Free Lord Langley Is Back in Town by Elizabeth Boyle Page A

week.”
    “A week?” she sputtered. “You’ve been living here, in my house, for a week?”
    He pressed a finger to his lips. “Ssh, my lady. Unless you want all of Mayfair to know our secret.”
    There it was again. The way he said that. Our secret. As if that was enough to convince her that they possessed one. Shared something illicit. She ignored the shiver that ran down her spine. The teasing whisper of desire that followed in its wake.
    They did have something in common. His kiss had proved that.
    “You cannot have been living here for a week,” Minerva insisted.
    “While I try never to contradict a lady, I fear I must in this case. I have very much been living here. In your house.” He needn’t take so much delight in pointing out his deception and her unwitting involvement. Oh, but he wasn’t finished yet. Leaning down the stairs he whispered, “As it turns out, I am such an excellent houseguest, you hardly knew I was here.”
    “That is the point, sir. I did not know!”
    “Good luck convincing the rest of the ton .”
    Minerva groaned and ground her teeth together. “You are utterly mad!”
    The man shrugged. “No, not in the least. And if we are being fair about this, the real madness of my plan requires that I convince Society that I am willing to marry you , madam. But I am up to the challenge and daresay might find it a tolerable one, indeed.”
    Minerva sucked in a deep breath, if only to avoid the retort that rose quickly from every indignant nerve in her body.
    Why you insufferable bast—
    “Good night, my lady.” With that, he continued on up the stairs, and when he turned at the landing, he had the nerve to wink at her as if daring her to follow him and make good her earlier threat to turn him out.
    Oh, bother! What could she do? Follow him up into the darkness? Kick up a bigger ruckus? Hardly. And that devil of a man knew it. He had her in his crosshairs and there was nothing she could do.
    At least not now.
    Minerva closed her door and leaned against it—for it was the only way to get it to shut.
    Come morning , she vowed, I’ll see the lot of you rousted and moved out .
    And then unwittingly she thought of Lord Langley’s kiss and added one more thing to her resolution.
    Before there is worse damage than my broken door and ruined drainpipe.

Chapter 4
     
Occasionally a man will outwit a lady . . .
Advice to Felicity Langley from Nanny Tasha
     
    T he creak of the sole remaining hinge on the door into Minerva’s bedchamber brought her awake abruptly. Sitting straight up, she spent a heart-stopping moment trying to make right of the world around her—the sunshine pouring through the thin curtains, and the sounds of a London day in full movement—and the equally vibrant dream she’d been wrenched out of.
    Of him. Lord Langley. Kissing her. Yet again. And this time she hadn’t been protesting.
    Not that you protested all that much the first time around.
    Minerva ignored that wry observation, for it sounded too much like something Aunt Bedelia might say.
    “So sorry, my lady,” her maid rushed to say. “I just thought . . . it’s just that you’re usually . . . with it being nearly noon, I feared something might be amiss, even though he said he’d left you happily contented.”
    He said? Minerva glanced up and found Agnes’s wide blue eyes scanning her and the bed as if she half expected her mistress to look as ravished as the door. Then the rest of her maid’s explanation stopped ringing about her sleep-tousled thoughts.
    . . . he said he’d left you happily contented.
    How dare he imply that she . . . that they . . . that they’d . . .
    Oh, that lying, good for nothing—
    Minerva threw back the covers and jammed her feet into her slippers. “Goodness, Agnes! Whyever did you let me sleep this late?”
    The girl settled the tray she carried on the dressing table and said, “His lordship said you needed the rest.”
    Minerva, who’d reached for her