Lord Langley Is Back in Town (17 page)

“And then there were the implications that George Ellyson hadn’t been entirely loyal.” Lord Andrew’s brow furrowed. “The man was dead, and I wasn’t going to see his name sullied. He was more of a father to me than my own. At the very least he spoke to me, which to this day mine can barely manage. Doesn’t approve and all.”

Glancing over at the young man, Langley nodded. “Yes, I know how that goes.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to let George Ellyson’s name be tarred with a traitor’s brush, so I began poking about. Asking too many questions,” Lord Andrew grinned, “which old Brownie didn’t like. He had me sent here. Probably assumed I’d get myself killed inside a sennight, living in the Dials and all. Be out of his hair, with the minimum of paperwork.”

Thomas-William snorted.

“Exactly,” Lord Andrew agreed. “Which is why I propose that we eliminate you, Lord Langley.”

Langley blinked and then cocked a brow at the impertinent young man. “Excuse me?”

“I think we could lure Brownie out into the open, my lord, if you were to stick your spoon in the wall.”

“You want me dead?” Langley asked, glancing over at Thomas-William.

And demmit if the man wasn’t grinning at the idea.

“Exactly,” Lord Andrew said enthusiastically. A little too enthusiastically. “And I know just how to do it.”

M
inerva, having ignored Jamilla’s assessment of her wardrobe choice for her afternoon in, had gone downstairs and taken her seat.

And while the nannies gathered there—Lucia, Tasha, and Helga—all smiled at her and greeted her kindly, it was akin to watching an entire nest of vipers coiling around her, just looking for a chance to strike.

Aunt Bedelia, on the other hand, appeared in rare spirits, the news of her niece’s engagement like a magic tonic. The lady bloomed as if the malice and venom around her was naught but posies and sunshine. “Minerva, my dear girl, there you are! And on this very important afternoon. I feared you were going to hide upstairs.”

“Whyever would I do that?” she asked, having settled herself into her chair.

“Well, because you know it will be quite the crush this afternoon.” Having said that, Aunt Bedelia busied herself with the tea tray, rearranging the cups and saucers and looking anywhere but at her niece.

Knowing her aunt as she did, Minerva was immediately suspicious. “What have you done?”

“I might have mentioned to a few close friends—”

“Mentioned what?” she blurted out. For Aunt Bedelia could meander around a point endlessly if she wanted to avoid a subject.

The lady took a deep breath and sighed. “Why, your engagement to Lord Langley, of course!”

Minerva groaned. It was her worst fear being realized. “You didn’t have to say it was him.”

“Well, goodness heavens! How could I not mention Lord Langley when I spoke of your being engaged?”

Sinking into her spot on the settee, Minerva closed her eyes, her fingers pressed to her temple. Usually she had the makings of a megrim at the conclusion of her afternoon in, not before the first guest had arrived.

“You look distressed, Lady Standon,” Nanny Lucia commented, looking anything but a nanny in her bright yellow-orange gown that was cut enticingly low. “I would think that the very mention of your marriage to Lord Langley would have you glowing.”

“That is if you are going to marry him,” Nanny Tasha purred. She stood in the corner, like a regal black cat.

“Oh, she will marry him,” Jamilla said from the doorway, having waited a few moments to time her entrance.

“You!” hissed the margravine.

“Oh, yes, Helga, dear,” Jamilla said. “I am here. And Tasha, darling, you had the impudence to take over my room. But I am not insulted. You have always coveted what is mine. Not to worry, I have made the necessary changes by moving you to the back bedroom. Oh, it is overly drafty and terribly cold, I daresay very much like your beloved St. Petersburg. You will feel quite at home.” She spared a glance at the duchessa. “Lucia,” she said with a slight nod.

The duchessa nodded back. “Jamilla.”

Not to let such a cold greeting stand as a warning, Jamilla continued, “Darling, that color does not suit you. Whatever were you thinking?”

“It doesn’t?” Lucia said, looking down at her striped gown.

“Not here in England. Or maybe it is this dreadful room.” She glanced around at the faded walls and peeling paper. “It makes you quite yellow. Why, I had thought you were your mother for a moment.”

The margravine began to laugh, which then was quickly turned into a polite cough.

Still, it was enough to propel Lucia to her feet. With her nose in the air, she left with a deliberate, regal ease. But when she hit the stairs they could all hear the hurried patter of her slippers as she dashed up the steps.

Jamilla brushed her hands on her skirt and then sat down in the chair Lucia had occupied.

“You know each other?” Minerva managed to sputter.

“But of course,” Helga said. “How else were we to find Langley if we didn’t join forces?”

And as Minerva glanced about the room, she could see the similarities in these women, though not in looks—for they were all as different as a bouquet of blossoms, but they all possessed the same confidence, what the Russian princess had been saying before, that
joie de vivre
that made them stand out.

While I . . .
Minerva wavered and glanced toward the door thinking she still had time to flee, but then the bell over the door rattled and to her horror Lady Wallerthwaite—one of Aunt Bedelia’s favorite cronies and one of the
ton’s
biggest gossips—arrived.

“Bedelia!” she called out to her friend. “How did I just know you would be here?”

“Where else would I be on such an afternoon, Aurelia?” Aunt Bedelia replied unabashedly.

Good God! If Aunt Bedelia had told Lady Wallerthwaite . . .

The bell rang again, and again after that, and within half an hour the sitting room overflowed with guests.

Specifically, ladies. The news that Lord Langley was back in town had brought out the curious, the flirtatious, widows of questionable virtue, and a few more who had never shown the least propensity for impropriety, but apparently even the hint of perhaps seeing the scandalous rake in person was enough to get them to abandon their embroidery hoops and order their carriages to take them to Brook Street.

“Good heavens, I don’t know what is coming to Mayfair,” Lady Finnemore complained when she arrived, having all but wedged Lady Ratcliffe out of her seat. “The street outside your house has the worst case of urchins—one of them had the temerity to ask me the time. As if a guttersnipe had an appointment to keep!” She glanced around the room, weighing the company and doing what everyone else had done, search the room for a sight of him. But she was far less discreet than her companions. “Why where is he, Lady Standon?”

“Who, Lady Finnemore?” Minerva replied, following her aunt’s lead from earlier and rearranging the cups and saucers.

The baroness continued, “Lord Langley, of course. I hardly came here to see you!”

“Lord Langley? Here?” Minerva feigned horror. Well, it wasn’t entirely feigned. The entire situation was a nightmare. “I don’t know why you would think I would have a gentleman in my house.”

“But my dear child, it is all over Town,” Lady Ratcliffe chimed in. “That he has been living under your roof.”

Oh, yes, and how had that happened? She only need make one guess. Minerva’s gaze swung to her aunt, who was conveniently and intently glancing up at the cracks in the plaster overhead.

But Minerva hadn’t been a marchioness for all these years without a few withering glances that could quell even the likes of Lady Ratcliffe. “I fear you have been misinformed,” she replied with haughty grace. “And I am surprised a lady of your distinction would lower herself to listen to such gossip.”

There was a tense moment in the room, until Tasha chimed in, “There is no reason for hiding, Lady Standon.” Then she turned to the gossipy hens perched about the room and announced, “Of course Langley has been here. He is in love. He will not be parted from Lady Standon. Not when he is in a passion.”

The other nannies nodded in agreement, as if such a thing were natural.

Not in England
, Minerva wanted to shout at them even as the matrons in the room began to cluck among themselves.
English
ladies do not engage in passions.

“I have always found men who are madly in love are like wolves, hungry and insatiable,” Tasha continued. “Why once, I had a Cossack lover who insisted that every morning we make love atop his—”

“More tea, Lady Finnemore?” Minerva said, shoving the pot toward the lady’s cup.

Lady Finnemore glared at her, and Minerva had no idea if it was from the outrageous turn of the conversation or that she’d stopped the flow.

“Cossacks! I am surprised you still let them in your bed,” the margravine said, waving her hand at such a notion. “Now you may not think it to look at them, but I’ve had not one, but two lovers from Cologne, and they were naughty fellows. So very satisfying.” She made this mewing sort of sigh, one that stopped every conversation in the room. Not that there had been that many left. With her audience’s full attention, she went on. “There was a night, oh what was his name, the burgher who traveled with the French advisor . . .” Helga glanced over at Lucia. “Do you recall?”

“The fat one or the narrow man with beady eyes?” Lucia asked. She had returned to the room wearing a blue gown and taken an immediate interest in the subject at hand.

“You had a fat lover?” Lady Ratcliffe blurted out, and almost immediately covered her mouth, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just asked.

“Oh, no, dear lady,” the margravine said. “The Frenchman was fat. My lover had a magnificent body. Who would have thought a burgher could have such a big . . . big . . . Oh, how is it said in English?” She looked over at Aunt Bedelia.

Of all the days for her tottering house not to fall down, this had to be the one, Minerva thought as her aunt supplied the word Helga was seeking.

“Manhood, my good margravine,” Bedelia said, passing a tray of scones around. “I do believe the word you are looking for is ‘manhood.’ ”

Several of the matrons nodded in agreement.

Helga beamed. “I think it might be more accurate to say his manhood matched his enormous investments.”

Lady Finnemore tittered like a schoolgirl. “Lady Standon, does Lord Langley have a large—”

And if that wasn’t enough, the front door opened and into the room strolled the man himself. Larger than life, as it were.

The ladies in the room all cast searching glances, and Minerva wanted to clout the lot of them. Really, did they have to examine the man so thoroughly just to determine his . . . his . . . assets?

Then again, when she glanced over her shoulder at him, she found herself entranced as well.

From his light brown hair tied back in such an unfashionable queue, to his Roman features—the hard-cut jaw and the deep cleft in his chin, the strong shoulders. Tall and handsome, there was no sloth to the man, but a physique that spoke of athleticism and masculine power . . . or rather, assets. But what stopped Minerva most was that mischievous light that always seem to burn in his eyes.

Like he had a secret he longed to share.

Well, I can just imagine what that is
, she thought with a huff as he smiled at all the ladies in the room, some of them sighing without any thought of propriety. He could have charmed a cat away from a dish of cream with those eyes.

And she didn’t know why she was put out by his appearance—perhaps it wasn’t so much his arrival, but the other ladies’ reactions. Oh, such an unfamiliar bit of ill-ease ran down her spine. Like jealousy.

Which she wasn’t. Not in the least.

Especially since he saved his most dazzling smile for her.

“Minerva, my dearest,” he said as if on cue, his eyes lighting upon her as he crossed the room with long, solid strides. “How like you not to remind me that it is your afternoon in. I would have forgone my club and been here.” He leaned over and placed a kiss on her forehead and then turned and bowed to the ladies in the room with an elegant Continental grace that wasn’t often seen.

“Oooh,”
came another collective sigh.

While they were busy commenting on his arrival, Minerva was doing her best to compose herself. Oh, he had promised! No kissing.

Yet here he was doing just that. His lips, warm and smooth on her forehead, left her feeling utterly ruffled, quite undone. For it was naught but a prelude of what had happened last night when he’d gathered her in his arms and kissed her thoroughly, leaving her limbs languid with desire, her insides trembling, and worst of all, passions she’d thought long lost awakened and clamoring with hunger.

Worst of all it had taken naught but the brush of his lips on her forehead and she was awake—like the bright clear note of a clarion call had roused her—his touch awakening her body, her desires. Her thighs tightened, her insides melted, her nipples hardened.