Mistress by Midnight by Nicola Cornick Read Free Book Online Page A

to talk to me.”
    “Possibly not,” Tom said, “when he knows who you are.” He closed the file softly. “I have to admit,” he said, “that it looks very bad for Farne. Three shots, two bullets, one in the back… Reports suppressed and rewritten, witnesses disappearing, no doubt paid off… And he runs away abroad and then his father fixes it all with the authorities so that he never has to stand trial and can come home a decade later with everything forgiven and forgotten…” Tom shook his head. He paused. “Perhaps we should reconsider. We’re stirring up a lot of trouble. All this was buried years ago. People won’t like it.”
    Merryn shivered. A little ripple of anticipation mingled with apprehension fluttered down her spine.
    “I’m not giving up now,” she said. “I want to know the truth and I want Farne to face justice. But if he finds out…”
    If Farne finds out there will be hell to pay…
    She remembered the ruthlessness she had sensed in Garrick Farne the moment she saw him. Tom had been right: he was no ineffectual scholar, he was a man with a dangerous past.
    Tom was watching her face.
    “You had better make sure he does not find out,” he said, “but if you are too scared to do it—”
    His tone was all the incentive Merryn needed.
    “No,” she said. “No, I will do it. It will be my pleasure.”
    CHAPTER THREE
    “I HAVE FOUND YOU an inquiry agent, your grace, Hammond by name.” Pointer, his nose twitching in a manner that indicated that he could not quite believe how low he had stooped, stood back to allow the ingress of a man into the library at Farne House. The late autumn evening was already drawing in, darkness dropping over the streets of London and creeping into the room. Garrick had forced himself to work for another four hours on the Farne estate papers, acquainting himself with all the dependents on the Dukedom, all the pensions to be paid, the widows and orphans, the servants, estate workers, the whole panoply of his fiefdom. It was terrifying how many people depended upon him.
    Despite the presence of a full branch of candles the room looked gloomy and bare, the bookshelves standing like sentinels. Garrick stood up and stretched, only now aware of how stiff he had become poring over the books for hours on end. He shook the newcomer by the hand and gestured him to a chair. The long mirror that stretched along one wall reflected back their images. It was easy to see why Pointer disapproved, Garrick thought. In the butler’s eyes the visitor would be categorized as most definitely not a gentleman. There was about him an indefinable air of seediness. It seemed soaked into his person, from the battered hat he held in his hand to the world-weary expression in his deep-set gray eyes to the cut of his clothes. He was the type of man Garrick had met on many occasions in his work in the Peninsular—the fixer, the intelligence man, for sale to the highest bidder, exactly the man Garrick needed now.
    “Mr. Hammond,” he said. “How do you do?”
    “Your grace.” The man did not bow. It was more a meeting of equals, Garrick thought. He needed a service Hammond could provide and the inquiry agent saw no need to be deferential.
    “A drink?” Garrick offered. “Brandy?”
    “Not on duty, thank you, your grace.”
    That, Garrick thought, argued a certain discipline. He nodded. “You will excuse me if I do?”
    Hammond’s smile indicated that he recognized this was merely a courtesy. He sat in one of the large wing chairs before the fire, his hat on his knee, politely waiting for Garrick to state his business. Garrick poured for himself—no sense in summoning Pointer simply to perform that function, although no doubt the butler would feel he should have preserved the formalities—and took the chair opposite, crossing one ankle over the other. Mr. Hammond raised an interrogative brow. Garrick paused, chose his words with care.
    “I need you to find a lady for me, Mr.