Nicola Cornick - Mistress by Midnight

Dont miss the rest of the Scandalous Women of the Ton trilogy, available now!

Whisper of Scandal
One Wicked Sin

Also available from
N ICOLA C ORNICK
and HQN Books

Deceived

Christmas Keepsakes
A Season for Suitors

Lord of Scandal

Unmasked

The Confessions of a Duchess

The Scandals of an Innocent

The Undoing of a Lady

Browse www.eHarlequin.com for Nicolas full backlist.

N ICOLA C ORNICK

MISTRESS BY MIDNIGHT

Author Note

Like the other books in this trilogy, Mistress by Midnight is inspired by real-life events. In this case, the London Beer Flood of 1814, when a vat on top of the brewery in Tottenham Court Road exploded, flooding the nearby streets with beer and claiming several lives. One of those was a man who died of alcohol poisoning from drinking too much of the flood.

Mistress by Midnight tells Merryns story. The younger sister of celebrated society hostess Lady Joanna Grant, Merryn is a bluestocking whose scholarly activities hide a secret life working for the private investigator Tom Bradshaw. Merryn also has a vendetta to pursue against Garrick, the new Duke of Farne, the man responsible for her brothers death. When the Beer Flood traps Merryn and Garrick together and they are in fear of their lives, a new sort of connection develops from their bond of hatredthis time a bond of wild passion. But will it outlive the terror of the flood?

I have adored writing these three books in the Scandalous Women of the Ton series and there is much more background history and exciting detail to explore on my website at www.nicolacornick.co.uk. Look out for more in the Scandalous Women of the Ton series. Coming soon!

For my mother, Sylvia

MISTRESS BY MIDNIGHT

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

London, November 1814

W E WERE NOT expecting you, your grace, Pointer, the butler, said.

Garrick Northesk, Duke of Farne, paused in the act of loosening his greatcoat. The raindrops on the shoulders glittered in the dim candlelight of the hall like dusty diamonds before sliding down to splash on the tiled floor.

Lovely to see you again, too, Pointer, he said.

The butlers expression did not waver. Evidently, Garrick thought, his late father had not been given to jokes with the servants. Of course he had not. The eighteenth Duke had been famed for many things but a sense of humor was not one of them.

We have had no time to prepare your chamber, your grace, Pointer continued, nor is there any food in the house. I only received your message a few hours ago and there was no time to engage any staff. He gestured at the shrouded furniture and grimy mirrors. The house has been closed. We have not had the opportunity to clean.

That was manifestly obvious. Long cobwebs trailed from the chandelier in the center of the vast hall. The dust and grit of the London streets crunched beneath Garricks boots as he crossed the floor. The ghostly covers on all the statuaries and the veiled furnishings only added to the sense of Gothic mystery. A mere two candles burned in the sconces, throwing long shadows. And it was cold, very cold. Garrick wished he had kept his coat on.

I dont require anything tonight, thank you, he said. Only a candle to light me to my bed and some hot water.

You have no luggage, your grace? Pointers long nose, so appropriate to his name, twitched with disapproval.

It follows, Garrick said briefly. No carriage could have kept up with his hell-for-leather ride.

And your valet?

Gage follows, too.

Garrick took a candle from the sconce, leaving Pointer fluttering around in the dark hall like a monstrous moth. He was tired, exhausted really, the fatigue bone-deep, his limbs aching from riding hard all day. He had buried his father only five days before in the family mausoleum at Farnecourt on the west coast of Ireland. Trust the old devil to choose to be buried on his Irish estates with all pomp and circumstance and maximum inconvenience to his family. The late Duke had never cared a fig for Farnecourt in his lifetime, deploring the beautiful Irish countryside as barbarous and the people as heathens. It was no wonder that few people other than his closest family had turned out for the funeral and those who did had probably only come so that they could be sure the old man really was dead. Well, the vault was sealed now and not even the eighteenth Duke could come back from beyond the grave.

He was Duke of Farne now, with no son to follow him.

Nor would there ever be one.

His first marriage had been disaster enough. He had no inclination to try again.

Garrick paused halfway up the shallow staircase that led to the first floor. The intricately inlaid parquet steps were dull with dirt. The elegant curls and swirls of the iron banisters were festooned with thick white cobwebs. The house was like a tomb. How appropriate.

His father, the eighteenth Duke, had been furious to be dying in such an untimely fashion, with half his lifes ambitions still unfulfilled. He had railed against his mortal illness, a reaction that had in all probability carried him off all the quicker. So now Garrick was master of this mausoleum and twenty-six other houses in ten counties, plus an obscenely large fortune. It was more than one man had any right to possess.

Out of habit rather than choice, Garrick pushed open the door of the sixth bedchamber on the left-hand side down an endless corridor that stretched away into darkness. On the rare occasions that he had stayed at his fathers house in London this had always been his room. It was smaller than the state chambers albeit not one whit cozier. Farne House had been designed to awe and impress not to welcome. It would be possible for a small army to be lost in the labyrinth of passages for a number of days. The grate was empty and the whole room cold and inhospitable, although there was an odd scent of smoke in the air as though the candles had recently been snuffed out. A copy of Mansfield Park lay on the floor. Garrick picked it up absentmindedly and returned it to the table.

There was a knock at the door; a housemaid with blessedly hot water. Evidently Pointer had managed to drum up at least one servant to help him. The girl placed the ewer of water carefully on the side table and dropped him a frightened curtsy. Her wide-eyed gaze searched his face before sliding away when he turned to thank her. Perhaps she was afraid of him in case he was like his sire. Rumors of the late Dukes behavior must have made their way into every servant agency in London. Garricks father had seen the rape of the maidservants as one of his privileges rather than as a heinous crime. The eighteenth Duke had beaten his servants and kicked his dogs, and vice versa. Garrick felt his stomach cramp with disgust and revulsion at the memories.