When a man makes a promise to a lady, do realize he has no intention of keeping it.
Advice from Nanny Lucia to Felicity
The house on Brook Street bustled with activity as all the ladies in residence got ready for an evening at the theatre. In her room, Minerva and her maid Agnes ignored the endless trod of servants running up and down the stairs and the shouted complaints—mostly from the margravine—about the lack of hot water and other “essentials.”
Standing in her room with Agnes fussing around her, Minerva would have liked to remind her houseguests that they had chosen to stay with her, and if they didn’t like the condition of their surroundings, they could take the next boat down the Thames. She’d be happy to check the sailing times.
To Botany Bay . . . or the southern tip of Africa . . . or even Java.
But she had another problem that far outpaced her desire to get rid of the nannies.
Whatever was she going to wear to the theatre? As complaints and orders flew about the halls of the house, Minerva realized she was about to be outdone utterly and completely. And while she’d never thought much of it before, suddenly . . .
Oh, that wretched man and his kisses and twinkling eyes. He had her at sixes and sevens. And there was no reason for it. None at all.
“What about the plum one, my lady?” Agnes said, her head cocked to one side as she surveyed the gowns laid out on the bed.
Minerva shook her head. “No, I don’t think that will do.” Not that there was much to choose from. She had never been overly extravagant with her wardrobe—much to Aunt Bedelia’s chagrin.
“But it is what you always wear to the theatre,” Agnes said, clearly perplexed by her employer’s sudden pique over her choices.
And that was the problem. She always wore the plum gown to the theatre. The blue gown to soirees and musicales. The mauve gown to balls.
“Oh, heavens none of these will do,” she avowed, pushing them all to one side of the bed and flouncing down on the space she’d just cleared away. For one wild moment she thought of dashing off a mad note to Elinor and begging her to send over the crimson gown, the daring one her friend had worn to catch the Duke of Parkerton’s eye.
But there wasn’t time, she realized as she glanced over at the mantel clock. Oh, why hadn’t she thought of it earlier?
A knock at the door startled her out of her reverie and she glanced up to find Jamilla and Nanny Brigid entering her room. And of course Knuddles, who came trotting in and glanced up at the gowns on the bed before he jumped up and settled down in the middle of them, sniffing in disdain as he went, as if such poor silks and brocades were barely suitable for his respite, but what was a dog to do?
Soon he was snuffling and snoring away.
Jamilla swept in and gave Minerva’s choices much the same dismissal that Knuddles had. Already dressed for the evening in her usual flamboyant style, she entered with regal ease and a cloud of exotic perfume. “It is as I told you, Brigid,” she said over her shoulder to the woman behind her. “I think we have come just in time.”
To Minerva’s surprise, the contessa stepped forward, also elegantly dressed for the evening, but also carrying a gown, her arms buried in silk. “Consider this my wedding gift to you, Lady Standon.” She held out her offering and smiled at Minerva.
“Oh, Contessa, I couldn’t,” Minerva said, shaking her head as Nanny Brigid shook out an emerald silk.
“Bless my soul!” Agnes gasped as the contessa held up the most daring and eye-catching gown either of them had ever seen.
“But how can you not accept, my dearest Lady Standon?” Brigid waved her own maid into the room, and the girl went to work settling the gown over Minerva’s head. “And from now on, you must call me Brigid,” she said as she surveyed her maid’s handiwork.
“Tell Lady Standon all about the man you met today,” Jamilla said, casting a wink at Minerva as she pushed Knuddles over and sat down on the bed.
“Oh, yes,” Brigid giggled. “Your aunt introduced me to the most elegant of gentleman. A marquess, which is good, no?”
“Very good,” Minerva said, a little disoriented as Brigid’s maid bullied her over to the dressing table, pushed her into the chair and began to dress her hair with a series of brusque, exacting movements. Quickly, the grim-faced servant had Minerva’s hair artfully, if not painfully, tugged into a series of cascading curls.
Meanwhile, Brigid continued extolling her new conquest, Langley obviously forgotten. “According to the little duchess’s book,” she was saying, “he is very rich.”
The little duchess’s book? The woman had gotten her hands on Felicity Langley’s Bachelor Chronicles?
Minerva tried to twist around, but the maid barked at her in German and gave her hair a sharp tug. All Minerva dared after that was a hot glance at Jamilla. “You didn’t!”
“But it was in the room, on the mantel,” the princess demurred. “I merely helped her with the translation.”
Oh, how could she have forgotten the duchess’s infamous matchmaking journal was still in the house? Leaving it around this lot of grasping, title-chasing women was like offering each of them their own personal keys to the Tower treasury.
“I think he is perfect,” Brigid said, admiring herself in the tall glass propped up in the corner.
Brigid’s maid, enlisting some help from Agnes, got the gown pinned and tucked with a few quick stitches until it fit to Jamilla’s and Brigid’s satisfaction. Next came out a small case of pots, and the two supervised as Brigid’s maid powdered Minerva’s face, added a bit of paint on her lips, kohl on her eyes, and ended by waving for a pair of high heeled shoes. Last, but not least, Agnes carried over the Sterling diamonds and sighed with delight as they were settled around her ladyship’s neck.
Minerva felt dizzy from all the attention. That, and the bantering, frank comparisons by Jamilla and Brigid of past lovers and potential ones gleaned from the Bachelor Chronicles, though it seemed the contessa was genuinely taken by this mysterious marquess of hers.
“And tonight,” Brigid said, turning Minerva toward the full length mirror in the corner, “every man at the theatre will envy Langley.”
Hardly, she scoffed silently, that is until she looked at her reflection in the mirror and didn’t recognize herself. How had they done this to her? However could this be her?
For looking back at her from the mirror was Nanny Minerva—a veritable goddess having risen from the plain and sensible ashes of what had once been Lady Standon.
Langley stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened to the tromp of feet overhead and cringed with each shout at a maid or slam of a door.
He’d spent a good part of his life romancing women, learning their nuances, knowing how to charm them and when to leave, but in all his experiences, he’d never understood what took so demmed long for them to get ready.
Especially since he knew how quickly they could get undressed.
Glancing at the clock, he sighed, for there wasn’t much time left to get to Drury-Lane, but what could he do? Not for a dukedom would he venture up those stairs and prod a single one of those ladies along.
What about her? Would you dare for her?
Langley shook his head as images of Lady Standon filled his thoughts. In that dreadful night-rail, no less. Yet when he’d held her, oh, what unbelievable curves his hands had discovered. And the kiss he’d stolen, her lush, full lips, her fury, and then that moment when she surrendered and caught him unaware with the fire smoldering inside her. He tried to tell himself his reaction, the jolt of desire, the need she’d awakened inside him, had merely been that of any man who’d been alone as long as he had.
But that wasn’t quite the truth.
That certainly didn’t explain this afternoon—when he’d come into the parlor and greeted her with a kiss, in front of a roomful of gossips. Kissed her not once, but twice.
His only excuse was that when he entered the room she was the only one he’d seen. For a second he thought her all alone, for that was where his gaze had landed.
And where it stayed.
Fixed on Lady Standon. When he finally noticed the others, then her regal stance, her uplifted chin, the tight line of her brow had made sense. No longer the marchioness, she was in his eyes Minerva, the goddess of wisdom . . . of war.
For there in the keen intelligence sparking in her eyes—he could tell she blamed him utterly for her predicament, and well she should. But also he thought he spied a fire, a hint of the passion he’d barely tasted last night, and suddenly found himself parched to drink from those lips once again, despite his vow to keep their arrangement chaste.
None of which he should even be thinking about since what he needed to be doing was sticking to his search for Nottage—which had come up empty this afternoon. The man’s rooms were hastily packed up and vacated, and his landlady hadn’t seen him go.
Which had her in a state, for Nottage owed her for his rent.
Which indicated, more than likely, his former secretary wasn’t planning on coming back.
Which only made the search for Nottage, and his quest to get the evidence Langley needed to clear his name from suspicion, more urgent.
And put him at greater risk.
As well as those around him.
Including her . . . He glanced upward again, his brow furrowed into deep rows. He shoved that thought aside, since for the first time in months, nay years, he was so close to clearing his name, regaining his life . . .
But those niggling fears didn’t stay tucked away for long.
“Going out?” Thomas-William asked, having come silently up the backstairs.
“Yes,” Langley told him, tearing his gaze away from the steps leading up.
“Have you a care about what could happen to her?”
He knew exactly whom Thomas-William meant.
Lady Standon.
“This isn’t Paris,” he said aloud, more for himself than to answer his friend’s query.
“No, but it is just as dangerous. Going out in the open isn’t—”
“Yes, I know,” Langley said, cutting him off. “It wasn’t what George liked to do. But Lord Andrew’s plan is sound.” What it could be better described as was quick and cunning.
Thomas-William snorted and shook his head. Then again, he never liked haste, but certainly he had to appreciate the cunning part.
“And if you are worried about the lady, don’t forget, she’s got that bloody pistol of yours, threatened me with it last night,” Langley argued. “I think you should be more worried about my hide than hers. The lady can take care of herself.”
Before Thomas-William could add another Ellyson-inspired lecture on carefully thought out strategies, they were interrupted by a loud explosion of breaking glass upstairs, followed by the margravine letting loose a harangue in no less than three languages.
When the lady finished, Thomas-William made one more appeal. “How will your honor be restored if Lady Standon is harmed in the effort? There is no excuse for sacrificing her for something so fleeting.” Then he bowed his head slightly and left, his parting shot taking a bit of Langley’s confidence with it.
Damn Thomas-William and his philosopher’s sensibilities!
Not that he had time to consider them or even compose a retort—not that there was one—for just then the doorbell jangled, and when no one came in to answer it (most likely every servant in the house had been harried to the point of deafness), the baron opened it himself.
“Swilly!” he exclaimed, shoving out his hand at his old school friend. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Me? I should say! Is that you, Langley?”
“It is. In the flesh.” They shook hands enthusiastically and Langley all but drug him into the foyer. “Swilly, how is it that you are here?”
“Swilly no more, my good man,” the fellow said. “Throssell now. Inherited about five years ago. That demmed uncle of mine seemed all but determined to live on like a veritable Methuselah, but I finally got the chance to put him to bed with a shovel, and I did so with great vigor.”
Langley laughed. “Got your hands on the title and that old pile of stones to boot.”
“And a fine pile of money,” Throssell added, his chest puffing out. “I will say this for the old goat: He lived well past his time, but turns out he was a regular Midas. Kept all his gold neatly piled up. So there it was just waiting for me. Put it right to good use, I did, fixing up the kennels. He left them in a shameful state of disrepair. Shocking, don’t you think?”
The baron slapped his old friend on the back, for Swilly, as he’d been known at school, always had pockets to let and high expectations of his uncle dying “at a moment’s notice.” That and he’d always been hound-mad—no wonder the kennels at Throssell Castle had been the first to see his attentions. “I’m happy for you, but that still doesn’t explain what you are doing here, of all places.”
“I’m in Town for the Season,” the marquess explained. “Never really thought about taking a wife, but it seems that a marquess must have one. At least that’s what my mother natters on about.” He glanced at his reflection in the mirror and gave his wild brown hair an absentminded pat. “So when I ran into Lady Chudley this morning—demmed fine woman that Lady Chudley—and she introduced me to one of those foreign chits she had in tow with her, a countess with the oddest bit of terrier I’ve ever seen—got the lines of a devilish little ratter to him, I will say, but demmed if the little chap doesn’t look like a monkey. Caught my eye, she did.”
Langley shook his head. “Brigid?”
“No, no, I think the dog had another name, Noodles, or something like that. Hard to understand what that gel was saying, but she claimed the dog had come from a long line of sires owned by none other than—than—” He snapped his fingers as he tried to come up with the name.
Langley closed his eyes. “Marie Antoinette.”
“Yes, yes. Of course you’d know. All that time on the Continent and such.” Throssell shuffled his feet a bit and took a glance up the stairs. “Liked her lines, good stance, and so I asked her to the theatre with me tonight.”
Langley was almost afraid to ask if his friend meant Knuddles or Brigid. But then he got his answer when the lady in question came down the stairs.
“My Lord Throssell, is that you? Why I nearly didn’t recognize you—looking so very resplendent,” Brigid cooed like a lovesick teenager, and to Langley’s shock, Swilly—no, make that Throssell—blushed like a lad.
The poor man tried to come up with a response as Brigid, her red hair falling like a waterfall of curls over one bare shoulder, her gown fitted to her curves as if her maid had painted it on, glided down the stairs. And while Langley knew the lady preferred horseback and hounds over Town life, when it came to making a sensation, Brigid could stop a man in his tracks when she dressed for seduction.
“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” she said as she stopped in front of Throssell.
Langley knew why she had paused thusly, and nudged his old friend in the back and whispered, “Take her hand, Swilly.”
“Oh, what? Yes, suppose so,” he stammered, before he caught hold of Brigid’s gloved fingers and brought them to his lips. “My lady, you look divine,” he managed in a voice that sounded far more sophisticated than Langley would have ever thought Swilly could muster, but there it was. “Shall we?” he said, leading her toward the door.
“Do you mind if we bring my friends?” she asked. “For Langley’s carriage is far too small for all of them and I would be loath to have them travel about so cramped.”
Langley’s gaze followed Swilly’s as it went up the stairs. Perched on the various steps were his daughter’s former nannies, Jamilla, Lucia, Tasha, and Helga. It was a dazzling sight to behold, the colorful gowns, the glitter of jewels and the scandalous décolletages.
All that Swilly could manage in response was a stammering “We-ell, I—I—I—”
That was enough for Brigid. “Come along, ladies. Lord Throssell is delighted to have our company.”
The ladies trooped down the stairs, filing after Brigid and her conquest.
“If you prefer, schatzi,” Helga said, “I could stay behind and keep you company.”
“No, I think this is Throssell’s night,” Langley said. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
She continued on, a bit of frown on her features.
Tasha and Lucia said nothing as they passed him by. But then again, neither of them needed to say a single word to convey what they were thinking. Or offering. Tasha with her swaying hips and Lucia with her come-hither glances would probably put Swilly into apoplexy.
Then again, the Marquess of Throssell was about to become the most envied man in London.
As Jamilla came by, she winked. “Enjoy your ride with Lady Standon.”
“Yes, darling,” Brigid called from the window of the elegant Throssell carriage. “Enjoy your ride to the theatre.”
Then he understood what had just happened. Brigid and Jamilla had conspired and outmaneuvered the others so that he and Minerva had the duke’s carriage all to themselves.
All to themselves?
Perhaps that wasn’t the best idea. She still had Thomas-William’s pistol tucked away somewhere.
Especially since he’d kissed her this afternoon. Twice. In front of witnesses. When he had promised quite faithfully not to . . .
Oh, she might have had a spark of passion in her gaze, but he hadn’t forgotten that furrowed brow of hers hinted at a goddess’s wraith.
Still, she was merely a London dowager, he reminded himself. Hardly the dangerous sort like Brigid and her poisons, Tasha and her Cossacks, and Helga and her threats of a sharp pike to the mid-section . . . or lower.
Whatever did he have to fear from Lady Standon?
Behind him there was a slight rustle of silk, and he turned around, only to discover that a secluded carriage wasn’t Brigid and Jamilla’s only bit of mischief.
For they’d gone and worked their matchmaking magic on Lady Standon, and for the life of him, Ellis, Baron Langley, the rake who’d romanced and charmed every beauty the Continent had to offer, found himself as dry-mouthed and stammering as Swilly.
Oh, they knew him too well, he realized, all his smug masculine superiority taking flight as the lady descended the stairs, slowly, deliberately, one step after another.
High-heeled slippers peeked out from beneath her hem, giving a flash of the slender, silk clad legs hidden beneath. The gown, an emerald green, shimmered with the same haunting depth that an actual jewel might, but as his gaze rose higher, he found himself gaping.
Her figure, hidden before by sensible gowns, was no longer concealed, but swathed in silk, leaving no man who gazed upon her in doubt of the curves, the delights she possessed. Hips that a man could claim, a waist to wind your arm around, and a pair of breasts, full and round, that would make even Aphrodite weep with envy . . . and every man who couldn’t possess her. Claim her. Take her to his bed.
The lady on the stairs was no longer merely a dowager. No London matron. She was, in every sense of the word, a goddess come to life.
Her hair, nut brown in daylight, seemed more mahogany now, having been brushed and tugged into a tempting array of curls spilling down from the jeweled coronet sitting atop her head. Painted and adorned, she could have been stepping down from a high altar, Olympus itself, instead of the rickety steps of this house where she ruled.
Oh, Jamilla and Brigid had done what they knew best. They’d contrived to make Minerva a temptation he couldn’t resist. A woman he’d have to have.
Would surrender his heart, his honor, his very life to possess.
But resist he would. He swore he would. He was no Swilly. No country cub. He was Lord Langley, the breaker of hearts, and his would not be swayed by tricks that were naught but a courtesan’s slight of hand.
At least that was what he vowed until he took Minerva’s hand, brought her fingers to his lips and found himself utterly undone.
For her part, Minerva would have liked to remind Langley that he’d promised not to kiss her. But right now seemed hardly the right moment to ring a peel over his head.
Besides, she was having a devil of a time standing on these high-heeled shoes of Brigid’s. However did the woman manage to slink about so seductively in these towering things?
And all done up as she was, she wasn’t all that sure that at any moment now Langley wasn’t going to burst out laughing at her, dolled up like a high-priced Incognita.
She certainly felt like one with Langley’s kiss lingering over her fingers, for her insides fluttered about and urged her to be as passionate as the lady she’d seen staring back at her in the mirror.
The one she barely recognized as herself.
Truly, whoever was she going to fool? For certainly everyone would see past this transformation and realize that it was only Minerva, Lady Standon, behind the paint and silks.
Certainly not a practiced rake like Lord Langley!
Not that she wanted his attentions—which she didn’t—but just once it would be something to be looked upon and regarded so intimately . . .
Oh, what was she thinking? She could hardly be as desirable as Brigid and her startling red hair and divine angles, or Tasha and her petite, fair looks, or Lucia and her come-hither glances.
No, this was all so foolhardy! She should turn on one heel—carefully so—and flee upstairs, wash her face and put on her sensible plum gown.
That is exactly what she should have done, just as she should never have answered the door the previous night.
But then she made the mistake of looking into Langley’s startling blue eyes, and saw something she could never have imagined staring back at her.
The heat that swept through Langley’s body as his lips touched Lady Standon’s fingers left him staggered.
It was only a kiss, a greeting, but suddenly it wasn’t. Her faint perfume of roses, the tremble in her fingers, the way she wavered on her high-heeled slippers. All of it threw him completely over, as if he’d been tossed under the wheels of a mail coach.
Oh, God, he wanted her. Forget the theatre, forget their plans. He wanted to catch her up in his arms, carry her up the stairs, and spend the rest of the night undressing her, discovering every nuance, every curve, where he could make this enchantress sing with pleasure.
His chest tightened, and his body . . . well, he was embarrassed to say what state he was in. He was as bad as Swilly.
However could this be? He’d kissed how many ladies in the past two decades since Franny died, and not one of them had stirred such a response in him.
And when he looked up into Lady Standon’s eyes, lined as they were with kohl, making them both exotic and enticing, he gazed deeper and swore he could see the fire, the passion buried inside her very soul.
Like a distant flickering candle meant to guide him home, these flames of hers teased him to come closer, to listen carefully, dared him to try and tame them.
At that moment Thomas-William’s ominous words echoed in his thoughts.
There is no excuse for sacrificing her for something so fleeting.
For while Jamilla or Brigid, Tasha or Lucia, and especially Helga, all knew the risks and rules of this game, he doubted Lady Standon did.
Wrenching his gaze away and ignoring the tightening in his chest, he said, “Lady Standon, shall we go?”
Best to get out of the house, before he did give in to his rakish inclinations and reputation.
But that didn’t mean he let go of her hand.
“Yes, that sounds lovely,” she said, her formal, proper tones just the right note to remind him that theirs wasn’t a true match. Merely a ruse.
But it didn’t have to be . . .
Oh, demmit, he was in over his head when he started thinking like that. False engagement or not, he needed to keep his wits about him.
Perhaps it is because you have never had a betrothed before.
For he hadn’t, he realized as they made their way silently to the carriage. With Franny it had been a whirlwind courtship, just as he got his first assignment, a posting to Constantinople. He’d always suspected her father, Lord Hawstone, had used his influence in seeing him, a young baron with not much more than his name, sent so far away. Yet when Langley suggested—half in love, half in jest—that she, Miss Frances Hawstone, come along with him, she’d readily agreed.
They’d eloped that night, and the ship’s captain had married them—despite the lack of banns and that both of them were underage. Better to marry them straightaway, he’d told his first mate, than to have a worse scandal in the months to come when they docked at some far off foreign port and the miss was far gone with child.
So it had been done with no fuss, no foolishness. And no proper betrothal. Just two overly romantic teenagers madly in love, with no thought about what they were actually doing.
So why was it, twenty some years later, he was bumbling along like Swilly, while Lady Standon maintained her perfect composure in the seat across from him?
He took a deep breath and tapped on the roof for the driver to move on. “You look lovely.”
She shook her head, a dismissive sort of flutter.
“But you do,” he insisted.
“ ’Tis the gown and the diamonds—none of which are mine.”
“I disagree,” he said. “The gown reveals your figure to perfection.” He leaned forward. “Much better than that night-rail of yours.”
“Langley!” she exclaimed. “You promised!”
Langley. She’d called him “Langley.” Not “my lord,” not “sir,” nor several other unflattering sobriquets that could have been flung in his direction.
And like holding her hand, kissing her fingertips, he rather liked hearing her use his title in such a familiar way.
“Do you hear me?” she said. “You promised. No scandals. And that includes references to situations that may not be understood by others.”
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “No kissing and no innuendoes.”
“Exactly,” she told him, hands folded in front of her. “I’ll excuse this afternoon, but no more.”
If she was willing to excuse those lapses . . .
“If you insist,” he demurred.
“I do.”
“But you are looking lovely this evening.”
Her brow furrowed as if she didn’t quite believe him. “Not overdone? I fear I look like a . . . a . . .”
“A what?”
Now she leaned forward. “A courtesan. Or an Incognita. Some gentleman’s vestal.”
He sat back and grinned. “Lady Standon, now I am scandalized. Wherever did you hear such words? Learn about such company?”
“I opened the door to my house the other night and found it filled with such company,” she said tartly.
She had him there.
“Perhaps the diamonds are overmuch,” he said. “But they are stunning, and are only brightened by the light of the lady wearing them.”
She snorted at his gallantries. “I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
Langley was a bit taken aback by her skepticism. He didn’t know if he’d ever met a woman who didn’t adore being fed compliments as if they were squares of Turkish delight. “Then you haven’t been properly courted—though those diamonds would say otherwise. Who loaned them to you? Tasha? Or Lucia?”
Her fingers went to the throat, where they fluttered nervously over the stones. “Neither. I probably shouldn’t even be wearing them.”
Never had he heard anything that sounded more like a confession. Still, he joked, “I doubt you stole them.” And laughed at the notion until she blushed and glanced out the window.
Langley’s amusement came to a halt. “Lady Standon, what mischief have you been about? Have I discovered your darkest secret?”
Her gaze flitted back to his, wide with alarm.
So you do have your secrets, he mused, thinking of her mysterious “painter.”
“If you must know—”
“I must,” he replied.
“These are the Sterling diamonds,” she explained.
“Ah, family heirlooms. I’m surprised—given what I know of the Sterlings—you were allowed to keep them after your husband died. I would have thought they’d been—” He was about to say gathered up with the rest of the heirlooms, but her eyes widened even further, telling him he needn’t say the words aloud. “Good God, Minerva! You are a cheeky bit of muslin. You kept them when old Sterling stuck his spoon in the wall!”
This brought her up straight in her seat. “I did no such thing. I handed them over to the next Lady Standon. Elinor wore them at her wedding to Edward.”
He folded his arms over his chest and sat back, cocking one brow at her. “So how is it you have them now?”
“Oh, gracious heavens,” she said, her brow furrowed to be caught so. “The diamonds are for the wife of the heir, who will eventually become the Duchess of Hollindrake. But it was decided when Lucy Ellyson married Archie—”
Oh, he saw it only too well. “The diamonds went into hiding rather than be handed over to the daughter of a thief and a dolly mop.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
But there was more to this than just one unlikely bride. “But Lucy didn’t become the duchess,” he mused aloud. “Archie died and then Felicity—” Langley stopped. Egads, those diamonds were supposed to be around his daughter’s neck! And then his supposition went one step further. “Am I to suppose that Felicity is unaware of the Sterling diamonds?”
Minerva glanced down at her gloves and tugged at them. “It might be that no one has told her. I believe she has been rather occupied since she married the duke.”
“And you haven’t had an opportunity to convey them to her?”
“No,” she shot back. “And why should I? She’s the one who banished me—me and Elinor and Lucy—to that shambles of a house, who had us cut off, who’s been the ruin of everything!” She settled deeply into her seat, arms crossed over her chest, though one hand slid back onto the stones, cradling them possessively. “So no, I haven’t given them to her.”
Langley pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. He knew he should be offended—at least for Felicity’s sake—but he wasn’t. Oh, he had no illusions about his daughter. She’d been a high-handed, opinionated, matchmaking terror since childhood. She’d once laid out a chart for the Queen of Naples as to the likely European and English princes and princesses for her children to marry, much to the queen’s amusement and the horror of the English ambassador.
“There is no need to ring a peel over my head,” he told her. “Felicity won’t hear about them from me. And all I will say to you, Madame Jewel Thief, is that I do believe your coloring lends itself better to diamonds than that of my fair daughter.” He winked at her, pleased this time that she blushed at his compliment.
“Thank you. For I do love them.”
He laughed. “Then you should wear them often.” She bit her lip and glanced out the window, and he realized something else. “You do—you wear them quite often, don’t you?”
“You are the very devil, Langley,” she scolded. Then she paused and added, “And yes, if I am feeling a bit out of sorts, there have been a few times when I’ve worn them . . . just for myself.”
Something about the way she said this left Langley with the lascivious image of her wearing just the Sterling diamonds and not much else. But he also suspected that if he suggested such a thing, the proper Lady Standon would box his ears.
Still, such a proposition might be worth the risk—for suddenly he found himself lost in the memory of how it had felt to tease a kiss from her lips, hold her hand, the heat of her fingers in his sending shocks of desire through him.
The Sterling diamonds were but the outward fire of the lady before him. For like the cool stones, when the light hit her just right she burned from the inside with the same dazzling brilliance.
“What are they playing tonight?” she said, breaking the awkward silence that had filled the carriage as he sat there contemplating the impossible—of seeing her naked save for those diamonds.
He barely heard her.
“Lord Langley?” she prodded. “The play? What are they doing tonight?”
“Uh, The Merchant of Bruges,” he said, answering quickly to change the direction of his thoughts.
His very wayward thoughts.
“Oh, yes, you said that earlier. How odd of me to forget.” She glanced out the window, her reticule strings twisted around her fingers.
“Kean is playing the merchant,” he added, if only to keep himself from contemplating the lady across from him . . . naked. Beneath him. Calling out his name.
Langley, oh, Langley! Yes, Langley, oh, yes!
“My lord? Are you well?”
“Uh, yes, of course,” he managed.
“As I was saying, I saw him play it a few weeks ago,” she replied, sounding relieved as well to have something, anything, to discuss. “It is an excellent portrayal. I hope you will enjoy it.”
He nodded in agreement. “I should. I’ve heard much of Kean, so it is with some guilty pleasure that I finally get to see him perform. I love the theatre, you know.”
Her gaze wrenched away from the window to meet his. “You do?”
She needn’t sound so amazed. “Yes, Lady Standon, I do.”
“I just didn’t think that you—” She stopped there, but he could well imagine what she had been about to say. The blush on her cheeks and her nervous glance back out the window were enough evidence.
“Believe it or not, I have interests beyond seducing widows and carrying on infamous affairs.”
“I didn’t think that,” she shot back. Far too hastily. For she also sat up straight and glowered a bit from behind her kohl-lined eyes, as if daring him to contradict her.
If only she knew how much more desirous and tempting she looked when she got into a pique.
Dangerously so.
“Well, perhaps,” she admitted. “But in my defense, one hears things about gentlemen . . . and their . . .”
She listened to gossip about him? Oh, this could be interesting. He raised a single brow, and it was enough of a prod to have her confessing.
“Well, one hears about their . . . prowess, and it is difficult to believe that such persons have time for other pursuits.”
“Are you saying, Lady Standon, that I have spent most of my adult life perfecting my, as you say, ‘prowess,’ to such an extent that I wouldn’t have any other time for such frivolities as the theatre?”
This time she furrowed her brows. “I might.”
He sat back in his seat, arms folded over his chest now. “I do hope the king hasn’t heard these rumors,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
This startled her out of her prudish stance. “The king? Whatever has he got to do with all this?”
“My good lady, contrary to popular prattle, I have spent more than twenty years in His Majesty’s service. If he were to think that all I’d done in that time is merely sport about the Continent and collect his gold for nothing more than my prowess—”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
“I didn’t. You did.”
She pressed her lips together. “Oh, I suppose I did, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Then it isn’t true?” she asked. “What they say about you?”
“You’d have to tell me what ‘they’ say.”
To his delight, she blushed. He rather liked it when she blushed. One wouldn’t catch Helga blushing. Or Tasha, for that matter.
“My lord, I don’t repeat such gossip.” Her primly folded hands went from her lap to crossed over her chest in a defiant stance.
“But apparently you aren’t adverse to listening to it.”
“Oh, you are incorrigible!”
“The same could be said about you, Lady Standon,” he pointed out. “Did you ever protest the recitation of these reports? Refuse to listen? Leave?”
“It is hardly polite to up and leave when someone is relating a story,” she told him, her hands going back to their respectable place in her lap. “Besides, I didn’t even know you then.”
“Oh, no, far more polite to allow an innocent man’s reputation to be sullied by secondhand reports—”
“You are hardly innocent, sir. I have a house full of guests that speaks to the contrary.”
He casually glanced out the window as he said, “Still, I suspect you rather liked hearing about my affairs.”
“I never!”
He turned to meet her indignant gaze. “Never?”
“Not in the least,” she said, even as her fingers wound and rewound her reticule strings around her fingers. “Surely not.” Then she sat silently for a few moments as she straightened her skirt.
“Madam, you are a liar,” he said, crossing the carriage and taking her hand in his again—if only to provoke her, certainly not because he’d been dying to touch her again.
No, it wasn’t for that reason. Not at all.
“You liked listening to the tales of my prowess because your life was dull and passionless,” he said, even as she tried to pull her hand from his. But he held on, and to emphasize his point, he wound his other arm around her waist and hauled her right up against him. “You’ve longed to burn, to have a lover, to be kissed senseless, to be carried away to far-flung places and never look back.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but all her lips could do was flutter a bit. “How did you . . .”
“I’m a mind reader,” he teased, studying the way her cheeks were rising in color again.
“Oh, of all the utter nonsense,” she managed to bluster.
“Not entirely,” he said, leaning closer, taking a deep inhale near her neck, letting the soft rose-scented perfume fill his senses. “It was my job to know, my lady. Not seducing wives and collecting mistresses—though that often helped mask what it was I was about—but what I really did was know my opponents. Know their wishes, their desires. Discover their secrets.”
As he let that word whisper over her, she shivered. “And you think you’ve discovered mine? You think me a romantic, longing to run away with some ne’er-do-well?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened a bit. “Ridiculous.”
Langley leaned closer. “Come now, Lady Standon. Is it all that ridiculous? Truly? We both know the truth.”
She shivered slightly, trembling really. “How could you know?” she confessed. He could tell that had cost her. “You hardly know me.”
If she were any other woman, he would have flirtatiously told her that there was much a man could tell from a lady’s kiss, but that wasn’t entirely the truth. And he knew that Lady Standon, this living, breathing embodiment of the goddess of wisdom, wouldn’t want to be dallied with.
And more to the point, there was far more he didn’t know about her, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. So he told her what he did know.
“You have two books out from the lending library. The Capitals of Europe and The Mysterious Harem of Constantinople. A travelogue and a rather risqué novel of French origins. The first book suggests you would like to leave London well behind you, and I won’t comment on the second one, only that it says much about your unfulfilled desires.”
“My unfulfilled—” She shook her head, as if trying to break the spell winding its magical way around them. “I have no such—”
He put a finger to her lips. “Oh, but you do. I know your secret.”
This time her gaze narrowed, challenging him, yet that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the tremble moving inside her. “And whatever do you think that is?”
“That as much as you protest otherwise, you long for me to kiss you. You want nothing more than to throw your vow away.”