Lord Langley Is Back in Town (7 page)

“Ruffian?” He ignored the “common” part of her snub. “The ladies outside this door would probably argue with such a description of my character.”

She snorted in reply. Apparently she held them in just as much contempt as she did his “ruffian” inclinations. “Then I’ll open the door and straighten them out on the subject.”

“Oh, no you won’t,” he told her, cutting off her path.

“I’ll shoot,” she warned.

“Please do,” he offered. “Better you, my lovely firing squad, than being torn limb from limb from limb by those silken clad wolves.” He tossed a knowing glance toward the door.

She appeared to be considering his words, as if they might be a good suggestion. But finally she stepped away from the door, shooting him a baleful glance. “Do not consider this a concession,” she said, “for I am not all that unconvinced that you’d be the only one to be ripped apart in the melee.”

Smart minx.

“Then, my dear Lady Standon, if it comes to that, stay away from the window. I do believe an open sash was how Tasha got rid of her first husband.”

Her eyes widened even as there was another rattle of the hinges. This time the door groaned in protest and looked all but ready to give way. Tasha’s footman had most likely arrived. “If you were a respectable gentleman, those . . . those . . .” She waved the pistol at the door as she searched for the words to describe the pack of females beyond.

“Houseguests?” he offered, rocking on his heels, grinning at her. Whyever was he enjoying this? He was about to meet his maker, or at the very least the last four women he ever wanted to encounter again, and all he could do was tease this one.

An irate, entirely proper and upstanding English marchioness.

God, he’d missed Britain.

“You jest? This is hardly funny,” she told him as her door shuddered anew. “And now my door is to be ruined as well.”

“You could open it yourself,” he said, stepping aside. “And feed me to the wolves, as I suggested before.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t like to, but the moment that door opens I’m ruined.” She looked amusingly fierce—standing in the middle of the room in her plain white night rail, her hair falling in a thick braid over one shoulder, pistol in her hand. Unfortunately it was too dark to make out the color of her eyes, the hue of her hair, the true line of her curves beneath that ugly, voluminous night rail.

Egads, was it flannel? Whatever had happened to England since he’d left that they were swathing their women in flannel?

This had to be one of the more devastating results of overturning the French.

And English modesty aside, he made another point. “Lady Standon, you place too much value in respectability. Believe me, it rarely leaves one with an epitaph worth remembering.”

“I can well imagine yours!”

He grinned and leaned closer. “Can you now?”

“Oh!” she sputtered and stepped away from him. “None of this would be happening if you were a respectable man. True to your title.”

Langley closed his eyes and shuddered. “And let me guess what you would suggest: that I take a wife and remove myself to the country for the remainder of my days. Would that dull prospect make me respectable?”

“If that is what it takes to get you and your . . .”

“Former nannies?” he offered.

“Companions,” she corrected, “and yes, if that is what it takes to get all of you out of my house, then please take a wife. I’d say my house is overflowing with likely and overly willing candidates.”

Langley paused, a shiver running down his spine, her suggestion jumbling about with Thomas-William’s grumbled complaints.

Hiding . . . Out in the open . . . Take a wife . . .

The door shuddered again, and he realized he had barely enough time to hatch his plan. But leap into it he would, starting with shrugging off his jacket.

Lady Standon gaped at him. “Whatever are you doing?”

“Taking your advice.” Flinging his jacket in one direction, he plucked off his cravat with one hand while the other flipped open the buttons on his waistcoat.

She eyed him with open horror. “You’re mad! I never told you to disrobe!” Then realizing that her voice was rising, she gasped and lowered her register.

Having added his cravat and waistcoat to the pile, he opened up his shirt a bit and stalked across the room, catching her in his arms. “No, you didn’t.”

Caught unawares, the pistol fell from her grasp. Then Lady Standon began to struggle, her fists pounding at his chest. “I certainly didn’t tell you to accost me either!”

“No, madame, you didn’t.”

A loud crash left the hinges groaning their last. One more good hit and—

“Then whatever are you doing?” she gasped, having stilled for a second.

“Exactly what you told me to do. Taking a wife.”

And as the door crashed open, he sealed his proposal with a kiss.

Chapter 3

A man will only propose when thoroughly cornered.

Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Lucia

M
inerva had no idea what it was Langley was about to do until his lips captured hers and his arms wound tight around her.

There was no escape from his trap—for quite frankly, she was trying like the very devil. Her hands on his shoulders balled into fists and pummeled at him, all to no avail, for the wretched scoundrel had her exactly where he wanted.

A collective gasp rose up as the door swung open to reveal his neatly staged tableaux. A perfect scene of uninhibited seduction, his lips covering hers, his hands cradling her in his steely grasp, the rakish lines of his body entwined with hers.

As if they cared not that the entire household was witness to their passions.

When Minerva tried to twist free, he added to his deception by dipping her back, so her body arched into his and it appeared to all that he was devouring her, for in truth he was—his hands roaming over her back, along her spine, teasing her, touching her, as if he could not get enough of her . . . which made her struggles appear more like . . .

Oh, heavens, she didn’t want to think about how she appeared, not when she was more worried about how it actually felt.

For as shocking as it was, the words “delicious torment” seemed to have found a new place in her vocabulary.

“Langley! Whatever are you doing to her?” Nanny Lucia said in a high-pitched voice that verged on a horrified shriek.

That was the question Minerva wanted to ask—that is, if she could have managed—but right at that moment her lips were occupied, and unfortunately she was having trouble breathing.

Having trouble thinking.

For traitorously, seductively, and eloquently, this wretched, practiced rake was plying his trade over her like a maestro might roam a bow over a violin.

And yes, her strings were trembling. Vibrating with a music that begged one to listen, to move, to respond.

How could she not? What with her breasts pressed to his chest, his hand cupping her . . . her . . . good heavens, her backside, and his lips, oh, those lips, plying hers, nibbling at hers, teasing her to open up to him.

Give in to his seduction.

Give in?
She hadn’t been dubbed the icy Lady Standon for nothing. She had dodged, avoided, and quelled the aspirations of every ne’er-do-well who had veered in her direction over the last eleven years, since the death of Philip Sterling had freed her from the bonds of marriage. Years of maintaining her spotless reputation were gone in an instant as this one man breeched her defenses without so much as a hint of flirtation.

So even as she considered raising one final note of protest—a knee to his infamous manhood—something unexpected happened.

Unexpected in that Minerva would never have thought such things could happen. At least not to her.

As hastily as he’d caught her up, as tightly as he held her, his lips touched hers with a tenderness, a reverence, that belied his reputation. He wasn’t so much devouring her, but teasing her. Tempting her. Tasting her. Slowly, deliberately. His strong lips covered hers, murmured over hers, but what they were saying was like a whisper in a foreign language. She hadn’t the vaguest idea what was being said, but all of a sudden she longed for the translation.

Desired it with all her heart.

And as that awareness, the spark of need flared to life inside her, at the very moment when she could feel the traitorous acquiescence in her body, he pulled back, just enough to look into her eyes.

And what she saw there inflamed her. That brazen light of mischief sparkling at her. As if he knew the battle going on inside her . . . and worse yet, that he’d begun to win it.

“My apologies, dearest,” he whispered loudly. “There will be time enough for us later.”

Later.
The word purred over her with a heady promise of passions yet to come.

Like hell
, she would have told him, if he hadn’t just then set her back up on her feet and she found herself wavering, her knees knocking about beneath her as if her house had suddenly been launched to sea.

In the middle of a storm. With nothing to lash herself to.

Save this solid, muscled man beside her.

I’d rather drown
, she fumed silently, staggering a few steps back and catching hold of her dressing table.

“Awch!
Schatzi!
” Nanny Helga cried out, elbowing her way past Brigid and Lucia. “What has become of you, my Langley, that you would stoop to . . . to . . .” Her hands fluttered at Minerva while her nose wrinkled in dismay.

Not to be outdone, Nanny Lucia came bustling forward as well. The elegant lady wore a robe and night rail in a sapphire blue silk that clung to her curves and was so gossamer that next to nothing of the Italian woman’s bountiful charms were “hidden” beneath. If the color wasn’t enough to catch the eye, she also wore a matching necklace, ear bobs, and bracelets, as if she were about to attend the opera.
“Dolce cuore,”
she purred. “Obviously you have lost your way.” She tossed a derisive snort at Minerva and at the margravine. “Now, I am here to help.”

“You?” Brigid laughed and set down Knuddles. “Look, darling, it is Langley.”

Knuddles, true to his affenpinscher nature, set out directly for Langley and promptly clamped his teeth down into the heel of the man’s boot, staking his mistress’s claim. Even the baron’s determined shaking of his foot would not dislodge the little monkey-faced dog.

“Brigid, call off this beast,” he muttered, shaking his foot and teetering about with the stubborn little dog attached to his heel.

Which gave the lady the invitation that no one else had received, and she queened her way past the rest of them, pausing before Langley and casting him a seductive glance before she bent over, slowly, purposefully, so that her low-cut night rail billowed out and gave anyone willing to look an eyeful.

Utterly shameless! Minerva stood there stunned by the lady’s brazen antics, and her furious glance—why she was furious, she wasn’t certain, but then again it wasn’t every night she had such a circus parading about in her bedroom—rose to meet Langley’s, for he was the catalyst of all this.

As far as she was concerned, they all could have him. While she wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of them setting up a brawl in her bedroom, if it would expedite them on their travels, then she would risk a bit of damage and scandal.

Yet to her surprise he wasn’t looking down at what the woman was offering, but instead his gaze was on her, and when their eyes met, he had the nerve to wink.

“Ah, thank you,” he said as his boot came loose. Immediately he stepped away from the lady and closer to Minerva. “There now, that is better.”

Better for who? From Minerva’s vantage point it only put her in harm’s way, for there was still the Russian princess and her Cossack forces in the background awaiting an opening to make their charge.

And charge they would eventually, she had to imagine, given the narrow glint to the lady’s darkly kohled eyes.

Heavens! They were all made up like that—rouged, primped, and gowned as if they had been lounging about waiting for this man to arrive. Next to them she was like a solitary daisy in a hothouse of orchids and orange blossoms. A vestal innocent in a decadent harem.

Her house a harem? Not if she had anything to say about it.

“Out!” She pointed at her door, which now hung by one hinge. “All of you!”

Nanny Brigid put her dog down and her hands went to her hips. It managed not only to show the woman’s determination to do just the opposite, but also managed to give her another opportunity to push her breasts up and nearly out of her evening wear.

Really, didn’t they make sensible flannel night rails on the Continent?

“Dearest, that isn’t necessary,” Langley said, sidling up to Minerva and wrapping his arm about her waist, cinching her up against him like one might an unruly mount. “They’ve come to wish us well.”