Lord Langley Is Back in Town (9 page)

Langley was alive? He was still of the opinion that Sir Basil needed to lay off the claret bottle, that is until the other man spoke again.

“Demmit, how did this happen?”

“That is what I would like to know. You told me he was dead, and now here he is popping up like some bloody marionette. The man has more lives than my wife’s Persian cat.”

The other man made a choking sort of sound. “He’ll ruin me, or worse.”

“He’ll ruin us both,” Sir Basil corrected. “You need to get out of Town. Stay hidden. You’ll be the next person he comes looking for.”

“You’ve got to stop him,” the other fellow hissed out.

“I thought I had,” Sir Basil. “Not that he’ll escape this time if it is done right and orderly.”

Chudley’s blood ran to ice. What they were talking about was treason. And for the life of him, he wasn’t about to see them murder an agent of England.

Not when he had every intention of being the one to put a bullet through that demmed rogue’s heart.

“Y
ou insist?” Lady Standon threw her hands up in the air and paced in front of Langley. “You insist with my house!”

“It seemed the practical solution at the time.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “They weren’t exactly falling for the notion that we are wildly in love.”

Minerva’s brows arched upward and she leaned forward to match him tone for tone. “That is because we are not!”

He waved her off. “A moot point, that.”

“A moot point?” she sputtered. “To whom? You? For it is certainly not moot to me.” She paced again, stomping back and forth, utterly furious with him.

Her houseguests had been sent toddling off to their beds, not without a few protests, and even more whispered offers that left Langley politely demurring and Lady Standon blushing with annoyance.

So now they were finally alone and Langley was doing his best to find his way through this mess. Like most of his escapades, he was making this up as he went along, but usually when there was a woman involved, she was far more willing than this one.

This stubborn, unyielding Boudicca in flannel.

“Lady Standon, please,” he said, looking around her bedchamber and settling for pointing toward the only chair in the room, the one at her dressing table. “Have a seat and calm yourself. Perhaps you would like something to drink to ease your nerves.”

“No, I shall not sit down. Nor will I be mollified or plied with drink. I would point out that my nerves wouldn’t be in this state if you hadn’t come tumbling into my bedchamber like a thief.”

“An oversight on my part.” One that might work to his advantage. What had Thomas-William warned?

You don’t want to be caught in the open.

And while most of Langley’s kind preferred to work in the shadows, such tactics had never set well with him.

And now he saw all too clearly how he could draw out his enemy.

By standing in the middle of Society.

And it wouldn’t hurt to be surrounded, as it were, by a bevy of deadly beauties.

Present company excluded.

“An oversight?” The lady threw up her hands. “Whatever were you doing on my drainpipe to begin with?”

“I would think that the answer to that is rather obvious—but it hardly matters now. Though in my defense, I will point out that I wouldn’t have been forced to climb the drainpipe if you hadn’t invited my former . . . former . . .”

“Doxies?”

“Acquaintances,” he corrected. “You can hardly call a Russian princess a doxy. It’s bad form. Diplomatically speaking and all.”

The lady’s hands went to her hips and those dark brows of hers arched.

So she didn’t like being taken to task. Then again this was why most English diplomats left their wives at home.

English women just didn’t understand Continental manners. Were all too judgmental about the mores. And looked askance at most of the customs that made each kingdom and principality unique.

And the lady proved his point by saying, “When one such as your princess arrives—uninvited and unwanted—and takes over one’s house as if by divine right, all in pursuit of . . .”

He grinned at her, for the possibilities for completing her sentence were endless.

In pursuit of passion . . . ecstasy . . . pleasure.

But before he could enlighten her, she finished her own tumbled sentence.

“ . . . in pursuit of low company, I will call her exactly what she is—a common doxy.”

Low? Common? The lady knew how to get to the crux of the matter.

Langley put his hand over his heart. “Madame, you wound me.”

The brows arched again, and this time she glanced at him and made a slight withering shake of her head. “I doubt it,” she said with every bit of cold rigidity that Thomas-William declared ran through her veins and Mrs. Hutchinson had seconded. But Lady Standon had not been without defenders in the ranks, for Tia believed that Minerva had once been greatly disappointed in love and that was why she was this way.

Leave it to an overly imaginative chit barely out of the schoolroom to see right through the lady’s bluff. Because Langley knew something the others didn’t about the mistress of the house.

Minerva Sterling, the last remaining dowager Marchioness of Standon, held a spark of fire inside her heart.

He knew that for certain. For he’d felt the heat of her passionate nature when he’d held her.

When he’d stolen that kiss from her lips. With his common, low lips.

Speaking of which . . . “Truly? You thought my kiss low? Common?”

Just as he suspected, her gaze flew up and met his.

Because this was the difference between Lady Standon and her houseguests—for when confronted with the truth about a moment of passion, she gaped at him wide-eyed with guilt and blushed like a May day lass.

“Come now, Lady Standon,” he said, closing the space between them. “Would it be as bad as all that to be engaged to me?”

“B
e engaged to you?” Minerva sputtered. “Do I really need to answer that?”

“Apparently not,” he mused. “Though I found our kiss quite delightful.”

“I did not,” she lied. And worse yet, one glance at the insufferable man told her quite clearly that he didn’t believe her.

Not in the least.

Did he really have to grin like that? It reminded her of the moment he’d hauled her up in his arms, just before he’d put his lips to hers and—

Minerva scooted around the chair and put it between them. Small comfort it was, because she knew this flimsy piece of furniture would hardly stop such a rogue.

“It seems, my lady,” he said, flicking a glance at her choice of protection and giving it scant regard, “we have reached an impasse. For I need a betrothed and you refuse me, even though we’ve been discovered
in flagrante delicto
.”

“We were no such thing!” Minerva shot back. “You caught me unawares. I had no opportunity to protest.”

He grinned again. “No opportunity? Are you certain about that?”

Minerva paused and was about to make a quick retort, but instead found herself replaying those moments over in her head. Slowly. Step by step.

And wished she hadn’t. For in every second, from the time he’d taken her in his arms, in the slow descent of his lips onto hers, she could have stopped him.

And she hadn’t.

“You took me by surprise,” she brazened.

“I suppose I did,” he drawled slowly, pushing aside the chair and moving toward her.

She shook her finger at him. “Oh, no, you don’t!”

“Don’t what?”

“Come near me again!” she told him, dodging past him and opening up her door.

“So we are back to our impasse.”

“There is no impasse,” she told him. “You and your paramours can leave my house. Leave me out of this madness!”

“If you insist,” he said, crossing the room and making as if he was going to leave, but he stopped halfway to the stairs.

“Unless, that is,” he began, “you can think of a reason why you might want me to stay.” His gaze fell to her mouth, to her lips to be exact.

Minerva pressed them together. Tightly.

“I could be of service to you, Lady Standon, whether you realize it or not.” He eased closer to her, his boot conveniently planted at the base of the door so she couldn’t shut it.

Not that it would matter much now that the hinges were in ruins.

“Don’t you dare!” she managed.

He stared at her for a moment and then nodded. “If you insist.”

“I do.”

He pulled his foot free and went toward the stairs again. “Until the morning, my lady.” And after making a short, elegant bow, he began to ascend the stairs.

Up?
What the devil? Minerva blinked and stepped out in the hallway. “Where do you think you are going?”

He glanced at her, then up the dark stairwell, and then back at her. “To my room,” he said as he continued to slowly climb.

“Your wha-a-a-t?” she managed as she followed after him, stopping at the landing.

“My room,” he repeated, having stopped a few steps shy of the next landing. “The one you’ve been graciously providing me for . . . oh, let me see . . . a sennight, is it? Yes, I do believe I’ve been here a little over a week.”

“A week?” she sputtered. “You’ve been living here, in my house, for a week?”

He pressed a finger to his lips. “Ssh, my lady. Unless you want all of Mayfair to know our secret.”

There it was again. The way he said that.
Our secret.
As if that was enough to convince her that they possessed one. Shared something illicit. She ignored the shiver that ran down her spine. The teasing whisper of desire that followed in its wake.

They did have something in common. His kiss had proved that.

“You cannot have been living here for a week,” Minerva insisted.

“While I try never to contradict a lady, I fear I must in this case. I have very much been living here. In your house.” He needn’t take so much delight in pointing out his deception and her unwitting involvement. Oh, but he wasn’t finished yet. Leaning down the stairs he whispered, “As it turns out, I am such an excellent houseguest, you hardly knew I was here.”

“That is the point, sir. I did not know!”

“Good luck convincing the rest of the
ton
.”

Minerva groaned and ground her teeth together. “You are utterly mad!”

The man shrugged. “No, not in the least. And if we are being fair about this, the real madness of my plan requires that I convince Society that
I
am willing to marry
you
, madam. But I am up to the challenge and daresay might find it a tolerable one, indeed.”

Minerva sucked in a deep breath, if only to avoid the retort that rose quickly from every indignant nerve in her body.

Why you insufferable bast—

“Good night, my lady.” With that, he continued on up the stairs, and when he turned at the landing, he had the nerve to wink at her as if daring her to follow him and make good her earlier threat to turn him out.

Oh, bother! What could she do? Follow him up into the darkness? Kick up a bigger ruckus? Hardly. And that devil of a man knew it. He had her in his crosshairs and there was nothing she could do.

At least not now.

Minerva closed her door and leaned against it—for it was the only way to get it to shut.

Come morning
, she vowed,
I’ll see the lot of you rousted and moved out
.

And then unwittingly she thought of Lord Langley’s kiss and added one more thing to her resolution.

Before there is worse damage than my broken door and ruined drainpipe.

Chapter 4

Occasionally a man will outwit a lady . . .

Advice to Felicity Langley from Nanny Tasha

T
he creak of the sole remaining hinge on the door into Minerva’s bedchamber brought her awake abruptly. Sitting straight up, she spent a heart-stopping moment trying to make right of the world around her—the sunshine pouring through the thin curtains, and the sounds of a London day in full movement—and the equally vibrant dream she’d been wrenched out of.

Of him. Lord Langley. Kissing her. Yet again. And this time she hadn’t been protesting.

Not that you protested all that much the first time around.

Minerva ignored that wry observation, for it sounded too much like something Aunt Bedelia might say.

“So sorry, my lady,” her maid rushed to say. “I just thought . . . it’s just that you’re usually . . . with it being nearly noon, I feared something might be amiss, even though he said he’d left you happily contented.”