Mistress by Midnight

by Nicola Cornick

  Tom laughed. “My, but it’s taken you so long to realize that!” he said. His smile broadened. “You are quite right,” he said. “I fed your hatred of Farne. I manipulated your every move. I used you to get the information I wanted.”

  The cold settled icy and deep in Merryn’s stomach. “Why?” she said. “Why, Tom?”

  “Because I’m going to bring down the Farne Dukedom,” Tom said. He smiled again but his eyes were cold. “I want to ruin Garrick Farne. He has everything that should have been mine.”

  He half turned to face the sea. The wind caught at his hair, ruffling it. The tide was creeping closer, eating up the beach, smoothing and sculpting the sand. Merryn’s footprints had already disappeared.

  “I am Claudius Farne’s son, too,” Tom said, “but unlike Garrick I was not born to privilege.”

  “You?” Merryn took a step back. “But…your father worked on the Thames! You told me all about it—” She stopped because Tom was not paying her the slightest attention. He was looking out to sea where another gray snowstorm was sweeping in and ruffling the whitetops of the waves.

  “My mother was a housemaid,” Tom said. His gaze came back to her but Merryn still had the oddest feeling that he was looking through her rather than at her. “She had known my father—the man who gave me his name—from childhood. They wed when she was already pregnant. As for the late Duke—” his shoulders moved beneath his jacket “—he took and used the household staff as though they were his private property. What was one more maid to him? What did it matter if she were willing or not? He offered my mother nothing. She was turned off without a penny, branded a whore.”

  “I’m sorry,” Merryn said. The wind took her words and whipped them away. The storm was moving closer now, snowflakes swirling across the sand.

  Tom took a tiny golden locket from his pocket. For a moment the gold caught the light, gleaming like treasure on a dark day. He raised his arm and threw it with all his strength across the sand. “My mother stole that when she was thrown out of Farne House,” he said. “It was a portrait of him. He did not give it to her. He gave her nothing.” The locket shimmered for a moment against the sand and then vanished. “When he died,” Tom said, “I thought that he might finally acknowledge me in some way.” His face twisted. “I had waited and waited for his notice. It was foolish of me, for of course I was nothing to him. I was less than nothing.”

  “It was after he died that you showed me the documents relating to Stephen’s death,” Merryn said and saw him nod. She felt bitter and foolish. She could see now how cleverly Tom had influenced her, providing information, spurring her on while pretending to have his doubts, using her because in her quest for justice she had been blind to all else.

  “I have all the evidence I need now,” Tom said. “I know there was no duel. I can prove it. I’ll reveal the whole truth and I’ll make sure Farne will hang.”

  “No!” Merryn said. She thought of the children in the garden, of everything that Garrick had worked to protect. She remembered Garrick’s words to her at the ball: “If you pursue this the innocent will suffer…” She could see the impossible choices he had made and the hard decisions he had taken. “I’ll stop you,” she said. “I’ll testify against you if I have to. You will not hurt that child and…” she took a deep breath “…I will not let you ruin Garrick.”

  Tom laughed harshly. “You were always so righteous,” he said. “What does your brother’s little bastard matter to me?” He put his hand into his pocket and took out a pistol. “I might have known you would fall in love with Farne,” he said. “He is an idealist like you.”

  The snowstorm reached them with a sudden violent swirl of sound and the blizzard enveloped them. Tom took aim and Merryn turned, taking a hasty step back, tripping over her skirts. A wave caught her, knocking her off balance. She went down, feeling the sand shift treacherously beneath her feet. In a flash of blinding fear she remembered the locket shimmering on the surface of the sand and then vanishing below it. She was on the edge of a quicksand and had not realized it and now, as another wave buffeted her, she heard the greedy sucking of the waves about her feet. It was terrifying. It felt as though there was nothing but emptiness beneath her, no firm foothold, nothing but the quicksand dragging her down, devouring her. And in front of her was Tom Bradshaw, with a pistol.

  She waited as time seemed to spin out in endless moments.

  And Tom stood there, watching the sands take her, and made no move to help her at all.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  GARRICK HAD LOOKED everywhere for Merryn, asked everyone he had seen and had drawn a blank at every turn. With each empty road and every negative response his anxiety for her had grown, desperation lending his steps even greater speed as he had searched everywhere he could think.

  All he could see was Merryn’s stricken face and the blank shock in her eyes as she had reproached him.

  “I had nothing of him left,” she had said of her brother. And he had remembered the long, dark night in the beer flood when she had told him that sometimes she could not even remember Stephen’s face, that he was slipping away from her even as she desperately tried to hold something of him to her, to keep his memory alive. He knew that this business of the child was one thing that she could never forgive him for. She had said that she never wanted to see him again. He understood that. But even so he had to know that she was safe.

  He had been searching for her since the previous day, tracing her steps to the White Lion in Holborn where the landlord remembered her taking the Bath Flyer, driving hell for leather on the Bath Road, calling at the White Hart in Bath, following her trail to Shipham, becoming more and more anxious for her with every mile that passed because he knew that when she discovered the whole truth as surely she would now, it would shatter her illusions once and for all and destroy her world. Bradshaw had been as slippery and deceitful as Garrick had known he would be, swearing that Merryn knew nothing of the child and that he himself had no interest in the scurrilous gossip that Harriet had carried to him. Garrick had sensed the man was lying about something but in his haste to find Merryn he had let Bradshaw go.

  Now he paced the courtyard of the inn in Kilve. As a last resort he had assumed that Merryn would return there intent on taking a carriage home, intent at least on getting as far away from him as possible. He had waited ten minutes, in an agony of impatience and doubt, and a further ten barely able to contain his feelings. And now, another five minutes later, he knew that something was wrong. He could feel it. The unease prickled along his skin and nagged at his mind.

  The ostlers were unharnessing his carriage horses, leading them to the stables and rubbing them down. Suddenly Garrick made up his mind.

  “Saddle me up your best horse,” he said abruptly to one of the gaping grooms. The anxiety grabbed at him again. “Quickly, man!”

  The ostler was looking dubious. This was a country inn, after all.

  “The best, your grace?” he queried.

  “Now!” Garrick snapped.

  The best horse was perhaps not quite as highly bred as those in the Farne stables. In fact it looked suspiciously like an Exmoor pony and he was afraid that his weight would prove too much for it. However it was no broken-winded nag, Garrick saw to his relief, and it proved game enough when he turned it on to the coast path and gave it its head. The stones flew from its hooves. The thunder of the surf was in Garrick’s ears and the whip of cold air on his face, and the ride should have been exhilarating had fear not held him tight in its grasp now, a dark formless dread that told him that something was terribly awry.

  He saw the blue of Merryn’s gown from the cliffs and immediately changed his course to go down onto the beach. There was someone with her; Garrick could not see clearly what was happening but they were by the water’s edge. Merryn appeared to be on her knees…

  Then two things happened at once. He recognized Tom Bradshaw when Tom began to run. And Merryn did not move.

  With a muff
led oath Garrick set the horse to the edge of the cliff, scrambling and slithering down the precipitous slope until they reached the beach. Thank God, he thought, this was an Exmoor pony. It looked as though it took such inclines in its stride every day of the week. It was not even pulling for breath. He urged it to a gallop and the little creature responded, the sand flying. On the way he passed Bradshaw running away as fast as he could. Bradshaw took a shot at him, the bullet flying so close that it passed through the horse’s mane. Garrick did not even pause. His entire being was focused on Merryn, on reaching her in time, on saving her. His heart was thumping.

  He reined in six feet back from the edge of the water so that the horse did not become mired in the quicksand, too. He cut the reins.

  “Keep still,” he said to Merryn. “Don’t move.” There was no time. She was already up to her thighs in the sand, then her hips, her waist. Her face was white as chalk, her eyes huge, terrified. But he could not allow himself to think of that. He could not allow himself to think of her fear, or feel his own. He had to concentrate. He knotted the reins into a loop with hands that were absolutely steady.

  “Listen to me,” he said, and saw her give a tiny nod. “I’m going to throw this to you. Slip the noose around your body and hold on tight.”

  Merryn did not respond. Her eyes were blank.

  “Do you understand?” Garrick said. He injected a hint of steel into his voice. “Merryn.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Another wave broke around her and Garrick saw her slip an inch deeper, two inches. The sand was almost up to her armpits now. In seconds she would be gone. The fear clawed at his throat, paralyzing him for a brief second. To lose Merryn now would be intolerable, eclipsing everything else that had happened in his life, driving out light and love forever. When Purchase had confronted him about his feelings for Merryn he had denied that he loved her. He had believed it. He had thought himself too tarnished and bitter to love. He recognized his mistake now in the seconds before he was about to lose that love forever.

  He could see the horror in Merryn’s eyes. It filled her whole being. The sand sucked at her and she slipped another inch. She opened her mouth to scream. Garrick knew she was on the very edge of hysteria and that if she gave in to it she would be lost. She would sink in an instant and be smothered, drowned in sand.

  “Merryn,” he said. “I love you. Don’t leave me now.”

  Her gaze jerked up to his. Her breathing calmed a fraction.

  He threw the makeshift rope.

  She caught it and slipped the loop over her head and the breath left Garrick’s lungs so fast he felt dizzy.

  “Hold on!” he shouted.

  The snow was swirling, blinding him now. He pulled harder than he had ever pulled in his life before and felt the resistance. He pulled again, almost wrenching his arms from their sockets, and then another wave broke and he felt the sands shift and move and Merryn came free to her waist, then her knees, and then she was sprawling on the sand in a tumbled heap, half conscious, as Garrick lifted her with hands that shook so much now he could not keep them steady. He held her close against his racing heart and pressed his lips to her hair.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “If you cannot forgive me—”

  “Be quiet, Garrick,” Merryn said very clearly. Her eyes opened. She reached up and cupped his face in her hands and kissed him and then Garrick was kissing her back, over and over, desperate, famished kisses as though he would never let her go.

  THEY DID NOT TALK on the way back. The horse was tired now and carrying a double weight and Merryn felt colder and more tired still. Garrick had wrapped her in his jacket and though she murmured a protest and tried to shrug it off he just fastened it all the more closely about her and after a moment she accepted his gift. The coat was warm and smelled of Garrick and she turned her face against the collar and drank in the reassurance of it. She found that for once she did not want to speak at all. She felt simultaneously too full of emotion to be able to grapple with it, yet utterly drained and exhausted. She had questions—she would come to those soon enough and this time, she knew, Garrick would answer—but for now she was content to lie quietly in Garrick’s arms as he encouraged the little horse back to the village.

  It was only a matter of minutes before they were back in Kilve’s broad high street and turning through the arch into the courtyard of The Smugglers Inn. Garrick handed the shivering pony over to the ostlers, gave it an appreciative pat, lifted Merryn down again and carried her into the inn. This time her protests were stronger.

  “Put me down,” she snapped, wriggling in his arms. “I am perfectly capable of walking. I am not an invalid!”

  Mrs. Morton chose that precise moment to appear from the parlor and seemed extremely flustered to see Merryn clasped in the arms of a man.

  “Lady Merryn!” she exclaimed.

  “Mrs. Morton,” Merryn said as Garrick gently restored her to her feet. “This is—”

  “I am Lady Merryn’s husband,” Garrick lied smoothly, shooting Merryn a swift look that positively forbade argument. “Garrick Farne, at your service, madam.” He executed a perfect bow.

  “You did not tell us you were married!” Mrs. Morton exclaimed, seemingly torn between indignation that Merryn had kept such a prime piece of gossip from her and a certain admiration for Garrick’s evident style.

  “I am afraid that Lady Merryn has not quite got used to the idea yet,” Garrick said, before Merryn could respond. His hand tightened warningly on hers. “Our relationship is only of recent standing.”

  Merryn opened her mouth—saw his expression—and closed it again. Garrick, she thought, looked extremely forbidding. “Come, my love,” he added, shifting his grip to her arm. “You are chilled to the bone. I will ask the landlady to draw a bath for you.”

  The landlord appeared at the moment, with promises of spiced wine and hot food and when he addressed Garrick as “your grace” Mrs. Morton’s mouth fell open, her eyes became as huge as dinner plates and she hurried off, presumably to acquaint the rest of the inn’s occupants with the news of their august guest.

  “I don’t know what you had to do that for,” Merryn said as the landlord ushered them into a private parlor where a fire roared in the grate.

  “Because,” Garrick said, “I had no wish to make you the butt of yet more scandal.”

  “I think,” Merryn said, “that my reputation is probably beyond saving now.”

  “Probably,” Garrick concurred.

  There was a little silence.

  “Did you mean it?” Merryn said. Her voice trembled.

  Garrick did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Yes,” he said. “I meant it. I love you with all my heart.” There was so much of pity and regret in his eyes. “But I also meant what I said in London.” His voice was lacerated by pain. “I can never be the man you want me to be, Merryn.”

  The landlord knocked at the door and came in with the spiced wine and a tray piled high with food. Garrick poured for her and passed her a glass. He moved away again immediately and Merryn knew that despite their passionate embrace when he had saved her from the quicksand he would not touch her again. Only she could put matters right now if she had the strength and courage to face the past.

  She took a sip of the spiced wine, feeling the rich liquid burn a line of fire down to her stomach, feeling it warm and soothe her.

  “When I discovered that Kitty had been pregnant,” she said, “I wanted to believe that I had been right about you from the start, Garrick. I wanted to believe that you had killed Stephen in cold blood, out of anger and revenge. It would have made perfect sense. Your best friend had betrayed you with your wife. There was an argument. You shot him. I wanted to believe that you had lied to me when you told me Stephen had tried to kill Kitty.” She stopped, rubbing her fingers over the delicate tracery of the goblet, over and over. “Except by then I had already come to know you.” She looked up. “I had already come to love you. And I knew you would no
t lie.”

  She looked at him. His mouth was hard, his eyes shadowed.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  Garrick came to sit close to her, not touching, but near. There was a long silence. Merryn waited. Garrick started to talk, slowly, reluctantly. It felt as though the words were dragged out of him, gathering fluency only when he seemed to forget that she was there and lost himself in the dark memory of the past.

  “I found them in the maze at Starcross Hall,” he said. “Kitty had been expecting me—I had been up in London on business but then I received a note from her asking me to come down to Somerset on a matter of urgency. I set off as soon as I could.” He raked a hand though his hair in a quick, anguished gesture. “Perhaps she planned for me to find her with Stephen to force a confrontation. To this day I do not know. But whatever she had planned, it had gone wrong. I heard them arguing violently as I tried to find my way through the maze toward them.” He stopped. Merryn watched the play of emotion across his face like light and shade—anger, pity, regret. “Kitty was crying,” Garrick said, “and pleading with Stephen to run away with her. She said that they could make a new life together, the two of them with their child.” He glanced at Merryn’s face, then away. “That was the first that I knew she was pregnant.” Merryn saw him look down at his clasped hands, the knuckles gripping white. “Stephen was laughing at her,” he said tonelessly, “and taunting her. He said that he had no intention of running off with her, that he had never loved her, that she was nothing more than a whore and that if she was sensible she would pay him to keep his mouth shut about the baby and pretend that it was mine all along.”

  Merryn gave a little moan, covering her face with her hands. For a moment it was as though her heart had stopped. Her memories were splintering now, dissolving, reforming into a new pattern. In her mind’s eye she could see Stephen, hear his voice echoing down the long garden corridor of Fenners on the last morning of his life. He had been dressed for riding and was halfway out of the door already, the sun behind him, lighting him up so that she could not see his expression.