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

Hammond.”
    Hammond snapped open a notebook with such alacrity Garrick jumped.
    “Is she lost, your grace?”
    “No,” Garrick said. “What I should have said is that I need you to identify a lady for me.”
    “Ah,” Hammond said. “Semantics.”
    “Quite,” Garrick said, warming to him. “There is a lady I have met, I do not know her name and I want you to find her and tell me who she is.”
    Hammond nodded. “Description?”
    “Small, fair-haired, blue-eyed…” Garrick struggled. A pocket goddess, beautifully rounded, soft, smooth skin, vivid blue eyes, hair like a tumble of golden corn…
    Get a grip on yourself, he ordered himself.
    “Age?” Hammond’s sharp gray gaze was unblinking.
    “Twenty-five,” Garrick said, “or so she told me.”
    Hammond nodded. “And you met…”
    “Here,” Garrick said. “She broke into my house last night. Or rather,” he corrected himself, “I believe she might have been staying here for a little time.”
    “Lady Merryn Fenner,” Hammond said.
    Garrick blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Lady Merryn Fenner,” the inquiry agent repeated. “Sister to Joanna, Lady Grant, and Teresa, Lady Darent, and daughter of the late Earl of Fenner. Your grace.”
    Lady Merryn Fenner .
    Garrick felt as though someone had emptied a bucket of ice down his back. The woman he lusted for, the wraith who haunted his thoughts, was Stephen Fenner’s youngest sister. In a flash he remembered the initials in the copy of Mansfield Park, the entwined M and F. He remembered her eyes and saw the vivid blue of Stephen’s.
    “How the devil,” he said slowly, “did you know? There must be a hundred small, fair, twenty-five-year-old ladies in London. Two hundred. A thousand.”
    Hammond permitted himself a small, wintry smile that was nevertheless full of satisfaction. “Aye, your grace. Normally it would take me—” he paused “—oh, at least a day to come up with that information. But Lady Merryn Fenner works for Tom Bradshaw and we like to keep an eye on his business.” He waited, then as Garrick looked blank: “Bradshaw the inquiry agent, your grace. A rival company.” For a moment Garrick thought Hammond was about to spit but he clearly thought better of it in the ducal library. “Bradshaw’s a cocky fellow,” Hammond said. “Smooth as you like, but bent as a guinea note. A good job you didn’t approach him with your inquiry, sir. He would have taken your money and spun you a line.”
    Garrick frowned. Oddly the thought of his midnight visitor working for a corrupt inquiry agent filled him with a strange sense of protectiveness. Merryn Fenner had seemed too innocent and too honest to be mixed up in crooked business. But clearly his instinct about her was wildly astray. She had broken into his house, after all, had been searching his library and his study and his bedroom. She was not a sheltered debutante. She was a burglar and very possibly a thief.
    “So you knew,” Garrick said slowly, “that Lady Merryn Fenner had broken in here last night because you were watching her?”
    “One of my men reported it,” Hammond said. “She’s been here every night for the past five days.”
    Five days. Sleeping in his bed.
    Garrick thought of the slide of the sheet against his body and Merryn’s scent enveloping him, soft, sensuous, seductive.
    Five days. Searching his papers.
    She had nerve. He would give her that. He thought about what Lady Merryn Fenner might be hunting at Farne House. The conclusion was inescapable. The connection between the two of them was her brother. The object of her search therefore must be something to do with Stephen’s death.
    He got to his feet abruptly and strode over to the fire, stirring it to flame with his booted foot. The logs settled with a hiss.
    He had feared this for twelve years. His father had told him that the matter was settled, all witnesses paid off, all evidence destroyed, all those who needed protection kept safe. The Earl of