Lord Langley Is Back in Town (25 page)

He needn’t hold her so
, she would have told him. She wasn’t about to let go.

“Perhaps they are waiting for another aggrieved husband to step forward and challenge me as well.”

“How many more are there out there?” she asked, pausing at the curb as he waved for their carriage to come forward. The driver pulled into place and Langley stepped out into the street and opened the door for her.

“More than you would like, I’m willing to wager,” he joked.

Oh, you would jest
, she mused as she picked her way to the carriage. It had rained while they’d been inside, and the puddles were everywhere. It wouldn’t do to ruin Nanny Brigid’s elegant shoes, for with her accounts cut so drastically, Minerva knew this finely crafted pair wouldn’t be easily replaced, nor would the gown if the hem got soiled.

Happily she made it to Langley’s side unstained and was just about to step into the dry confines of the Hollindrake carriage when she spied the flower girl from earlier—her bright copper curls so hard to miss—dashing up the street from where the carriage had come, darting around the crowds and horses, her face twisted in terror.

Something was terribly wrong, but what, Minerva had no idea. Just this jolt of warning racing along her spine that said her entire world was about to be turned upside down.

Then it seemed everything around her stilled, as if the seconds that usually ticked easily by were slowed by the hands of Fate. The little girl shouted something, but what it was, Minerva couldn’t discern, not over the hullabaloo around them. But the child, realizing she had Minerva’s attention, pointed up.

She twisted around to see what had the little urchin so frightened and her heart stopped.

The driver had risen up in his post—only it wasn’t the usual fellow who drove the Duke of Hollindrake’s spare carriage, but a stranger, wearing a mask, with a low-slung hat and his collar pulled up high. But there was no mistaking his intent—from inside his coat he was drawing out a pistol and aiming it.

Right at Lord Langley, who with his back to the man had no idea what was about to happen.

Minerva twisted again, this time so she faced Langley, terror robbing her of her wits, her ability to speak. And here was the baron smiling at her, probably coming up with another flirtatious quip about his unsavory reputation, and she knew in that split second she didn’t even have time to warn him.

Only to save him.

Catching hold of his lapels, she shoved them both into the crowd, even as the driver’s pistol fired.

They hit the street hard, Minerva atop him, splashing in the mud and muck. Ladies screamed and men shouted in terror as the horses bolted forward, then took off in a mad dash down the street to escape the chaos.

Langley’s arms had wound tight around her. He held her close, not only in shock, but in a possessive sort of way that she could feel all the way down to her bones. His eyes, robbed of their usual mirth, held a different sort of light altogether—amazement, shock, fear, and then an unholy fury.

“Are you hit?” he asked, his question clipped and short.

She shook her head. Amazingly, she wasn’t. “Are you?”

“No,” he said, righting them both with amazing speed. He strode out into the street and watched with narrowed eyes as the carriage sped around the corner, then he turned to look at her. “Did you see him? Who was it?”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t the usual fellow. Not the one who drove us here.”

Langley glanced back down the road, then returned to her side, catching her in his arms. “You could have been killed!” he scolded. “Whatever were you thinking? You foolish, madcap woman!”

Well, good heavens! Minerva ruffled at his description. She’d just kept him from being shot and he was of a mind to ring a peal over her head? “I did what I thought was best. ’Twas the little girl, the flower girl, who warned me—”

She couldn’t finish her sentence for suddenly her eyes welled up with tears and she looked around for the child, but she’d disappeared from sight.

Langley smoothed back the long curls that had fallen from her once perfect and enticing coiffure. “Minerva, you have more bottom than any woman I have ever met, and now I owe you my life.”

She swallowed back a gulp that she feared would turn into a sob.

It wasn’t exactly the most perfectly worded bit of praise she’d ever heard—truly, bottom?—but it pierced her heart just like the sight of her lovely little spray of orange blossoms, which lay trampled and lost in the mire of the muddy street.

That could have been Langley, she realized. Or her. Lost in the mud, lost forever. Oh, dear, how had her life gotten so tangled?

For the first time since her wedding night, she began to cry. And worse, in public. Welling up like a regular watering pot.

Oh, the devil take her! She was crying over a spray of orange blossoms. Wasn’t she?

Langley caught hold of her and pulled her close. “Are you sure you weren’t hit? That you’re unharmed?”

She nestled closer. Discovering the steely warmth of being held thusly.

“Whatever were you thinking?” he whispered into her ear.

“Saving you for Lord Chudley, I imagine,” she replied, wiping at her eyes.

“I’m hardly worth the effort,” he told her.

“Yes, I can see that now,” she lied. “It won’t happen again.”

But she had to imagine that with a man like Langley at her side, it would.

Chapter 10

Men and their honor! Such a noble idea, and to what lengths they will go to protect it. Too bad they are not as concerned about a lady’s honor—for they will go to ruinous lengths to gain her attendance in their bed.

Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Lucia

M
inerva came downstairs the next morning, her thoughts awhirl from the events last night. However had her life come this?

Chudley had challenged Lord Langley to a duel. And then Langley had been shot at, and she, of all people, had saved his life.

And while she had shrugged off the event to the others as naught but a botched hold-up—her own fault for wearing the Sterling diamonds so publicly—she held every suspicion that there was far more to the attempt on Lord Langley’s life than just a robbery.

Nor had the nannies seemed to find it plausible. They had all glanced out the carriage and looked at everyone but her, as if they pitied her for being such a fool.

For they knew, as Minerva did now, that the man was a dangerous enigma.

Flirtatious and rakish. By all accounts a favored hound by every living woman who’d ever met him.

And yet he’d been living in her house in secret. Added to that, what about all the rumors about his death, hints of treason? He had only been a diplomat, nothing more.

Hadn’t he? Certainly the stint in a French prison suggested otherwise.

She paused, her teeth catching her lower lip as she continued to puzzle it all out, but kept coming back to Chudley’s challenge.

Why, the entire thing was ridiculous to fathom. Here she’d thought Aunt Bedelia’s fifth husband quite the stodgy, dependable sort—which up until last night she’d thought an odd choice for Aunt Bedelia—but apparently her aunt had seen the lion’s heart beating beneath the viscount’s tweedy exterior when no one else had.

But a duel? Lord Chudley was going on seventy, if he was a day. And whatever sort of mischief had Lord Langley wrought that Lord Chudley had held a grudge this long, and obviously so deeply?

Pausing on the landing, she came to the only correct conclusion. Of course this was over a woman. Good heavens, given Chudley’s age, Langley must have been in short pants when the slight occurred.

Not that it wasn’t an impossible notion. No one who knew Langley would put it past the baron to have been charming women even back then. Rakish devil.

Good thing he’d never had sons, only daughters.

His daughters . . . Minerva’s heart pattered slightly as she thought of the letters in his jacket, faded and worn, and obviously so very dear to him.

Dear Papa . . .

Whatever he was in life, there was no denying his daughters were devoted to him and he loved them with all his heart.

Thank goodness he’d never had sons.

Then for the life of her she couldn’t help but see a pair of lads—tawny like their father and just as charming. Tall and strong, with blue eyes alight with mischief and delight as they came running across a wide meadow dotted with snowdrops in bloom, each racing the other to see who would reach her first.

For the first time in her life, Minerva’s heart burned with a longing for a family. To kneel down and hold a child close, ruffle his hair and inhale deeply, taking in the salty air of a fresh-faced lad—all sweet meadows and trout and horses and the things a mother probably didn’t want to know about.

Minerva, who had never desired children, never even been comfortable around them, suddenly ached for nothing more than the safe haven of a home and family. A pair of boys, and the man who stood beside her in her vision . . . a man she could see so clearly with his golden brown hair and blue eyes, desired so deeply . . .

She caught hold of the railing to keep from sinking down atop the step.

She didn’t want this . . . a home . . . children . . . a true husband. No, she knew better. She
couldn’t
want this.

The shuffle of boots in the foyer below stopped her wayward thoughts. Thank goodness something had, she mused, until she heard the bits of conversation rising up the stairwell.

“Yes, gentlemen. I do think everything is in order.”

Langley!
Oh, she had a few things to say to him this morning. After Chudley’s challenge, the entire evening had been chaos, and then after his near murder, he’d hustled her and the others into Lord Throssell’s carriage, ordered them home and slipped away into the night.

Whenever had he come back? She’d waited up for him, until all hours . . . that is, she ’d tried to wait up for him, but despite her best efforts, she must have eventually drifted off into an exhausted sleep atop her bed, for she’d awakened not that long ago still in her muddied gown.

“Then we are agreed, my lord?” came a deep voice she didn’t recognize.

“Yes, two days from now, Primrose Hill at dawn,” Langley was saying.

Primrose Hill at dawn? She shivered and then leaned farther over the railing, trying to catch sight of him. This could only mean he meant to go through with this scandal. Wasn’t being shot at once already this week enough for the man?

A duel indeed! Over her dead body . . .

Or his
, she thought grimly.

“Swilly will stand with me, along with Thomas-William,” Langley continued. The boots shuffled again, and then some murmured discussion drifted upward even as the creak of the front door revealed it was being opened.

That was it? Just a few civil words over what was nothing more than politely organized murder?

Well, certainly not in her house.

But by the time Minerva whirled around the landing and hurried down the last flight, the foyer was empty and all she could spy of Langley was his coattails disappearing into the dining room.

“Who were those men?” she demanded when she caught up with him.

Langley had settled back into his chair and was already tucking into a half-eaten breakfast that must have been interrupted by his guests. He didn’t get up at her arrival.

Apparently one interruption to his breakfast was enough.

“Chudley’s seconds,” he said as if merely commenting on the lackluster state of his now cold eggs.

Seconds!
Oh, this was madness. Though apparently not to Lord Chudley or her faux betrothed, who sat there calmly, coolly dispatching his morning repast.

“Langley, you cannot do this,” she told him, coming around the opposite side of the table and facing him. It made her feel more solid to have the breadth of the table between them. Even if it was as narrow as this one.

“Of course I must. I was challenged.”

“Challenged? ’Tis foolery! Nothing more.”

“Not to Chudley,” he pointed out. “It is a matter of honor.”

“You’d do this . . . this murder . . . to appease an old man’s honor?”

He looked up at her, his gaze level and straightforward. “Yes. Actually I would. I would have you know, Lady Standon, that sometimes your honor is all you have in this world.”

And he wasn’t speaking of Chudley—this she knew right down to the heels of her slippers. And something about the solemn light in his eyes, the calm manner with which he spoke, made her pause, left her unable to breathe.

Honor.
She’d lived without that notion her entire life, and yet here was a man who would hold onto it with both hands, valued it above all else, wore it as proudly as others wore a perfectly cut coat.