Lord Langley Is Back in Town (15 page)

At this, Thomas-William laughed a bit, but his humor didn’t last long. “Yes, but that won’t save you from Miss Lucy. If you break Lady Standon’s heart, Miss Lucy will see you finished.” He paused for a moment. “And you won’t see her coming.”

No, he wouldn’t. Langley had the good sense not to take Thomas-William’s warning lightly, for it was no laughing matter. As good as he was, there wasn’t a man in the Foreign Office who hadn’t been trained at the Ellyson house who didn’t hold a silent terror of the man’s daughter in his heart.

“Have no fear for Lady Standon,” he told his friend. “She is far too sensible to fall for my charms.”

The carriage pulled to a stop and Thomas-William nodded toward the door.

By habit, Langley took a quick, assessing glance out the window, to gauge the surroundings of where he was about to alight. And what he saw did little to raise his spirits. “Here?”

Thomas-William smiled. And since he was about the only man in London who Langley trusted, he shoved open the door and stepped out, realizing at once that they were in one of the more infamous spots in the city. For behind him had once stood a great tower and clock to mark where seven streets came together, but was now no more than a warren for thieves. Even in broad daylight the place had a murky, dark sort of air about it.

And more notably, it was the perfect place for a fellow to be murdered and no trace left of him. And conveniently, no witnesses.

“Seven Dials?” he asked, less as a question and more as a wry remark to his companion.

“My contact thought it best.”

Apparently their driver didn’t, for the hackney—who had insisted Thomas-William pay him up front for such an address—now drove off at a mad pace.

“Your contact?” Langley said, glancing around at the milling crowd, trying to spot who this might be.

And then came darting out of the shadows a bunch of street urchins, circling like Gypsies and picking at his coat, turning him about, calling out to each other and jeering at him.

“Hey, there!” Langley protested. “That is my watch . . . and my wallet. And I do say, that was my hat.” He tried to snatch back his beaver—he’d had that made in Paris—but the little dodger was too fast, toothlessly grinning as he danced out of reach. “A little help, Thomas-William?”

The other man just stood on the curb and laughed.

By the time the little rutters stopped, he’d been picked clean and stood wavering in the muck, dizzy and dazed. When his eyes finally focused, he found Thomas-William had gained a companion, a fellow with rough breeches, a plain shirt and jacket, and a pair of solid boots.

Who was this? Their keeper come to finish the task?

And so it was, in a sense. For the man—make that a young man, Langley realized when the fellow tipped back the wide brim of his hat—shoved out his hand. “I am Lord Andrew Stowe, in His Majesty’s service. My fellow agents and I are honored to be of assistance to you.”

B
y the time Minerva reached the sanctuary of her room, her accounts were all but forgotten.

“Men!” she muttered as she stormed inside and shoved her door shut behind her—at least as far as it would close with the damaged hinges. “Blast them all.”

Her father . . . Gerald Adlington . . . the Duke of Hollindrake . . . Thomas-William . . . and . . . and . . .

Her list came to a fumbling halt as she spied a black wool jacket folded neatly on the corner of her bed.

And most of all, Lord Langley, she finished, stomping across the room and sweeping the man’s forgotten jacket off the bed and onto the floor.

She was of half a mind to toss it out the window, which is what she should have done to the owner, when she glanced down at the offensive bit of clothing that had contributed to her current ill luck.

But instead of plucking it up and sending it aloft out the window, she paused, for Langley’s jacket had fallen open when she’d pushed it to the floor, and there inside the coat peeked an odd slit in the lining.

As if for a pocket or a place to conceal something one didn’t want easily discovered.

No, you shan’t,
she advised herself. Prying into other’s secrets was more Lucy’s domain, not hers, she reasoned.

Then again . . .

Glancing around—not that she needed to, for she was utterly alone, but still, she wasn’t inclined to snooping—she eased off the bed and sat down beside the jacket, sliding her hand inside the opening and pulling out a slim packet wrapped in a handkerchief with the initial
T,
and adorned with tiny flowers done in simple embroidery in one corner.

T. Who might this be, my lord?
Minerva mused.
A former lover? A mistress? An admirer? Someone so important that you carried this for some time, if the worn little bit of linen is any indication
. Carefully, she unfolded the small handkerchief and found inside a bundle of letters, tied in a pale blue ribbon.

Yet another mystery, she realized, for the frayed ribbon barely held the letters together, having obviously been tied and untied too many times to count. The careworn corners and edges of the yellowed stationery also spoke of having been read and reread over and over again.

Whatever these letters contained, they were precious beyond gems and gold to Lord Langley, for she knew without a doubt they had traveled with him for years and he kept them as it were, in the pocket over his chest, over his heart.

Minerva bit her bottom lip and considered the letters she held, and what could be inside them.

And while her thoughts ran along the lines of Langley’s rakish reputation, when she turned the packet over, she found she could easily discern the contents of the bottom letter and the mysterious T who held such a special place in Langley’s affections.

Dear Papa,

Felicity says I mustn’t write to you on this matter, but I beg you to come back to England and take us out of Miss Emery’s school. She says you cannot come home until you have cleared your name, but it is ever so horrid here without you . . .

Minerva’s chest tightened with a sharp pang. For here she’d considered the worst about the man, instead of suspecting where his true regard lay. How hard it was to consider that Langley—
the
Lord Langley of mistresses and infamous affairs, of infamy too scandalous to share—held such a tender regard that he carried these letters in secret.

Not mementos from some tryst, or a painted Incognita with an odd foreign title and kohled eyes, but lovingly written pleas from his “T.” As in Thalia Langley. His daughter. Felicity Langley’s twin.

She needn’t read any further, but sat for some time holding the packet in her hands, Thalia’s words echoing in her thoughts.

. . .
until you have cleared your name . . .

The very notion sent a shiver through her, for Minerva realized that Lord Langley hadn’t come back to merely set Society on its ear, but to finish something very dangerous—for certainly he hadn’t wanted his daughters involved in whatever havey-cavey business had drawn him away from England. Away from them.

No, he’d left them at Miss Emery’s to clear not only his name, but theirs as well, and he most decidedly hadn’t wanted them mixed up in it.

Still, that didn’t calm her nerves or change her opinion of the man, for Minerva knew without a doubt that now she was in middle of his troubles.

Whether she liked it or not.

S
ometime later Agnes came in clucking “that she wasn’t ready.”

Minerva glanced up from where she still sat on the floor.
Ready for what?

Then she realized it was Tuesday and her afternoon in.

Which meant for the next few hours she had to sit through the idle chatter and inane compliments of fortune hunters and rakes, who, having heard that the Earl of Clifton had married Lucy and the Duke of Parkerton had carried away Elinor after a whirlwind courtship, were now dropping by to see what all the fuss over the Standon widows might be about.

And stacked up like well-aged firewood besides these ne’er-do-wells would be the usual assortment of widowers looking for a second or—horrors upon horrors—a third or fourth wife. These codgers came with the compliments of Aunt Bedelia, who had assured them that her dearest niece was the choicest pick of the three dowagers.

But even from the second landing she knew today was different. For it was still a good half an hour before she was known to be “at home,” and already there was a cacophony of voices coming from the downstairs parlor.

Female voices. A gaggle of clucking and pecking like a henhouse stuffed to the rafters with chatty birds.

“But darling, she has no
joie de vivre
! No style! He will be bored before the first month is out,” Nanny Tasha was saying.

“Yes, yes! Exactly! He is a man of the Continent. Of the world,” Nanny Lucia agreed. “He will never marry her, for he will be done with her in . . . in . . . oh, how you English say ‘due’ . . . ‘due’ . . .”

“Deux semaines
,” Tasha supplied in French.

“A fortnight, dear,” Aunt Bedelia supplied. “We call it a fortnight.”

How kind of you to help, Auntie,
Minerva mused from her spot on the stairs.

“Yes! A fortnight,” the margravine chimed in. “If that.”

“I think my niece will surprise you.” Aunt Bedelia sounded supremely confident.

There was a tap on her shoulders and Minerva nearly leapt out of her gown in shock to be caught eavesdropping. “Jamilla!” she exclaimed.

For indeed, here was yet another of Lord Langley’s mistresses, Princess Jamilla Kounellas, who had come to London nearly a year earlier, and since then had lived in and out of the house here on Brook Street and set the London
ton
on their collective ears with her outrageous manners and fashions.

But Minerva had always found Nanny Jamilla rather a delight, for the lady always spoke her mind.

“I cannot believe Langley will do this! Not with her!” complained Tasha from inside the parlor.

Jamilla’s brows perked at the distinct accent. “That Russian she-wolf has taken over my room!” she complained, nodding toward the parlor and looking quite put out. “Bah! I should have known that once it got nosed about the Continent that Langley was alive
they’d
show up.”

Minerva stilled and then glanced over her shoulder at the other woman. “You knew he was alive?”

Her countenance brightened. “Yes, of course. It was why I came to this dreadful London last year. To tell my dear girls that I’d been having an impossible time getting their father out of prison—”

Minerva took a step back. “Lord Langley was in prison?”

Jamilla’s hand fluttered at the question. “But of course. Where else would he have been all this time?”

Where indeed?
Minerva thought, a bit taken aback. Still . . .

“You knew Lord Langley was alive and you kept it a secret?” she asked, honestly quite amazed, for Jamilla was hardly known for her discretion.

“But of course, though I thought I had been more discreet in my bribes to get him out,” she said, “for this is what I feared.” Again she glanced down the stairs and shook her head, like one might upon finding a pack of mongrels had wandered in from the streets. “Such awful creatures! And I fear, my dear, impossible to be rid of.”

Rather like you
, Minerva mused, thinking of all the ways the Duchess of Hollindrake had tried—most unsuccessfully—to send Jamilla packing back to Paris. But now she understood a little more about why the former nanny had stayed.

“You’ve been waiting for him to come back,” Minerva said, not so much a question as a statement.

“Once, perhaps,” Jamilla admitted, her gaze still fixed down the stairs, “but no longer. He is in my past, and hardly rich enough to afford my tastes. No, for my darling girls I stayed, to see them reunited with their father, and once Langley has straightened out this mess,” again her hand fluttered, but this time toward the parlor, “I can move on.”

Mess was exactly the word Minerva would use to describe the collection in her salon.

From down below, a strident declaration echoed upward. “But to marry her? Acch! It is dreadful!” the margravine was saying. “Why, my
schatzi
hardly knows her, and if he truly did know her—” The lady made a rude sort of noise, and Minerva could almost see the dismissive wave of her beringed fingers. “She will not be able to keep him. How can one such as she?”

“Married?” Jamilla met Minerva’s gaze. “Langley is to marry? What utter nonsense is that idiot woman going on about?”

“Lord Langley is engaged,” Minerva supplied.

Now it was Jamilla’s turn to snort. “Langley get married? He isn’t the sort. Not unless he was trapped into it by some unscrupulous, ridiculous creature of questionable—”