Lord Langley Is Back in Town (4 page)

That left only the Contessa von Frisch, Nanny Brigid, who glanced around the room like a general might with the battlefield before him. But instead of taking a firm stance, she set her dog down and marched to the door, Knuddles following at her heels like an anxious sergeant-at-arms.

For a moment Minerva held a small hope that the lady, having taken the lay of the land, was going to beat a hasty retreat rather than stay and fight.

Little did she understand the lure of Lord Langley.

Instead, the lady spoke quickly in her own language, ordering her servants—a maid and a rather large footman—to gather her bags. While Minerva and Aunt Bedelia might not have a command of what the lady was saying, apparently the margravine did. Nanny Helga bounded to her feet and began hastily ordering her own servants to gather up her belongings, and then the two ladies began a race to the stairs.

That was enough to translate what had just transpired for not only Minerva, but for the nannies Lucia and Tasha. For in a matter of moments Minerva’s empty house, the one she’d been extolling to her aunt not an hour or so earlier, was filled to overflowing with four unwanted guests as they jostled and vied to claim the empty rooms.

Minerva followed mutely, only to find herself routed and defeated in her own foyer as the cacophony of languages and insults echoed through the house, sharply punctuated by the tromping footfall of servants as they hurried bags and valises up the stairs—servants who, much to her chagrin, ignored her protests that Lord Langley was not to be found in her house and instead followed their mistress’s exacting bidding as if this was their home.

“Do something,” she sputtered to her aunt as the lady came to stand by her side.

But Aunt Bedelia only smiled. “Well, you did say you wanted to be the envy of all.” She adjusted her pelisse and leaned over to peck her niece affectionately on the cheek. “You’ll certainly be the talk of the Town with this collection in your house.” The heavy
thump
of a trunk as it was dropped overhead rattled the walls. She glanced upward and shook her head. “Best get up there and make sure one of those Continental Cyprians hasn’t laid claim to your bedchamber.” With that, she sauntered over to the door, where she paused once again. “Oh, yes, and Minerva, I daresay that Nanny Helga looks as if her ancestors came across the continent with Attila the Hun. I’ve no doubt the margravine can ransack and pillage with the best of them. So if Lord Langley does arrive—best not get in the middle of it.”

E
llis, Baron Langley, pulled down the scarf that had concealed his identity and looked his old schoolmate dead in the eye.

So his checkered career with the Foreign Office had come to this. With his pistol shoved into Basil Brownett’s quivering brow. How demmed lowering. But since no one other than Sir Basil had the authority to order him killed, it seemed the most logical place to start . . .

“How the devil . . . I mean to say . . .” Sir Basil stammered. “Egads, you’re supposed to be dead!”

“Not from a lack of effort on your part,” Langley pointed out.

“My part? I have no idea what you are talking about,” Sir Basil said, but he colored slightly.

“Save your demmed speeches for your dinner tonight with the Prime Minister and his sycophants.”

Sir Basil’s eyes widened. “How did you know—”

“Brownie, I was the best agent Ellyson ever trained. I know
everything
about your dull life.”

This time the baronet paled. Deadly so. “My good man, this is no time to be threatening me. I am unarmed. I would never have ordered—”

“Me killed? By having me bludgeoned from behind? Wouldn’t you?”

The fellow across the carriage shook his head vehemently. “Demmit man, we all thought you’d gone over. Turned traitor.”

“Traitor?”

“Yes, though it was never made official,” Sir Basil said, looking all too disappointed over the fact.

“If you’d ever had the courage to venture out from behind that demmed desk of yours, you would have known that those reports were lies. That I was no—”

“We had it from the best sources,” Sir Basil pressed, as if that made it all true. “You’d turned and could no longer be trusted.” His brow furrowed to a hard line. “You of all people know procedure in these cases. The only difference is that your frog friends beat us to you—”

The French
? Could this be true? Langley wondered. He’d turned and then been turned on? No. It couldn’t have happened that way.

“Lies. You believed a pack of lies.” Langley set his jaw, the pistol wavering in his grasp. He was tired and cold and hadn’t eaten in some time, so he was ill-disposed to be patient with the likes of Basil Brownett.

“Apparently I also believed the lie that you were no longer living.” Sir Basil sat back and looked overly disgusted at the entire ordeal, though his gaze remained fixed on the pistol still pointed at him.

Langley knew exactly what had Sir Basil in a fettle. Since he, Lord Langley, was indeed alive, there would most likely be an investigation, statements to be taken, records reviewed, and finally, dispatches to higher-ups . . . the sort of examination that could stall a promising career. The sort of thing that worried bothersome little toadies like Sir Basil, but were more akin to a gnat’s bite to men like himself.

Then again, the baron had never held much concern for the niceties of procedure and paperwork. His unconventional methods, notorious goings-on, and disregard for protocol had made him from time to time—nay, most of the time—a giant headache for Whitehall bureaucrats like Sir Basil.

“My good man, do you mind?” Sir Basil nodded at the pistol.

Drawing it back, Langley slid the hammer slowly into place and set it down on the seat next to him. “Who sent in those reports, Brownie?”

The man cringed to be so addressed, for it probably stung to be reminded that his elevation had been so very recent. And that someone remembered where he had come from. “I don’t recall.”

“Don’t or won’t?” Langley asked smoothly, letting his hand rest on the butt of the pistol.

The man surprised him with his answer. “Won’t.”

“I have a right to know who wanted me dead, a chance to clear my name.”

“Why someone wanted you dead?” Sir Basil laughed. “Good God, man! You weaseled secrets out of nearly every crowned head on the Continent, and if not from them, from their wives and mistresses. Not to mention left a rather wide swath of unhappy paramours in your wake, and now you have the impertinence to wonder why someone wanted you dead?”

Leave it to a plain fellow like Brownie to cut through the bluff and blunder of a matter. It was a sobering notion. Owning up to one’s past. Something Langley really didn’t want to do. Not until he got to the bottom of all this. Made up for his mistakes. Discovered the truth.

Most of all, cleared his name. He wasn’t a traitor. He wasn’t. That much he knew. That much he could trust.

Meanwhile, Sir Basil continued on, “Lord Langley, the war is over. Best you realize that.”

“War is never over.”

“Perhaps,” the other man acknowledged. “But my advice—”

“Yes?”

“Stay dead.”

“Stay dead?” Langley shook his head. “No. I’ve given the last twenty-five years of my life in the king’s service and I want to come home. I want my name cleared.” He picked up the pistol and looked Sir Basil directly in the eye. “All of it, sir. That is what I want.”

“I don’t see how you expect me to—”

He cocked the pistol. “I do. And you’ll grant me access to the dispatches from Constantinople, Naples, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Paris for the six months before I was struck down, and you’ll—”

Sir Basil burst out laughing. “You’re joking, surely?”

Langley raised the pistol.

“No, apparently not,” the baronet muttered. “But you must see how completely out of the question such a request is. Those reports are confidential. I certainly cannot turn them over to a known—”

To the man’s credit he stopped short of saying “traitor,” which was probably why he had risen through the ranks.

“—to just anyone,” he finished smoothly. Eyeing the pistol once again, he added slowly, “But, perhaps, I can assign an agent to look into this. See if there are any discrepancies that might have been missed then.”

Hardly acceptable, but given that he was running out of time, Langley was forced to ask, “Who?”

Scratching his brow, Sir Basil considered his options. “Hedges, perhaps.”

“Hedges? That demmed fool? Surprised he continues to find his way to Whitehall on a daily basis.”

From the wry tip of the baronet’s lips, it appeared he agreed with Langley’s estimation of the fellow. “I suppose I could find someone else . . .”

They both paused as the carriage started to slow. Langley glanced out the window to gauge where they were—about to make the final turn onto the street where Sir Basil’s house sat—which meant he was out of time.

At least for now.

“I want my life back,” Langley repeated, pulling the scarf back up to mask his features. Dressed in black from head to toe, he was instantly a shadow, save for his distinctive blue eyes, which shone menacingly even in the darkness.

Shaking his head, Sir Basil heaved a sigh. “Impossible, my good man. You can’t get back what you gave away. And besides, the entire office thinks you’re a traitor. You’ll have a devil of a time proving otherwise.”

Slipping from the carriage as it moved through a dark spot between the gaslights, Lord Langley glanced over his shoulder and said, “We’ll see about that.”

Chapter 2

How a man enters a room says much about his character.

Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Tasha

N
ow long past midnight, a sharp biting wind whistled through the empty streets of London, and Lord Langley drew the collar of his coat up higher as he made his stealthy way down the alley behind the houses lining Brook Street. It was demmed cold outside, but he’d spent the last fortnight thusly, whiling away his evenings in the shadows until there was a sign from Thomas-William that it was safe for him to come in.

Certainly, he’d never envisioned his return to London in this manner. Hiding in byways and attics, remaining unseen so he could stay alive.

And tonight the lamp in the kitchen window wasn’t lit, and a strange stillness fell over the mews. It had Langley on points, for something was wrong—he knew it like he knew his own boots. Even the kitchen door was locked.

Then he learned why.

“You’ve been discovered.” From the shadows, Thomas-William stepped forward, his French accented words a leftover from his childhood spent in the service of a chevalier. That was before George Ellyson, Thomas-William’s former employer and the spymaster who had taught Langley everything he knew about the business, had bought the man off a Paris auction block.

“Discovered? By whom?” Langley asked, glancing instinctively over his shoulder, even though he knew no one was there.

Thomas-William was not the most loquacious of fellows, and he answered with the same concise turn of phrase that Ellyson had always favored. “Your paramours.”

“My what?” Langley asked, slightly confused and stealing a glance at the house. He hadn’t been with a woman in ages, and his infamous conquests—the ones that had given the
ton
and the European courts enough fodder to keep the gossips happily chattering for years on end—had all taken place on the Continent—not here in London.

Why, all his former mistresses were happily closeted away, from the turreted courts of St. Petersburg to the minarets of Constantinople, and in a good portion of the capitals in between.

Then he stole a glance at the house, which was uncharacteristically lit from the ground floor to the attics, as if it were filled with . . .

“Oh, good God, no!” he groaned. Lord Langley, who’d managed to defy death on enough occasions to frustrate even the devil, wavered with a fear that no man likes to consider. “They” implied more than one. As in several. And all under one roof.

It was a rake’s worst nightmare.

“What the hell am I going to do now?” he muttered, plucking off his hat and raking his hand through his hair. “I’ve no place left to go.”

Thomas-William glanced over his shoulder at the house and shuddered. “I agreed to stay here for Miss Lucy, but no more. Not with that lot.”

It was then that Langley noticed the battered valise at the man’s feet. “As bad as all that.”

The fellow nodded. “Best you join me at Clifton’s house in the country. I can hide you there.”

“No,” Langley said, shaking his head. This was getting to be an old argument between them. Thomas-William thought it best for the baron to stay hidden, out of sight as they worked through who might be to blame for his fall from grace. “I’m done with hiding.”

“If you go out in the open, you’ll only get yourself killed,” Thomas-William said. More like repeated. “As long as no one truly knows you are here in London—”