Lord Langley Is Back in Town by Elizabeth Boyle

hers, nibbling at hers, teasing her to open up to him.
    Give in to his seduction.
    Give in? She hadn’t been dubbed the icy Lady Standon for nothing. She had dodged, avoided, and quelled the aspirations of every ne’er-do-well who had veered in her direction over the last eleven years, since the death of Philip Sterling had freed her from the bonds of marriage. Years of maintaining her spotless reputation were gone in an instant as this one man breeched her defenses without so much as a hint of flirtation.
    So even as she considered raising one final note of protest—a knee to his infamous manhood—something unexpected happened.
    Unexpected in that Minerva would never have thought such things could happen. At least not to her.
    As hastily as he’d caught her up, as tightly as he held her, his lips touched hers with a tenderness, a reverence, that belied his reputation. He wasn’t so much devouring her, but teasing her. Tempting her. Tasting her. Slowly, deliberately. His strong lips covered hers, murmured over hers, but what they were saying was like a whisper in a foreign language. She hadn’t the vaguest idea what was being said, but all of a sudden she longed for the translation.
    Desired it with all her heart.
    And as that awareness, the spark of need flared to life inside her, at the very moment when she could feel the traitorous acquiescence in her body, he pulled back, just enough to look into her eyes.
    And what she saw there inflamed her. That brazen light of mischief sparkling at her. As if he knew the battle going on inside her . . . and worse yet, that he’d begun to win it.
    “My apologies, dearest,” he whispered loudly. “There will be time enough for us later.”
    Later. The word purred over her with a heady promise of passions yet to come.
    Like hell , she would have told him, if he hadn’t just then set her back up on her feet and she found herself wavering, her knees knocking about beneath her as if her house had suddenly been launched to sea.
    In the middle of a storm. With nothing to lash herself to.
    Save this solid, muscled man beside her.
    I’d rather drown , she fumed silently, staggering a few steps back and catching hold of her dressing table.
    “Awch! Schatzi! ” Nanny Helga cried out, elbowing her way past Brigid and Lucia. “What has become of you, my Langley, that you would stoop to . . . to . . .” Her hands fluttered at Minerva while her nose wrinkled in dismay.
    Not to be outdone, Nanny Lucia came bustling forward as well. The elegant lady wore a robe and night rail in a sapphire blue silk that clung to her curves and was so gossamer that next to nothing of the Italian woman’s bountiful charms were “hidden” beneath. If the color wasn’t enough to catch the eye, she also wore a matching necklace, ear bobs, and bracelets, as if she were about to attend the opera. “Dolce cuore,” she purred. “Obviously you have lost your way.” She tossed a derisive snort at Minerva and at the margravine. “Now, I am here to help.”
    “You?” Brigid laughed and set down Knuddles. “Look, darling, it is Langley.”
    Knuddles, true to his affenpinscher nature, set out directly for Langley and promptly clamped his teeth down into the heel of the man’s boot, staking his mistress’s claim. Even the baron’s determined shaking of his foot would not dislodge the little monkey-faced dog.
    “Brigid, call off this beast,” he muttered, shaking his foot and teetering about with the stubborn little dog attached to his heel.
    Which gave the lady the invitation that no one else had received, and she queened her way past the rest of them, pausing before Langley and casting him a seductive glance before she bent over, slowly, purposefully, so that her low-cut night rail billowed out and gave anyone willing to look an eyeful.
    Utterly shameless! Minerva stood there stunned by the lady’s brazen antics, and her furious glance—why she was furious, she wasn’t certain, but then