Lord Langley Is Back in Town (38 page)

“The toad is over there,” Lucy said with a slight tip of her head.

“Aunt Bedelia calls him naught but a dull stick,” Minerva said as she glanced in that direction. “Just a moment. I know him. Langley introduced us the other night at the theatre. I remember his wife was quite the preening mushroom.”

“Dreadful woman,” Elinor added. “Arrived dripping in gems, and had the audacity to point out that they were real, unlike so many other ladies’ jewels.”

“Yes, and now we know who they really belong to, don’t we,” Minerva said, more under her breath than as a question, her gaze swiveling toward the woman.

Lucy nodded, while Elinor smiled and said, “Allow me to distract Lady Brownett so you can work your wiles on her husband.”

“My wiles, indeed!” Minerva scoffed.

Lucy shook her head. “No, Minerva, I daresay you have found your heart, for you have bloomed in the last week. Langley must be magnificent.”

Elinor nodded.

“He is,” Minerva whispered as she began her turn through the crowd, her gaze fixed on Sir Basil as Elinor lured Lady Brownett off toward the refreshment table.

Setting to her task, Minerva sauntered past him, like one of the nannies might, carefully and seductively casting a come-hither glance over her shoulder at the man until she caught his eye.

“Lady Standon!” he sputtered, wide-eyed with surprise.

She paused and glanced at him as if she couldn’t quite place him, then smiled. “Ah, yes, Sir Basil, just the man I was looking for.”

“For me? I would have thought you would be home. With Lord Langley! Dire straits, I hear.”

“Dead,” she replied, making a nonchalant shrug as she gazed out at the crush in the ballroom.

Sir Basil paled. “Dead, you say! Shocking.”

She looked over at him. “Yes, rather shocking indeed.” Then she took a step toward him.

“But you are here—” he stammered as he backed up, glancing around and realizing she was cornering him into an alcove.

“Of course, where else would I be? I had to find you.”

“Me? Lady Standon, I think your grief has impaired your judgment. Perhaps you might have a relative or a friend close at hand—”

Minerva closed the gap between them. “Sir Basil, I don’t need anyone but you.”

“Madame! This is becoming scandalous. What you need—”

“What I need is money for the surgeon so he’ll keep quiet as to why it wasn’t Chudley’s bullet that killed Langley, but the second one fired by your associate.”

This time Sir Basil looked like a three day old fish, eyes unblinking, his mouth stuck open.

“I have no idea—”

She put a finger on his chest and prodded him. “I think you know exactly what I mean. And since you saw fit to ruin my chances for a good inheritance as Langley’s widow—truly, Sir Basil, you couldn’t have had him murdered until after I married him?—so I have come for my cut.”

“Your wha-a-at?”

“My fair portion,” she told him, glancing down at her gloves and then up into his beady, porcine eyes.

“Madame, this is madness!”

“Is it?” she mused. “Before Langley passed on to his reward, he realized he was leaving me in dire straits, and wrote a rather detailed account as to what he was doing in Paris before he was attacked.”

This caught Sir Basil’s full attention.

“While I am sure the Prime Minister would find it excellent reading, or the
Times
might find it enlightening to print, I daresay it has other values.”

The man swallowed—gulped, really. “I have no idea what you mean, madame.”

But Minerva knew he was bluffing. So she said, “I wager you do, or I can go ask your wife where exactly she got her necklace. I know an Italian duchessa who might find those rubies quite familiar. And I doubt her Borgia blood would make her all that forgiving over the matter.”

He began to shake.

“Yes, you do understand my meaning, and you’ll meet me after the next dance upstairs, in the room at the end of the hall.”

She started to walk away, but he caught her by the elbow. “I will not be blackmailed, nor will I meet you anywhere.”

Shaking her arm free, she met his gaze with her own black, haughty stare. “Oh, you’ll meet me. And you will be in a generous mood when you do, for if you find my blackmail—as you call it—outrageous, I am sure there are others who will reward me handsomely.” With a nod toward the doorway where the Prime Minister had just come through, she walked away, hoping her trembling knees did not give her away.

“H
elga,” Langley said, backing into Minerva’s room.

“
Schatzi!
I don’t understand why you look surprised to see me.” She glanced at the rumpled bed and sniffed. “Such low tastes you’ve developed. How unfortunate you hadn’t such a touch for the common before you stole from me.”

“Stole from you?” Langley shook his head. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Certainly there were things he didn’t remember, but stealing from the margravine he would remember. For he couldn’t believe he’d ever be that foolish.

“My jewels, you wretched cur. You stole my jewels. The crown jewels.” She stalked closer. “Why do you think the others are here? You’ve stolen from all of us. You were quite productive those years you were ‘lost.’ But I know what you were doing. Retracing your steps and stealing from every crowned head who once hosted you.”

Langley shook his head. Madness! This was utter madness. “I’ve been in Abbaye prison all this time.”

“Bah!” she spat at him. “Who else could have climbed into my bedchamber and known where I kept them? I want my sapphires back!”

He would have liked to point out that there were about half a dozen likely candidates who knew the lady’s bedchamber intimately, at least that he knew of, but being a gentleman, and the fact that she was holding a pistol, kept him from stating the obvious.

“I haven’t your sapphires,” he told her.

“You dare deny it? That you stole the Crown Jewels of Ansbach? And Tasha’s necklace, the one that the Tsarina Catherine gave her, or Brigid’s pearls—a rope that once belonged to your Queen Elizabeth, and Lucia’s rubies—the Borgia rubies?”

“Egads, they’ve made off with a fortune,” he muttered vaguely. An image of dark stones around a woman’s throat flooded his thoughts. Lady Brownett! She’d had on rubies at the theatre. “Helga, it wasn’t me. This entire plot was made to look like I stole your jewels. It was my secretary, Nottage, who took them.”

For a moment the lady’s eyes flickered with recognition at the name.

But was it more than that? Was she familiar with more than just the man’s name? Had she taken him to her bed as well? He wouldn’t put it past the insatiable margravine.

Even with that flicker of doubt, she wasn’t about to change course. “Bah!” she scoffed. “I am not so foolish to listen to more of your lies.”

She brought the pistol closer, and Langley, instead of being alarmed, realized there was no talking reason with her. Well, that was one disadvantage of being a rake. Eventually your charm ran out.

“These crimes are not mine,” he insisted, sticking to the truth of the matter. “I came back to London to prove just that. The man you seek is Sir Basil. I have nearly got him caught, if only you will let me—”

“Harrumph!” She waved her pistol at him. “Where are my sapphires?”

Down below, the front door opened, and for a heartbeat Langley feared it was Minerva having returned. But then the thick trod of boots told him it wasn’t.

But what he didn’t expect was the sight that greeted him in the doorway. “The painter?”

“The what?” the fellow stammered.

“She told him you were the painter,” Helga supplied.

“Ah, apt little liar, my Maggie is. Langley, isn’t it? I’m Adlington. The man who is married to your betrothed.”

Langley did a double take. “You’re what?”

“Never mind who he is,” Helga said, stamping her foot impatiently. But then again, the margravine never liked it when the conversation focused on any other woman than her.

“We’ve come for Lady Standon’s diamonds,” the man supplied, glancing around the room as if he expected them to be laying about.

“Ahem,” the margravine coughed, glaring at the fellow.

“And her sapphires,” he added.

“I have neither,” Langley told them.

“But you know where she hides them,” Helga said, sneering.

“Actually, she left wearing the diamonds,” he said. “So unless you plan on storming the Duke of Parkerton’s house and taking them in the middle of his soiree, you are out of luck.”

Helga didn’t take two seconds to consider the notion. “Do it,” she said to Adlington.

“Do what?” he stammered, busy glancing around the room as if looking for anything else of value.

“Go to this Parkerton’s house and tell Lady Standon that if she doesn’t give you the diamonds, her precious Langley is dead.”

“She won’t give them up,” Adlington said.

“Then kill her,” Helga told him.

Chapter 16

When you fall in love, it is not with a name or a title or a fortune (though all those points are indispensable) but with the heart that beats inside.

Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Lucia

D
own the block on Brook Street, a carriage sat in the shadows between the gas lamps. As the occupants watched Adlington hurry down the steps and set off at a fast clip, the lady’s brow furrowed.

“There is something odd going on there,” the woman said to the man sitting beside her.

“There is always something odd going on in that house,” he advised.

The lady nodded in agreement. “This is more than my father being back in Town, as Lady Finch’s letter said.” She started to climb down the steps, but her companion stopped her. “I am going to get to the bottom of this,” she said over her shoulder.

“Do you think you should go alone? From what you’ve told me about your Nanny Helga—”

She smiled at her husband. “I would love you to come with me, but you will make a dreadful racket. I can slip in and out without a sound.”

There was no arguing that. The lady was as light-footed as a cat. Just like her father. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to stay close just in case.

Because oftentimes where the former Felicity Langley dared tread, not even angels would venture.

“W
ish me luck,” Minerva whispered as the set came close to ending.

“Luck,” Elinor whispered back.

“There is no need,” Lucy said, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “We will be right behind you.”

And so Minerva crossed the room and made for the stairs as nonchalantly as she could.

“She truly wears that dress well,” Lucy remarked.

Elinor tipped her head and studied her. “I daresay she does,” she agreed.

“What is this?” Both women jumped at the question that rose up behind them.

“I believe it is our wives, deep in their plots,” a second man replied.

Lucy and Elinor exchanged glances as first Parkerton, who took his wife’s hand, and then the Earl of Clifton caught Lucy in his grasp.

“What are you doing?” Lucy demanded as she struggled to get free of her husband.

“Asking you to dance,” he replied, pulling her out to the floor.

“But I am not in the mood,” she told him, glancing over at Elinor, who was in much the same straits.

“Truly, Parkerton, I have a matter to attend to,” she was saying.

“Foolishness,” he told his duchess. “Our staff is the finest in London. They will see to whatever needs to be done.”

“Including seeing Minerva safely out of harm’s way,” Clifton advised them.

Lucy’s gaze flew up to meet her husband’s.

“Yes, we know,” he said, for he knew her well enough to know she would never confess her machinations, not in a thousand years. “And if you think you are going up there, just the two of you, to spring your trap on Sir Basil, you’ve both gone mad.”

“But Minerva can’t do this alone,” Elinor protested.

“She isn’t going to,” Clifton assured them. “By now Parkerton’s brother Jack and Lord Langley are in place and ready to put an end to all this.”

“H
elga, for the last time, I didn’t steal your jewels,” Langley told her.

From her post in the doorway, she scoffed at him. “Bah,
schatzi
, what makes you think I will believe your lies a second time?”

He groaned and rubbed his forehead, and in that moment he could have sworn he heard someone coming up the stairs.

Someone with the stealth of an agent. Friend or foe, it mattered not, for all he needed was to have Helga distracted for enough time to gain possession of her pistol.