Lord Langley is every bit a scoundrel as we have long suspected. I was all aswoon when I met him at Lady Standon’s this afternoon. He is truly the wickedest man alive.
However will such a dull lady like Minerva Sterling ever keep him entertained now that they are engaged? Yes, my dear Lady Finch, they are betrothed. Can you imagine what the Duchess of Hollindrake will say when she discovers . . .
An excerpt from a letter by Lady Ratcliffe to Lady Finch
“So you decided not to flee,” Langley said as he and Thomas-William made their way across London to meet with a possible contact from inside the Foreign Office.
The man shrugged, for he didn’t like to speak much. Silences were Thomas-William’s strength.
“Let me guess,” Langley said, sitting back in the seat of the hackney. “You realized that if you went back to Lucy and told her you weren’t going to stay with Lady Standon, you’d have to admit that you were frightened off by a mere houseful of women.”
The man blew out a disgruntled breath and crossed his arms over his chest, staring out the window. “Seems you aren’t.”
Langley grinned at him. “My stock and trade.”
The man’s level gaze met his. “And marriage? To that one?”
Lady Standon. “Oh, so you heard about that.”
He nodded curtly.
“Never fear. The lady and I have an agreement. Will come to naught.”
Thomas-William’s brows rose. “Does that aunt of hers share in your agreement?”
“Who? Lady Chudley?”
The man shuddered. “Aye, that one. Throw off her niece and she’ll have your head.”
“I don’t intend to cry off in some havey-cavey manner.” He paused for a moment, thinking of Lady Standon as she’d come in from the garden—shaken and frightened. No, the last thing he wanted to do was add to whatever was troubling the lady. “Besides, I can handle the likes of Lady Chudley. It isn’t like one wouldn’t see, or rather hear, her coming.”
At this, Thomas-William laughed a bit, but his humor didn’t last long. “Yes, but that won’t save you from Miss Lucy. If you break Lady Standon’s heart, Miss Lucy will see you finished.” He paused for a moment. “And you won’t see her coming.”
No, he wouldn’t. Langley had the good sense not to take Thomas-William’s warning lightly, for it was no laughing matter. As good as he was, there wasn’t a man in the Foreign Office who hadn’t been trained at the Ellyson house who didn’t hold a silent terror of the man’s daughter in his heart.
“Have no fear for Lady Standon,” he told his friend. “She is far too sensible to fall for my charms.”
The carriage pulled to a stop and Thomas-William nodded toward the door.
By habit, Langley took a quick, assessing glance out the window, to gauge the surroundings of where he was about to alight. And what he saw did little to raise his spirits. “Here?”
Thomas-William smiled. And since he was about the only man in London who Langley trusted, he shoved open the door and stepped out, realizing at once that they were in one of the more infamous spots in the city. For behind him had once stood a great tower and clock to mark where seven streets came together, but was now no more than a warren for thieves. Even in broad daylight the place had a murky, dark sort of air about it.
And more notably, it was the perfect place for a fellow to be murdered and no trace left of him. And conveniently, no witnesses.
“Seven Dials?” he asked, less as a question and more as a wry remark to his companion.
“My contact thought it best.”
Apparently their driver didn’t, for the hackney—who had insisted Thomas-William pay him up front for such an address—now drove off at a mad pace.
“Your contact?” Langley said, glancing around at the milling crowd, trying to spot who this might be.
And then came darting out of the shadows a bunch of street urchins, circling like Gypsies and picking at his coat, turning him about, calling out to each other and jeering at him.
“Hey, there!” Langley protested. “That is my watch . . . and my wallet. And I do say, that was my hat.” He tried to snatch back his beaver—he’d had that made in Paris—but the little dodger was too fast, toothlessly grinning as he danced out of reach. “A little help, Thomas-William?”
The other man just stood on the curb and laughed.
By the time the little rutters stopped, he’d been picked clean and stood wavering in the muck, dizzy and dazed. When his eyes finally focused, he found Thomas-William had gained a companion, a fellow with rough breeches, a plain shirt and jacket, and a pair of solid boots.
Who was this? Their keeper come to finish the task?
And so it was, in a sense. For the man—make that a young man, Langley realized when the fellow tipped back the wide brim of his hat—shoved out his hand. “I am Lord Andrew Stowe, in His Majesty’s service. My fellow agents and I are honored to be of assistance to you.”
By the time Minerva reached the sanctuary of her room, her accounts were all but forgotten.
“Men!” she muttered as she stormed inside and shoved her door shut behind her—at least as far as it would close with the damaged hinges. “Blast them all.”
Her father . . . Gerald Adlington . . . the Duke of Hollindrake . . . Thomas-William . . . and . . . and . . .
Her list came to a fumbling halt as she spied a black wool jacket folded neatly on the corner of her bed.
And most of all, Lord Langley, she finished, stomping across the room and sweeping the man’s forgotten jacket off the bed and onto the floor.
She was of half a mind to toss it out the window, which is what she should have done to the owner, when she glanced down at the offensive bit of clothing that had contributed to her current ill luck.
But instead of plucking it up and sending it aloft out the window, she paused, for Langley’s jacket had fallen open when she’d pushed it to the floor, and there inside the coat peeked an odd slit in the lining.
As if for a pocket or a place to conceal something one didn’t want easily discovered.
No, you shan’t, she advised herself. Prying into other’s secrets was more Lucy’s domain, not hers, she reasoned.
Then again . . .
Glancing around—not that she needed to, for she was utterly alone, but still, she wasn’t inclined to snooping—she eased off the bed and sat down beside the jacket, sliding her hand inside the opening and pulling out a slim packet wrapped in a handkerchief with the initial T, and adorned with tiny flowers done in simple embroidery in one corner.
T. Who might this be, my lord? Minerva mused. A former lover? A mistress? An admirer? Someone so important that you carried this for some time, if the worn little bit of linen is any indication. Carefully, she unfolded the small handkerchief and found inside a bundle of letters, tied in a pale blue ribbon.
Yet another mystery, she realized, for the frayed ribbon barely held the letters together, having obviously been tied and untied too many times to count. The careworn corners and edges of the yellowed stationery also spoke of having been read and reread over and over again.
Whatever these letters contained, they were precious beyond gems and gold to Lord Langley, for she knew without a doubt they had traveled with him for years and he kept them as it were, in the pocket over his chest, over his heart.
Minerva bit her bottom lip and considered the letters she held, and what could be inside them.
And while her thoughts ran along the lines of Langley’s rakish reputation, when she turned the packet over, she found she could easily discern the contents of the bottom letter and the mysterious T who held such a special place in Langley’s affections.
Dear Papa,
Felicity says I mustn’t write to you on this matter, but I beg you to come back to England and take us out of Miss Emery’s school. She says you cannot come home until you have cleared your name, but it is ever so horrid here without you . . .
Minerva’s chest tightened with a sharp pang. For here she’d considered the worst about the man, instead of suspecting where his true regard lay. How hard it was to consider that Langley—the Lord Langley of mistresses and infamous affairs, of infamy too scandalous to share—held such a tender regard that he carried these letters in secret.
Not mementos from some tryst, or a painted Incognita with an odd foreign title and kohled eyes, but lovingly written pleas from his “T.” As in Thalia Langley. His daughter. Felicity Langley’s twin.
She needn’t read any further, but sat for some time holding the packet in her hands, Thalia’s words echoing in her thoughts.
. . . until you have cleared your name . . .
The very notion sent a shiver through her, for Minerva realized that Lord Langley hadn’t come back to merely set Society on its ear, but to finish something very dangerous—for certainly he hadn’t wanted his daughters involved in whatever havey-cavey business had drawn him away from England. Away from them.
No, he’d left them at Miss Emery’s to clear not only his name, but theirs as well, and he most decidedly hadn’t wanted them mixed up in it.
Still, that didn’t calm her nerves or change her opinion of the man, for Minerva knew without a doubt that now she was in middle of his troubles.
Whether she liked it or not.
Sometime later Agnes came in clucking “that she wasn’t ready.”
Minerva glanced up from where she still sat on the floor. Ready for what?
Then she realized it was Tuesday and her afternoon in.
Which meant for the next few hours she had to sit through the idle chatter and inane compliments of fortune hunters and rakes, who, having heard that the Earl of Clifton had married Lucy and the Duke of Parkerton had carried away Elinor after a whirlwind courtship, were now dropping by to see what all the fuss over the Standon widows might be about.
And stacked up like well-aged firewood besides these ne’er-do-wells would be the usual assortment of widowers looking for a second or—horrors upon horrors—a third or fourth wife. These codgers came with the compliments of Aunt Bedelia, who had assured them that her dearest niece was the choicest pick of the three dowagers.
But even from the second landing she knew today was different. For it was still a good half an hour before she was known to be “at home,” and already there was a cacophony of voices coming from the downstairs parlor.
Female voices. A gaggle of clucking and pecking like a henhouse stuffed to the rafters with chatty birds.
“But darling, she has no joie de vivre! No style! He will be bored before the first month is out,” Nanny Tasha was saying.
“Yes, yes! Exactly! He is a man of the Continent. Of the world,” Nanny Lucia agreed. “He will never marry her, for he will be done with her in . . . in . . . oh, how you English say ‘due’ . . . ‘due’ . . .”
“Deux semaines,” Tasha supplied in French.
“A fortnight, dear,” Aunt Bedelia supplied. “We call it a fortnight.”
How kind of you to help, Auntie, Minerva mused from her spot on the stairs.
“Yes! A fortnight,” the margravine chimed in. “If that.”
“I think my niece will surprise you.” Aunt Bedelia sounded supremely confident.
There was a tap on her shoulders and Minerva nearly leapt out of her gown in shock to be caught eavesdropping. “Jamilla!” she exclaimed.
For indeed, here was yet another of Lord Langley’s mistresses, Princess Jamilla Kounellas, who had come to London nearly a year earlier, and since then had lived in and out of the house here on Brook Street and set the London ton on their collective ears with her outrageous manners and fashions.
But Minerva had always found Nanny Jamilla rather a delight, for the lady always spoke her mind.
“I cannot believe Langley will do this! Not with her!” complained Tasha from inside the parlor.
Jamilla’s brows perked at the distinct accent. “That Russian she-wolf has taken over my room!” she complained, nodding toward the parlor and looking quite put out. “Bah! I should have known that once it got nosed about the Continent that Langley was alive they’d show up.”
Minerva stilled and then glanced over her shoulder at the other woman. “You knew he was alive?”
Her countenance brightened. “Yes, of course. It was why I came to this dreadful London last year. To tell my dear girls that I’d been having an impossible time getting their father out of prison—”
Minerva took a step back. “Lord Langley was in prison?”
Jamilla’s hand fluttered at the question. “But of course. Where else would he have been all this time?”
Where indeed? Minerva thought, a bit taken aback. Still . . .
“You knew Lord Langley was alive and you kept it a secret?” she asked, honestly quite amazed, for Jamilla was hardly known for her discretion.
“But of course, though I thought I had been more discreet in my bribes to get him out,” she said, “for this is what I feared.” Again she glanced down the stairs and shook her head, like one might upon finding a pack of mongrels had wandered in from the streets. “Such awful creatures! And I fear, my dear, impossible to be rid of.”
Rather like you, Minerva mused, thinking of all the ways the Duchess of Hollindrake had tried—most unsuccessfully—to send Jamilla packing back to Paris. But now she understood a little more about why the former nanny had stayed.
“You’ve been waiting for him to come back,” Minerva said, not so much a question as a statement.
“Once, perhaps,” Jamilla admitted, her gaze still fixed down the stairs, “but no longer. He is in my past, and hardly rich enough to afford my tastes. No, for my darling girls I stayed, to see them reunited with their father, and once Langley has straightened out this mess,” again her hand fluttered, but this time toward the parlor, “I can move on.”
Mess was exactly the word Minerva would use to describe the collection in her salon.
From down below, a strident declaration echoed upward. “But to marry her? Acch! It is dreadful!” the margravine was saying. “Why, my schatzi hardly knows her, and if he truly did know her—” The lady made a rude sort of noise, and Minerva could almost see the dismissive wave of her beringed fingers. “She will not be able to keep him. How can one such as she?”
“Married?” Jamilla met Minerva’s gaze. “Langley is to marry? What utter nonsense is that idiot woman going on about?”
“Lord Langley is engaged,” Minerva supplied.
Now it was Jamilla’s turn to snort. “Langley get married? He isn’t the sort. Not unless he was trapped into it by some unscrupulous, ridiculous creature of questionable—”
“He’s engaged to me,” Minerva snapped. “Langley is betrothed to me.”
Jamilla paused, then smiled widely. “La! Lady Standon, who knew you could jest so!”
“But I am not joking,” Minerva told her.
“Est-ce vrai?” she asked, reverting to her native French, as she did when she became overcome.
“Yes.”
Jamilla glanced toward the parlor. “Langley must have his reasons,” she said under her breath. Then she brightened and smiled at Minerva. “And the others, they don’t like this?”
“Not in the least.”
The former nanny lit up. “Oh, darling, how wonderful for you.” She glanced over Minerva from the top of her brown hair tucked into a plain chignon, down her sensible day gown, to the plain slippers on her feet. “But of course they are right,” she said. “However will you keep him?”
Langley knew immediately he’d found an ally in Lord Andrew Stowe.
Though young, impossibly so, most likely no more than twenty, Lord Andrew was the last agent Ellyson had trained before the man had died five years earlier. And being a Stowe meant Lord Andrew came from a long line of men who’d served their kings and queens loyally. The third son of the Marquess of Drayton, he was not yet at his full height, but he was a commanding sort even in his low attire.
Having given Langley a hearty handshake, Lord Andrew invited him to come have a drink, and off they went into the bowels of Seven Dials, to the rooms where the young man lived, with the line of guttersnipes bringing up their rear.
That is, after Lord Andrew had admonished the little pack of thieves to give Lord Langley back his belongings.
“Unfortunately there were those in the Foreign Office who thought me too young and too much of a liability to send over to the Continent when I finished with Ellyson,” the young man said, as he gestured for Langley and Thomas-William to sit at the table in the middle of the large room. He shrugged as he put a decanter and glasses down for them and poured drinks for the men.
“Was your hair,” Thomas-William laughed.
Lord Andrew raked a hand through his dark auburn locks. “I suppose I do look rather a bit too English.” The young man laughed. “Kept me here. Much to my mother’s relief, though not so much to mine. Then after a few years chafing about Whitehall—”
“Making a pest of yourself,” Thomas-William noted.
The young man grinned. “Yes, a bit, I suppose. But it did get me this assignment. Or got me demoted, as some might aver.” He waved his hand at his large apartment, which looked like a replica of George Ellyson’s map room in Hampstead Heath—with the large table in the middle, books overflowing their shelves, and collections of oddities and bits of aristocratic comforts filling the room—a globe, a tusk from something mounted on the wall, a few etchings and paintings. Comfortable furniture filled every corner and a good, thick carpet kept out the chill of the floorboards.
“And that assignment is?” Langley asked, glancing around, eyeing particularly their audience, the seven youngsters all perched about the room.
“Training my crew for the work ahead,” Lord Andrew said, sending a wink to one of the lads. “Now that you’ve all gotten a very good look at Lord Langley, upstairs with you and see to your lessons. I do believe Mr. Crunkshaft is waiting.” There were good-hearted groans and muttered complaints, but the lot of them made their way to a narrow set of stairs in the back of the room. “And Goldy, mind you, I won’t have you stealing poor Crunkshaft’s pocket watch again and resetting it so classes end early.” The young imp grinned, a toothless smile glowing back in the shadows. “Oh, and good work this morning, the entire lot of you! I’m quite proud.”
They all trooped up the stairs and then were heard tromping across the floor overhead.
Langley glanced back as the last of them disappeared into the attic. “A crew of street children?”
Lord Andrew grinned. “Yes. And an excellent lot they are. You’ll see—they are going to be your guardians, your watchdogs, for the next few weeks until we get this all sorted out.”
“My what?” he stammered.
Lord Andrew glanced over at Thomas-William. “Didn’t you explain this to him?”
“Thought it best coming from you.”
“Left me to the dirty work,” Lord Andrew teased back.
The other man shrugged.
“Goldy and her companions are going to fan out around Brook Street or wherever you go, and make sure no one is lurking about. No one will give them a second glance. Then, if they notice anything odd or suspicious, they’ll be able to give you fair warning.”
Langley did a second take at the attic stairs. “That little bit of baggage was a girl?”
“Oh, aye. Actually there are three of them in the lot. Three girls, four boys. But the girls dress like boys—keeps them safer, not that I worry about Goldy much. She’s never without a knife, and rumor around the Dials is that her father was the finest miller around.”
The baron glanced over at the stairs again, for he knew in the cant of the Dials what a “miller” was: a murderer. That aside, it was a ridiculous notion. To keep him safe by using children.
Children capable of slitting throats . . .
Still, he met Thomas-William’s dark gaze with the question in his own. Are you certain of this?
The large man just sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his barrel of a chest, looking quite content.
“Now, my lord, how can I help you?” Lord Andrew said, settling into his seat and looking far more assured of himself than a twenty-year-old lad should.
After taking a deep breath, and remembering this was—as Thomas-William had assured him on the ride over—his best chance at clearing his name, he continued, “I need to get into the Foreign Office, specifically into the intelligence files from Paris in the months before I was attacked.”
“Get into the Foreign Office files?” Lord Andrew let out a low whistle. “It would be madness to attempt.”
Thomas-William added a snort of agreement.
But Langley was undeterred. “But I must, it is the only way.”
Lord Andrew shook his head. “Not always. George always said to start at the beginning: So what do you remember of Paris, sir—that is before we decide to get ourselves killed by making a suicide run into Brownie’s files.”
The baron rubbed the side of his head—the one that had been struck that fateful night. It always ached when he tried to force up the memories. And as always, there was nothing much to remember. Just flashes of things—the ripe stench of the alleyway, the chill of the cobblestones beneath his fingers, and voices, a babble of voices with not a single word that could be discerned.
Closing his eyes, he tried to bear the pain of it and pull something up, anything that would help.
“He doesn’t,” Thomas-William said. “He can’t recall a thing.”
Lord Andrew pushed back from the table and sighed. “Would be helpful, but just the same, perhaps we can sort out some other clues.”
Langley wished he shared the young man’s optimism, for right now his head rang like the bells of St. Paul’s, driving out any coherent thought.
“How did you make your reports?” Lord Andrew asked.
“I was known in diplomatic circles as an art collector with very little taste—an easy mark, so to say. I’d buy horrid counterfeits, the sort only the most ignorant rube or mushroom would own and send them back to England via Strout who would forward them to Langley House for storage.”
“And with them, your reports,” Lord Andrew finished.
“Yes, exactly. Inside sculptures, behind paintings. Pieces of work so worthless no one would bother stealing them—”
“A paum,” Lord Andrew said. “Like a shell game.”
“Exactly,” Lord Langley said. “But I would address the box slightly differently if it needed closer examination, so to say, and my tenant, Mr. Harrow, would forward that collection on to George so he could gain the reports.”
“Did this Harrow know about George?” Lord Andrew asked.
Langley shook his head. “No. All Harrow knew was that George Ellyson was a fellow collector.”
“What was the last thing you remember sending?” Lord Andrew asked.
Langley shook his head. “That’s just it. I don’t recall what last I sent.”
“Then perhaps that is the best place to start—discovering what last you sent,” the young agent said.
By God, he was right. Langley had all but forgotten about his shipments. Could it be that he had sent one just before he’d been attacked?
“Then once we find that, we can go about confronting old Brownie,” Lord Andrew was saying.
Harrumph, Thomas-William snorted.
“What’s this?” Lord Andrew said, sitting up straight.
“I’ve already met with Brownie—“
Thomas-William shook his head.
“Yes, well, I rather jumped into his carriage last night,” Langley corrected. “And shoved a pistol up his nose and demanded answers.”
Lord Andrew laughed. “Good God, you don’t know how many times I’ve longed to do just that. Not that I imagine he was all that forthcoming even with your pops in his face. Surprising bit of bottom for such a low fellow.”
Langley nodded in agreement. All too true. Brownie had surprised him, for he thought that faced with his own mortality, the man would have given over everything he knew.
Which only meant the man was in deep. And like Lord Andrew said, had enough courage to protect himself.
“I thought I might startle him into giving me what I want, at the very least rattle his cage a bit.” Langley thought of Brownie’s shock when he’d plucked off his scarf and the other man realized the baron wasn’t dead.
“A little pressure to put him off his game,” Lord Andrew said. “I can see you don’t like it, Thomas-William.”
“Get us all killed, going out in the open,” the man said. “Not the way it should be done.”
“Well, Sir Basil will be more dangerous now that he’s been forewarned,” Lord Andrew agreed, “but he will also be more likely to make a mistake in his haste to finish you off.”
“Exactly,” Langley said. “I intend to keep him on his toes. Watch him. Shake him up a bit.”
“Get yourself killed,” Thomas-William grumbled.
“That is where my crew can help,” Lord Andrew said.
“What I need is to get into his files,” Langley told the younger man, getting straight to the point.
The young agent shook his head and let out a low whistle. “Nosing about those files is what got me sent here to the Dials. You’re right to suspect Brownie. Odd bits of business going on around the office, and he’s at the center of all of it.”
Cupping his glass in his hand, Langley stared down at the amber liquid inside. “What exactly?”
Lord Andrew lowered his voice. “Rumors that you and Ellyson were in league with the French to damage English relations. Sealed reports and shipments with your name and Ellyson’s name attached—all of which went directly to Brownie or through Nottage and then were hushed up and buried who-knows-where—”
“Nottage?” Langley said, glancing up. “As in Neville Nottage? My secretary?”
“Yes, the two of them were as thick as thieves after you were reported missing, and then—” Lord Andrew began.
“What do you mean after I went missing?” Langley said, straightening in his chair, a rare shiver running down his spine. “Nottage died in Paris. He was killed in the same alleyway where I was attacked.”
Thomas-William and the younger man exchanged puzzled glances.
“Nottage isn’t dead,” Lord Andrew told him.
Langley shook his head. “He’s dead, I had it from the prison guard.”
Again Lord Andrew glanced at Thomas-William and then back at Langley. “Then you have been misled. Nottage is the one who came back to England with the reports of your demise.”
Langley tried to take it all in. “Are you telling me that Neville Nottage is alive?”
“Yes,” Lord Andrew said with a bit of a huff. “Where there should have been a formal investigation into what happened to you, there wasn’t, just a lot of rumors floating around about your loyalties, the secret reports and shipments, like I said, and then all of a sudden Brownie is elevated to a knighthood, and Nottage inherits a small fortune from some distant uncle, and both of them are living in the clover.”
“Nottage.” Langley muttered the man’s name like a curse. Here he had trusted the man for over a decade, mourned his death, and now the baron feared his all-too-capable secretary had taken all those years of experience in his shadow and put them to some devilish use.
This put an entirely new light on his troubles.
Lord Andrew glanced over at him and then continued, “I must say, Brownie’s sudden elevation was odd enough, but when Sir Basil moved into that fancy house of his, his wife started looking like one of my father’s mistresses, all covered in rubies and such, well it was just too much to ignore. So I began to ask myself, how the devil could he afford it all? It stank of something buried much deeper.”
Yes, indeed, Langley pondered silently, as he let the young man continue.
“And then there were the implications that George Ellyson hadn’t been entirely loyal.” Lord Andrew’s brow furrowed. “The man was dead, and I wasn’t going to see his name sullied. He was more of a father to me than my own. At the very least he spoke to me, which to this day mine can barely manage. Doesn’t approve and all.”
Glancing over at the young man, Langley nodded. “Yes, I know how that goes.”
“Well, I wasn’t about to let George Ellyson’s name be tarred with a traitor’s brush, so I began poking about. Asking too many questions,” Lord Andrew grinned, “which old Brownie didn’t like. He had me sent here. Probably assumed I’d get myself killed inside a sennight, living in the Dials and all. Be out of his hair, with the minimum of paperwork.”
Thomas-William snorted.
“Exactly,” Lord Andrew agreed. “Which is why I propose that we eliminate you, Lord Langley.”
Langley blinked and then cocked a brow at the impertinent young man. “Excuse me?”
“I think we could lure Brownie out into the open, my lord, if you were to stick your spoon in the wall.”
“You want me dead?” Langley asked, glancing over at Thomas-William.
And demmit if the man wasn’t grinning at the idea.
“Exactly,” Lord Andrew said enthusiastically. A little too enthusiastically. “And I know just how to do it.”
Minerva, having ignored Jamilla’s assessment of her wardrobe choice for her afternoon in, had gone downstairs and taken her seat.
And while the nannies gathered there—Lucia, Tasha, and Helga—all smiled at her and greeted her kindly, it was akin to watching an entire nest of vipers coiling around her, just looking for a chance to strike.
Aunt Bedelia, on the other hand, appeared in rare spirits, the news of her niece’s engagement like a magic tonic. The lady bloomed as if the malice and venom around her was naught but posies and sunshine. “Minerva, my dear girl, there you are! And on this very important afternoon. I feared you were going to hide upstairs.”
“Whyever would I do that?” she asked, having settled herself into her chair.
“Well, because you know it will be quite the crush this afternoon.” Having said that, Aunt Bedelia busied herself with the tea tray, rearranging the cups and saucers and looking anywhere but at her niece.
Knowing her aunt as she did, Minerva was immediately suspicious. “What have you done?”
“I might have mentioned to a few close friends—”
“Mentioned what?” she blurted out. For Aunt Bedelia could meander around a point endlessly if she wanted to avoid a subject.
The lady took a deep breath and sighed. “Why, your engagement to Lord Langley, of course!”
Minerva groaned. It was her worst fear being realized. “You didn’t have to say it was him.”
“Well, goodness heavens! How could I not mention Lord Langley when I spoke of your being engaged?”
Sinking into her spot on the settee, Minerva closed her eyes, her fingers pressed to her temple. Usually she had the makings of a megrim at the conclusion of her afternoon in, not before the first guest had arrived.
“You look distressed, Lady Standon,” Nanny Lucia commented, looking anything but a nanny in her bright yellow-orange gown that was cut enticingly low. “I would think that the very mention of your marriage to Lord Langley would have you glowing.”
“That is if you are going to marry him,” Nanny Tasha purred. She stood in the corner, like a regal black cat.
“Oh, she will marry him,” Jamilla said from the doorway, having waited a few moments to time her entrance.
“You!” hissed the margravine.
“Oh, yes, Helga, dear,” Jamilla said. “I am here. And Tasha, darling, you had the impudence to take over my room. But I am not insulted. You have always coveted what is mine. Not to worry, I have made the necessary changes by moving you to the back bedroom. Oh, it is overly drafty and terribly cold, I daresay very much like your beloved St. Petersburg. You will feel quite at home.” She spared a glance at the duchessa. “Lucia,” she said with a slight nod.
The duchessa nodded back. “Jamilla.”
Not to let such a cold greeting stand as a warning, Jamilla continued, “Darling, that color does not suit you. Whatever were you thinking?”
“It doesn’t?” Lucia said, looking down at her striped gown.
“Not here in England. Or maybe it is this dreadful room.” She glanced around at the faded walls and peeling paper. “It makes you quite yellow. Why, I had thought you were your mother for a moment.”
The margravine began to laugh, which then was quickly turned into a polite cough.
Still, it was enough to propel Lucia to her feet. With her nose in the air, she left with a deliberate, regal ease. But when she hit the stairs they could all hear the hurried patter of her slippers as she dashed up the steps.
Jamilla brushed her hands on her skirt and then sat down in the chair Lucia had occupied.
“You know each other?” Minerva managed to sputter.
“But of course,” Helga said. “How else were we to find Langley if we didn’t join forces?”
And as Minerva glanced about the room, she could see the similarities in these women, though not in looks—for they were all as different as a bouquet of blossoms, but they all possessed the same confidence, what the Russian princess had been saying before, that joie de vivre that made them stand out.
While I . . . Minerva wavered and glanced toward the door thinking she still had time to flee, but then the bell over the door rattled and to her horror Lady Wallerthwaite—one of Aunt Bedelia’s favorite cronies and one of the ton’s biggest gossips—arrived.
“Bedelia!” she called out to her friend. “How did I just know you would be here?”
“Where else would I be on such an afternoon, Aurelia?” Aunt Bedelia replied unabashedly.
Good God! If Aunt Bedelia had told Lady Wallerthwaite . . .
The bell rang again, and again after that, and within half an hour the sitting room overflowed with guests.
Specifically, ladies. The news that Lord Langley was back in town had brought out the curious, the flirtatious, widows of questionable virtue, and a few more who had never shown the least propensity for impropriety, but apparently even the hint of perhaps seeing the scandalous rake in person was enough to get them to abandon their embroidery hoops and order their carriages to take them to Brook Street.
“Good heavens, I don’t know what is coming to Mayfair,” Lady Finnemore complained when she arrived, having all but wedged Lady Ratcliffe out of her seat. “The street outside your house has the worst case of urchins—one of them had the temerity to ask me the time. As if a guttersnipe had an appointment to keep!” She glanced around the room, weighing the company and doing what everyone else had done, search the room for a sight of him. But she was far less discreet than her companions. “Why where is he, Lady Standon?”
“Who, Lady Finnemore?” Minerva replied, following her aunt’s lead from earlier and rearranging the cups and saucers.
The baroness continued, “Lord Langley, of course. I hardly came here to see you!”
“Lord Langley? Here?” Minerva feigned horror. Well, it wasn’t entirely feigned. The entire situation was a nightmare. “I don’t know why you would think I would have a gentleman in my house.”
“But my dear child, it is all over Town,” Lady Ratcliffe chimed in. “That he has been living under your roof.”
Oh, yes, and how had that happened? She only need make one guess. Minerva’s gaze swung to her aunt, who was conveniently and intently glancing up at the cracks in the plaster overhead.
But Minerva hadn’t been a marchioness for all these years without a few withering glances that could quell even the likes of Lady Ratcliffe. “I fear you have been misinformed,” she replied with haughty grace. “And I am surprised a lady of your distinction would lower herself to listen to such gossip.”
There was a tense moment in the room, until Tasha chimed in, “There is no reason for hiding, Lady Standon.” Then she turned to the gossipy hens perched about the room and announced, “Of course Langley has been here. He is in love. He will not be parted from Lady Standon. Not when he is in a passion.”
The other nannies nodded in agreement, as if such a thing were natural.
Not in England, Minerva wanted to shout at them even as the matrons in the room began to cluck among themselves. English ladies do not engage in passions.
“I have always found men who are madly in love are like wolves, hungry and insatiable,” Tasha continued. “Why once, I had a Cossack lover who insisted that every morning we make love atop his—”
“More tea, Lady Finnemore?” Minerva said, shoving the pot toward the lady’s cup.
Lady Finnemore glared at her, and Minerva had no idea if it was from the outrageous turn of the conversation or that she’d stopped the flow.
“Cossacks! I am surprised you still let them in your bed,” the margravine said, waving her hand at such a notion. “Now you may not think it to look at them, but I’ve had not one, but two lovers from Cologne, and they were naughty fellows. So very satisfying.” She made this mewing sort of sigh, one that stopped every conversation in the room. Not that there had been that many left. With her audience’s full attention, she went on. “There was a night, oh what was his name, the burgher who traveled with the French advisor . . .” Helga glanced over at Lucia. “Do you recall?”
“The fat one or the narrow man with beady eyes?” Lucia asked. She had returned to the room wearing a blue gown and taken an immediate interest in the subject at hand.
“You had a fat lover?” Lady Ratcliffe blurted out, and almost immediately covered her mouth, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just asked.
“Oh, no, dear lady,” the margravine said. “The Frenchman was fat. My lover had a magnificent body. Who would have thought a burgher could have such a big . . . big . . . Oh, how is it said in English?” She looked over at Aunt Bedelia.
Of all the days for her tottering house not to fall down, this had to be the one, Minerva thought as her aunt supplied the word Helga was seeking.
“Manhood, my good margravine,” Bedelia said, passing a tray of scones around. “I do believe the word you are looking for is ‘manhood.’ ”
Several of the matrons nodded in agreement.
Helga beamed. “I think it might be more accurate to say his manhood matched his enormous investments.”
Lady Finnemore tittered like a schoolgirl. “Lady Standon, does Lord Langley have a large—”
And if that wasn’t enough, the front door opened and into the room strolled the man himself. Larger than life, as it were.
The ladies in the room all cast searching glances, and Minerva wanted to clout the lot of them. Really, did they have to examine the man so thoroughly just to determine his . . . his . . . assets?
Then again, when she glanced over her shoulder at him, she found herself entranced as well.
From his light brown hair tied back in such an unfashionable queue, to his Roman features—the hard-cut jaw and the deep cleft in his chin, the strong shoulders. Tall and handsome, there was no sloth to the man, but a physique that spoke of athleticism and masculine power . . . or rather, assets. But what stopped Minerva most was that mischievous light that always seem to burn in his eyes.
Like he had a secret he longed to share.
Well, I can just imagine what that is, she thought with a huff as he smiled at all the ladies in the room, some of them sighing without any thought of propriety. He could have charmed a cat away from a dish of cream with those eyes.
And she didn’t know why she was put out by his appearance—perhaps it wasn’t so much his arrival, but the other ladies’ reactions. Oh, such an unfamiliar bit of ill-ease ran down her spine. Like jealousy.
Which she wasn’t. Not in the least.
Especially since he saved his most dazzling smile for her.
“Minerva, my dearest,” he said as if on cue, his eyes lighting upon her as he crossed the room with long, solid strides. “How like you not to remind me that it is your afternoon in. I would have forgone my club and been here.” He leaned over and placed a kiss on her forehead and then turned and bowed to the ladies in the room with an elegant Continental grace that wasn’t often seen.
“Oooh,” came another collective sigh.
While they were busy commenting on his arrival, Minerva was doing her best to compose herself. Oh, he had promised! No kissing.
Yet here he was doing just that. His lips, warm and smooth on her forehead, left her feeling utterly ruffled, quite undone. For it was naught but a prelude of what had happened last night when he’d gathered her in his arms and kissed her thoroughly, leaving her limbs languid with desire, her insides trembling, and worst of all, passions she’d thought long lost awakened and clamoring with hunger.
Worst of all it had taken naught but the brush of his lips on her forehead and she was awake—like the bright clear note of a clarion call had roused her—his touch awakening her body, her desires. Her thighs tightened, her insides melted, her nipples hardened.
Minerva groaned as he took his place at her side as if that was exactly where he belonged, his hand resting possessively on her shoulder. With all eyes on her—or rather on him—she couldn’t very well brush his fingers away or shrug him off.
Besides, there was a delicious bit of warmth that curled from his fingers into her shoulder and magically through her limbs with an intoxicating heat, unfolding inside her, once again trumpeting her desires to the forefront. Rallying them to come forth from where she’d held them prisoner all these years.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure she would have pushed his touch away even if they hadn’t had an audience. But pretenses had to be maintained and so she left his hand where it rested, and lied to herself that he had no power over her.
None whatsoever.
“Lord Langley, such rumors we’ve heard about you!” Lady Finnemore exclaimed. “That you were dead of all things, and now here you are. How is it that you’ve come back to London?” The baroness was never one to let an opportunity to pry pass her by.
“I would think the answer is obvious,” he replied, glancing down at Minerva and smiling at her.
“However did the two of you meet?” Lady Ratcliffe rushed to ask.
Minerva pressed her lips together. For as much as she would like to have said, Why, he fell into my bedroom while attempting to break into my house, such a reply would seal her fate for the rest of her days.
Married to Langley. Under his thumb, even as she was now . . . with that promise in his eyes teasing her every morning over the breakfast table as he’d done earlier . . . with the warmth of his hand covering hers . . . stealing her sensibilities away . . .
Lost in her own wayward thoughts, she barely heard Langley’s smooth reply.
“We met last month. In the country. At the Duke of Hollindrake’s estate. I was there recuperating from my journey home, and it was then that I met my dear, darling Minerva. You could say she was the very tonic for my soul.”
Her startled glance rose to meet his. “You could say that,” she muttered. “But you needn’t.”
“Whatever did the duchess say about your obvious tendre for each other?” Lady Finnemore asked, obviously fishing for yet another on dit to pass along.
As if the nannies hadn’t given her enough . . .
But the lady made an excellent point. One Minerva had overlooked until this moment. However had she forgotten the baron’s daughter?
Dear God, what would the Duchess of Hollindrake say when she heard that her father was engaged to one of the Standon widows?
Minerva shuddered, and wondered if there was still time to catch the afternoon mail coach to Scotland. The Sterling family hunting box was looking more and more like welcoming refuge than a remote place for banishment.
She could even hope for a late spring snow to keep the duchess at bay until at least June—when her temper might have waned.
A bit.
“Felicity? She is delighted,” Langley said, filling in for Minerva’s stunned silence. “My daughter is utterly happy for me to have found love once more.”
Tasha and Lucia both coughed, for they were of the same private opinion that Minerva was drawing to—the duchess was going to be a holy terror when she discovered her father’s sudden arrival in London and just as hasty betrothal.
“The little duchess will be so happy for you, darling Langley,” Tasha purred, smiling at the pair of them as if imagining Felicity dragging Minerva before a firing squad. “How could she not when you have found such a lady. I am surprised you haven’t carried Lady Standon off already, if only to secure her.”
Minerva shot a scandalized glance at the man beside her. “I don’t think—”
“Lady Standon is ever so modest about their passion,” the margravine told the scandalized matron sitting beside her. “Why last night, when we left them together in her—”
“Lady Finnemore, have you tried the scones,” Minerva said, shoving the tray toward the lady, cutting off Helga’s ruinous prattle.
“Last night?” the lady whispered anyway, undeterred by the offer of scones.
Helga nodded and smiled with a coy glance over at Langley. “He is ever so wicked, don’t you agree?”
All around the room heads nodded.
Minerva began silently composing a letter to Bow Street. Dear sirs, I request your help in removing several dangerous vagrants from my home . . .
“And do you have plans while in Town, Lord Langley?” one of the ladies asked. For the life of her, Minerva couldn’t recall the woman’s name, but then again, she wasn’t all that well-acquainted with most of her callers today. The matron with her heavily lidded eyes and puffy lips made a ridiculous moue and fluttered her fan. “Other than taking a wife.”
The others added their own titters and smiles.
Minerva added another line to her letter. You will not miss my house, it is the one on Brook Street that resembles a Vauxhall circus.
“Nothing of note,” he said, brushing away the lady’s query as one might lint on a sleeve. “Though I’ve managed to procure a box for us tonight. They are doing The Merchant of Bruges at the Drury-Lane Theatre tonight.”
“Excellent!” Aunt Bedelia declared. “Chudley and I will be there.”
“I have other plans,” Minerva said. She didn’t, other than devising another way to get all of them out of her house.
“You cannot, my dear,” Langley insisted. “I would be bereft to attend without you at my side.”
Minerva glanced up at him. Really, bereft? Now what was he about?
“Oh, Lady Standon, you must go with Lord Langley! It will be all the talk if you don’t,” Lady Finnemore insisted.
And more talk when I do attend, Minerva wagered.
Langley wasn’t done making his case. “Besides, it is one of your favorite plays, you told me so yourself. And Kean is to do the merchant.” He grinned at her, and that sparkling light in his blue eyes and the mischievous turn of his lips left Minerva gaping.
“How thoughtful,” Lady Finnemore remarked in an aside to Lady Ratcliffe. “I doubt Lord Finnemore knows my favorite color let alone my favorite play.”
Minerva wanted to groan, for his pretty speech almost had her believing The Merchant of Bruges was her favorite—well, she did like it immensely, but so did half the ton—and now he had this room of gossips believing that he actually knew those sort of things about her.
And after such a short acquaintance. She could almost hear Jamilla chiming in, But darling, when you are in love, you just know these sort of things about one another.
And when Minerva didn’t answer—for truly how could one to such a speech?—Langley turned to his audience. “Just as I suspected. She is speechless.” He laughed and winked at the ladies in the room. “I hope to keep her thusly for the rest of our lives.”
To prove his point, he kissed her again, his lips warm and seductive against her brow, lingering a moment longer than proper, and when he slowly, regretfully pulled away, he bowed once more to the ladies. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t resist her charms, he caught up her hand and brought her fingers to his handsome, smooth lips, murmuring over them, “I leave you to your guests, my goddess, my Minerva, and I look forward to our evening.” His glance smoldered over her as if he spoke not of their engagement for the theatre but of something later, an encounter far more intimate.
The room stilled, as if no one wanted to breathe, no one wanted to break the spell, as if they were all sitting in her place and this man was enchanting them, and only them.
And heaven help her, Minerva shivered, for no man had ever looked at her that way. Kissed her so possessively. And as much as she knew he was doing this to convince every one in the room theirs was a love match, and that a recitation of his performance would be repeated from one side of London to another before the curtain rose tonight, God help her, she found herself wishing he wasn’t acting.
For what would it be like to have a man as handsome and seductive as Lord Langley truly desire you?