Lord Langley Is Back in Town (21 page)

“Thank you. For I do love them.”

He laughed. “Then you should wear them often.” She bit her lip and glanced out the window, and he realized something else. “You do—you wear them quite often, don’t you?”

“You are the very devil, Langley,” she scolded. Then she paused and added, “And yes, if I am feeling a bit out of sorts, there have been a few times when I’ve worn them . . . just for myself.”

Something about the way she said this left Langley with the lascivious image of her wearing just the Sterling diamonds and not much else. But he also suspected that if he suggested such a thing, the proper Lady Standon would box his ears.

Still, such a proposition might be worth the risk—for suddenly he found himself lost in the memory of how it had felt to tease a kiss from her lips, hold her hand, the heat of her fingers in his sending shocks of desire through him.

The Sterling diamonds were but the outward fire of the lady before him. For like the cool stones, when the light hit her just right she burned from the inside with the same dazzling brilliance.

“What are they playing tonight?” she said, breaking the awkward silence that had filled the carriage as he sat there contemplating the impossible—of seeing her naked save for those diamonds.

He barely heard her.

“Lord Langley?” she prodded. “The play? What are they doing tonight?”

“Uh,
The Merchant of Bruges
,” he said, answering quickly to change the direction of his thoughts.

His very wayward thoughts.

“Oh, yes, you said that earlier. How odd of me to forget.” She glanced out the window, her reticule strings twisted around her fingers.

“Kean is playing the merchant,” he added, if only to keep himself from contemplating the lady across from him . . . naked. Beneath him. Calling out his name.

Langley, oh, Langley! Yes, Langley, oh, yes!

“My lord? Are you well?”

“Uh, yes, of course,” he managed.

“As I was saying, I saw him play it a few weeks ago,” she replied, sounding relieved as well to have something, anything, to discuss. “It is an excellent portrayal. I hope you will enjoy it.”

He nodded in agreement. “I should. I’ve heard much of Kean, so it is with some guilty pleasure that I finally get to see him perform. I love the theatre, you know.”

Her gaze wrenched away from the window to meet his. “You do?”

She needn’t sound so amazed. “Yes, Lady Standon, I do.”

“I just didn’t think that
you
—” She stopped there, but he could well imagine what she had been about to say. The blush on her cheeks and her nervous glance back out the window were enough evidence.

“Believe it or not, I have interests beyond seducing widows and carrying on infamous affairs.”

“I didn’t think that,” she shot back. Far too hastily. For she also sat up straight and glowered a bit from behind her kohl-lined eyes, as if daring him to contradict her.

If only she knew how much more desirous and tempting she looked when she got into a pique.

Dangerously so.

“Well, perhaps,” she admitted. “But in my defense, one hears things about gentlemen . . . and their . . .”

She listened to gossip about him? Oh, this could be interesting. He raised a single brow, and it was enough of a prod to have her confessing.

“Well, one hears about their . . . prowess, and it is difficult to believe that such persons have time for other pursuits.”

“Are you saying, Lady Standon, that I have spent most of my adult life perfecting my, as you say, ‘prowess,’ to such an extent that I wouldn’t have any other time for such frivolities as the theatre?”

This time she furrowed her brows. “I might.”

He sat back in his seat, arms folded over his chest now. “I do hope the king hasn’t heard these rumors,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

This startled her out of her prudish stance. “The king? Whatever has he got to do with all this?”

“My good lady, contrary to popular prattle, I have spent more than twenty years in His Majesty’s service. If he were to think that all I’d done in that time is merely sport about the Continent and collect his gold for nothing more than my prowess—”

“Well, when you put it that way—”

“I didn’t. You did.”

She pressed her lips together. “Oh, I suppose I did, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Then it isn’t true?” she asked. “What they say about you?”

“You’d have to tell me what ‘they’ say.”

To his delight, she blushed. He rather liked it when she blushed. One wouldn’t catch Helga blushing. Or Tasha, for that matter.

“My lord, I don’t repeat such gossip.” Her primly folded hands went from her lap to crossed over her chest in a defiant stance.

“But apparently you aren’t adverse to listening to it.”

“Oh, you are incorrigible!”

“The same could be said about you, Lady Standon,” he pointed out. “Did you ever protest the recitation of these reports? Refuse to listen? Leave?”

“It is hardly polite to up and leave when someone is relating a story,” she told him, her hands going back to their respectable place in her lap. “Besides, I didn’t even know you then.”

“Oh, no, far more polite to allow an innocent man’s reputation to be sullied by secondhand reports—”

“You are hardly innocent, sir. I have a house full of guests that speaks to the contrary.”

He casually glanced out the window as he said, “Still, I suspect you rather liked hearing about my affairs.”

“I never!”

He turned to meet her indignant gaze. “Never?”

“Not in the least,” she said, even as her fingers wound and rewound her reticule strings around her fingers. “Surely not.” Then she sat silently for a few moments as she straightened her skirt.

“Madam, you are a liar,” he said, crossing the carriage and taking her hand in his again—if only to provoke her, certainly not because he’d been dying to touch her again.

No, it wasn’t for that reason. Not at all.

“You liked listening to the tales of my prowess because your life was dull and passionless,” he said, even as she tried to pull her hand from his. But he held on, and to emphasize his point, he wound his other arm around her waist and hauled her right up against him. “You’ve longed to burn, to have a lover, to be kissed senseless, to be carried away to far-flung places and never look back.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but all her lips could do was flutter a bit. “How did you . . .”

“I’m a mind reader,” he teased, studying the way her cheeks were rising in color again.

“Oh, of all the utter nonsense,” she managed to bluster.

“Not entirely,” he said, leaning closer, taking a deep inhale near her neck, letting the soft rose-scented perfume fill his senses. “It was my job to know, my lady. Not seducing wives and collecting mistresses—though that often helped mask what it was I was about—but what I really did was know my opponents. Know their wishes, their desires. Discover their
secrets
.”

As he let that word whisper over her, she shivered. “And you think you’ve discovered mine? You think me a romantic, longing to run away with some ne’er-do-well?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened a bit. “Ridiculous.”

Langley leaned closer. “Come now, Lady Standon. Is it all that ridiculous? Truly? We both know the truth.”

She shivered slightly, trembling really. “How could you know?” she confessed. He could tell that had cost her. “You hardly know me.”

If she were any other woman, he would have flirtatiously told her that there was much a man could tell from a lady’s kiss, but that wasn’t entirely the truth. And he knew that Lady Standon, this living, breathing embodiment of the goddess of wisdom, wouldn’t want to be dallied with.

And more to the point, there was far more he didn’t know about her, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. So he told her what he did know.

“You have two books out from the lending library.
The Capitals of Europe
and
The Mysterious Harem of Constantinople
. A travelogue and a rather risqué novel of French origins. The first book suggests you would like to leave London well behind you, and I won’t comment on the second one, only that it says much about your unfulfilled desires.”

“My unfulfilled—” She shook her head, as if trying to break the spell winding its magical way around them. “I have no such—”

He put a finger to her lips. “Oh, but you do. I know your secret.”

This time her gaze narrowed, challenging him, yet that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the tremble moving inside her. “And whatever do you think that is?”

“That as much as you protest otherwise, you long for me to kiss you. You want nothing more than to throw your vow away.”

Chapter 8

. . . then again, what lady wants a man to keep his word?

Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Lucia

M
inerva’s heart leapt in her chest. The warmth of his finger teased her lips, a promise of the fire that could be ignited, if only she said the word.
Yes.

Please, sir. Kiss me
, she wanted to plead.
Yes, please
.

And demmit if he didn’t see the desire in her eyes. This charming, wretched devil. It was as if he could truly read her mind, for his other hand was at the small of her back, caressing her, soothing her, moving her closer, until she was up against his chest.

Her breasts, barely concealed as they were in Brigid’s scandalous gown, rode up even higher, her nipples tight as they were pressed against the superfine of his jacket.

Langley glanced down at her bodice, and she knew without a doubt that wolfish twinkling gleam in his eyes as his gaze rose and met hers wasn’t for the diamonds around her throat.

And in that moment she knew. Like a woman does, that a man desires her. Wants her. Wants to see her naked and sprawled across his bed, so that he can explore her every curve, her every desire.

His hand, which had left her lips—when, she couldn’t recall—was now cupping one of her breasts, his thumb rolling over her nipple. His gaze never left hers, as if daring her to stop him. And when she didn’t, he leaned forward, and she thought—no, she wished—he would kiss her, but instead his head tipped and the whisper of his breath, warm and enticing, washed over her as he nuzzled her neck, her earlobe, her hair.

Minerva opened her mouth . . . to complain . . . to protest . . . perhaps only to try and breathe . . . and all that came out was something she’d never heard.

“O-o-o-oh,” she gasped. “Oh, Langley.”

Good heavens! What was that?

And when his hand slipped one of her breasts free of her gown and his fingers curled around it, explored it, drew her nipple into a taut knot of desires, she did it again.

“O-o-o-oh.” She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop herself, for this man was lighting every desire she’d held in check for far too long.

Well, quite honestly? Forever . . .

Why was it now that her ardor was finally finding the light of day? Or rather the pleasures of night as she and Langley rocked together in the carriage as it ambled through the dark streets.

He murmured something to her, but what, she didn’t know, for his hands were roving over her, igniting a trail of desire wherever they went, her back, her breasts. Then they were moving her, pulling her beneath him.

She lay on her back on the seat and he was atop her, his body hard.

Truly hard, and instead of being shocked as she should be—for she’d never had a man like this—her body thrummed to life with the same unwitting abandon as the moans he’d elicited with his heated touch.

A whisper of cool night air rushed over her legs, and she glanced down to find he’d moved her gown up so that her stocking clad legs were bared to his explorations.

While the night was chilly, his touch was fire as his fingers ran up her thigh, over her garters, and then paused slightly before they brushed over the curls at her apex.

She moaned again. How was it that one touch could leave such a delirious ache in its lingering path?

His lips were murmuring at her throat again, over her breasts, as his fingers continued to explore her, slowly, tentatively at first, as if testing the waters and then . . .

Minerva’s hips arched of their own volition as he touched her where no man had ever touched her thusly, at least not for
her
pleasure.

And an unholy pleasure it was . . .

Torturous waves of passion ripped through her as his fingers found what they’d been searching for and began to tease, circle, and stroke her.