Lord Langley Is Back in Town (39 page)

So he gave them what help he could. “Oh, and what about the lies you told me?” he said, getting up.

She ruffled a bit at this. “I never lied to you! I loved you!”

Now it was his turn to scoff. “Loved me? You had me arrested to keep me in your country.”

“But
schatzi
, you were going to leave me.”

“I was a diplomat. I was ordered to leave. I had no choice.”

“Bah! You could have found a way.”

“I certainly didn’t need you helping me!” he shouted at her.

“Such a small thing,” she shot back. “You fuss like a child!”

“You accused me of selling secrets to the French! In my country that is treason.”

She waved the pistol at him. “I withdrew the charges.”

Yes, he well remembered what he’d had to do to get her to do just that. “I was disgraced at home. You would not believe the reports I had to file to straighten out your lies!” And her vengeful charges had probably given Sir Basil and Nottage the idea of using his former lovers to ensnare him.

Around the corner came a sight he couldn’t fathom. At first he thought he was imagining things.

Fanny.
Fanny come back from the dead. Just as fair-haired and with the same determined set to her brow.

But then his heart swelled with pride. No, it was his Felicity. All grown and as lovely as her mother had ever been.

And carrying a large candlestick.

Just like he’d taught her.

“
Schatzi
, we could have all that again and more, just like that night in the castle when we drank too much and you insisted we go down into the armory and—”

Clunk.

The margravine fell over in a heap.

Neither Felicity or Langley bothered to catch the lady.

“I have no idea what you did with her, but I preferred not to know,” Felicity said, setting down the candlestick and wiping her hands on her skirt. For a second there was a shy, awkward silence between them. Father and daughter, so long parted.

But the time was of no matter when he swept his daughter into his arms. “Felicity, you dear girl.”

“Papa,” she whispered, looking up at his bruised face with concern. “I thought, Tally and I both feared—”

“No more,” he said, smoothing back her fair hair and gazing with awe at her face, so much like her mother’s. “I am back.”

And then, so much like Felicity, she got right down to business. “I got the most high-handed letter from Lady Finch this morning. What is this nonsense about you being betrothed to Minerva Sterling? It is as ridiculous as the reports that you were dead.”

Minerva!

Langley caught up Helga’s pistol and stepped over the lady. “Do you have a carriage?”

“Yes, but where are we going?”

“To Parkerton’s. Minerva is in danger.”

Felicity cocked a brow at him. “Minerva? Not Lady Standon? Not my new nanny, but Minerva? Truly?”

“Yes, truly,” he said, setting a quick kiss on her brow.

“Has this anything to do with that common looking fellow I saw leaving a few minutes ago?”

“He is after Minerva and her diamonds.”

“Diamonds?” Felicity protested. “Papa, you are mad. Minerva hasn’t any diamonds.” Then she paused. “Not unless you gave her some.”

“Diamonds?” asked a tall fellow at the front door.

“Oh, dear! This is hardly how I imagined this meeting. Papa, this is my husband, the Duke of Hollindrake. Thatcher, darling, this is my father, Lord Langley.” She hurried down the steps toward their carriage with the two of them trailing quickly after her. “Diamonds, indeed!”

“Do you mean the Sterling diamonds?” Thatcher asked. “I was wondering just the other day what had gotten to those.”

Langley flinched. For if Sir Basil didn’t end Minerva’s life tonight, he suspected his daughter would be next in line as her unwitting husband described the priceless gemstones that were hers by rights and were at this very moment in danger of being lost forever.

W
hen Minerva got to the end of the hall, she found Sir Basil standing in the middle of the parlor waiting for her.

She bowed her head slightly, acknowledging the man, and entered the room.

But to her dismay, the door closed behind her and she turned around to find a stranger standing there, barring her escape.

Hardly a stranger, though.

“The theater . . . You were the one.” And then she looked him over thoroughly. “And today at the duel. You’re Neville Nottage.”

“You are far too astute for your own good, Lady Standon,” he said, pushing her forward into the middle of the room.

“So I’ve been told,” she muttered. Oh, dear, two of them? Sir Basil was naught but a bureaucrat, but this other fellow . . . She stole a glance at his cold dark gaze. He was deadly.

But any moment, Lucy and Elinor would arrive and they would finish this. Still, she needed to gain them a bit more time.

“Yes, I know everything,” she said. “You were Langley’s secretary. You and Sir Basil concocted this scheme—to steal from Langley’s old mistresses, and make Langley look like the guilty party. How you used his art shipments home to hide your crimes—for if any of this was discovered, it would be on his head, not yours.”

Sir Basil paled but said nothing.

“You truly are as intelligent as you are beautiful, Lady Standon,” Nottage replied. “And far too knowledgeable to live.”

I
f Lord Langley liked the cut of his daughter’s husband, he grew even fonder of his new son-in-law when the man drove like the very devil toward Parkerton’s. They were there in a flash, but to his dismay they hadn’t caught up with Adlington.

Which meant the man was already here, or he’d yet to arrive.

He hoped the latter, but suspected the former.

“Demmit,” he muttered as he entered the crush inside. It would be nigh on impossible to find the man, let alone catch him in this crowd before he found Minerva.

So instead he let his gaze sweep over the plumes and turbans for Clifton’s tall, commanding figure. And when he spied him, he dashed across the dance floor, stopping the earl in the middle of a set. “Where is she?”

“Where is she?” Clifton repeated. “What are you doing here?”

“Yes, indeed,” the Duke of Parkerton echoed. “You and Jack are supposed to be on the balcony.”

“I was detained,” he said. “Where has she gone?”

“She just went up naught but a few moments ago—that way,” he said, pointing to the stairwell.

The two of them started for the stairs, but were stopped by the imposing figure of Lady Chudley. “You cannot go bursting in after her,” she told them.

“Excuse me?”

“I have been watching all that is going on tonight, and when I saw Minerva cornering Sir Basil, I knew she was up to mischief. Then he went upstairs, and then she did. And now that dreadful Gerald Adlington has gone up there.”

“Adlington?” Langley gaped at her. “How do you know the man?”

“Dreadful rube. He has been blackmailing me for years. Most likely Minerva as well, now that I think about it.” She caught hold of Langley’s sleeve. “If anything happens to my dear girl—”

Moving quickly, Langley went for the stairs, but Clifton stopped him. “Her aunt is right. If you go barging in there, Lady Standon could be harmed. We still don’t know where Nottage is.”

It took every bit of willpower he possessed not to go dashing up the stairs, but Clifton was right. He had to be careful. Hadn’t one man died already today over all this folly?

“Jack will have all this in hand,” Parkerton told them.

Jack!
Langley had forgotten all about Jack. “Which side of the house is that balcony on?”

Parkerton led the way, racing through the corridors past his astonished staff. Once outside in the garden, they moved quietly along the side the house until they were directly under the balcony.

“Tremont,” Langley whispered up at the outcropping of stone.

A familiar face leaned over the edge. “Late to the party, as always,” Jack Tremont teased. “About demmed time. Looking rather dicey up here.”

“Can you stop them?” he asked.

“ ’Fraid not. Brownie’s no fool. He closed the doors the moment she came in, demmed near spotted me.” He turned and glanced back inside. “Hold on a moment, who the devil is that?”

T
he door to the room barged open, and immediately Nottage, behind Minerva, wound his arm around her neck and dragged her back, using her as a shield.

“Who the hell are the two of you?” Adlington sputtered as he came into the room, a pistol in his hand.

“I’d ask the same, sir!” Sir Basil demanded, having leapt to his feet.

“Her husband,” Adlington declared. “What is this, Maggie? Got more than me on the hook? Or are these blokes after those baubles of mine?”

“Gerald, get out of here,” she told him. “And he is not my husband,” she said to Sir Basil. “He’s a madman, a fool. Gerald, be smart for once and leave.”

He shook his head, stubbornly, stupidly. “Not without what I got coming to me.”

Sir Basil sat up. “And what might that be?”

“Them baubles, the ones around her neck,” Adlington said, nodding at the Sterling diamonds. “Those are mine.”

Minerva groaned. This entire trap was turning into a circus. Her gaze swept the room, even as she struggled to come up with some way to get out of this alive.

And as she did, she spied a figure out on the balcony.

If she wasn’t mistaken it was the Duke of Parkerton’s nefarious brother, Mad Jack Tremont.

What the devil . . .

He nodded to her and drew back into the shadows beyond.

Help was coming. She only needed to stall.

“Gerald, if it is gems you want, you should know that these gentleman have been stealing stones for years. Rubies, pearls, probably diamonds as well. From some of the richest ladies on the Continent.”

“Shut up,” Nottage said, winding his arm tighter around her neck.

“You blokes haven’t seen a set of sapphires, have you?” Gerald asked with a sly smile, his pistol now pointed at Sir Basil. “If you were to give me her and the sapphires, I’d be glad to dispose of Lady Standon for you and forget all about this.”

“W
hatever is going on?” Felicity whispered, having caught up with her father and the other men.

“Minerva is trapped by Sir Basil, Nottage, and now this Adlington fellow,” Langley told her, eyeing the distance up to the balcony.

“The one who is intent on taking my diamonds?” she asked.

“Yes, rather,” he remarked.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Climb up there and save them.”

“You mean save Lady Standon?” he corrected.

“Yes, that is exactly what I meant,” she said, sounding not-so-convincing to anyone. “Oh, bother. I don’t care about the diamonds, Papa. Go save the lady,” she told him with a wave of her hand toward the drainpipe. “And—”

“Yes, yes, I know, if I can, save the diamonds.” Langley glanced at his daughter’s husband. “You had to mention the diamonds.”

“Sorry, I rather forgot myself,” Thatcher apologized.

With speed and agility Langley climbed up the drainpipe until he reached the balcony. As he came over the railing, Jack grinned.

“Good to see you, old friend,” he whispered.

“And you,” Langley said.

“Now I know where you’ve been all this time,” Jack remarked as he nodded toward the scene being played out in the room beyond.

Langley leaned over and pulled his lock picks out of his boot. “Where is that?”

“The Paris circus,” Jack said, keeping an eye on the scene inside.

“Very amusing,” Langley told him. “Actually managed to get out of Abbaye in much the same manner. Twice.”

“Ellyson would have told you that once should have been enough.”

“It should have been, but my hosts were a rather determined lot.”

“You are not going to like who you see in there,” Jack remarked.

“So it
is
Nottage. Rotten bastard,” he muttered. But there wasn’t time to consider much more, for inside the room the conversation was now rising to an argument.

“She’s turning them against each other,” Jack explained.

“As only my minx can.”

Jack’s gaze swiveled over toward him. “Really engaged to her?”

“Will be once I get her out,” Langley told him.

“Can’t scamper out of wedlock like a monkey,” Jack remarked.

“Not if you marry the right woman.”

“True enough,” Jack agreed.

Langley quickly got the lock undone and slipped the door open slightly, so the full conversation wafted through the opening.