Lord Langley Is Back in Town (24 page)

Minerva drew in a sharp breath. For while she didn’t know Langley very well—oh, good gracious heavens, she barely knew the man at all—she couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that of him.

But before she could refute such a lie, Adlington continued, “Is that the game, Maggie? Marry him and then watch him dance at the end of the rope?”

She recoiled in horror at such a suggestion, yanking her arm free.

Adlington clucked his tongue at her. “Bad idea, my girl. They take everything from traitors. There’s no profit in marrying one.”

No profit . . .
Never had she wished more for Thomas-William’s pistol in her grasp. She wouldn’t even be in this predicament if profit wasn’t Gerald’s middle name.

“I’ll leave London if you don’t stop this,” she threatened.

“No you won’t,” he said. “Not until you give me my money.” He glanced at her décolletage and shook his head. “ ‘Nothing of worth,’ she says. You little liar. Those diamonds would keep a king in style.”

“The money was never yours, it was for Minnie,” Minerva corrected as she watched—with some relief—Lord Chudley step into Langley’s path and bring him to a halt. For the time being. “And neither are these diamonds—they belong to the Sterling family. They are the duchess’s, if you must know.”

“A duchess probably won’t miss a few baubles.”

Baubles?
Only an idiot like Gerald would call such stones “baubles.”

“Then you are a fool. The Duchess of Hollindrake would hunt you down herself,” she told him.
After she finished me off for losing a family heirloom.

Adlington leaned closer. “We could both go, Maggie. Take that necklace and leave.”

She scoffed at him and tried to escape, but he had her pinned in place, with her back to the wall and his hand planted just over her shoulder.

“We could go to America,” he continued. “You fancied that notion once; you could again.”

She made her answer with an inelegant snort. “I’d rather spend the rest of my days in Newgate.”

He pointedly ignored her sarcasm as if it weren’t meant for him. “Boston would be a far sight better. Or New York. Mayhap down South—there’s land a plenty there, so I hear, and those diamonds would buy us a kingdom and all the help we’d ever need.”

“Slaves? You’d buy slaves?” She couldn’t fathom such a thing. But apparently Adlington wasn’t averse to the notion.

“You’ve forgotten what living is like without a household of maids and cooks and fancy fellows at your beck and call. You’d change your mind right quick if you were tossed back into the kitchens.” He snorted as if that thought was a great jest, then leaned closer and said softly, “And over there, none of that rabble will care if you are naught but an earl’s by-blow. Might even give you some standing amongst the blighters.”

“Hardly,” she scoffed, “if I arrived with the likes of you.”

He leaned closer still. “You’ve turned out uppity, Maggie. That title of yours has gone to your head. But when they throw you out, what then? You’ll be in the gutter, just where you would have been if I hadn’t seen the way clear for you to marry that old goat.” He leered at her, and Minerva knew immediately who had replaced her former husband as London’s most ghastly old goat. “Come with me now, Maggie,” he cooed. “Just say the word.”

She recoiled as best she could. “How about this one: ‘No!’ Or to be more precise: ‘Never!’ ” Truly, did he think her so daft? “Why, you’d run through whatever coins came your way for this necklace before you got to Plymouth.” She paused as his brow furrowed tellingly. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re in deep, aren’t you? And to someone who isn’t as forgiving as my sister was?”

“That is none of your business,” he whispered, his teeth grinding together like a wolf, his face turning an angry shade of red.

But as much as he taunted her about her lowly origins, he seemed in the same measure to have forgotten where she’d come from as well. Minerva wasn’t merely the earl’s natural child. “As my mother always said, ‘I may be only a woman, but a man has to eat and he’s got to sleep.’ ” She straightened up on her high heels so she almost looked him in the eye. “Have a care, Mr. Adlington, what you take for supper tomorrow night and where you decide to slumber.”

He paled, but before he could rally, counter her threats, a loud voice stopped them. Stopped all the conversations in the foyer.

“I’ll have satisfaction, Langley! I demand it!” Lord Chudley bellowed.

Everyone turned toward this pronouncement, even Adlington.

Minerva used the distraction to slip out of Gerald’s trap.

“Chudley, there is no reason to—” Langley was saying.

“Demmit, man! Are you going to back away from a challenge like a coward?”

There was a collective inhale of breath.

Minerva was stopped from stepping into the fray by Nanny Brigid, who stood on the inner circle of witnesses, Throssell hovering protectively at her side.

“Seconds, sir. Name them!” Chudley bellowed.

Seconds? Had Aunt Bedelia’s husband gone mad? But then the madness spread as Langley nodded in agreement and the foyer buzzed with the news.

A duel!

Good heavens! Blackmail and now this . . . Minerva found her once staid life being thrust into a maelstrom of scandal.

She was starting to think that, perhaps, a quiet cell in Newgate might be a welcome respite.

G
erald Adlington was about to go after his quarry when a lady tapped him on the sleeve with her fan.

“Excuse me, were you just speaking to that lady?”

“What business is it of yours?” he said, not really looking at the woman, but trying his damnedest to keep Maggie in his sights. Bitch! She wouldn’t slight him so if she knew it had been his idea to have the earl send her in her sister’s place to marry Philip Sterling.

Bloody stroke of genius that, if he did say so himself. Maggie’s placement so close to the Sterling coffers had given him and his suddenly useless bride an endless supply of illicit cash.

Especially after the old earl had made it clear he wouldn’t give his errant legitimate daughter and her new husband a shilling, not even when he turned up his toes.

Useless. That was what Minnie had become. Then again, weren’t most women useless? Save for when a man wanted . . . He watched Maggie’s hips sway, the curve of her backside as she departed, and he groaned a little bit. She’d always found a way to stir him. And London whores were expensive. Perhaps he should just find a way to nab her, her bloody diamonds and make off to America.

But that notion would have to wait, for the overdone bird at his side became overly insistent. “I would have a word with you—in private,” she was saying, this time taking his arm and tugging him back into an alcove.

Gerald gave her a hard stare, and found his gaze was met with an equally merciless one. Instantly he knew who she was, one of those fancy foreign pieces who was rumored to have been one of Langley’s warming pans.

“Stop gaping like a fish and close your mouth,” she told him, giving him another nudge with her elbow. “You will listen to what I have to say, if you know what is good for you.”

Gerald’s temper flared to be spoken to thusly. Obviously Langley liked them bossy. Fool. Personally, he liked his birds a bit more submissive.

“What do you want?” he asked, puffing out his chest and facing her down.

She was, after all, just a woman.

She took a slow glance over at Minerva and said, “I think we have mutual desires that need to be addressed. Much to be gained if we worked together.”

He liked the sound of that. “What do you have in mind?”

And so she told him.

“I
thought you said you would handle this?” Neville Nottage said, sidling up behind Sir Basil and watching the growing fracas between Lord Langley and that old fool, Viscount Chudley.

“What the devil are you doing here? I told you when we parted at White’s to hide! Better still, leave London,” Sir Basil said, pulling him into an alcove. Not that anyone was looking, for they were too busy watching the escalating scandal.

“I think not,” Nottage said. “Every day Langley is alive puts us in danger.” Still, he pulled the collar of his coat up higher and the brim of his hat down lower.

“Very soon he will be under attainder for treason, and it won’t matter what he knows,” Sir Basil replied, glancing down at his program as if scanning it for something interesting in the next act.

“When?” Nottage demanded.

“When what?” Sir Basil said, taking a peek over at Chudley’s buffoonery.

“When will he be arrested? I detest this loathsome cowering.”

“By the end of the week,” Sir Basil told him.

Nottage shook his head furiously. “No! He needs to be eliminated now.”

“We wouldn’t be discussing this at all if you had finished the task in Paris. After all, you said he was dead. That Paris was the end of our concerns.”

“I would have sworn—” Nottage muttered, glancing furtively over his shoulder, but keeping his back to the crowd.

Yes, well your swearing didn’t do it, now did it
? Sir Basil mused silently, vexed at living in the baron’s crosshairs, for here was the seemingly unstoppable Lord Langley still alive.

Though perhaps not for long.

“This may be better,” he said aloud. “Lord Chudley is a demmed good shot, even at his age. He’ll finish this business for us. Besides, Langley hasn’t got any evidence against us. Remember he came to me begging for help.” Sir Basil snorted and went back to looking over his program.

“I know Langley,” Nottage grumbled. “He’s playing with you. And even if he doesn’t have anything, what if he discovers something before Chudley manages to send him aloft?”

“He won’t find anything. I’ve covered my tracks well. I wish I could say the same about you.”

Nottage colored. Dangerously so, but Sir Basil was confident in his own position.

There was nothing left that could point the finger at him save a few suspicions and the jealousies that came with rising in the ranks as he had.

“There is that one missing shipment,” Nottage pressed.

“Yes, which was lost. And if we couldn’t find it, why do you think Langley will be able to make it materialize out of thin air?”

“Because he’s Langley,” Nottage said, watching his former mentor with a narrowed gaze. “Listen well, Brownie, I’ll not be hanged for any of this. Not I. There is nothing to be done save stop the man. Without delay.”

Nottage turned to leave, but Sir Basil stepped into his path. “Stop bleating like a lamb. I have this well in hand. If this isn’t done with care and caution, we will both fall.”

“I beg to differ. I don’t think you do have this in order,” his co-conspirator replied. “Nor do you have the stomach for what needs to be done. Easy to order his murder when the man is across the Channel, but you haven’t the nerve to kill a fellow when he’s standing right in front of you, now do you, Brownie?”

“These things need to be done wisely. There is too much at stake.”

“This is no time, my good man, for care or reason,” Nottage told him, “Langley must die. Now.”

Sir Basil shuddered, and clenched his teeth together. Whatever did the man want him to do? Pull out a pistol and shoot the baron in front of the entire
ton
? Ridiculous notion. These things took careful planning, deliberation, timing . . .

“So I thought,” Nottage sneered. He leaned closer and whispered, “Time for you to step aside and I’ll show you how it is done in the field.”

“Like you did in Paris?” Sir Basil said, managing a brazen bit of courage.

But it was too late, for Nottage had already slipped into the crowd, moving like an eel through the excited throng that was even now rushing back to its seats for the next act, if not for the play, but to make sure they had the finer points of the scene they had just seen enacted in the foyer.

No one noticed Nottage, but then again the man was like that—familiar but utterly forgettable.

Alone, Sir Basil fumed, watching Nottage stride boldly out the door and into the night, where most likely the man was planning a murderous final act of his own.

“A
duel?” Minerva said to the baron as they exited Drury-Lane Theatre. “Really? That is how you avoid a scandal, Langley?”

“I can hardly be held accountable for Chudley’s sense of honor,” he replied. “Nor is it the time to have this discussion.” Langley glanced up and nodded at the gaping crowd that parted to let them through. Then he took her hand, placed it on his sleeve and began a slow, staged descent down the steps.

Minerva glanced up and immediately her fingers curled tighter around her spray of orange blossoms.

Oh, good heavens! It seemed everyone in the theatre—whether they’d witnessed the exchange or not—had lined up on the steps to watch them leave, just in case there happened to be an encore performance.

“What do they think is going to happen?” she asked under her breath as they walked along, her hand firmly pinned to his sleeve by his other hand.