Nicola Cornick - Mistress by Midnight

Concentrate. Three steps to the door …

“That’s right,” she said. “I do not want to talk to you at all.”

“Yet you are not in a position to refuse.”

“That’s debatable.”

He laughed. “You want to debate?”

“No,” Merryn said. “I want to leave.”

He shook his head. “I should hand you over to Bow Street for housebreaking.”

“And then you would still get no explanation whatsoever.”

His eyes gleamed. “A fair point.” He shrugged those broad shoulders. “Then there is nothing for it than that I keep you here until you tell me the truth.”

Merryn glanced around. He was going to keep her imprisoned in his bedroom? The big tester bed, so wide, so inviting, seemed to mock her. She remembered the cool smoothness of the sheets and the yielding softness of the mattress. For one scalding moment she had a vision of Garrick’s naked body bearing hers down into that silken embrace, of his hands against her bare skin, of his caresses … She looked from the bed to Garrick. He raised his brows a fraction of an inch and Merryn felt her body suffuse with heat.

“You could read your book,” he said gently, “to pass the time.” He held out her copy of Mansfield Park to her.

“Thank you,” Merryn said. She put out a hand to take it. He held on to it. She gave it a little tug. Garrick allowed her gesture to bring him a step closer to her. Their fingers were practically touching now on the deep red cover, hers slender and pale, his tanned and strong. She remembered his touch against her cheek and closed her eyes on a long shiver.

He took the final step. They were very close now. He was frowning, his gaze fierce beneath the dark brows. And then he leaned closer and sniffed her, delicately, as though she were a flower.

“Bluebells,” he muttered. He shook his head, sniffed again; looked up again, incredulous. His gaze had narrowed to an intense black stare.

“Have you been sleeping in my bed?” he demanded.

“I …” Suddenly Merryn’s mouth was dry and her wits seemed to have gone a-begging. “Yes, I have …” She licked her lips and tasted dust. His gaze had gone to her mouth and fastened there, his eyes darkening with an intensity that had her stomach knotting.

“An extraordinary intimacy,” he murmured.

Merryn had never been kissed but she knew with an instinct deep as time itself that in another moment Garrick Farne would kiss her, cobwebs and all. The fierce heat she could see in his eyes trapped and held her. Her heart hammered.

He closed the remaining distance between them and his lips brushed hers. Soft, so soft, and barely a touch at all and yet the caress seemed to awaken something fierce and burning inside her. Her head spun. She could smell his masculine scent and for some reason it made her knees tremble. Her whole body was alight with a sensation she had never experienced. Her lips parted on a little gasp of shock.

Garrick stood back, a look of stunned surprise on his face. Merryn seized the moment. She grabbed Mansfield Park from out of his hand and hit him squarely with it on the side of his head. Garrick gave an oath. The spine of the book was fragile and the pages came loose, showering him in paper like confetti, blinding him for a moment. It was all that Merryn needed. She whisked through the door and out into the passage. The key was in the outside of the lock. She turned it. And then she ran.

“POINTER,” GARRICK SAID, sitting at his father’s desk the following morning, “do you think it would be possible to break into Farne House? Is it vulnerable to intruders?”

“Your grace?” The butler sounded faintly anxious.

“I only ask, you understand,” Garrick said, “because I found a strange female in my room last night.”

“Lady Harriet—” the butler began.

“Ah, yes,” Garrick said. He had packed Harriet and her chaperone off to stay with his mother in the country. Since the Dowager Duchess’s household would be in deep mourning for the foreseeable future, this seemed punishment enough for the promiscuous minx.

“Pray do not admit Lady Harriet to my presence again, Pointer,” he said. “Not under any circumstances.”

“No, your grace.” Pointer sounded subdued. “I did try to stop the lady but she was the late Duke’s ward and is much given to following her own desires.”

“She is indeed,” Garrick said. “Lady Harriet can be very persuasive. But this other woman—”

He stopped. What could he say?

I found a woman under my bed. She was small, with blue eyes that glow like agates and pale golden hair like a swatch of silk. She smelled of bluebells. I kissed her and she tasted of dust and innocence, and I have never wanted to bed a woman more in my life …

No, decidedly he could not tell Pointer his thoughts. Such vivid fantasies had no place in the life of a Duke shackled to duty and responsibility. Nevertheless Garrick shifted as he remembered the shape of the girl’s lips beneath his, the tiny gasp she had given when he kissed her, the shocking sensation of wanting to catch her in his arms and tumble her onto his bed and strip those cobwebbed clothes from her to discover the pleasures of her body beneath. He wanted to taste that tempting mouth again, to kiss her senseless. He felt his body harden into arousal.

Hell and the devil.

Pointer cleared his throat and Garrick jumped.

“Your grace …”

“Pointer?” Garrick said.

“Perhaps she was one of the servants, your grace, come to make sure you were comfortable,” Pointer said. He looked shifty. “I will ask the housekeeper to tell the maids not to trouble you.”

“That would be appreciated,” Garrick said. He knew his intruder had not been a servant. She had spoken with the instinctive confidence of a lady regardless of her pretense to be a waif from the streets. This morning he had found other evidence of occupation in his bedroom, too. There were the charred remains of a letter curling in the grate. There was a stick of striped candy on the dresser, wrapped in a twist of paper. He had found that rather endearing. There were even some female unmentionables neatly folded on a shelf in the wardrobe. Those had given him pause. How long had she been making free with his property and sleeping in his bed?

Pointer was waiting. Garrick sighed. “To return to my original question. Is the house secure?”

“I will check, your grace.” Pointer sounded very stiff at the suggestion that he was not in control of every aspect of security at Farne House. “If there is nothing more, your grace, I shall go and do so at once …” Garrick knew the butler was mortally offended. They had already disagreed once that morning. The first thing Pointer had offered to do after breakfast was to visit the employment bureau in order to recruit more staff to open up Farne House again. When Garrick had told him that he did not intend to use Farne House as his London home, he had thought Pointer might well burst with disapproval.

“But, your grace—” the butler had forgotten himself sufficiently to protest “—Farne House is the … the flagship of your Dukedom, the very pinnacle of your position! It is the feather in your cap, the summit of your status—”

“Farne House is ugly, old, draughty and expensive,” Garrick had said. “I do not care for it, Pointer. I shall not be entertaining, nor do I have a Duchess who requires a social setting. I will return to my own house in Charles Street as soon as I have set my father’s affairs in order.”

“Charles Street!” Pointer had said, as though Garrick had suggested he would be returning to the London stews. “That may have done very well for you when you were the Marquis of Northesk, your grace, but you are the Duke now. You have a dignity to uphold. Your father—” He had fallen silent as Garrick had pinned him with a very hard look.