Mistress by Midnight. Nicola Cornick

late Duke’s rather vulgar grasping after every last penny that could be squeezed from his lands.

      The clock on the mantel chimed twelve. Suddenly restless, Garrick got up and walked across to the dirty window. Dusty drapes shuttered the room. His mother, who might well have taken Farne House in hand, had not been to London for years. Tired of her husband’s famously indiscreet infidelities, she had become a dowager before her time and had retired to a house in Sussex. Garrick wondered vaguely how she would greet the arrival of the ungovernable Harriet on her doorstep. No doubt she would have the vapors. It was her usual mode of response to any crisis.

      Outside the day was bright and clear, the sort of November morning that had slanting sunlight and scurrying white clouds. Garrick felt as though he were trapped here in this cobwebbed mausoleum. He wanted to take his stallion and ride out, not in the park among the chattering crowds, but somewhere wild and empty where he and the beast could both let go of all restraint. He had lived abroad for many years and had a taste for empty spaces and the hot blue skies of Portugal and Spain. And though he had been back in London for over a year, still the city felt cramped and cold and strangely repressive to a man who only really thrived in the open air.

      Duty called him back to the pile of estate papers. He was Duke of Farne now and regardless of how disappointing he was as upholder of the family dignity, he could not escape his responsibilities. He had had that drummed into him since he was a child. He strode back to the desk. In his study in the house on Charles Street he had plenty of work waiting, too, research relating to his academic studies into seventeenth-century astronomy, documents to translate for the War Office. He had worked for Earl Bathurst, the Secretary of State for War, during his time in exile. He had also done plenty of other, less official, work for the government as well. It was one of the reasons that his father had raged against him, the heir to the Dukedom of Farne, trying and consistently failing to get himself killed in the service of his country. But what was he to do? For years he had carried the burden of taking a life, that of Stephen Fenner. He had tried to give his own in reparation, but the gods appeared uninterested in taking it.

      He picked up his pen. He put it down again. What he really wanted to do, he found, was to discover the identity of the woman who had penetrated his house and his defenses, his midnight visitor, she of the vivid blue eyes and the porcelain fair skin. She had run from him like a fairy-tale Cinderella.

      He wandered over to the oak bookcases that lined two walls of the study. Here he paused, the hairs on the back of his neck rising with a curious feeling of awareness. Someone else had perused these shelves, and recently. There were tiny marks in the dust, as though someone had carefully drawn out the books and replaced them without wanting to leave a trace.

      He turned back to the desk. Had she been rifling through the papers here, too? If so, what could have been her purpose?

      He wondered how, in the whole of London, he might find one elusive lady. There were always the inquiry agents, he supposed, though he could give them precious little to work on. A physical description, based on all the things he had found so seductive about her, would not be particularly helpful.

      Shaking his head in exasperation, Garrick resumed his work, untying the red ribbon that held the next set of estate papers.

      “Title to the estate of Fenners in the County of Dorset …”

      Garrick felt chilled. Icy memory trickled down his spine. He had had no idea that his father had bought up the Fenner estates. He ripped the ribbon away and sifted through the papers. His father, it seemed, had purchased not only the house of Fenners but also the land and all associated coal-mining rights. He had done so ten years previously when the estate had been broken up after the last Earl had died. The mining had proved lucrative; it had brought in a sum approaching a hundred thousand pounds.

      The cold hardened inside Garrick, deep and dark. His father had profited by the death of Stephen Fenner and the subsequent extinction of the Earldom. While he had been trying to atone for Fenner’s death his father had been turning it to financial advantage. How utterly typical it was of the late Duke to act with such vile cupidity. Garrick felt sick and revolted. It was intolerable to inherit an estate that had come to him through violence and bloodshed, even more so when it was blood that he himself had shed. With a sudden burst of anger he brought his hand down and scattered the deeds across the floor.

      He threw himself down into his chair and tried to think. He had been back in society for fifteen months, long enough to know that the eldest of the Earl of Fenner’s daughters was the famed hostess Joanna, Lady Grant, married to the equally famous Arctic explorer Alex Grant. The middle sister, Teresa Darent, was notorious, a widow who had run through four husbands already. Naturally enough he had not met either Lady Grant or Lady Darent socially; they would scarcely invite to their balls and routs the man who had murdered their brother in a duel. Ton society might be extraordinarily flexible, but it was not that flexible. He thought there was also a third girl, the youngest, but he knew little of her. She was unmarried, reputedly a bluestocking, almost a recluse, if gossip was to be believed.

      Garrick reached for pen and ink and began to write. After he had finished the letter, sealed it and addressed it, he picked up again the papers relating to the Fenner estate but after a moment he let them drift from his hand down onto the desk before him.

      Stephen Fenner had been his best friend at Eton and Oxford. He had been a rake, a gamester and a noted whip. His handsome face and winning charm had allowed him to cut a swath through the bedrooms and boudoirs of a number of ton ladies. It had been amusing to be one of Stephen’s friends, part of a dazzling raffish crowd who had lived for pleasure. Garrick had been seduced by the glamour of it all. It was such a far cry from the life of service and obligation that he had been raised to embrace. But then Stephen had chosen Garrick’s bride as his latest conquest and friendship had disintegrated into betrayal and disgrace …

      There was a knock at the door; Pointer, Garrick thought, had evidently overcome his disapproval sufficiently to resume his duties.

      “I have ascertained that a window in the east wing has been forced, your grace,” the butler said, looking with disfavor at the scattered pile of papers. “It is possible that an intruder may have found ingress into the house that way.”

      “She broke in through a window,” Garrick said. “I see. Thank you, Pointer.”

      “I have made the house secure,” Pointer finished grandly, “so your grace need have no further concerns.”

      “I am confident to leave the matter of household security entirely in your hands, Pointer,” Garrick said. He held out the letter. “If you would be so kind as to see this is delivered to the offices of Churchward and Churchward, the lawyers, in Holborn please?”

      “Of course, your grace,” Pointer said, bowing with exquisite precision and proffering a silver tray on which Garrick could place the missive.

      “And then,” Garrick said, “I would like you to find me an inquiry agent.”

      Pointer’s long nose twitched with shock. “An inquiry agent, your grace?” He repeated, as though Garrick had asked for something so outrageous he had no idea how to respond.

      “Your esteemed father,” he added, “would never have required such a person, your grace.”

      “I know,” Garrick said, grinning. “You are going to have to get used to some changes, I fear, Pointer. If you could expedite the matter,” he added, “that would be appreciated. There is someone I need to find urgently.”

      When he had found his midnight bibliophile, Garrick thought, he was going discover exactly what her business was with him. And this time he would not let her run away.

      “THANK YOU FOR YOUR CUSTOM, Lord Selfridge. It was a pleasure to be able to provide you with the information you required.”

      Merryn sat in a dark corner of the waiting room while her associate, Tom Bradshaw, ushered the peer toward the stairs. Selfridge barely noticed her and certainly did not recognize her. Merryn would have been astonished if he had. In her daily life, as the frightfully studious bluestocking sister of Joanna,