Mistress by Midnight. Nicola Cornick

his protests, such as they were, stone dead. She kissed him avidly, insatiably, her hands roaming over his chest, slipping beneath his shirt, burrowing under the band of his pantaloons. Tom thought faintly that his initial assessment of her as more innocent than she appeared had been embarrassingly at fault.

      After that it all became very fast, slippery, heated and, when Tom looked back on it, utterly unbelievable. Harriet pushed him back so that he was sitting on his desk and opened his pantaloons with such seductive efficiency that his cock sprang out, already rock-hard. She climbed on top of him, knees braced on each side of him on the desktop, and slid down, engulfing him in her tight, slick warmth. Tom’s groan almost shattered the windows and certainly caused the sleeping seagulls to rise from the roof with angry cries. He quickly discovered that Harriet was wearing no underwear of any kind and she pulled down the neckline of her gown so that her generous breasts bounced in his face with each thrust and slide. She came quickly and jumped off him, leaving Tom almost speechless with thwarted desire. But then she turned and bent over the desk in mute invitation. Tom was not slow to take the offer. He pulled up her silken skirts and plundered her body deeply, the inkpot and quills flying as the desk rocked, the pile of client folders spilling all their secrets onto the floor in a cascade of paper.

      Afterward Harriet gave him a little smile. “My guardian’s groom first had me when I was sixteen.” Her eyes gleamed. “I’m afraid that I have had a taste for the lower orders ever since.”

      Which, Tom thought, made his place explicitly clear.

      She kissed him lingeringly and was gone.

      It took Tom a fair while to recover the thinking part of his anatomy and even longer to tidy his office and mop up the inkstains, but when he was finally sitting at his desk again and drinking a restorative glass of brandy his mind returned to the idea of Garrick Farne’s by-blow. If Harriet had been in her teens at the time of Kitty Northesk’s death then the timing of the revelations about a baby must have coincided closely with the scandal of Stephen Fenner’s murder. Tom had a good instinct for secrets and he felt strongly that the two scandals must be connected in some way. If the information on the child was as deeply buried as that relating to the Fenner duel it would be difficult but not impossible to find it out. Harriet had not been mistaken; he really was the best.

      Tom wondered when Harriet would return for an update on his progress. He looked forward to exacting more payment. His body felt replete and even though his mind was telling him that mixing business with pleasure with the rapacious Lady Harriet was possibly the most ill-judged action of his life, he could not really regret it. He knew that he needed to keep a clear head for the Farne case, but Harriet had proved too tempting to resist. She had fallen into his lap like a gift in more ways than one and he had never been a man to turn down an opportunity.

      He sat back in his chair and looked out across the river. He was sure he could manage this situation, complex as it was becoming. Merryn was investigating the circumstances surrounding the duel and it was easy to manipulate her because she hated Farne and wanted justice. Tom was not particularly taken with the concept of justice himself; he thought it was ridiculously idealistic. Still, it served to keep Merryn on his side. Meanwhile Harriet had provided him with some additional information that he would look into and then he would keep anything useful for himself. And after that … Tom paused in contemplation of his grand plan. After that he might blackmail Farne if it served his purposes, or even allow Merryn to expose the Duke as a murderer if he chose. Having the power to decide, holding the Dukedom of Farne in the palm of his hand, would be the ultimate gift, all that he had ever wanted. He finished the brandy. It had been a very good day indeed.

      MERRYN WALKED HOME quickly from the Octagon Library, the tap of her footsteps on the cobbles echoing the turmoil inside her. How dared Garrick Farne kiss her, and in such an abrupt, arrogant and utterly masterful manner that had, she was obliged to admit to herself, completely swept her away. The man was insolent and entirely disrespectful, following her to the library, unmasking her, challenging her over her plans to ruin him. He had expressed not one word of regret for Stephen’s death. For a moment Merryn thought about that and it hurt her horribly. Garrick Farne was indifferent to the tragedy he had caused and for that, she thought, he deserved to be punished.

      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