Sins and Scandals Collection: Whisper of Scandal / One Wicked Sin / Mistress by Midnight / Notorious / Desired / Forbidden

Merryn stared at him, baffled and frustrated, while outside the carriage the flow of people swirled around them, passed by in a blur of color, a moving pageant. She was locked into the still core of it, possessed by the ferocious tension she could sense in Garrick, trapped by the harsh misery in his face.

“Why don’t you speak?” she burst out, after what seemed hours, goaded by fury and misery. “Why do you say nothing?”

He caught her wrists and pulled her close to him.

“There is nothing I can say.” For all his harshness, his breath stirred her hair like a tender caress. She could hear pain in his voice as well as anger. “Nothing will put matters right. Nothing will give you your brother back.”

His hands gentled on her, slid from her slowly, reluctantly. He sat back and Merryn felt shocked and alone, missing his touch, hating herself for feeling so bereft.

“You are home,” Garrick said. “I’ll bid you goodbye.”

There did not seem to be anything else to say. Merryn looked at his face, at the unyielding line of his cheek and jaw and the cold distance in his eyes as they rested on her. He opened the door for her with studied courtesy and then Merryn was standing on the pavement watching the carriage disappear into the press of London traffic.

Garrick had said the previous night that he would stop her inquiries and so far he had been true to his word. He was always a step ahead. She felt so impotent. There was no one who could help her. The truth had been suppressed years ago. But her only alternative was to abandon her quest for justice and it had possessed her for so long that to forsake it now seemed unthinkable. It would leave a huge void in her life and she would not know how to fill it. Besides, that was what Garrick wanted. He wanted her to give in, to concede defeat, and if she did so she would never achieve the justice that Stephen deserved.

That justice would see Garrick Farne swing on the end of a silken rope, convicted for murder.

A long shiver racked her. She thought of Garrick, of his hands on her body and his mouth on hers, of the desire in him and the answering need in her. How could it be that an outcome she had so devoutly sought for twelve years now left her shuddering? For she had the strangest feeling that if she found the evidence she sought, if she held Garrick’s life in her hands, proved him a murderer, she would not be glad, but sorry.

She turned and ran up the steps to the house trying to escape her thoughts. A footman opened the door and bowed her inside. As Merryn stripped off her gloves and unpinned her hat, she noticed a large bundle of papers, tied with ribbon, sitting on the hall table. The table, one of Joanna’s decorative pieces of rosewood furniture that was intended for display not use, looked as though its spindly legs might collapse beneath the weight.

“Merryn, dearest!” Joanna was coming out of the drawing room, Max the terrier clasped in her arms, his velvet green topknot a perfect match for her gown. Alex was following, holding Shuna by the hand as the baby toddled across the marble floor.

“Where have you been?” Joanna said. “You missed luncheon!”

“Nowhere in particular,” Merryn said. She knew that Joanna had no real curiosity and she had no intention of telling either of her sisters anything of her business. She nodded toward the pile of papers.

“What are those?”

“Oh …” Joanna waved a vague hand. “Mr. Churchward sent them over. They are the deeds to Fenners or something else monstrously dull. Alex can sort them out.”

“I’d like to look at them,” Merryn said in a rush.

Joanna looked faintly surprised. “Well, of course, darling,” she said. “If you like. I’ll have someone put them in the library for you.”

Merryn put out a hand and touched the top sheet. It was smooth from age and use and it smelled faintly musty. The ink was fading brown but it felt magical, alive, the first link she had had to her childhood home in over ten years. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt the tears sting her eyes.

Fenners is rightfully yours … I am giving it back …

She could hear Garrick’s voice like a whisper, like a promise. She looked at the writing, the word Fenners on the top of the document pile, a fragile link to another time.

She wished that Garrick did not always make it so difficult to hate him.

“OLD HABITS DIE HARD, FARNE.”

Garrick glanced up from the brandy glass before him and into the mocking green eyes of the man who addressed him. How anyone had found him here in Mrs. Tong’s Temple of Venus in Covent Garden, he could not imagine. Not that Owen Purchase was likely to have been looking for him. One did not come to Mrs. Tong’s brothel for a conversation that one could have at White’s or Brooks’s club. If it came to that, one did not visit Mrs. Tong’s brothel for any kind of conversation, other than the one where one handed over the money.

“Purchase,” he said. He gestured to the bottle. “Care to join me?”

“Why not?” the other man said. He slid into the gaudy covered booth opposite Garrick. He looked oddly out of place there, Garrick thought, too hard, too masculine, amid the rich silk drapes and garish cushions. Owen Purchase was an American sea captain of legendary skill and no fortune. He had fought for the British against the French and fought for the Americans against the British and had ended a prisoner of war for his pains. Now that the war was over he was back in London looking for a commission and a ship. Garrick had met him the previous year when his half brother Ethan and Purchase had been prisoners together. It had been an unconventional start to a good friendship.

“Your brother recommended this place,” Purchase said in his rich Southern drawl, looking around at the swinging Chinese lanterns and the shadowy alcoves where various ladies of doubtful virtue were plying their trade. “I hear he found his future wife here.”

Garrick spluttered into his drink. “So he did,” he said.

Purchase smiled. His thoughtful green gaze came back to rest on Garrick. “So why are you drinking this extortionately priced brandy,” he asked, “rather than taking one of these willing harlots to bed? You could get drunk more cheaply in any tavern.”

Garrick had spent the previous hour asking himself that very question. When he had arrived, Mrs. Tong had almost burst out of her low-cut evening gown with excitement. Her girls had flocked about her like so many brightly colored birds of paradise vying for the privilege of meeting his every carnal need. Although it was true that physical desire had driven him there, Garrick had looked at their artfully painted faces and had felt not the slightest flicker of lust. All he had was a deep urge to get very drunk very quickly, to forget, to drown the past.

Mrs. Tong had assumed that he was getting cold feet; that he was out of practice. She had given him a bottle of brandy and her best girl. The brandy had been of surprisingly high quality, the lightskirt less so and a great deal less tempting. After ten minutes Garrick had sent her away. Mrs. Tong had sent in another to replace her, a different girl, less obviously brazen, with more pretense of innocence. Garrick had felt repelled. When he sent that one out he had told her to tell the madam to leave him in peace with the brandy bottle. Mrs. Tong had sent a message back that it would cost him but as far as she was concerned, if he could pay he was welcome to drink himself to death in her whorehouse. Garrick had thought that was a fine offer.

But now Purchase was here and asking awkward questions. He watched as the man poured himself a glass of brandy and raised it in sardonic toast.

“You don’t have to answer me,” Purchase said conversationally, “but I want you to know I’ve noticed your evasion.”

Garrick traced circles with his glass on the silken tablecloth. The brothel was busy. Every few minutes the door opened to admit another visitor. The girls fluttered past like showy butterflies. Purchase gave one of them a wicked smile and she looked at him, looked at Garrick, and raised her brows. Purchase shook his head and her mouth turned down at the corners in a pretty display of disappointment.

“Don’t mind me,” Garrick said. “I appreciate that you didn’t come here for a chat.”

“I can wait,” Purchase drawled. He sat back in the booth, toying with his glass, his gaze keen as it rested on Garrick’s face. “You know, Farne, if it did not seem so ridiculous I would say that you are suffering from unrequited love.”

Garrick laughed. “Unrequited lust, more like.”

He thought of Merryn Fenner. He had not stopped thinking of Merryn since that morning. In point of fact he had not stopped thinking of Merryn since he had dragged her out from under his bed. Love? It was not love, he thought, that hot, tight bond that held them so close. It was anger and frustration, an attraction that could not be denied, a force that impelled them together only to drive them apart. It was intolerable, like the chafing of a bond that could not be slipped. But the one thing that he could not dispute was that it was Merryn he wanted, not one of these Cyprians, no matter how prettily they might perform for him. He could take one of these girls and lose himself in forgetting for a little while, but then he knew his hunger for Merryn would come back and it would be sharper than before because what he was trying to substitute for it was hollow and worthless.

“It is Lady Merryn Fenner,” he said.

He saw the amusement leap into Purchase’s eyes. “Those Fenner girls,” he said. “Born to drive a man to perdition.”

Garrick paused in the act of refilling his glass. “You, too?” he said. “I did not know.”

“Lady Joanna,” Purchase said, nodding. “Or Lady Grant as she is now.” He shook his head. “A hopeless case but I have always been attracted to lost causes.”

“There is another sister,” Garrick pointed out. “Lady Darent.”

Purchase laughed. “I know. I’ve heard about her. Who hasn’t? Four husbands already.” He tilted his glass to his lips. “Perhaps I should meet her. Or perhaps not if I want to keep my sanity.” His amusement fled. “I’ve met Lady Merryn a couple of times. She is …” He paused. “Unusual.”

“She’s stubborn as all hell,” Garrick said. “Never gives up.”

Purchase grimaced. “Family trait.” He raised his brows. “So what is the problem?”

“Even I am not such a bastard that I would seduce the virgin sister of the man I murdered,” Garrick said.

Purchase almost choked. “Stephen Fenner,” he said. “I remember hearing about that.” He pulled a face. “I’ll allow that’s a difficult situation.” He paused. “If you want her that much you could always marry her.”

Garrick looked at him and then looked back at the brandy bottle. “Are you drunk already?” he said. “Lady Merryn would rather become a nun than marry me, or so she tells me.”

Purchase laughed. “As I said, a difficult situation.”