Lord Langley Is Back in Town by Elizabeth Boyle Read Free Book Online

rather affronted.
    He bowed slightly. “At your service, my lady.”
    “I didn’t ask for your service,” she shot back.
    Yes, definitely not one of the welcoming party. “Well, I didn’t ask you to invite in that circus of harpies into my daughter’s house.”
    “My house,” she corrected. “Which you weren’t invited into either.”
    “Wasn’t I?” He patted his jacket as if searching for something. “I do believe I have my invitation here somewhere.”
    His charm was lost on the lady, for her reply was the arch of her dark brows over her narrowed eyes.
    For a moment he found himself wistfully wondering what color they were. Blue? Nut brown? Green?
    The ruckus in the hall drew both their attention back to the door as it rattled loudly, the hinges—unlike the drainpipe outside—holding their own.
    “I must say you are a most indulgent hostess,” he said as he rose from the bed, “for you seem to draw guests like a moth.”
    “If only you were all as easily squashed,” she replied as she too got up and faced him.
    “Poor, darling, Langley, you needn’t stay in there with her ,” Tasha purred. “Come out here with me. I have missed you so.” The slow scratch of fingernails ran down the door.
    “My Langley with her? Are you mad?” This came from Lucia, ever the fiery Italian duchessa. Of course, she would dismiss anyone else as being in competition with her, for she had lived her entire life as the petted and coveted jewel of Naples. “She is nothing, she is but a mouse. As if he would fancy such as that .”
    “A mouse!” Lady Standon straightened. “Whatever does she mean by that?”
    “That she thinks you are unworthy of my affections,” he said, glancing at the door and then back at the window. He was a good two stories above the ground, which would mean he would most likely break at least one limb if he made a jump for it.
    “I knew she was hiding him!” Brigid declared to the others.
    This spun Lady Standon around on her heel. “I am not!” she told them through the door.
    “Bah! The English and all their high and mighty morals!” Helga sounded in fine form. “Would someone get a pike, an axe, a halberd? I shall break this door down myself!”
    “A halberd?” Lady Standon exclaimed. “Oh, yes, I have several of those in the morning room.” She glanced over at him. “What sort of lady does she think I am?”
    Langley grinned. “I believe the margravine has an entire room devoted to such things.”
    There was an indelicate snort from the mistress of the house, but whether it was to the fact that Helga had a collection of sharpened weapons at the ready or that he merely knew such women, he didn’t know.
    Nor did he ask.
    Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, the enemy was clearly growing impatient, for Tasha began calling for one of her footmen—most likely not trusting the margravine with an axe. And if his rusty Russian was correct, the princess was calling the situation “a matter of great moral imperative.” Nor did he suspect she was creating this fuss in order to save Lady Standon’s imperiled reputation.
    “This is ruinous!” his unwitting hostess declared, nudging him with her pistol. “Get out of my room!”
    “Madame, if I open that door, I’ll be ruined.”
    “Then go back the way you came,” she said, pointing at the window.
    “Believe me, I’ve considered it.” For now there was a very resounding thud of boots on the steps. Apparently Tasha still favored keeping a few handsome Cossacks about.
    “Well—” Lady Standon’s foot tapped, and the pistol remained stubbornly pointed at him.
    “The drainpipe broke on my way up. The only way out is to jump.”
    She stepped aside. “Do I appear to be stopping you?”
    “I’d break my neck at this height,” he said, hands fisting at his sides. Not that the lady looked all that dismayed over the prospect of him ending his illustrious life in a heap of broken bones in her garden.
    Truly he could see