For the sake of the Stapleton succession, Stapleton would hound Miss Abbott to hell’s front door, if necessary.
Fleming stood at attention, though he’d never bought his colors. “Miss Abbott has been known to wear disguises, my lord.”
“I am aware of that. She’s a professional snoop, but we must out-snoop her, mustn’t we?” Two searches of her home had yielded nothing. Not so much as an overdue bill from a greengrocer.
“She might simply have gone to her covert, my lord. Just because she hasn’t been seen doesn’t mean she isn’t at home, tatting lace or embroidering handkerchiefs.”
Fleming disapproved of this whole venture. He had a softhearted view of women and probably kissed his dogs when nobody was looking. He would be putty in Harmonia’s hands, and happy, devoted putty.
“Abigail Abbott wouldn’t know what to do with an embroidery needle if you threaded it for her and…”
A tattoo of heels on the parquet foyer had Fleming’s head coming up.
“Fleming, attend me. You may join Lady Champlain upon the conclusion of our interview and not before. Harmonia never goes out this early in the day.”
Fleming assumed parade-rest posture—chin up, hands behind his back. “Perhaps Miss Abbott doesn’t have the documents, my lord. Some time has passed, after all, and paper burns easily.”
“Does it? Does it truly?” Stapleton sat forward, linking his hands on the desk blotter. “Paper burns easily. Well, I had no idea. Thank you for enlightening me, Fleming. You put my mind at ease. I will simply trust that some very sensitive information has been twisted into spills and sent up Miss Abbott’s chimney. That makes perfect sense, paper also being expensive and her means being limited.”
A flash of impatience showed in Fleming’s eyes. He was the typical English lordling, flaxen-haired, tall, full of his own consequence, and none too bright. For Stapleton’s purposes he was an adequate resource. Fleming had enough standing to be treated deferentially by lesser mortals—by hired footpads, for example—and enough native wit to execute most tasks without immediate supervision.
Most tasks, apparently not all. And the blighter was besotted with Harmonia, or with what he perceived her settlements to be.
“Your lordship must consider that we’re on a goose chase,” Fleming said. “Perhaps if you’d see fit to share with me the nature of the documents, I might have a better chance of retrieving them.”
Stapleton had the odd thought that if Miss Abbott had been tasked with retrieving the letters, she would not make excuses or let inane flirtations distract her from the goal. She’d see the thing done and done right—drat the woman.
“Your job is not to find the documents.” Fleming would doubtless read the letters, which Stapleton could not allow, hence the necessity of resorting to less literate subordinates for searching Miss Abbott’s abode. “Your job is to find a woman who’d stand out in a company of dragoons. Perhaps you are in need of spectacles, Fleming. The dratted creature is impossible to miss.”
Stapleton knew he was being petty, but he preferred proper ladies, all sweet and diminutive with just enough guile to be interesting. A Brobdingnagian such as Miss Abbott was contrary to the natural order, towering over men who substantially outranked her. Had she the docile nature of a beast of burden, her proportions would not rankle so, but she was half a foot taller than Stapleton. She would only affect docility in service of some stratagem such as she had used to entangle Stapleton’s hapless son.
Champlain likely hadn’t known what had hit him, poor lad.
Fleming strode for the door. “I will instruct the men to maintain vigilance over her residence in York and keep an eye on the usual posting inns. I thought we might also set a watch here in London, my lord, at Smithfield Market at least.”
There you go, thinking again. “Why would Miss Abbott flee straight to the very place where I await her capture?”
Fleming paused, not quite turning, his posture conveying impatience. “Because she is canny as hell, and London is the last place you’d think to look for her?”
“Perhaps we should set a watch in Timbuktu and Calcutta, then. I hear the American wilderness can swallow up even giantesses. She would be daft to come to London.”
“She could be here already, my lord, and you none the wiser. Once she disappears into the stews, you’ll never find her.”
This show of spirit would have been gratifying were it not so nonsensical. “In the stews, where the average female is about four feet tall, Miss Abbott will stand out like a maypole. She’s not in London, I tell you. Now, be off with you until you have something more encouraging to report. Harmonia is in the blue salon entertaining some portraitist. Try not to make too great a fool of yourself. Her ladyship genuinely grieved for Champlain, and as far as I know, she’s not looking to find his successor yet.”
Fleming bowed curtly and withdrew, leaving Stapleton to consider the prospect of Miss Abigail Abbott in London. The Romans had had a saying about even a blind dove finding the occasional pea. Perhaps a footman sent to loiter about Clerkenwell’s coaching inns might not be a bad idea—though Stapleton would never admit as much to Fleming.
Abigail had never in her entire interesting life commanded a man to kiss her. Lord Stephen had spoken the truth, though: She was weary of flight, bewildered, and not herself. She’d noticed Stephen Wentworth the moment she’d set eyes on him, noticed his watchfulness and the way his family kept their distance rather than intrude on his privacy.
Then there was his height and general air of substance. Nobody trifled with this man, and for Abigail, that sense of self-possession was more attractive than all the artfully styled tailoring or graceful pirouettes in Mayfair.
He began his flirtation with her hands, which were as outsized as the rest of her. In his grasp, her fingers felt fragile and if not exactly petite, at least feminine. He planted a kiss on her palm, holding her hand open, then laying it against his cheek.
He watched her eyes while he did this. If he was looking for signs of repugnance, he was doomed to wait forever.
“Do that again.”
Being Stephen Wentworth, he did not obey her command. Instead he pressed his lips to Abigail’s wrist.
“Was that your tongue?” she asked.
“Mmm.”
He did it again, and Abigail’s insides began leaping about like a flock of starlings at a fountain. Just when she would have told him to cease his teasing, he desisted and moved closer.
“Your hair,” he said, tracing the line of her brow with his thumb, “doubtless falls to your hips. I want to see it down, want to see you wearing nothing but these glorious tresses.”
“These naughty love words are not kissing, my lord.” But oh, the images he brought to mind. The sensations, the longings…
“Haste is the enemy of pleasure, Abigail, and if I cannot pleasure you with my kisses, then I am a failure as a man.”
He touched his mouth to the corner of her lips, which had the maddening effect of making Abigail go still, the better to aid his aim on the next attempt. But he, of course, knew exactly what he was doing and only teased at the other corner of her mouth.
“You will drive me daft, sir.”
“Good. We are making progress.”
The hint of smugness in his tone collided with a thought: Abigail need not sit demurely while Lord Stephen toppled her self-control with practiced skill. He was a mortal if formidable man. His self-restraint could be toppled too.
She slid a hand inside his riding jacket, around the lean warmth of his waist. She urged him closer and felt the surprise of that boldness go through him.
Now they were making progress. When he would have inflicted another one of his off-center kisses on her, she shifted, so their mouths lined up squarely. She anchored her free hand in his hair and held him still while she learned the taste of him.
Stephen Wentworth’s kisses were sweet, warm, and playful. He gave new meaning to the term nimble tongue, and he kept his hand o
n Abigail’s side, just inches from her breast. She liked that he was bold but not presuming, familiar without harrying her into intimacies beyond what she was prepared to share.
The whole business became so engrossing that Abigail forgot this kiss was meant as a rehearsal or a test case, forgot she was being hounded by an arrogant marquess. She forgot much that badly needed forgetting. Instead, she recalled that she was not yet an old woman, and not simply an inquiry agent with a reputation for thoroughness and discretion.
Lord Stephen drew back, and urged Abigail against his side. This resulted in her head on his shoulder, his arm encircling her. She rested her palm over his heart, which beat a steady and slightly accelerated tempo.
“You offer me a challenge,” he said, his hand smoothing over Abigail’s hair.
The warm glow within died, for all that the embrace was cozy. “This plan was your idea, my lord, and I’m not that hard to kiss. You aren’t exactly conventional in your approach, but I suppose I can manage further displays of affection if I must.” She was blustering, trying to ignore the disappointment she felt. For him the kiss had been an experiment, while for her it had been…
A revelation.
He cradled her cheek in his palm and pressed her face gently to his chest. “You are enthralling to kiss, and God preserve me from convention in any but the most traditional endeavors. Give me your hand.”
He possessed himself of Abigail’s hand. The next thing she knew, her palm was pressed to his falls, and to the hard column of flesh therein.
“Men get this way frequently,” she said, though few men got this way on quite such an impressive scale, at least in her limited experience. “It means nothing. What is your point?”
She removed her hand, and he wrapped her fingers in a snug grasp.
“Abigail, I do not get this way frequently, not anymore. One learns to manage one’s impulses lest one make a fool of oneself. I can appear to court you in all sincerity, steal kisses that I will genuinely treasure, disport with you in secluded alcoves and honestly resent any intrusions. You should know this before you embark on any subterfuges with me.”
He was trying to tell her something, to posit a thesis delicately. Abigail was too bothered with conflicting emotions and bodily sensations to properly dissect his words.
“You are attracted to me?” she asked.
“Need you make it a question?”
The slight testiness of his response, the evasiveness, suggested an extraordinary possibility: This gloriously intelligent, handsome, shrewd, wealthy, titled, and clever man was unsure of his own appeal. The test had been not of his ability to appear the doting swain, but of her willingness to appear doted upon—by him.
Abigail would ponder the why of that conclusion later, but in the easy rhythm of Lord Stephen’s caresses and the patience with which he awaited her reply, she accepted that Stephen Wentworth was even more complicated than she’d realized, and not what he appeared to be.
He was more, much more, than an arrogant London lord with a penchant for solving mechanical questions.
“You will forgive my befuddlement,” Abigail said, snuggling closer. “I am unaccountably muddled.”
He squeezed her in a half hug. “Got you stirred up, did I?”
“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself.” He sounded, in fact, relieved.
He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t sound so displeased with yourself. Women have needs. As it happens, I delight in meeting those needs.”
“Nobody needs to be kissed.” She was arguing in part for form’s sake, and in part because it seemed to amuse his lordship. Also because—no harm in being honest—she did not want to leave this couch or leave Lord Stephen’s comfortable, almost friendly embrace.
“Abigail dearest, we all need a little kissing, cuddling, and cavorting. Proving that to you shall be my fondest challenge.”
Abigail closed her eyes, savoring the rare comfort of another’s animal warmth, the utter relaxation Lord Stephen’s touch encouraged. Even as her body quietly hummed with pleasure, her mind faced an uncomfortable truth.
She could pose as the object of Lord Stephen’s affections. She could easily reciprocate his overtures and enjoy his attentions. That playacting would complicate the whole business of the letters, even as it sheltered her from Stapleton’s mischief.
The greater problem was the role Abigail would be inhabiting. She would be impersonating the woman she could never be, the woman Lord Stephen Wentworth loved with his whole, complicated, magnificent, devious heart.
Lady Mary Jane Christine Benevolence Wentworth was perfect, her tiny fingers and toes all present in the proper numbers, her face the envy of Botticelli’s cherubs. In sleep, her mouth worked in a pantomime of suckling, as if even her dreams were of nurture and security.
“Welcome, my lady,” Stephen said, cradling the baby against his heart. “I am your uncle. I will counsel you in the difficult diplomacy of having older sisters. I claim two such siblings, and they are formidable. I am proud to say that your older sisters are terrors, in no small part thanks to my inspiring influence.”
Mary Jane had three older siblings, all robust, clever, darling young ladies, full of the well-loved child’s high spirits and lively curiosity. Their papa and mama—Quinn and Jane—ruled the nursery with loving firmness, and unlike other titled parents, spent considerable time with their children.
“You have chosen well,” Stephen whispered. The nursery had a pair of rocking chairs next to the hearth, and in this setting—and in this setting only—a chair that rocked made sense to Stephen. “I taught Hannah how to pick a lock, and she’ll soon need clocks to take apart. Elizabeth makes up stories for me.” The baby—meaning the third youngest, who was no longer the baby—had yet to manifest her special gifts, but Stephen suspected she’d be highly musical.
He was helpless not to love them, and the little beggars took shameless advantage of his weakness. They loved him back, indifferent to his lurching gait, his tendency to play with their toys, and his frankly nasty outlook on humanity in general.
“You lot ruin all my theories,” he murmured, rocking the baby gently. “Curmudgeonliness becomes impossible with little princesses galloping the corridors of their kingdom and flying down the banisters.” Though sorrow was ever at hand when the nieces were present.
Stephen could not chase Quinn and Jane’s offspring, could not grab them about their sturdy middles as Quinn and Duncan did to hoist them onto the stair railings, could not take them on his shoulders when they began to tire in the park. He could put them up before him in the saddle, but only if an obliging groom lifted the child for him.
“You will not have cousins of me,” he murmured against the baby’s downy crown. “I told your sisters the same thing. Look to Althea and Constance for that madness.” Or to Duncan and Matilda. Duncan was a cousin to Stephen and Quinn, and Duncan, like Quinn, seemed capable of fathering only females.
“Whom he spoils shamelessly,” Stephen added. To the casual observer, Duncan appeared all serious and academic, but put an infant in his arms and he was about as scholarly as fairy dust and spotted unicorns.
“The Wentworth menfolk are easily besotted,” Stephen said, more quietly still. “See that our womenfolk have more sense than that, for I will call out any young swain who offers you dishonor.”
The nursery door creaked open, and Stephen prepared to hand the baby over to her mother or father. A mere nursery maid would not be able to pry the child from his arms, for Jane’s labor had been difficult, and the infant’s survival a domestic miracle.
Quinn settled into the second rocking chair. His temples sported a few threads of silver, and he was within hailing distance of his fortieth year. Jane said he grew only more handsome—about which Stephen had no opinion—but clearly, Quinn grew happier with each passing year.
About which, Stephen was torn.
“Promising her ponies and peppermints?” Quinn asked, leaning his head against the back of the cha
ir.
“Promising to kill anybody who brings her dishonor.”
“That’s my job, though Jane will usurp that honor from both of us. Why are the children always so good for you?”
Because I love them. Of course, Quinn and Jane loved their children, but Stephen never envisioned having progeny of his own—what sort of father couldn’t carry his own toddler up to the nursery at the end of the day?—and thus Stephen’s love was gilded with desperation.
These children had to be happy, they had to thrive, or he would go mad.
“The children are simply children,” he said, “and that wonder bedazzles me whenever I behold them.” The girls were the antidote to Stephen’s memories, tonic for the constant pain of a leg that would never be straight or strong.
“You are a fraud, Stephen Wentworth.” Quinn pronounced sentence gently. “You travel the world leaving a trail of lordly disdain and casual brilliance. You build heavy artillery and small arms, you destroy any business that you take into dislike, but in your heart, you were meant for domesticity.”
The baby sighed, the softest, most contented exhalation ever to soothe an upset uncle.
“I am about as well suited to domesticity,” Stephen said, “as you are to be a duke.”
Quinn’s gaze shifted from Stephen to the baby. “Jane says I’ve grown into the title, and my duchess is never wrong. She sent me to retrieve yon hooligan, and when it comes to Her Grace’s whim, I am pleased to step and fetch.”
Stephen’s every instinct clamored to keep the baby close and safe, to guard her from even the loving attentions of her own parents, and yet, he could not safely rise with the child in his arms.
He could not manage the baby, a cane—much less two canes—and a door latch.
This limitation, previously acknowledged mostly in the abstract, had consumed his awareness since he’d kissed Abigail Abbott that very morning.
He passed the child to her father. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck with the next one.”
How to Catch a Duke Page 6
