Lord Langley Is Back in Town (14 page)

She reeled a bit, her knees wavering, the nightmare she’d feared all these years beginning to come true.

“So if you can’t find anything of value in that house to give me what I’m owed,” Gerald told her, “then you had best find yourself a new husband, and right quick.”

Minerva tried to shake him off, but his grip was like a blacksmith’s vise. “There might . . . perhaps . . . there is someone.”

“Now yer talking sense,” he said, easing his grip a bit. “But this isn’t some flummery of yours? Just to gammon me?”

“There is someone,” she insisted. “Actually, I recently became engaged, though it isn’t widely known.” He eyed her as if gauging the veracity of her claim, and so she brazened him out. “A baron. With means.” She had no idea if Langley had a farthing to call his own, but she doubted Adlington would know either.

“To whom?”

“Lord Langley.”

Like she suspected, Adlington shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“Why would you have?” she shot back, finally shaking him off. “He’s an honorable man.” That was probably a stretch, but then again, this was Gerald.

For a moment Minerva feared she might have spoken too quickly. She had gotten used to being a marchioness, a lady, one a gentleman wouldn’t strike or contradict. But to this man, she was simply Margaret Owens, the Earl of Gilston’s by-blow.

But to her surprise and relief, he grinned at her and lowered his hand, instead chucking her under the chin like he had when he’d courted her. “Still got that bit of fire in your belly and the mouth to match. Maggie, you just proved what me mum always said, ‘You can take a girl out of the cellars, but you never take the cellars out of the girl.’ ”

Something inside her snapped. In all these years of being treated with the deference due a marchioness, the daughter of an earl, she’d forgotten what it meant to be merely the bastard in the kitchen. But it came back in a heady flash.

She caught hold of his sleeve, met his gaze and said with every bit of fire she still possessed in her belly, “And you would do well to remember my mother’s favorite saying, ‘When an old rooster crows too loud, it’s time to cut his throat.’ ”

Beneath her fingers, for only a moment, she thought she felt him tremble.
Good
. Let him know she hadn’t completely forgotten her backstairs origins. Her father might have been the lord and master, the earl of his realm, but her mother . . . now, she’d been feared for different reasons.

Gerald eyed her and then let out an uneasy laugh as he tugged his sleeve out of her grasp. “Get yourself married to this baron of yours, Maggie. And use that sweet mouth of yours for something other than threats. Talk him into giving you a generous allowance—I’ve grown used to your way of life.”

He bowed slightly to her and then turned to leave. “Oh, and don’t think I won’t be watching you, Maggie, me girl. Try to make a dash for it without me, it will be your ruin.”

M
inerva spent a few moments composing herself as Adlington strode out of sight.

Not that she believed for a moment he was going very far. No, if there was one thing she did know about Gerald Adlington, it was that when it came to money, there was nothing he liked more.

“Wretched, horrid bastard,” she muttered as she came through the garden door and up the path.

“Problems with your painter?”

Her gaze wrenched up, and to her horror she found Langley leaning against the doorjamb, looking quite innocent.

Too innocent.

“Nothing I can’t remedy,” she said, drawing herself up and standing ramrod straight.

“Anything I can do to help?”

She stumbled then, and didn’t dare look at him, for once again he’d posed the question in that nonchalant air of his. And if there was anything she had learned about this man in her short acquaintance with him, it was that there was nothing innocent or nonchalant about him.

He always had a plan. Or was forming a new one.

“No, nothing,” she demurred. Well, lied. “If you will excuse me, I have my accounts to review. I don’t like them to go unattended. Details go missing if you don’t stay on top of every expenditure.”

“Thorough and practical,” he mused. “Are you sure I cannot help? I might not be all that good with accounts, but I have other talents you could avail yourself of.”

She had to imagine he did. For truly, as she stole a glance at him and managed a wan smile, she wondered if he knew anyone who could arrange for an accident. But then dismissed that thought. If she asked him—or for that matter, Thomas-William or Lucy—then she would have to explain to them why it was she wanted Gerald Adlington to end up at the bottom of the Thames.

And what would she say?

He was my betrothed until he secretly eloped with my sister and I was brought to London in her place.

For it would be exactly as Adlington had said: The Sterlings would cast her out without a second thought. And what of Aunt Bedelia? What would happen to her if it was discovered that her beloved niece wasn’t really her legitimate niece at all?

No, there was nothing she could do but stall the man, and one way to do that was to . . .

“Actually, Lord Langley,” she said, pausing on the step beside him. “There is something you can do for me.”

He inclined his head. “Anything, my lady.”

“I have given some thought to your proposal—”

“You have?” He slanted a glance at her.

“Yes,” she said, hurrying the conversation along because she didn’t want to get into the particulars of her change of heart. And she’d also learned in her short acquaintance with Lord Langley that he was the sort with a hawkish eye for details. Very much like his daughter, Felicity. “And as such, I accept your proposal—” He looked about to say something to her, but she staved him off by raising her hand. “However, I do have three conditions.”

“Only three?” he teased.

Ignoring him, she continued, “I will not share your bed.”

“My bed in the attic is rather narrow. I had hoped we would share yours. From the little time I did get to enjoy it, I found it quite delightful.” She cocked a brow at him, and he shook his head. “If you insist. No sharing beds.”

“And there will be no more kissing.”

“No more kissing? However do you expect us to convince anyone—especially my old boon companions—if we are not seen as wildly and passionately in love?”

“It will go a long way toward reforming your reputation. As you said, you are a changed man,” she told him tartly.

“More changed than I like,” he muttered, then again waved her off. “Agreed, no kissing. What is your third condition?”

“That I will not be embarrassed by any untoward behavior on your part.”

He paused for a moment and then his eyes sparkled with amusement. “Whatever do you mean, Lady Standon?”

Pursing her lips, she considered giving him another shove. Demmed man knew exactly what she meant, but he was going to force her to say it.

Well then, she would. “I will not have my betrothed carrying on with other ladies while he is engaged to me. I have my reputation to think of, as well as that of my family.”

“And after we are married, am I free to roam then?”

“Lord Langley, this engagement is a temporary situation.”

“Well, thank goodness, for you have cut me off at the knees for the time being.”

“Surely you can restrain yourself for a few weeks?”

“If I must . . .” He edged closer, grinning and looking about to seal their bargain with a kiss.

“You must,” she told him, pushing him back.

He shrugged and seemed hardly put out, for he said, “I also have terms of my own.”

Minerva had been about to brush past him and go into the house, but she paused, immediately suspicious. “And what would those be?”

“That you agree to the very same terms you have rendered down upon me. You agree not to share my bed, there will be no begging for my kiss, and most importantly, you will not carry on with other men.” He glanced over at the garden door that led to the alley and let one elegant brow arch upward.

Minerva froze. Good heavens above! What had he seen?

Or even worse—what had he overheard?

She stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to ask, to reveal what he knew, but he only stood there, charmingly handsome and appearing as innocent as a lamb.

In other words, he wasn’t about to show his hand.

“Agreed,” she told him through clenched teeth. “You need have no concerns on my side of this bargain.”

“I should hope not,” she heard him say as she hurried past.

L
angley watched Lady Standon flee into the house. She could run all she wanted to, but he had every intention of discovering why she had just lied to him and why it was she had suddenly agreed to their faux betrothal.

He suspected it had nothing to do with Lady Chudley’s constant machinations and more to do with her “painter” in the alley. A fellow he needed to get a better look at.

Crossing down the garden path, he pushed open the door and hurried down the alley in the direction he spied the man leave.

For as much as he had hurried downstairs and crept out into the garden to overhear what was being said, all he’d managed to discern was the last thing the man had said to Lady Standon.

“ . . . it will only be your ruin.”

Whatever could this fellow be holding over her head that could be ruinous? She didn’t seem the type.

Then he thought of the kiss they’d shared last night . . .

Who would have thought there was that much passion inside such a tightly wound lady?

Langley shook his head. No more kissing! What nonsense. The lady burned to be kissed. Even if she didn’t know it.

Which was the other point. She certainly wasn’t some Merry Widow seeking her affairs here and there and living the freedom that her dowager status afforded her. Quite the opposite.

Everything he’d heard over the last sennight from her staff, and his impression from meeting her, said quite clearly Lady Standon lived her life completely above reproach.

The perfectly respectable lady.

But he wasn’t so convinced. Not now. Not since he’d kissed her. And in his experience, such tautly held respectability was usually naught but a veneer to protect oneself.

But from what?

He had reached the corner and was so lost in thought he nearly ran into a large fellow coming in the other direction. He glanced up to find Thomas-William planted in front of him.

“Just the person I need,” he said, thinking to recruit the man into discovering who Lady Standon’s painter might be.

However, the very investigation Langley had thought to launch into his new betrothed melted away the moment Thomas-William said, “My lord, I think I have found someone to help us.”

Langley glanced down the busy streets of London where her “painter” had disappeared, the man having slipped away.

No, it appeared for now that Lady Standon and her secrets would have to wait.

Chapter 6

Lord Langley is every bit a scoundrel as we have long suspected. I was all aswoon when I met him at Lady Standon’s this afternoon. He is truly the wickedest man alive.

However will such a dull lady like Minerva Sterling ever keep him entertained now that they are engaged? Yes, my dear Lady Finch, they are betrothed. Can you imagine what the Duchess of Hollindrake will say when she discovers . . .

An excerpt from a letter by Lady Ratcliffe to Lady Finch

“S
o you decided not to flee,” Langley said as he and Thomas-William made their way across London to meet with a possible contact from inside the Foreign Office.

The man shrugged, for he didn’t like to speak much. Silences were Thomas-William’s strength.

“Let me guess,” Langley said, sitting back in the seat of the hackney. “You realized that if you went back to Lucy and told her you weren’t going to stay with Lady Standon, you’d have to admit that you were frightened off by a mere houseful of women.”

The man blew out a disgruntled breath and crossed his arms over his chest, staring out the window. “Seems you aren’t.”

Langley grinned at him. “My stock and trade.”

The man’s level gaze met his. “And marriage? To that one?”

Lady Standon
. “Oh, so you heard about that.”

He nodded curtly.

“Never fear. The lady and I have an agreement. Will come to naught.”

Thomas-William’s brows rose. “Does that aunt of hers share in your agreement?”

“Who? Lady Chudley?”

The man shuddered. “Aye, that one. Throw off her niece and she’ll have your head.”

“I don’t intend to cry off in some havey-cavey manner.” He paused for a moment, thinking of Lady Standon as she’d come in from the garden—shaken and frightened. No, the last thing he wanted to do was add to whatever was troubling the lady. “Besides, I can handle the likes of Lady Chudley. It isn’t like one wouldn’t see, or rather hear, her coming.”