Lord Langley Is Back in Town (26 page)

But still, the end results of holding onto something as ethereal as honor . . . She closed her eyes for a moment trying to blot out the vision of either man—or both—lying atop Primrose Hill in a pool of their own blood.

“Please, Langley—”

“I like that,” he said softly.

Minerva paused. “Like what?” She could hardly see what there was to like about a discussion of him being shot at.

“I like it when you call me Langley,” he confessed, smiling at her. “It is quite endearing.”

“I would never be so informal,” she said, realizing that indeed she was being so utterly intimate with him. She’d been calling him that ever since . . .

Last night in the carriage.
Her gaze flew up and she found him smiling wickedly at her as if he too was thinking the very same thing. Recalling their interlude with some delight, if that wretched grin of his was any indication.

“I won’t make that mistake again,” she informed him, not sure if she was speaking of her use of his name or their encounter in the carriage.

“We are betrothed,” he reminded her. “And you are a widow. Both are perfectly acceptable.”

“We are not,” she corrected. “Betrothed,” she added hastily. They had gone right past acceptable and respectable last night.

“But no else knows that.” Then he reached for another piece of toast from the rack and began to butter it. After he was finished, he glanced up at her, obviously not willing to continue until she agreed.

“Lord Langley—”

“Tut tut,” he said, shaking a piece of toast at her.

“Langley, then,” she ground out. “Please . . . please, don’t do this. You promised me you wouldn’t compromise my reputation if we went forward with our agreement—”

“And thus far I have kept my part.” Then he paused, tipped his head and studied her. “Have you kept yours, my lady?”

That piercing gaze of his went straight to her heart.

“No other men?” he prodded.

“No!” she sputtered. “When would I have—”

And her words abruptly came to a halt as she recalled her meeting with Adlington. How could she have forgotten it?

While she might, not so Langley. He must have seen her with Gerald and . . .

Minerva straightened. Not that there had been anything to see. Besides, Langley couldn’t have noticed her situation with Adlington; he’d been too busy with Chudley.

Which meant he was bluffing.

“There is no other man in my life,” she asserted.

“That is good news,” he said, letting up his scrutiny. “I’ll have you know I am the jealous sort.”

“Truly? Will it matter much when you are dead?”

He grinned at this. “Worried for my safety?”

“Not in the least,” she said, pacing a bit. She stopped and whirled around, shaking a finger at him. “But if you die up there, I’ll be the one left to live with the scandal.”

“I can hardly be held accountable for Chudley’s challenge, or that he had to make it in the middle of Drury-Lane Theatre.”

She pressed her lips together. He did have her there. Still . . . “And why was such a challenge necessary?”

He waved her off and dug back into his breakfast.

“Langley!” Minerva reached across the table and pulled his plate away.

He tossed down his napkin. “If you must know—”

“I must.”

“Good God, woman, it was fifteen years ago, is this truly necessary?” He reached for the teapot, and in a quick motion she pushed it out of his reach.

Taking a deep breath, he sat back in his chair, arms folded over his chest. “I was posted in Naples at the time, and Chudley and his wife—not your aunt, his second wife—were there. She was a foolish young thing and she flirted shamelessly with any and every man at court.”

“Including you?”

“Yes, including me,” he said, shaking his head. “Then one night Chudley spied his errant wife with a man out in the gardens, but he couldn’t see who it was. So when he demanded she name her paramour, rather than reveal her lover’s name, she said it was me.”

“Whyever would she do that?” Minerva asked.

“Because, if you must know—”

“I must—”

“I had rebuffed her on more than one occasion and she was a petty bit of muslin.” He raked his hand through his hair and then shook his head as if trying to discard the memory. “I wasn’t interested in her. Besides, any man would have been a demmed fool to dally with her, given Chudley’s reputation with pistols.”

“Was there a reason you rebuffed her?”

He blew out an exasperated breath. “Contrary to the common gossip you seem to ascribe so much value to, I have not bedded every woman I’ve met. Besides, she wasn’t my sort. A more foolish and vain chit never lived.” He paused, then leaned over and fetched his plate back. “Vain I don’t mind, but I’ve never suffered a foolish woman.” He dug back into his breakfast defiantly, as if challenging her to refute his version of the events.

Minerva took a step back and considered what he’d said. And then she glanced upward and considered his former paramours, all still soundly asleep upstairs. Oh, they were all vain creatures, but as he said, not one of them was a fool. Calculating, yes. Devious, definitely. But foolish? Not in the least.

And neither was she. For like his honor, she knew he was telling the truth. She didn’t know how or why, but she would have staked her honor on it.

What little she possessed.

“To avoid a huge scandal,” he said, continuing the story, “I was hastily reposted to Paris—not to mention, peace had broken out and the Foreign Office wanted to take advantage of the moment to gather every bit of intelligence on Napoleon that they could muster. Thus, Chudley’s insult and challenge have lay lingering all this time—though I have to admit, I’d all but forgotten about it, at least until yesterday.”

Minerva sighed, completely exasperated over the entire situation. A fifteen-year-old peccadillo? Oh, she’d never understand men.

She pulled out her chair and sank down into it, unwilling to even think of the consequences of such a rash act.

“You don’t believe me,” he said, having mistaken her dismay. And if she didn’t know better, sounding quite affronted.

She glanced up at him, took in his furrowed brow, the indignation. “Actually, I do, that is what has me in a mare’s nest.”

This took him aback, his eyes widening as if he was seeing her for the first time. “You believe me?”

Minerva nodded, then reached for the teapot and poured him a cup, as well as one for herself. It wasn’t steaming as it ought and it had brewed too long, but then again that seemed to be par for the course at the moment.

“Why?” he asked quietly as he cradled his cup in his hands.

“I don’t know,” she confessed, unwilling at first to look at him. But then she willed her gaze to meet his. “But I do.”

And inside her heart, those words took on an entirely different meaning.

L
angley didn’t know what was more disconcerting—having Lady Standon’s conviction in his favor or the way his heart beat faster as she gazed steadily at him. Not just faster, but actually thudded and pounded as if applauding.

For it couldn’t be something else. Certainly not
that
.

He knew he should say something, but what you said to a lady when your heart went on some errant course of its own, he knew not.

For whatever he was going to say to her, he knew he had to damn well mean it.

“Minerva, I—”

His confession came to an abrupt halt as the front doorbell jangled. Not just the usual rattle, the poor thing sounded as if it was being yanked off the hanger.

They shared a glance that said the same thing.

Aunt Bedelia
.

Most likely having spent the night unsuccessfully bullying her husband to give up his folly, she had now come to Brook Street to continue her tirade.

As the bell tolled again, Langley bolted to his feet. Given what he knew of Lady Chudley, he assumed he wouldn’t get a third warning. “That is my signal to leave.”

“Leave?” Minerva protested, getting to her feet as well. “You can’t just abandon me to her.”

And just as he predicted, the front door banged open.
“Where is he?”

They both glanced at the door. “ ’Tis your relation, my lady, not mine,” he said in the way of an apology.

Minerva stepped into his path. “What does it say about your precious honor that you flee in the face of my aunt?”

“That my honor isn’t always what it should be,” he teased, before he leaned forward and, staring at her lips, half considered putting a kiss on them. But he stopped just short and said, “Alas, I promised.”

His near kiss was enough to distract Minerva, and he dodged around her and escaped down the hall toward the kitchen even as Lady Chudley rounded the corner.

He continued apace down the back stairs to the kitchen and had planned to cut through Mrs. Hutchinson’s domain, then depart using the servant steps that led up to Brook Street, but what he spied in the kitchen halted his escape.

For there sat Mrs. Hutchinson, Thomas-William, and one of Lord Andrew’s urchins, all on stools beside the lift that carried plates to the dining room.

“What the devil—” he began.

“Sssh!” Mrs. Hutchinson said, finger on her lips. “The next round is about to start.”

As he drew closer, he could clearly hear Lady Chudley saying, “This is ruinous, Minerva! You must put an end to this nonsense!”

Egads, the shaft between the walls conducted conversations perfectly down to the kitchen for all to hear.

Why this was the worst sort of eavesdropping!

But before there was anything more from above, the incorrigible housekeeper leaned over to Thomas-William and nudged him in the ribs. “Owe me two bob, you do. Told you himself would be down here in a thrice when that caterwauling mort arrived.”

For his part, Thomas-William shot Langley a scathing glance, not that much different from the one Lady Standon had sent him when he’d gotten to his feet to flee.

“My lord,” the boy began, “Lord Andrew sent me with the carriage—”

“Sssh,” both he and Mrs. Hutchinson directed at the lad.

“But I am supposed to—” the boy persisted, but stopped when he realized no one was listening to him. Huffing a sigh, he sat back on his stool and shook his head.

Not that Langley really noticed, for down from above came Lady Standon’s strained voice, “I hardly see what I can do—”

“What you can do?” Lady Chudley clamored. “I’ll tell you what you can do—”

“A slight delay in our plans,” Langley whispered to the lad. And having not a single bit of honor when it came to such practices, and every measure of his wits, Langley pulled up a stool and settled in like the veriest tabby.

“I
will have him arrested,” Aunt Bedelia declared, still standing at the head of the table like she was presiding over the House of Lords.

“Who? Lord Chudley?” Minerva asked as she gave up and sat down, pushing Langley’s deserted plate aside.

“No, of course not!” the woman sputtered. “That wretched betrothed of yours—he is the cause of all this. Whatever was I thinking giving you my blessing for such a union? The man is a scandal!”

“A scandal? He wasn’t the one who issued some foolhardy challenge in the middle of Drury-Lane Theatre!” Minerva shot back, wondering at her own vehemence.

Good gracious heavens, she was defending Langley.

“And why shouldn’t Chudley have issued his challenge? Granted, he is a bit of a hothead when provoked—though usually he roars in that manner in more private moments.” Aunt Bedelia sat down and pulled out her handkerchief, fanning herself a bit.

Minerva’s gaze shot up to her aunt. Had she just heard the lady correctly? Oh, if the blush on the older woman’s face was any indication, she had.

And wished she hadn’t.

“Please, Aunt Bedelia, let us not fight over the hows and whys of this mess.”
And please no more intimate details about your marriage to Chudley. It is going to take a month of Sundays to get the image of Chudley roaring through your bedchamber scrubbed from my mind.
“Let us work together to discover a solution to all this.”

“Find a solution to what, darling?” Tasha said as she sauntered into the dining room, glancing at the sideboard and taking naught but a piece of toast.

“The duel,” Lucia chimed in, coming in behind the Russian princess. She fluttered her hand at Minerva. “You English are so odd—always ready to argue—but also so ready to condemn a sensible solution.” She sighed and took a plate as well.

“A duel is a wonderful moment for a man,” Helga said, having come in behind Lucia. “The honesty, the bravery, the courage. Never fear, my
schatzi
will put a bullet through that old goat and be done with him.” She snapped her fingers and sat down at the table, glancing around for a servant to fetch her a plate.