When you fall in love, it is not with a name or a title or a fortune (though all those points are indispensable) but with the heart that beats inside.
Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Lucia
Down the block on Brook Street, a carriage sat in the shadows between the gas lamps. As the occupants watched Adlington hurry down the steps and set off at a fast clip, the lady’s brow furrowed.
“There is something odd going on there,” the woman said to the man sitting beside her.
“There is always something odd going on in that house,” he advised.
The lady nodded in agreement. “This is more than my father being back in Town, as Lady Finch’s letter said.” She started to climb down the steps, but her companion stopped her. “I am going to get to the bottom of this,” she said over her shoulder.
“Do you think you should go alone? From what you’ve told me about your Nanny Helga—”
She smiled at her husband. “I would love you to come with me, but you will make a dreadful racket. I can slip in and out without a sound.”
There was no arguing that. The lady was as light-footed as a cat. Just like her father. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to stay close just in case.
Because oftentimes where the former Felicity Langley dared tread, not even angels would venture.
“Wish me luck,” Minerva whispered as the set came close to ending.
“Luck,” Elinor whispered back.
“There is no need,” Lucy said, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “We will be right behind you.”
And so Minerva crossed the room and made for the stairs as nonchalantly as she could.
“She truly wears that dress well,” Lucy remarked.
Elinor tipped her head and studied her. “I daresay she does,” she agreed.
“What is this?” Both women jumped at the question that rose up behind them.
“I believe it is our wives, deep in their plots,” a second man replied.
Lucy and Elinor exchanged glances as first Parkerton, who took his wife’s hand, and then the Earl of Clifton caught Lucy in his grasp.
“What are you doing?” Lucy demanded as she struggled to get free of her husband.
“Asking you to dance,” he replied, pulling her out to the floor.
“But I am not in the mood,” she told him, glancing over at Elinor, who was in much the same straits.
“Truly, Parkerton, I have a matter to attend to,” she was saying.
“Foolishness,” he told his duchess. “Our staff is the finest in London. They will see to whatever needs to be done.”
“Including seeing Minerva safely out of harm’s way,” Clifton advised them.
Lucy’s gaze flew up to meet her husband’s.
“Yes, we know,” he said, for he knew her well enough to know she would never confess her machinations, not in a thousand years. “And if you think you are going up there, just the two of you, to spring your trap on Sir Basil, you’ve both gone mad.”
“But Minerva can’t do this alone,” Elinor protested.
“She isn’t going to,” Clifton assured them. “By now Parkerton’s brother Jack and Lord Langley are in place and ready to put an end to all this.”
“Helga, for the last time, I didn’t steal your jewels,” Langley told her.
From her post in the doorway, she scoffed at him. “Bah, schatzi, what makes you think I will believe your lies a second time?”
He groaned and rubbed his forehead, and in that moment he could have sworn he heard someone coming up the stairs.
Someone with the stealth of an agent. Friend or foe, it mattered not, for all he needed was to have Helga distracted for enough time to gain possession of her pistol.
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.
When 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.”
If 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?”
The 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.”
“Whatever 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.
“They’ve got a king’s ransom in jewels stashed away,” Minerva was saying. “These diamonds of mine are nothing compared to what they have.”
“Is that true?” Adlington asked the pair, his pistol wavering between Sir George and Nottage.
“Aye, but it wasn’t my idea—it was his,” Sir Basil said, rising from his chair and taking a step away from Nottage. “It was all his idea. Stealing the jewels, shipping them to London. I merely used my contact in Strout’s office to make sure the jewels were removed before the crates were sent on to Langley’s house in the country. I did nothing else.”
“Nothing else?” Nottage scoffed. “You set Langley up to be arrested, you planted information in the reports that made him out to be a traitor, all so you could get him attained for treason and get his house and title, you cit bastard.”
“And my brother calls me a disgrace,” Jack muttered.
Sir Basil’s face grew bright red with rage. “It was all him,” he said, pointing at Nottage. “He forced me, he—”
Nottage moved so quickly, it was like a flash of lightning. He shoved Minerva into Adlington’s path then reached inside his coat, pulled out a pistol and shot Sir Basil, the man falling back in the chair. Then he turned to flee out the balcony, but what he met with was the full force of his former mentor, who tackled a shocked Nottage to the floor.
Langley had the advantage of surprise, and before the man could raise a hand, the baron planted a solid, well-aimed facer—full of every bit of anger and fury he possessed—knocking his former secretary out cold.
Meanwhile, Clifton and Parkerton broke through from the hall, but not before Minerva twisted in Adlington’s grasp and faced her old suitor.
“I have been waiting a long time to do this,” she said.
And then she brought her knee up as hard as she could and nailed him squarely in what she considered the area that had guided the wretched man all his adult life.
Gerald’s mouth opened in a wide O before he toppled over.
She kicked the gun out of his hand, and would have kicked him one more time for good measure if Langley hadn’t pulled her back.
“It is over,” he told her, cradling her close. “All over.”
But it wasn’t.
For having seen the writing on the wall, Gerald made good his threats.
“She’s not Lady Standon. She’s naught but Maggie Owens, the old earl’s bastard. The man married her to Sterling instead of his own daughter. Her mother was the village whore. She’s not a lady. She’s nothing but an imposter.”
But if he thought he was going to be rewarded for sharing the truth, what he got was a gag over his mouth and his arms bound, and was left in a chair while the rest of the mess was sorted out.
Still, the damage was done, and Minerva felt the weight of all the eyes on her and the whispered speculation that now encircled her.
By morning she would be completely ruined.
Lucy came over and wrapped her arm around her friend, and then later, when it was time to move Sir Basil’s body, Clifton gathered them both up and took Minerva home, while Langley stayed behind.
The entire carriage ride no one said a word, and the heavy silence inside it weighed on Minerva as much as her broken heart did.
Why would Langley ever return to her now?
They found Mrs. Hutchinson passed out in Minerva’s room and the margravine missing.
Minerva took one glance at the empty wineglass and realized that her bosky housekeeper had drunk the wine intended for Langley.
“Serves her right,” Lucy said as she directed Clifton to return to Parkerton House with the news of the missing margravine, while she stayed with her friend.
Minerva collapsed onto the bed and cried as Lucy sat beside her and waited for the flood of tears to subside.
And when they did, Minerva asked, “Can you forgive me?”
Lucy blinked. “Whatever for?”
“For not being who I am supposed to be? For being so awful to you for all those years, acting like I was an earl’s daughter and you were—”
Staring across at her, Lucy pressed her lips together and then laughed aloud. “Good God, Minerva! Is that what’s bothering you?” She laughed again and then pulled her into a bear hug. “You are exactly who you are supposed to be, the most courageous and intelligent woman I have ever met. I am honored to have you as my friend. Best we leave the past behind us, for I had my fair share in our previous disagreements.”
Minerva wiped at the tears on her face. “Yes, I suppose you did.”
“And I’ll always be your friend, unless you start insisting that I not eavesdrop, like Elinor is always prattling on about.”
Her heart close to breaking, Minerva hugged her dear friend. “Oh, Lucy! I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the Duchess of Hollindrake for putting us all together.”
“Are you just saying that so I’ll stand by your side when she rings a peal over you for hiding her diamonds?”
They both laughed, and for a time they sat together, Minerva relating the events that led to her marriage—a story she had never told any other living soul—and Lucy, good friend that she was, listening.
Then Clifton returned to fetch his wife, but to Minerva’s pain, he had not come with Langley.
With nothing better to do, she sought her bed and lay there for some time, staring up at the painting of the crooked folly until she drifted off to sleep.
How long she slept, she knew not, but she was awakened when her window sash creaked open.
She sat bolt upright in bed and gaped as Lord Langley came climbing in her window.
“Ho, there, minx. Sorry to wake you up,” he said, leaning over and warming his hands at the fireplace grate. “The fellow you hired did an excellent job of repairing the drainpipe.”
“Whatever are you doing here?” she asked, feeling suddenly shy. “And whyever did you climb up the drainpipe?”
He grinned. “Because I still can.” He let out a big sigh. “You will be pleased to know that Nottage confessed to everything, but of course blamed it all on Sir Basil. Your excellent sleuthing and powers of deduction made it quite easy to lay all the evidence out to the Prime Minister—ah, it is good to have an old friend in high places—that, and the margravine arrived, with Brigid and Lucia in tow, and Lucia identified Lady Brownett’s rubies as the Borgia stones. Lady Brownett kicked up quite a fuss to be relieved of her jewels, and if old Brownie hadn’t been dead already, I think the old girl would have done him in herself.”
He glanced around the room and spotted the tray left over from earlier, picking up a piece of bread and cheese and munching happily. “Oh, I daresay I am famished.”
“So is it all over?” she asked.
He nodded. “I am still under attainder for the time being—that demmed Sir Basil had it filed earlier today. But no matter, I will be cleared before long. The Prime Minister has promised to gain me a king’s pardon, perhaps even an elevation—though not for a few years. We’ll have to wait for the scandal to die down a bit. Still, I have you to thank for all of it.”
Minerva couldn’t find the words to say anything, for she was still in shock that he was here. With her.
Dear God. Had he just said “we”?
And before she could manage to find the nerve to ask what he meant, he continued, “And you will never believe this, the margravine would only sign her statement if she could take Adlington with her when she left London. She wouldn’t go without him, and he thinks he’s found his boon.” Langley shuddered. “Poor stupid fellow. Well, he’ll learn soon enough when he finds himself manacled to her bed.” He glanced over at her, “Not that I was ever—”
Minerva waved her hand at him, for clearly she’d heard enough. Besides, this was all great news—save perhaps the part about the margravine and Adlington—and it was only after a deep breath and when he paused long enough for her to find her wherewithal that she was able to ask, “Langley, whatever are you doing here?”
“Where else would I go?” He shrugged off his jacket and sat down on the edge of the bed to tug off his boots.
“But you know the truth now,” she persisted. “You know who I am, and yet you are still here.”
He paused for a long moment, and then glanced over at her, “I love you, Minerva. You. Not your name. Not who Gerald Adlington thinks you are. I love you.” With that said, he simply went back to pulling off his boots.
Minerva shivered. Had she truly heard him correctly? He loved her? “But I am not Lady Standon.”
“Of course you are. It matters not who you were before you married Philip Sterling. But once you married him, you became his marchioness. For better or worse. Though not for much longer,” he told her, his eyes alight with a passionate mischief. “I think you will make a much better baroness.” He reached out and pulled her close.
Minerva pushed him back. “Langley! I am not a lady. I am not even a proper Lady Standon.”
“And I am still being examined for treason,” he teased back. “Simply put, we make an excellent pair. I think we should be married immediately and capitalize on our notoriety.”
“Married?” Minerva couldn’t believe her ears. Or her heart—for it hammered in her chest with a wild cadence. He truly wanted to marry her.
She gazed into his eyes and found nothing but serious intent mirrored there. No teasing, no mischief, just a burning passion for her and her alone.
“You’ve loved princesses, and duchesses, and real ladies. Whyever would you want me?”
He huffed a sigh and sat up. “First of all, you are decidedly wrong about all of that. I never loved any of them. I didn’t know what it meant to love until I met you.”
“But I am not a lady,” she told him.
“That is where you are wrong,” he said, leaning over and searching in the drawer of the nightstand. He pulled out a velvet pouch and drew out of it a gorgeous emerald necklace.
Silently, he put it around her neck, then sat back and admired his handiwork. “I knew emeralds would suit you much better than diamonds.”
Minerva’s fingers went to the stones and then she looked up at him. “Where did these come from?”
“Langley House,” he told her. “I fetched them while you and Mrs. Harrow were admiring her garden. I knew then that I would need them.”
Minerva’s brow furrowed. “Then? Why that was before we’d—” She came to a stop and blushed. Before they’d made love.
“Not for me,” he told her. “I might not have been able to say it, but I knew then I loved you and that our betrothal was not in vain.” He paused and looked at her. “Will you have me, my dearest, beloved Minerva Sterling?”
And even before she could say yes, he caught her in his arms and began to make love to her.
And very soon she was saying “Yes!”
Several times over.