Lord Langley Is Back in Town Read Free Page A

Whyever would I? The old girl sat happily ensconced on the settee, having stayed for the proceedings like an eager theatergoer.
    For certainly not even a Haymarket playwright could have envisioned such a scene.
    “Ladies, please!” Minerva said, pushing her way into the middle of the room. “I will not stand for such behavior in my house!”
    There was a sniff from one of the corners.
    Apparently being designated as merely a lady was not enough for her highbrowed company. So Minerva tried a more diplomatic approach. “Your Grace, Your Highness, Contessa, Margravine, please, all of you, I implore you to listen to me. Lord Langley is not here. You have made a terrible mistake, and I would ask for you to leave my—”
    “Not here! Impossible!”
    “Of course he is here! I had it from a very reliable source—” the Duchessa di Oristano, the onetime Nanny Lucia, said, waving a letter she’d plucked from inside her pelisse at Minerva.
    “You think you can keep him to yourself? You? What could you be to such as him?” This remark came from the formidable Wilhelmenia Charlotte Louise, Margravine of Ansbach, or simply, Nanny Helga, the fourth and last lady of this unwelcome party. The margravine and her rivals all cast scathing glances that ran from the top of Minerva’s head down to her shoes.
    Good heavens, what an insufferable woman! And while Minerva hadn’t even the slightest idea how one properly addressed a margravine, right now she thought it more preferable to discover how to get rid of one.
    Nanny Lucia chimed in right behind the margravine. “Yes, Lady Standon, if you think you can satisfy my Langley—”
    “Cease this instant!” Minerva said, adding a stamp of her foot as an exclamation point to her annoyance. “I will call the watch and have all of you arrested if you are not silent.”
    There followed some general sniffs of displeasure and a few muttered complaints about English hospitality, but the nannies came to an uneasy peace accord, their hostilities held in check.
    At least for the moment.
    “Now once again, Lord Langley is not here—” Minerva began.
    “Of course he is!”
    “I have conclusive information that says he has been seen—”
    “Why do you keep insisting that he is not here, when the evidence—”
    “Enough!” Minerva bellowed, forgetting every bit of decorum she possessed. “If, and that is a very big if, he were here—”
    “But he is, and I insist—” Nanny Helga started to say, but as quickly stopped when Minerva turned her most quelling look on the lady.
    She might not have these ladies’ flair for fashion, she may not have their natural beauty, but she was an Englishwoman through and through, and that, in Minerva’s estimation, counted for much.
    And as a marchioness she had to guess she outranked a mere margravine. At least she hoped she did.
    It was at this point that Aunt Bedelia finally decided to wade into the fray.
    About demmed time , Minerva would have said aloud if she were inclined. Another half an hour in this company and she’d probably be inclined to say much more.
    “Please, ladies, my niece is a respectable widow,” Aunt Bedelia told them. “She lives here only with her servants. Alone. Unmarried. Without even a suitor or any hope of—”
    “Auntie!” Minerva blurted out. “Your point?”
    Aunt Bedelia blinked and then shook her head. “Oh, yes, my point is that your search for any gentleman—here of all places—is for naught.” Minerva groaned, but her aunt continued, undeterred. “As for Lord Langley, he is not here for one simple reason: He is not alive. I myself know that the man was lost in the war. My former husband—God rest his soul—was with the Foreign Office when the baron was lost. He’s been dead for some time, so I fear your travels here have been in vain. Lord Langley is lost.”
    “Bah!” Nanny Tasha snorted. “You do not know the man. He could never be, how did you say, ‘lost’! Why, it is a preposterous