Lord Langley Is Back in Town (20 page)

Behind him there was a slight rustle of silk, and he turned around, only to discover that a secluded carriage wasn’t Brigid and Jamilla’s only bit of mischief.

For they’d gone and worked their matchmaking magic on Lady Standon, and for the life of him, Ellis, Baron Langley, the rake who’d romanced and charmed every beauty the Continent had to offer, found himself as dry-mouthed and stammering as Swilly.

Oh, they knew him too well, he realized, all his smug masculine superiority taking flight as the lady descended the stairs, slowly, deliberately, one step after another.

High-heeled slippers peeked out from beneath her hem, giving a flash of the slender, silk clad legs hidden beneath. The gown, an emerald green, shimmered with the same haunting depth that an actual jewel might, but as his gaze rose higher, he found himself gaping.

Her figure, hidden before by sensible gowns, was no longer concealed, but swathed in silk, leaving no man who gazed upon her in doubt of the curves, the delights she possessed. Hips that a man could claim, a waist to wind your arm around, and a pair of breasts, full and round, that would make even Aphrodite weep with envy . . . and every man who couldn’t possess her. Claim her. Take her to his bed.

The lady on the stairs was no longer merely a dowager. No London matron. She was, in every sense of the word, a goddess come to life.

Her hair, nut brown in daylight, seemed more mahogany now, having been brushed and tugged into a tempting array of curls spilling down from the jeweled coronet sitting atop her head. Painted and adorned, she could have been stepping down from a high altar, Olympus itself, instead of the rickety steps of this house where she ruled.

Oh, Jamilla and Brigid had done what they knew best. They’d contrived to make Minerva a temptation he couldn’t resist. A woman he’d have to have.

Would surrender his heart, his honor, his very life to possess.

But resist he would. He swore he would. He was no Swilly. No country cub. He was Lord Langley, the breaker of hearts, and his would not be swayed by tricks that were naught but a courtesan’s slight of hand.

At least that was what he vowed until he took Minerva’s hand, brought her fingers to his lips and found himself utterly undone.

F
or her part, Minerva would have liked to remind Langley that he’d promised not to kiss her. But right now seemed hardly the right moment to ring a peel over his head.

Besides, she was having a devil of a time standing on these high-heeled shoes of Brigid’s. However did the woman manage to slink about so seductively in these towering things?

And all done up as she was, she wasn’t all that sure that at any moment now Langley wasn’t going to burst out laughing at her, dolled up like a high-priced Incognita.

She certainly felt like one with Langley’s kiss lingering over her fingers, for her insides fluttered about and urged her to be as passionate as the lady she’d seen staring back at her in the mirror.

The one she barely recognized as herself.

Truly, whoever was she going to fool? For certainly everyone would see past this transformation and realize that it was only Minerva, Lady Standon, behind the paint and silks.

Certainly not a practiced rake like Lord Langley!

Not that she wanted his attentions—which she didn’t—but just once it would be something to be looked upon and regarded so intimately . . .

Oh, what was she thinking? She could hardly be as desirable as Brigid and her startling red hair and divine angles, or Tasha and her petite, fair looks, or Lucia and her come-hither glances.

No, this was all so foolhardy! She should turn on one heel—carefully so—and flee upstairs, wash her face and put on her sensible plum gown.

That is exactly what she should have done, just as she should never have answered the door the previous night.

But then she made the mistake of looking into Langley’s startling blue eyes, and saw something she could never have imagined staring back at her.

T
he heat that swept through Langley’s body as his lips touched Lady Standon’s fingers left him staggered.

It was only a kiss, a greeting, but suddenly it wasn’t. Her faint perfume of roses, the tremble in her fingers, the way she wavered on her high-heeled slippers. All of it threw him completely over, as if he’d been tossed under the wheels of a mail coach.

Oh, God, he wanted her. Forget the theatre, forget their plans. He wanted to catch her up in his arms, carry her up the stairs, and spend the rest of the night undressing her, discovering every nuance, every curve, where he could make this enchantress sing with pleasure.

His chest tightened, and his body . . . well, he was embarrassed to say what state he was in. He was as bad as Swilly.

However could this be? He’d kissed how many ladies in the past two decades since Franny died, and not one of them had stirred such a response in him.

And when he looked up into Lady Standon’s eyes, lined as they were with kohl, making them both exotic and enticing, he gazed deeper and swore he could see the fire, the passion buried inside her very soul.

Like a distant flickering candle meant to guide him home, these flames of hers teased him to come closer, to listen carefully, dared him to try and tame them.

At that moment Thomas-William’s ominous words echoed in his thoughts.

There is no excuse for sacrificing her for something so fleeting.

For while Jamilla or Brigid, Tasha or Lucia, and especially Helga, all knew the risks and rules of this game, he doubted Lady Standon did.

Wrenching his gaze away and ignoring the tightening in his chest, he said, “Lady Standon, shall we go?”

Best to get out of the house, before he did give in to his rakish inclinations and reputation.

But that didn’t mean he let go of her hand.

“Yes, that sounds lovely,” she said, her formal, proper tones just the right note to remind him that theirs wasn’t a true match. Merely a ruse.

But it didn’t have to be . . .

Oh, demmit, he was in over his head when he started thinking like that. False engagement or not, he needed to keep his wits about him.

Perhaps it is because you have never had a betrothed before
.

For he hadn’t, he realized as they made their way silently to the carriage. With Franny it had been a whirlwind courtship, just as he got his first assignment, a posting to Constantinople. He’d always suspected her father, Lord Hawstone, had used his influence in seeing him, a young baron with not much more than his name, sent so far away. Yet when Langley suggested—half in love, half in jest—that she, Miss Frances Hawstone, come along with him, she’d readily agreed.

They’d eloped that night, and the ship’s captain had married them—despite the lack of banns and that both of them were underage. Better to marry them straightaway, he’d told his first mate, than to have a worse scandal in the months to come when they docked at some far off foreign port and the miss was far gone with child.

So it had been done with no fuss, no foolishness. And no proper betrothal. Just two overly romantic teenagers madly in love, with no thought about what they were actually doing.

So why was it, twenty some years later, he was bumbling along like Swilly, while Lady Standon maintained her perfect composure in the seat across from him?

He took a deep breath and tapped on the roof for the driver to move on. “You look lovely.”

She shook her head, a dismissive sort of flutter.

“But you do,” he insisted.

“ ’Tis the gown and the diamonds—none of which are mine.”

“I disagree,” he said. “The gown reveals your figure to perfection.” He leaned forward. “Much better than that night-rail of yours.”

“Langley!” she exclaimed. “You promised!”

Langley
. She’d called him “Langley.” Not “my lord,” not “sir,” nor several other unflattering sobriquets that could have been flung in his direction.

And like holding her hand, kissing her fingertips, he rather liked hearing her use his title in such a familiar way.

“Do you hear me?” she said. “You promised. No scandals. And that includes references to situations that may not be understood by others.”

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “No kissing and no innuendoes.”

“Exactly,” she told him, hands folded in front of her. “I’ll excuse this afternoon, but no more.”

If she was willing to excuse those lapses . . .

“If you insist,” he demurred.

“I do.”

“But you are looking lovely this evening.”

Her brow furrowed as if she didn’t quite believe him. “Not overdone? I fear I look like a . . . a . . .”

“A what?”

Now she leaned forward. “A courtesan. Or an Incognita. Some gentleman’s vestal.”

He sat back and grinned. “Lady Standon, now I am scandalized. Wherever did you hear such words? Learn about such company?”

“I opened the door to my house the other night and found it filled with such company,” she said tartly.

She had him there.

“Perhaps the diamonds are overmuch,” he said. “But they are stunning, and are only brightened by the light of the lady wearing them.”

She snorted at his gallantries. “I’ve never heard such nonsense.”

Langley was a bit taken aback by her skepticism. He didn’t know if he’d ever met a woman who didn’t adore being fed compliments as if they were squares of Turkish delight. “Then you haven’t been properly courted—though those diamonds would say otherwise. Who loaned them to you? Tasha? Or Lucia?”

Her fingers went to the throat, where they fluttered nervously over the stones. “Neither. I probably shouldn’t even be wearing them.”

Never had he heard anything that sounded more like a confession. Still, he joked, “I doubt you stole them.” And laughed at the notion until she blushed and glanced out the window.

Langley’s amusement came to a halt. “Lady Standon, what mischief have you been about? Have I discovered your darkest secret?”

Her gaze flitted back to his, wide with alarm.

So you do have your secrets
, he mused, thinking of her mysterious “painter.”

“If you must know—”

“I must,” he replied.

“These are the Sterling diamonds,” she explained.

“Ah, family heirlooms. I’m surprised—given what I know of the Sterlings—you were allowed to keep them after your husband died. I would have thought they’d been—” He was about to say
gathered up with the rest of the heirlooms
, but her eyes widened even further, telling him he needn’t say the words aloud. “Good God, Minerva! You are a cheeky bit of muslin. You kept them when old Sterling stuck his spoon in the wall!”

This brought her up straight in her seat. “I did no such thing. I handed them over to the next Lady Standon. Elinor wore them at her wedding to Edward.”

He folded his arms over his chest and sat back, cocking one brow at her. “So how is it you have them now?”

“Oh, gracious heavens,” she said, her brow furrowed to be caught so. “The diamonds are for the wife of the heir, who will eventually become the Duchess of Hollindrake. But it was decided when Lucy Ellyson married Archie—”

Oh, he saw it only too well. “The diamonds went into hiding rather than be handed over to the daughter of a thief and a dolly mop.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

But there was more to this than just one unlikely bride. “But Lucy didn’t become the duchess,” he mused aloud. “Archie died and then Felicity—” Langley stopped. Egads, those diamonds were supposed to be around his daughter’s neck! And then his supposition went one step further. “Am I to suppose that Felicity is unaware of the Sterling diamonds?”

Minerva glanced down at her gloves and tugged at them. “It might be that no one has told her. I believe she has been rather occupied since she married the duke.”

“And you haven’t had an opportunity to convey them to her?”

“No,” she shot back. “And why should I? She’s the one who banished me—me and Elinor and Lucy—to that shambles of a house, who had us cut off, who’s been the ruin of everything!” She settled deeply into her seat, arms crossed over her chest, though one hand slid back onto the stones, cradling them possessively. “So no, I haven’t given them to her.”

Langley pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. He knew he should be offended—at least for Felicity’s sake—but he wasn’t. Oh, he had no illusions about his daughter. She’d been a high-handed, opinionated, matchmaking terror since childhood. She’d once laid out a chart for the Queen of Naples as to the likely European and English princes and princesses for her children to marry, much to the queen’s amusement and the horror of the English ambassador.

“There is no need to ring a peel over my head,” he told her. “Felicity won’t hear about them from me. And all I will say to you, Madame Jewel Thief, is that I do believe your coloring lends itself better to diamonds than that of my fair daughter.” He winked at her, pleased this time that she blushed at his compliment.