Lord Langley Is Back in Town (22 page)

This time when her lips opened to moan, nothing came out, for she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. All she could do was feel, her body throbbing with need. Raging, aching need for this man to never stop.

He was licking her nipples, suckling them, even as her hips began rising and falling to the movements of his hand.

Her hips arched higher, bucking against him, seeking out more, wanting more, her body clamoring with need. And then her hips rose for the crescendo, for that final release.

“Langley,” she gasped. “Langley!” And then she was undone, unraveling, the waves crashing around her, leaving her gasping for air, shamelessly clinging to him. “Oh, Langley.”

She lay there for a time, realizing that
this
was what all the fuss was about. Oh, yes, indeed she understood now.

His mischievous eyes twinkled in the dim light of the carriage. “Do you still?” he asked.

Did she what?
Minerva gazed up at him, dazed and languid from his seduction.

“Do you?” he whispered in her ear, his warm breath leaving her shivering—and she couldn’t tell if it was from aftershocks of her passionate explosion or anticipation that he would do it all again.

Oh, yes, again
, her ripe and long-unused body pleaded.
Again and again.

And then she remembered what he’d said just before he started this deviltry.

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

Good heavens! What had she vowed? It was nearly impossible to keep a straight thought, not here in his arms, with his lips nibbling at her earlobe.

Not to kiss him and not to share his bed.

And here she was, thoroughly tumbled. Well, nearly so.

“Well?” he whispered. “Do you?”

Oh, she knew what he was asking. Would she break her vow and kiss him?

Minerva sat up, which was difficult because he had her pinned down, still held her as if he would, with but a word from her, tease her back to that delicious state of wonder and this time leave nothing undone . . .

She guessed that the infamous Lord Langley could probably get her out of her gown faster than the finest lady’s maid, the confines of a moving carriage hardly a hindrance to such a rake.

And oh, as loathe as she was to admit it, if only to herself, she wanted to be naked. Beneath him. And to have him kissing her. Devouring her with his lips. Filling her . . .

For her collection of French novels had given her a rather intimate knowledge of what should happen between lovers, though she had to admit, the practical application left her pages in shame.

Now that she’d had a glimpse of what it could be, what a man’s touch, his lips, his body, could do to a woman—as her husband never had, never been able to manage—she wanted nothing more than, well, more.

She wanted it all.

But to do that she would have to break her vow, and when she gazed up at that seductive, self-assured light in his eyes, that arrogant glimmer that said he had her exactly where he wanted her, something inside her snapped.

And not in a good way.

“I do not. I will not,” she told him, pulling herself out from beneath him. Not that he let her get very far. His arm snaked out and he pulled her back up against him, as if he didn’t want her to forget for a moment what had just transpired between them.

As if she could.

“I do not want to kiss you and I do not want to share your bed,” she lied.

The rakish, intelligent devil, this diplomat of seduction, grinned. “And so you haven’t. For this carriage is no bed.” Her mouth opened in a wide moue to protest, but he continued on. “Nor have I kissed you.”

No, he hadn’t, she realized. And in that moment she knew he’d only cracked Pandora’s box open, that there was so much more to discover, so much more this man could give her, show her, tempt her with.

“All it will take is one word, my lady,” he whispered into her ear, while his hands worked their seductive magic over her.

Yes,
she wanted to shout and give in. And she very nearly did, for there was his head tipping down, his lips about to claim hers, and her body was thrumming back to life under his skilled touch. Already she was starving for more, delirious with a passionate hunger.

He’d quickly teased her back into this state and she should be furious, but instead was only in desperate need for more.

Yet just before his lips claimed hers, Langley pulled back. “How unfortunate for both of us that I cannot.”

She very nearly said,
Why the devil not?
Nearly. For she remembered just before the indelicate and utterly unladylike phrase slipped from her lips that she was the Marchioness of Standon, and as such, she didn’t say those things.

“I promised,” he was saying. “As did you. I couldn’t be the instrument of you breaking your word . . . Of seeing you beg for my kiss . . .”

Of her breaking her word? Begging? She ground her teeth together. What of his vow?

Of all the smug, presumptuous . . .

“You, sir . . . you, sir . . .” she stammered as she tried to push him away. Tried. For he wouldn’t let her go. Held her as if he still hadn’t quite made up his mind. As if he might still try to . . .

Minerva’s body thrummed in protest.
Good heavens! Don’t be a fool. Kiss him!

The great oaf grinned at that very moment, as if he, like he had claimed earlier, could read her mind. That he knew exactly how much she desired him.

Oh, the very devil! His name was Langley! This time she used every bit of strength she possessed to wrench herself out of his grasp and cross the carriage to take up the place where he’d been sitting.

It only made her indignation worse when she realized he was still grinning at her. Well, if he could resist, she certainly could. She set to work straightening her gown, tucking her hair back into place, trying everything she could to make her insides as respectable as her outward appearance.

“You are hardly going to maintain the illusion that we are happily engaged if you choose to sit over there glowering at me.”

“I am not glowering,” she shot back. She was well past glowering. More like furious. Outraged.

Frustrated
.

Worst above all, she was furious and outraged more at herself than at him.

And not for every stone in the Sterling diamonds would she admit she was most angry for not having taken the chance and discovered truly what his legendary prowess was all about.

She flitted a glance over at him and nearly sighed. Did he have to be so handsome? Brown hair all tousled—had she done that?—cravat tied with a rakish flourish, blue eyes alight, as always, full of mischief and deviltry.

An intoxicating, enticing deviltry that was like no other lure, for his eyes promised pleasures untold for any lady who caught his wandering eye.

Untold pleasures . . .

Minerva felt her usual iron resolve waver. Now that she’d had a taste, however, would she be able to stop until she’d drowned in his arms?

But whatever her capricious convictions might have been, they came to an abrupt halt as the carriage pulled to a stop before the theatre, and mere moments later the door swung open.

Langley got out ahead of her and then turned to hand her down. He smiled up at her, his brows waggling as if to encourage her to do the same. “Remember, we are madly, passionately in love,” he whispered in her ear.

Oh, he would have to put it
that
way!

“Indeed,” she said, pasting a pained smile on her face, taking his hand and getting out of the carriage only to find a good part of the
ton
gaping at them.

“And despite our mutual desires,” he said under his breath, “I trust you can keep your word as to our agreement.”

She could keep her word?
Oh, the arrogance of the man.

“I can keep mine as long as you keep yours,” she said, smiling at Lady Finnemore, who must have been waiting on the steps for their arrival, and was even now pushing her way forward to greet them.

“Trust me, I can,” he said, nodding to a man who’d offered a short, curt bow.

“Oh, but I don’t trust you,” she said back as she was jostled from one side, teetering on her heels.

“I would do well to remember that the next time you throw yourself in my arms,” he whispered softly so only she could hear him. Yet before she could correct him or even give him the set down he so richly deserved, the wretched fellow had turned to a distinguished looking gentleman. “Sir Basil, how good to see you again, and so soon! I must assume this lovely vision is your daughter. No? Your wife? I never . . . Have you met my betrothed, Lady Standon . . .”

A
s Langley greeted Brownie, he made a surreptitious scan of the crowd around them. The thick crush unnerved him, for it had been such a gathering in which he’d been attacked in Paris.

Paris.
He couldn’t stop the shiver that ran down his spine, the sense of foreboding that it was happening all over again.

This is London
, he told himself, smiling at Lady Standon and doing his best to quiet the fears and alarm that usually arrived with these wrenching fragments of memories.
You have nothing to fear.

Yet just then someone bumped into Minerva and she stumbled, swaying on her high heels. He caught her easily, steadying her elbow, his other hand winding around her waist and pulling her up against him.

Merely to keep her from falling
, he told himself, surprised by the sense of possessiveness tightening his chest, especially now that he saw the number of heads turning at the sight of her.

Just as his had earlier.

Oh, yes, now you notice her, you fools
, he wanted to chide, but instead put a self-satisfied grin on his face, the sort of statement of male arrogance that said,
However did you miss such a rare jewel? Well, she’s mine now
.

Not that she was, but the rest of London didn’t know that. But she nearly had been in the carriage.

Good God, how was it that this stubborn, practical, delectable widow had him at sixes and sevens? Especially when, as Thomas-William liked to remind him, he had more important matters to attend to.

Like figuring out who had tried to kill him in Paris.

And most likely still wanted him dead. He glanced over his shoulder and found Sir Basil’s gaze boring into his back.

No wonder he still felt the chill of Paris in his bones.

“Posies, my lord?” a child called out just before they made it to the door. She tugged at his sleeve. “Posies for her ladyship?”

He was about to brush the urchin aside, but a flash of red gold hair and a smile with a missing tooth caught his eye.

Goldy!

He paused for a moment, letting Minerva step ahead with Jamilla and Brigid, who had been waiting for them to arrive, then leaned over and handed a coin to the little urchin.

And while he made the pretense of selecting just the right spray of orange blossoms from her grasp, she whispered to him, “That bloke, the one who’s hurrying off to get inside—”

Langley slanted a glance in that direction and spied a tall figure in a dark great coat.

“—he slipped yer lady a note,” she finished.

Langley glanced first at Goldy, shocked by what the child had spotted, and then at Minerva, who was at that moment furtively tucking a slip of paper into her reticule.

What was this mischief? Then he glanced up again and toward the door, where the fellow was just dodging inside. A man about the same size and build as her “painter.”

Perhaps he should have spent a little more time considering her sudden reversal earlier.

After all, what the devil did Lady Standon have to gain from this betrothal farce? Why had she agreed to her role in all of this?

And who was the “painter” she’d met in the alley, and why had that encounter propelled her to change her mind so quickly? Certainly, he had no doubts this stranger was the catalyst for her acceptance of his proposal.

But why?

“Ah, here is the perfect one,” he told the girl as he made his selection. Flowers in hand, he set after his betrothed, all the while Goldy’s bright voice called out to the latecomers behind them, “Posies! A lady isn’t a lady without her posies!”

“Or her secrets,” he muttered under his breath.

N
ot even the magic Kean worked on the stage could hold the audience’s attention—not while a whirlwind of gossip and speculation swirled through the audience like a rewritten script. Lord Langley’s box—full of his former paramours and his new betrothed, one of the now infamous trio of Standon widows—was a delicious scandal, rife with possibilities and endless points of conjecture.