Lord Langley Is Back in Town (12 page)

Meanwhile, Langley had managed to get to his feet. “That was hardly necessary,” he told her, straightening up the chair and tugging his waistcoat back into place.

“But very satisfying, my lord,” she said, smiling at him.

“Hardly the way to greet one’s betrothed,” he said, settling back in his seat and reaching for the teapot. “May I?” he asked, nodding at her cup.

“No, thank you,” she replied. And much to her chagrin, he poured himself another cup and then began to help himself to the platter of bacon and kippers, as well as another scone. “I wouldn’t get too comfortable, if I were you. You are not staying here.”

“And where else would I go?”

“We cannot live in this house together.” Her stomach rumbled in complaint, for the smell of food was just too much and she was hungry. Against her better judgment, she filled her plate as well. “I will brook no argument on the subject, for you cannot stay here.”

“Whyever not?” he said. “We have a house full of chaperones, who are more than willing, I would note, to keep you out of my bed. And further, I am quite capable of restraining myself. That is, if you insist.”

“Oh, I do insist. Besides, I never asked for your attentions to begin with.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” he conceded. “But from what I can see, they may be exactly what you need.”

Minerva had chosen that moment to take a sip of her tea and ended up sputtering it all over. “I beg your pardon?”

He grinned at her, and she couldn’t decide if it made him more handsome or more annoying. Both, she decided, ignoring the strong line of his jaw, the crinkle of a dimple on one side, and the sparkle of his blue eyes.

“What I mean to say is that an engagement would be of tremendous benefit to you,” he said, as if he had suggested she try the marmalade instead of the strawberry preserves.

“However would an engagement to
you
be of benefit to
me
?” she asked, setting down her knife and fork. Having already given the candlestick another glance, she decided it was probably better not to have anything deadly in her grasp.

He sat back as well. “I would think that would be obvious.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Gladly,” he agreed. “It is well known that your aunt would like to see you married and settled and is not opposed to using whatever means possible to corner you into some sort of union, whether you like it or not.”

Minerva flinched. She could well imagine how he’d discovered that much—for while a single meeting with Aunt Bedelia was more than enough to discover this, she suspected Tia’s hand in this as well.

The little minx loved to gossip, and Minerva could also imagine what little—and large—
on dits
the girl had shared while playing cards with Lord Langley.

“If you were engaged to me, she would hardly continue to truss you up like Maid Marion and send you off to masquerades only to fill your dance card with aging roués and widowers with seven children.” His smile as he finished was like a well-executed touché.

Oh, yes, Tia had done her worst.

“And,” he continued, turning his attention back to his breakfast as he spoke. “If you could assume a more loving demeanor, you might even convince your houseguests to give up their stakes and leave. If they have no reason to remain in London, they will be out with the morning tide.”

“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “They will be out this afternoon.”

He didn’t so much as laugh, but smiled indulgently at her, as if he found her naiveté quite endearing.

“They will be,” she insisted. “I have ordered the carriages, and if it comes to it, I will use Thomas-William’s pistol and evict them by force.”

“You are going to run a Cossack footman out of your house with only a pistol?” He shook his head. “I hope you are prepared to shoot it, for that is the only way he will leave without his mistress’s approval.”

Minerva pursed her lips together, but then suddenly brightened. “If I shot you, then there would be no reason for any of them to stay and I would be rid of the lot of you.”

“Have no fears, given my reputation and the life I’ve lived, you may get your wish sooner than necessary,” he said in his usual light manner. But Minerva wasn’t fooled, for there was something else to his words that filled in around the merry edges.

A sober note of concession.

She eyed him suspiciously, but Langley wasn’t a renowned diplomat for nothing. He smiled blandly at her and continued eating his breakfast.

“Whyever would you want such an arrangement?” Deliberately she hadn’t said, “engagement.”

“Again, isn’t it obvious?” He took a swift sip of tea. “I have no desire to marry, but I fear I’ve had a difficult—if not impossible—time convincing anyone else of that fact. If I were engaged to you, then effectively I would be out of the market and free to live my life without the fear of an unwanted entanglement.” He paused for a moment. “That, and an engagement to you, my lovely and staid Lady Standon, would do much toward rehabilitating my standing in Society. I can hardly be as bad as all that if I was able to convince you to enter into marriage again.”

There was more to this than just that, she wagered. For if it was only a matter of avoiding marriage, hadn’t he proven he was quite adept at it? But there was something so enticing about what he offered . . .

Aunt Bedelia off her back. Her houseguests gone. The freedom to live her life as she saw fit—much as he desired.

Oh, it was tempting to accept what he was offering, but then the chains of matrimony rattled her back to the present. And there was one other factor—Aunt Bedelia. The old girl would only be put off so long before she’d have Lord Langley hauled down to the Archbishop’s office and a Special License procured.

The man before her might be the most elusive spy England had ever claimed, but Minerva held a greater fear of Aunt Bedelia’s prowess at getting a man married. Lord Langley might have trumped Napoleon, but he’d never outwit the infamous Lady Chudley.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I will not enter into any sort of agreement. There will be no betrothal. No engagement. I’d rather weather the scandal that will come of refusing you than find myself mired up to my neck in something neither of us could escape or want.”

He shook his head and looked ready to start doing what he reputably did so well—cajoling—and certainly not the other thing he was reputed to do so well—when Mrs. Hutchinson came in and stopped him in his tracks.

“There you are,” the housekeeper said, thrusting a note out to Minerva. “This came for you. The fellow said he’d wait for an answer.”

Minerva took the slip of paper and drew a deep breath, for she could never quite get used to Mrs. Hutchinson’s less than stellar manners. She’d be fired from any other employment for her cheek and lack of regard for boundaries, but then again, no one made scones like the lady.

And that had to be worth something, Minerva told herself even as she glanced down at the dirty folded bit in her hands.

Lady Standon.

Minerva nearly dropped it as she stared at the hasty scrawl of writing across the front.
Good God, no! It couldn’t be.

She glanced again at the lettering, even as her heart stilled to a dull pounding thud. She’d know that handwriting anywhere. After glancing at Langley, who was charming Mrs. Hutchinson with lofty praise for her baking, she slid her trembling finger under the plain seal.

Inside it was worse than she’d first feared.

The money is late. Explain yourself. Now.

She folded it back up and stuffed it inside her sleeve, hidden away, though hardly forgotten. Taking another deep breath to still her shaking limbs, she managed a prim smile. “Did the man say he would wait?”

“Oh, aye. Out back. Cheeky devil. Should I send Lucy’s man after him?”

“No, no,” Minerva told her, rising abruptly. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Is there something amiss?” Langley asked as he too got to his feet, wiping his mouth with his napkin and setting it down beside his plate. “Can I be of assistance?”

“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “Just some questions from the painter about what colors I wanted this room done in.” She paused, her hand coming to rest on her other sleeve cuff, where the note sat tucked away. “Best I see to it quickly so the work isn’t delayed. Please, Lord Langley, finish your breakfast.”

“We are not done, my lady,” he told her as she rushed out the door, having paid his words no heed. Langley glanced over at Mrs. Hutchinson. “Did you find her ladyship’s behavior a bit odd?”

The housekeeper shrugged. “Everything about you toffs is a bit queer in the nob, if you ask me.”

“Sorry I did,” Langley said, glancing out the door where Minerva had fled.

Chapter 5

. . . though not for long.

Further advice from Nanny Tasha

M
inerva paused at the back door, her hand trembling as she reached for the latch.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself. “You can face him.”

All those years ago. How long had it been? Twelve years since she’d discovered the truth about love. About him. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

At the very least it had been another life. One she didn’t want to revisit. Yet here she was, about to face a past she had tried to keep buried all these years. Her fingers wrapped around the latch and pushed the back door open.

Glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, she slipped into the garden and walked down the uneven path toward the gate, steeling herself for the sight of him.

But when she stepped into the alleyway, she found it empty. She glanced right then left, and for a moment felt a fleeting bit of relief.

She’d been wrong. It wasn’t him.

Oh, but it was. For just then, out of the doorway that led to the garden across the way, stepped a tall muscular figure.

“Maggie, me girl, look at you.”

Minerva stilled.
Maggie
. She hadn’t been called that since the day her father had hauled her down the aisle to marry Philip Sterling.

And instead of finding comfort in hearing someone use that old, long lost name, it sent a shock of terror through her.

“Don’t call me that,” she said, drawing herself up.
You are the Marchioness of Standon. You are. He can’t do anything to that.

Oh, but he could.

“What, Maggie me girl, are you too lofty now for old friends? Not so lofty that you didn’t come running when I came to call. Just like old times, eh?”

“What choice do I have?” She crossed her arms over her chest and took another furtive glance up and down the empty alleyway. “Now state your business and be gone before someone sees me with you.”

Sees me and questions what I was doing out here . . .

“Gotten all hoity-toity, haven’t we? But I know different, don’t I? I knew you when you weren’t so fine and you were still my Maggie.” Much to her chagrin, he crossed the alley with the same determined stride that had once caught her eye. And unfortunately he was still darkly handsome.

But not as handsome as Langley
, she found herself thinking. For where the baron was charming and lighthearted, this man brooded a dark mystery.

He stopped before her and smiled down at her. One that would have sent her heart pattering a dozen or so years before. But that was the advantage of time and reaching an age where youthful eyes gave way to sight that let one see past the veneer of dark countenances and heavy-lidded glances.

For there was no longer any mystery to Gerald Adlington. Not to her. Everything that seemed so exciting and enigmatic about him had been easy to discover: He possessed no heart, no loyalty.

And he had never loved her.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t toy with her. Couldn’t play cat to her mouse. Something he knew only too well.

“So, Margaret Owens, you can dress yourself up and call yourself by whatever fancy title you like, but deep down we both know you will always be naught but old Gilston’s by-blow. My hot-blooded Maggie. My dearest wife.”

L
angley watched from the morning room window as Lady Standon stole across the garden like a thief. Whatever was she doing meeting her “painter” in the mews? Too many years spent unraveling the secrets of others made it impossible for him not to start wondering what she was hiding.

“So you have your secrets, do you, Lady Standon?” he mused quietly to himself.

From behind him, he heard the telltale creak of the floor in the hallway, and then it was the lady’s voice that stopped his speculations.

“
Schatzi
, how could anything hold your attention in this dreary place?”

Helga
. He should have known her protestations against going out so early were for naught. He had to imagine that if there ever was an early bird, it was this woman. Sharp-eyed and ready to snatch up whatever came into her sights.