Nicola Cornick - Mistress by Midnight

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

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