He knew Merryn was too honest to tolerate any deceit. The irony stole his breath. Merryn would not marry him without knowing the truth. He had to marry her and could not tell her.

  “I know,” she said, when he did not speak. “I know you will refuse to talk. You always do and I wonder why.” Her gaze was very bright. “At first I thought it was because you were guilty and too arrogant to admit to any wrongdoing. But now…” Her gaze drifted over him. “Now I wonder.”