Sometimes there is naught you can do for a man, save stand silently beside him and believe.
Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Rana
They returned to Brook Street well after dark, and Langley let her out and escorted her to the door.
But he hadn’t come in with her. He silently sent her inside and then disappeared into the night.
Minerva spent much of the next day pacing about the house and peering out the windows, watching the crowds on Brook Street and the comings and goings of the servants in the mews behind the house in hopes of catching a glance of him.
Demmed man! Oh, she knew marchionesses were not supposed to use such words, or even know of them, but right now being Lady Standon was far too confining.
If she were mere Maggie Owens, perhaps then Langley wouldn’t be so reluctant to let her help.
And in her worried state, she even thought she’d spied the little flower girl from the theatre, milling about the lamppost across the way. Madly, she’d rushed outside to catch the child, for as impossible as it seemed, she suspected the urchin was somehow connected to the mystery behind Lord Langley’s return to London.
But when she flung the front door open, the girl caught up her basket of flowers and took off like a rabbit through the pedestrians, disappearing before Minerva could even cry out.
And when Minerva realized that everyone on the street was gaping at her, she’d beat an equally hasty retreat back inside her house.
Not that the inside offered much in the way of sanctuary. Her address was suddenly the most sought after one in London.
She’d never realized how many gossipy tabbies lived in Town, for suddenly there was a cream-lined trail leading straight to her door. No matter that it wasn’t her afternoon in, the curious and the gossips called anyway, delivering their cards to a vexed Mrs. Hutchinson in hopes that “Lady Standon might like some sympathetic company.”
Sympathetic, indeed! She’d instructed her housekeeper to send them all packing. There were some consolations in having a housekeeper who had been raised in Seven Dials. No one could get rid of unwanted guests better than Mrs. Hutchinson—save of course the foreign sorts who just moved in.
According to Aunt Bedelia, who had called in the afternoon, even those who weren’t at the Drury-Lane Theatre the night before had their own rendition of Chudley’s dramatic challenge and Lord Langley’s scandalous acceptance.
“Why I hardly knew London had such a collection of tattle tongues,” she avowed. “They are savaging my poor Chudley and ruining my standing! Such behavior! Such rash displays of ill-manners! What is society coming to when demure respectability is no longer the order of the day?”
Thus speaks the woman who not a day earlier ordered me to seduce my betrothed, Minerva had mused silently. Nor was she moved by her aunt’s plight, for Lady Chudley had been Society’s leading gossip for more than thirty years. But it was obviously a bitter broth for Bedelia to swallow, especially now that she was on the other side of the spoon, so to say.
But the day had passed, and now it was well after midnight, and Minerva had more pressing concerns than the maelstrom of gossip and scandal swirling around her. Glancing out the window of her bedroom, she willed the darkness to reveal the one thing she wanted to know above all else.
Where the devil was Langley? And Thomas-William as well?
Whatever were those two up to?
Not that she cared, she tried telling herself. She didn’t. Not in the least.
Oh, but she did. And she could help, if only he’d let her.
Then perhaps he’d help you . . .
Pushing away from the window, she snuffed out her candle and flounced down on her bed, a thin shaft of moonlight streaming through the gap in the parted curtains.
No, she couldn’t ask Langley for help. The man had enough worries not be saddled with her poor problems.
Treason . . . She shook her head at the evil implications that word held, but she also suspected the answers could be found with the clues at hand . . . the grooves in the frame . . . the bits of black velvet . . . the nannies arrival . . . Langley’s hidden intelligence shipments.
Minerva sat up as the parts came together.
It was obvious that someone had learned of his means of sending intelligence home to England and then used the same devious channel for their gains, leaving Langley’s reputation to be sullied. And when he returned, they had tried to kill him.
Minerva shook her head. Oh, it was all too far-fetched. Wasn’t it? Aunt Bedelia would say she’d been reading too many novels of late, but still . . .
Oh, if only Langley would come home and tell her he had finished the wretched business once and for all. Then they could . . .
They could what?
She rolled over and punched her pillow. However had this happened? This . . . this anxious, devilish concern.
No, concern wasn’t the right word. Concern was what you felt when a friend fell ill. Concern was something you wallowed in when your quarterly accounts ran over.
This ache in her chest, this trembling in her limbs, was something altogether different.
Yet how had it happened? And even as she searched her memories of the past few days, it was that wretched vision from the other morning that continued to haunt her.
The pair of boys, with Langley at her side, a life that could be hers if only she would . . . if she dared . . .
Risk her heart.
Minerva shook her head. Oh, no, that would never do. Trust her heart? Look where it had gotten her the last time. She’d trusted Gerald Adlington and he’d betrayed her by marrying her sister in hopes of gaining an heiress’s fortune.
“It isn’t just that,” she whispered, thinking of that meadow, the white drifts of snowdrops blooming in haphazard clumps. It wasn’t just the pair of mischievous lads.
But something else.
For Langley’s confession that sometimes all a man had was his honor had prodded her about her very dishonorable existence.
Honor.
For that had to be why Langley was lurking about London in some secretive attempt to clear his name.
To regain his honor.
There is nothing to regain, she would have told him. No, he had more honor than any other man she’d ever met.
And that called to her. So very deeply. How she longed to live free of her own deceptions. The lie that had imprisoned her as Minerva Sterling. Kept her living in the strictest confines for fear someone would see the truth: She was no lady.
Mayhap if she could help Langley, restore his name, then that would redeem hers . . . for there would be no stopping Adlington, not until he was placated or finished off.
For a moment she lay atop her bed in silence, the entire house asleep around her, nothing stirring, not even a crackle from the coals in the hearth.
The vastness and the emptiness of the night weighed heavily upon her, and once again she glanced toward her window and sent up a silent wish.
Please. Let him come home. Yet, she didn’t have the courage to add the very secret prayer she had tucked in her heart.
Let him come home to me.
She paused for a moment, hoping to hear the telltale creak of the gate or the kitchen door being picked open, or however it was Langley and his Foreign Office cohorts got barred doors to yield to them.
But there was nothing but silence to greet her, so she closed her eyes and tugged her pillow close to her breast.
Close to her heart, where for so many years she hadn’t dared to let any man come near.
Until now.
The house was dark and still when Langley slipped through the gate and made his way up the garden path in the back, his steps laden with discouragement.
After finding nothing at Langley House, save more questions, he and Thomas-William had shadowed Sir Basil, not letting up their surveillance of the man in hopes he’d slip up or that Nottage would show himself. But to his dismay, the mushroom continued to lead his smug and orderly life as if he had everything well in hand.
Nor had there been any sign of Nottage.
No, Langley realized, the only way to discover the truth was to search Sir Basil’s office at Whitehall, despite Lord Andrew’s protests that it would be foolhardy.
There he would find the proof he sought. He had to find something and quickly. For Langley felt his time running out, the danger to Minerva cutting him to the core. She was in far too deep, and if the incident at the theatre hadn’t shaken him, it was her earnest desire to help him that had.
Even Thomas-William had reluctantly agreed to his mad plan and come along, though most likely only to ensure that he didn’t get himself killed in such a foolhardy endeavor.
But gain the man’s office they had, though it was as dull as Sir Basil himself, with nothing out of the ordinary to be found—and they had nearly taken the place apart searching it.
No, it was as Lord Andrew had said, whatever evidence there was left, it would not be easily found, if it even existed.
All they had discovered was the signed paperwork that indicted one Ellis, Baron Langley, for high treason.
Then the situation went from futile to downright dangerous as they slipped back into the corridor, the one that had been empty not twenty minutes earlier, and found half a dozen guards blocking their path.
Luckily for them, Whitehall never changed, and since Langley had spent his first two years with the Foreign Office running errands all over the labyrinth of halls and offices, they were able to put up a merry chase, at least so it appeared until they found themselves cut off with only two choices: surrender or fight their way out.
It hadn’t really been a choice. Not with Thomas-William there. Nor had it been easy, but they’d managed to outpummel the younger guards—Thomas-William handily knocking three of them cold in quick succession.
But that didn’t mean the last three had given up as easily, and Langley and Thomas-William had suffered for it—though in the end they escaped, dashing down a long unused stairwell that led to a door concealed by a large bush. From there they slipped into the darkness of St. James Park and then doubled back to the river.
While Langley knew his identity was safe, Thomas-William was too familiar a face with the agents in the office. When his description was passed around, it wouldn’t be long before a warrant would be issued.
So with some regret, Langley had sent his friend upriver to the Earl of Clifton’s estate. He knew Clifton and his wife, Lucy Ellyson, would conceal and safeguard her father’s loyal servant with their very lives.
But as he watched Thomas-William rowing away, moving quickly along with the tide as it pushed him upstream, Langley shivered. It wasn’t from the cold, but that he was alone.
Out of chances, out of ideas.
Save his meeting tomorrow morning with Lord Chudley on Primrose Hill. Perhaps he would be better off just letting the old viscount put a bullet through his heart and be done with the matter.
For twenty some years he’d lived what some might call a charmed existence: mistresses, adventure, travel, and perhaps it had been just that. Magic.
Then it all had changed when he’d brought the girls to England to go to school. Without them it had been as if the light had gone out of his heart, and without their brightness in his days, he’d been blind to the darkness that had eventually enveloped him.
Treason. Oh, good God, there would be no stopping Brownie now that he had the order signed. While it was all but his end, the last thing he wanted was for that stain to touch Tally and Felicity’s lives. If he was hung for treason, it would ruin them, their futures.
And it would ruin Minerva as well.
Cold, bleeding, and shivering, he’d warily crossed Piccadilly and St. James, through the byways and alleys of Mayfair, until he came to the mews behind Brook Street.
Minerva, his heart chimed at the sight of her window. I am so sorry.
For very soon their betrothal would mire her down in scandal, something he knew she’d abhor, come to despise him for.
Much to his chagrin, the kitchen door was locked. Mayhap this was her way of telling him to bugger off.
Not just yet, he thought grimly, reaching into the concealed sleeve inside his boot where he kept his picks.
He quickly got the door open and staggered inside, pausing for a moment on the stairs down to the kitchen, if only to catch his breath.
“My good man, you are getting too demmed old for this nonsense,” he muttered to himself, a wry smile coming to his lips. Never would he have thought all those years ago, when his old school chum Robert Jenkinson had talked him into joining the Foreign Office, that at two and forty he would still be getting into roustabouts and lurking about like a thief in the night.
And what did he have for all of his troubles? Half his memory, his reputation in tatters, and ruination looming over everyone he loved. Langley considered one other choice.
What if he were to slip into the night, leave London? Tally and Felicity already thought him lost, had probably gotten used to the notion; they were better off without him.
Then, unbidden, came the image of Minerva standing before Langley House with a handful of snowdrops in her hands.
Hope, she beckoned. Remember to hold onto your hope.
Oh, aye, he had hope. Hope that Chudley was still a good shot.
As it was, when he got to the bottom of the stairs in the kitchen, he swayed a bit, then staggered over to a chair and sank into it.
Well, hopefully he’d given as well as he’d gotten, rubbing his aching jaw. Slowly, he sorted out his various aches and pains and realized he was worse off than he first thought.
“Demmit,” he muttered.
There was naught but the glow of coals in the kitchen range, and no sign of Mrs. Hutchinson. The lady was probably off with her “dear Mudgett.” Which was good. And the glowing coals meant the water in the tank on the side of range was hot and there was no one about to witness his battered state.
Though tomorrow there would no hiding his bruised jaw and nose, which was still flowing like tapped claret.
Groaning as quietly as he could, he dragged a tub out from under one of the workbenches and began filling it from the range.
While the rest of the house was a tumbledown pile of neglect, the kitchen was of the first order. Mrs. Hutchinson said Felicity had insisted on redoing it for her, if only to keep the unlikely cook and housekeeper happily baking scones. Hence the dumbwaiter and the fancy cooking range. With each panful of hot water he emptied into the tub, he raised a toast of thanks to his scone-mad daughter.
Now all he had to do was bathe, bind the worst of his wounds, and get himself upstairs to bed. Then this night would be over.
Or so he thought as he stripped off his torn jacket, bloodied shirt, and mud-splattered breeches, because when he reached to remove his smallclothes, there was a creak on the stairs behind him.
Already wound too tight from the night’s events, Langley grabbed up his pistol and whirled around, only to find himself ready to shoot his white-faced betrothed.
“Good heavens, what happened to you?” Minerva gasped, not even looking at the pistol in Langley’s hand, her gaze fixed on his bloodied nose and the dark purple coloring on one side of his jaw. She crossed the space between them, her hand coming up to cup his face but stopping short when he winced. “Who did this to you?”
He set down the pistol. “Haven’t you a concern for the other fellow?”
“No. None.” She took another measure of his injuries and brushed past him. Good heavens, how far had he come, staggering about like this? Whatever had happened? A thousand questions she knew he wouldn’t answer filled her thoughts as she pulled up on the handle of the pump, and then went to work filling a bucket.
They’d need far more hot water than he had.
Then it struck her. They.
The bucket sloshed over and she stopped pumping. Stopped herself from considering such a notion. Carrying it to the reservoir in the range, she filled it back up. Then lighting a taper, she went to the cupboard in the back of the kitchen, raiding the cabinet of towels, cloths, and soap.
It wasn’t her mother’s kitchen back home, with its pots of unguents, needles for stitching, and binding strips, but this meager selection would have to do.
When she turned around, she found Langley slumped in the chair, his feet in the steaming tub of water. His eyes were closed and he looked utterly lost.
He hadn’t found the evidence he needed. Oh, if only he would let her help him. Damn the man for being so bloody proud, for coming from such a long line of heroic sorts, for yes, she had done her checking on him.
If only . . .
Minerva ignored the pang in her heart, ignored the impropriety of the situation, and did her level best to remember the times she’d watched her mother put some other poor, battered soul to rights.
Still, having watched a deed wasn’t the same as the actual doing. She wasn’t even sure where to start.
Get him clean, she could almost hear her mother say. Clean and dry.
Wash him? She’d never washed a man before, never seen such a man all but naked. Yes, she’d been married, but to Phillip Sterling, who, by the time she’d wed him, was well past his prime—and she’d never seen him naked, mercifully—for he always came to her late, after a night of debauchery, to make a few drunken fumbled attempts in the dark, and then left.
Thankfully . . .
But Lord Langley was different. In excellent shape, his muscled shoulders, taut back, and lean frame left her breathless, slightly intoxicated. Even battered and broken as he was, the sheer masculine power beneath the bruises and dirt left her wavering.
As it had the other night in the carriage . . .
Heavens! It was just as Lucy and Elinor had said. That the right man . . .
Now Minerva wavered.
No, Lord Langley was not the right man for her. He couldn’t be.
Still, the notion terrified her. What if he was? Then the last thing she could do was fail at this. He needed her.
Certainly he wasn’t asking her, but her heart was.
Sighing to herself, she dipped the pan into the tub and glanced at him. Where do I begin?
Then it was if her long-lost mother gave her a nudge filled with courage. At the beginning.
Minerva whispered softly to him, “Lean over.”
He did, and she gently poured the water over his head, letting it run through his matted hair and down his shoulders. Then without another word she lathered up her hands and went to work. Silently she cleaned his hair and began to carefully wash his face.
His gaze met hers as she wiped away the blood around his nose, the silence between them putting her on edge. “You were gone all day,” she said quietly.
There, it wasn’t a question. Just a statement.
Filled with questions.
Langley winced as she ran the cloth around his jawline. “Did you miss me?”
“I was worried,” she said honestly. Nor could she help adding, “And you reek of the Thames.”
“It wasn’t by choice,” he offered. But that was all he offered.
So she rinsed the cloth and went back to work on his shoulders, the breadth of his back. Beneath her fingers she felt long, thick welts, and she shivered. Reaching for the candle, she held it up to reveal a series of deep scars running from the top of his shoulders all the way down.
“Is there something wrong?” Langley asked.
Minerva shook her head and set down the candle. Rinsing out the cloth, she continued, shocked by what she’d seen.
Yes, she knew he’d been imprisoned, Jamilla had said as much, but this was far worse than just being locked up. He’d been whipped at some point in his rapscallion life. Beaten savagely. She shuddered to think of how such a thing happened, and when she ran the cloth down the length of his arm, she found more scars around his wrists, the sort that comes from bindings.
Arrested? Kidnapped? Set upon? She didn’t know, didn’t dare pry. But one thing was for certain, he’d been taken and beaten. But then again the scar along his hairline that ran all the way back behind his ear said that much. But that hadn’t been the only time. The masculine body beneath her fingers was not that of a spoiled toff, nor of a man accustomed only to the comforts of regal palaces and seducing women as his reputation suggested.
Lord Langley had lived a very different life than the one she’d so blithely assumed.
Minerva didn’t realize it, but she’d paused, and the stillness of the house and the room around them suddenly loomed like the darkness of night.
“You needn’t do this,” he said to her, reaching for the cloth. “You shouldn’t be involved.”
She pulled the cloth back from him and continued working, trying to ignore the lines and planes of his muscles, of the hardened power beneath the bruised veneer. “I became involved the moment you tumbled into my bedchamber, when you moved into my house without asking. No, I am involved whether I like it or not.”
“I won’t ask which.”
“That’s sensible of you,” she told him tartly, glancing at his nose. She handed him a cloth and then pressed his hand to it to staunch the bleeding. “Is it broken?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head slightly.
She went to the stove and dipped the pan into the tank. The water was no longer cold, but it wasn’t scaldingly hot either.
But it was cleaner than the growing bilge in the tub.
“I didn’t think so from the look of it,” she said, “but you would know best.”
“You have a talent for this,” he said softly.
Minerva glanced away. “My mother had the talent. I only watched.”
“And helped. I can’t imagine a bossy chit like you just watching.”
She smiled. “I helped when she was busy with other matters.”
He watched her tear a set of cloths and pick through the pots of unguents. “Not the usual talent one finds in a lady. Especially a countess, or a future duchess.”
“My mother was an unusual woman.” And not the countess. Just the daughter of the local witch, as most liked to say.
“As is her daughter,” he murmured as he stretched and tested his shoulders.
Yes, quite unusual, she mused silently. The bastard daughter foisted off as the legitimate one. Certainly not your average marchioness.
Then again, she thought, slanting a glance at him over her shoulder, he might not be so surprised. He might not even care that she wasn’t . . . who she was supposed to be.
What would Lord Langley think of plain Maggie Owens?
“Here, I would have thought the lofty Lady Standon would call Mrs. Hutchinson to help,” he was saying. “This seems more her territory.”
Minerva shook her head. “Never. She gossips too much. Something I don’t think you want or need.”
He didn’t answer.
“At least she’d offer me a strong drink,” he teased. “A good measure after being tossed around a bit. Steady my wits.”
Minerva snorted. “You don’t need a strong drink. As for your wits, I think they’ve been addled enough for one night. What you need is to get clean and dry and the bleeding stopped.”
“Minerva Sterling, you are the most sensible wom-an I have ever met.”
And here she’d spent all these years hiding behind a veneer of propriety and sensibility, but being branded so by his lips rankled her. She didn’t want to be sensible in his eyes. She wanted to be . . . oh, like the others . . . wild . . . irresistible . . . worldly . . . desirable . . .
“You are too old to be taking such risks,” she heard herself saying. Oh, heavens, she was too sensible for words!
He raised his weary head and managed to wink at her. “I’m not so ancient that I can’t take care of myself. I’ll have you know, there were six of them.”
She poured the less than warm water over him and set the pan down so she could settle her fisted hands on her hips. “And that is supposed to make me feel better?”
Six of them? He’d been set upon by six men? Why it took her breath away. And she told herself it wasn’t because he’d managed to best them—at least enough to escape with his life. No, not in the least. For she’d been terrified since she’d found him down here in the kitchen.
Then something else occurred to her and she cursed herself for not asking sooner. “Is Thomas-William . . . is he . . .”
She didn’t dare finish the rest of the question.
But Langley did. “Alive? Yes.” He glanced down at his bloodied and battered hands, which she was carefully wiping clean.
She nodded. She’d grown overly fond of Lucy’s taciturn servant. Still, “alive” didn’t tell the whole story. “Is he injured?”
“He’s a bit worse for wear, but he’ll heal.”
Minerva drew a deep breath and then sighed. “Is he safe?”
“Yes.”
She saw no need ask any more. But then again she’d been puzzling over the events at Langley House ever since they’d returned—and now, added to the evidence she’d seen on his back . . .
“Langley?”
“Hmm.”
“How was it that boxes continued to arrive at Langley House when everyone thought you dead . . . and I suspect you were . . .”
He glanced up at her, his expression unreadable for once.
“Detained?” she offered.
“Minerva—” He shook his head at her.
She was prying when he didn’t want her help, but she persisted. “Please, I want to be of assistance to you. Who could have sent them?”
He sat silently for a while, then sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Someone you worked with? An aide? A secretary? Another . . . diplomat?” She thought better of saying what she meant.
Another agent. One capable of betrayal.
He shook his head. “Good God, Minerva, is that all you’ve been doing since I left you? Coming up with theories?”
“Well, yes,” she told him. “What else was I to do?”
“Oh, demmit, if you must know—”
“I must—”
“Yes, I suppose you do. And most likely won’t let up until I do answer your questions.” He fixed a weighted glance on her, but Minerva held her ground.
“No, I won’t, and since you are in no condition to run off, I believe I have you at my mercy.”
He blew out a breathy snort. “I had a secretary, Neville Nottage.” Langley glanced away and took another deep breath before he continued. “He was a third or fourth son, I don’t recall, but he had no prospects, and he hardly made a splash in the diplomatic corps, but he did a remarkably good job at managing my business, though I never would have thought him capable of . . .”
Revenge. Betrayal. Even possibly murder. Minerva’s imagination ran wild. Good heavens, could that dangerous man in the carriage have been this ordinary secretary?
“And then?”
“When I went missing in Paris, I was told he was dead . . .” Langley blew out a breath.
“But he isn’t,” she said with conviction.
“No. It appears that he and Sir Basil in the Foreign Office have been working together for years.” He rubbed his head. “I must have been hit hard, for I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”
But she was ever so glad he was. “They did this to ruin you?”
“No, I think I was merely their means to something else. They needed a scapegoat, someone to point to if they were caught. This is treason we are talking about, Minerva. Something that cannot be taken lightly.”
When he glanced over at her, she could see the pain in his eyes. Nottage’s betrayal. The dangerous straits he was in.
“I’m ever so sorry,” she whispered.
He nodded and glanced away.
Oh, bother. And here she’d thought perhaps she could help, when all she’d done was stir up more painful memories. Glancing at him again, she took his hand in hers and gently pulled it away from his nose. To her relief the bleeding had stopped.
Now if only everything else—whatever madness was circling around him—could be as easily staunched.
Getting another pan of clean, warm water, she knelt down in front of him to wash his legs. Thick, muscled lengths covered in crisp hair. Filling the cloth with soap, she continued to wash him, running the cloth up and down his legs, marveling at the heat of his skin, the way it felt to caress him so . . . wishing she could take him in her arms and do more than just this . . .
And when she ran the cloth up his calf to his thigh, he stopped her, his hand covering hers. “My lady,” he said in voice thick with need.
She glanced up and saw something there in his eyes that tore at her heart even more.
Desire. Painful, aching desire.
This wasn’t seduction, this wasn’t a man trying to charm her, tease her as he had the previous night, but a man who desired to be lost in her arms. Lost from a world closing in around him.
Minerva felt herself unravel. She didn’t know what to do, but like the choice of helping him, cleaning him up, she knew if she failed him, she would never forgive herself.
That and she desired him. Longed for him. She looked into his eyes and once again swore he could see all the way to her soul.
Yet she also saw a dark pain shadowed in his gaze. Could it be that his secrets were so much like hers?
Yet he took her hesitation altogether wrong, and lifted her to her feet. “Go, Minerva. Please. I won’t involve you any further.”
She gazed into his eyes, where the conflict was easy to see.
And he must have known it, for he turned away, catching up the towel and wrapping it around him.
“It is for the best,” he said quietly. “Besides, in a few hours I need to be . . . Well, I need to go . . .”
“The duel with Chudley?” Minerva gaped at him. “Don’t tell me I’ve gone to all this trouble just to see you shot.”
“Minerva, I must. Can’t you see that?”
“No, I cannot.” Vexed and furious—mostly at her own indecision—she picked up the wet clothes and dirty rags and put them in the wash basket.
Silently, she cleaned up, while he wound another towel around his waist. Concealing himself, just as he concealed so much more.
“My lord,” she said, her words coming out in a tumbled rush, “do you wish for someone to confide in? Someone to help you?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, as if surprised to find her still there. “I would ask the same of you, my lady.”
Minerva took a step back. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Do you have anything you wish to tell me? Something that you need assistance with?”
Right now? Hours before his ridiculous duel with Chudley and suddenly he wanted to help her? As if she would even ask, and add to his already obvious problems. Wasn’t that why he’d come to Town without telling his own daughters, if only to avoid involving them? She glanced up at him, biting her lip, then shook her head and went back to tidying the kitchen, if only to avoid going up to her bed.
If only to keep from being alone.
He wouldn’t confide in her, anymore than she would him, because, she mused, they didn’t trust each other enough.
Was that it, or was it as he said, too dangerous to involve her?
Minerva shook her head. She was involved, whether he liked it or not, and she was about to turn around and tell him so, but when she looked up, she found he’d slipped from the kitchen and disappeared up the stairs as silently as a cat.
Leaving her utterly alone.
Langley got up to his room in the attics and cursed himself the minute he closed the door.
What the hell was he thinking? She had been willing and desirable, and he refused her. Rubbing his skull, he realized he’d been hit in the head harder than he thought.
No, it wasn’t that. It was because when he was with Minerva, everything was different.
The lady was so infuriatingly sensible. And capable. And smart. Not some bluestocking—but intelligent—sharp-eyed and capable of thinking quickly.
And she doesn’t trust you, a wry voice teased. Another point in her favor.
That needled him more than he cared to admit.
Minerva didn’t trust him. She wouldn’t confide in him. Wouldn’t ask for his help.
Damn her! If she had any idea of the scrapes and dangers he’d faced, endured . . .
Well, she does now, he realized.
Her fingers had traced the lines on his back. The ones he’d gotten in Abbaye, the prison in Paris where he’d been detained until Napoleon’s defeat.
Why, she’d shivered as she washed them, as if they were still raw and open. But she hadn’t recoiled. Hadn’t stopped and backed away.
She’d finished what had needed to be done and asked no questions. Well, no more than she could resist. Nor had she been prodded to pry when she’d seen the scars on his wrists—the ones he took great pains to keep hidden.
And after years of living a life of lies and deception, he knew exactly why she hadn’t asked.
Because she had a dark secret of her own that kept her from prying into the hearts of others.
No, Minerva Sterling’s secret wasn’t an overdrawn account or an expensive obsession for endless shoes and gowns. And it pained him more than he cared to admit that he was powerless to help her—at least until she trusted him enough.
She trusted you enough to offer herself to you . . .
He made an inelegant snort. Because her aunt had exhorted her to do so to keep him from making his meeting with Chudley. Digging around under his bed, he found the bottle of brandy he’d stolen from Mrs. Hutchinson a few days earlier and took a long pull.
Yes, that was why she’d looked at him that way, as if he were the first man she’d ever desired.
And if he was being honest, the reason he refused her, left her, was because when she’d looked at him with those wide, honest eyes, he knew—knew like he’d never known with any other woman—that they were . . . that she was . . .
Unlike any woman he’d ever met.
Oh, he’d loved Frances all those years ago, but with the wild careless passion of youth. And it had been lost long before it had ever been tested when she’d died in childbirth, leaving him with their infant twin daughters and a brief line of memories.
In all the years since, he’d done naught but imitate that heedless, reckless love, poor imitations all, but it was also all he knew how to do.
All he’d thought himself capable of doing.
He glanced down at himself and realized he’d put on a clean shirt and breeches.
Because he had no intention of going to bed.
Go to her. Tell her. Before tomorrow. Before your entire life unravels.
He left the attic and began the slow descent to her room. The steps creaked beneath his steps, as if echoing his thoughts.
So she will confide in you.
So she’ll trust you.
So you can find your heart.
That thought stayed his progress.
Find his heart? Ridiculous! He simply needed to thank her for her assistance. He continued until he reached her door.
Yes, thank her.
And beg her to reconsider her offer.
The door was cracked open and he went to push it open.
I am not here to seduce the lady. As I told her, I can’t involve her.
But you have . . .
He was about to call to her when he spied her standing before her mirror.
Her brown hair, so staid and ordinary in its tight chignon, now fell in tumbled curls down past her shoulders. She wore only her chemise, which revealed what her sensible gowns hid—a lush and curved figure—round breasts, full hips, the body of a woman who could enflame a man into insensibility.
Then she turned and he spied something that had his lips turning up in amusement.
The Sterling diamonds.
What had she said last night in the carriage?
Oh, yes, now he remembered.
. . . if I am feeling a bit out of sorts, there have been a few times when I’ve worn them . . . just for myself.
And just as he’d suspected, she liked to wear them when she was half dressed. Dangerous minx.
Though nearly naked as she was, she outshone the cold stones like the most precious jewel he’d ever seen.
He slipped into the room and quietly closed the door behind him.
“Minerva?”
She gasped and whirled around, hairbrush in hand, ready to defend herself.
But when she saw it was him, the brush fell from her fingers, landing in a dull thud on the carpet.
“I . . . I . . . I . . .” she stammered.
They stood there for a moment, both unwilling to speak. The desire in her eyes, that aching need, was so clear. He should say something, he had to tell her . . .
“I came to thank you,” he whispered. “Properly.”
She shook her head. “A proper thank you?” Slowly, she crossed the room and reached up to cup his battered face. “Langley, surely you’ve come here for more than that.”