Wait Until Midnight Read Online Free PDF

does not exist. I invented him for this interview. When I walk out your front door today, he will vanish just like one of those ghostly manifestations that are so popular at séances"
    She sat down quite suddenly, head whirling. "Good heavens. You gave me a false name?"
    "Yes. Will you be so good as to indulge me with an answer to one last question?"
    She blinked, still struggling to collect herself and her scattered thoughts. "What is it?"
    He held up the paper that he had taken from her desk.
    "Why the devil were you making all these notes?"
    "Oh, those." Glumly she surveyed the page he held. "I am an author, sir. My novels are serialized in the Flying Intelligencer." She paused. "Perhaps you read that paper?"
    "No, I do not. As I recall, it is one of those extremely irritating newspapers that thrives on sensation."
    "Well—"
    "The sort of paper that resorts to printing news of illicit scandals and lurid crimes in order to attract readers." She sighed. "I expect you prefer the Times."
    "Yes"
    "No surprise there, I suppose," she muttered. "Tell me, don't you find it rather dull reading?"
    "I find it accurate and reliable reading, Mrs. Fordyce. Just the sort of newspaper reading that I prefer."
    "Of course it is. As I was saying, the Flying Intelligencer prints my novels. I am required by the terms of my contract to supply my publisher, Mr. Spraggett, with a new chapter every week. I have been having some trouble with one of the characters, Edmund Drake. He is very important to the story but I have been having difficulty getting him down properly on paper. There has been something rather vague about him, I'm afraid. He requires sharpening up"
    He looked reluctantly fascinated and, perhaps, be-mused. "You took notes about my appearance and attire so that you could apply them to the hero of your story?"
    "Heavens, no," she assured him with an airy wave of her hand. "Whatever gave you that idea? Edmund Drake is not the hero of my tale. He is the villain of the piece." THREE
    For some wholly irrational reason, it annoyed him that she had cast him in the role of the villain.
    Adam Hardesty brooded on the disastrous encounter that he had just concluded with the very unexpected, very intriguing Mrs. Caroline Fordyce while he made his way home to the mansion in Laxton Square . He was well aware that the lady's opinion of him should have been at the bottom of his long list of problems, especially given the rapidly rising tide of disasters that he was attempting to hold at bay.
    Nevertheless, knowing that Caroline Fordyce considered him an excellent model for a villain rankled. His intuit ion told him that it was not his fierce features alone that had given her such a low opinion of him. He had the distinct impression that Mrs. Fordyce did not hold men from his world in high esteem.
    She, on the other hand, had commanded his immediate and cautious respect. One look into her intelligent, curious, exceedingly lovely hazel eyes had told him that he was dealing with a potentially formidable adversary. He had warned himself to take great care in his dealings with the lady.
    Unfortunately, respect was not the only reaction Caroline Fordyce had elicited in him. She had aroused all of his senses at first sight. Exhausted as he had been after the long night of fruitless inquiries, he had nevertheless responded to her in a very physical, extremely disturbing way.
    Damn. He did not need this sort of complication. What the devil was the matter with him? Even as a youth he had rarely allowed himself to be controlled by his passions. He had learned long ago that self-discipline was the key to survival and success both on the streets and in the equally perilous world of Society. He had established a set of rules for himself and he lived by them. They governed his intimate liaisons just as they did everything else in his life.
    His rules had served him well. He had no intention of abandoning them now.
    Nevertheless, he could not stop thinking about