“He did not break my heart, and you cannot call him out.” The wretch was dead, and his passing had occasioned all manner of confused emotions for Abigail. “I have no patience with guns, my lord, lest you forget.”
“Well, I can’t very well duel with swords, can I? My opponent would be felled by mirth when the first riposte sent me arse over ears into the dirt. I no longer duel, in the ordinary course, though for a time I indulged.”
The coach swayed around a corner and slowed.
“Indulged? And have you since realized masculine pride isn’t worth dying for?”
His lordship propped his foot on the opposite bench and idly rubbed his knee. “Masculine pride is not worth killing for, though I might set a brace of ruffians on the prancing dandiprat who broke your heart, Miss Abbott.”
Abigail’s lover had been a prancing dandiprat. Lord Stephen’s aim was deadly accurate in that regard. Her lover had also been gorgeous, exquisitely attired, and—this was also true—the embodiment of everything a pious Quaker girl ought not to esteem. He’d been vain, decorative, hedonistic, a slave to fashion, and self-indulgent to a fault.
And he hadn’t even given her baubles she could not wear. He’d entrusted her with a pocket watch that kept bad time. Even so, he had fulfilled some need in Abigail for rebellion, though she would not admit Lord Stephen had handed her that insight.
“The prancing dandiprat has gone to his reward, and this is all none of your business.”
His lordship paused in his knee-rubbing and peered at Abigail. “Is that how he broke your heart? Swilling bad ale or taking a stray bullet in a duel? Does an old shade own your affections?”
“We were no longer involved at the time of his death, and, no, a bullet did not end his life. He was simply taken before his time by happenstance and bad luck. Tell me about your family. I’ve met them, but I don’t know them.”
Stephen cocked his head. “That is the clumsiest attempt to change a subject this side of an occasion of royal flatulence. The ruddy prickster was married, wasn’t he? He was married, you were his delicious little secret, and he neglected to inform you that he would never make good on all his saccharine promises. It’s as well he’s dead, because I do not countenance lies told for amatory gain.”
How had this conversation happened? “I am nobody’s delicious little anything. Tell me about your family.”
“Tell me about the letters, Abigail. Why does Stapleton want them?”
“I have no idea. They are love letters that do not identify the party to whom they were sent. They are several years old and not particularly inspired. I have read them, and I saw no state secrets, no royal scandals, no discussion of stolen treasures. They are quite dull, actually.” And once upon a time, she’d thought them so precious as to deserve memorization.
“Have you read many love letters, then?”
Doubtless not as many as he had. “I have been employed on several occasions to retrieve embarrassing correspondence. One must read the letters to know whether they are the epistles one was hired to find.”
“My, my. The Quakers failed spectacularly with you, didn’t they?”
“They failed my father. What are the names of your nieces?”
He removed his foot from the opposite bench. “The newest one is Lady Mary Jane Christine Benevolence Wentworth, and she’s about the size of half a bread loaf. Jane labored for two days, and I gather Quinn was with her for most of it. They are like that—not at all high in the instep in the things that matter.”
He prattled on about his nieces, upon whom he clearly doted. He would make a devoted and patient father, and be the sort of papa who knew exactly how to discuss a difficult topic with a child. No helpless retreats into scripture when common sense was wanted, no vague allusions to celestial mysteries when some blunt biology would do.
His daughters would know where little dragons came from before genteel ignorance could be used against them.
“We arrive,” Lord Stephen said as the coach took a slow turn some moments later. “Jane will sweep you away from me before I so much as find a hassock for my foot, so allow me to pass along a parting thought.”
“A warning?” Abigail had met the Wentworths when she’d been in Lady Constance’s employ. Lady Constance—Her Grace of Rothhaven, rather—now bided with her duke in the north, her case having been successfully concluded.
“What I have to say is not intended as a warning,” Lord Stephen replied, “but you will hear it as such.”
The coach came to a halt, and the coachman shouted a greeting.
“Speak your piece, my lord.”
“I do not lie for anybody’s convenience, Abigail, including my own. I will court you to draw out Stapleton because you asked for my help and because I will enjoy the game. When I kiss you, that is not a performance. I like you, I desire you, I delight in sharing intimacies with you, and my actions in that regard are in complete earnest.”
He spoke calmly and quietly, no teasing, no insouciance in his tone. Would that he had been jesting.
“I never took you for a charming bounder, my lord.” The words were inadequate, unworthy of his display of courage, so Abigail tried again. “I am supposed to say thank you, put my nose in the air, and act as if such honesty is vaguely distasteful. I should pretend that I tolerate your advances because men cannot help themselves when females are willing, and it all means nothing as long as Stapleton believes the playacting.”
“Kisses should never be meaningless.”
Not exactly. Kisses should mean as much or as little to one party as they did to the other. If nothing else, Abigail had learned that much from her foray into worldly peccadillos.
“Your kisses are not meaningless, Stephen Wentworth. I have asked you to enter into a deception with me, and I am grateful for your aid, but I delight in sharing intimacies with you as well.”
He unlatched the coach door and pushed it open. The footman let down the steps and moved aside.
“I have two objectives, then,” Lord Stephen said, gathering up his cane and passing Abigail hers. “I must inspire you to like me, and I must also aid you to thwart Lord Stapleton’s mischief. Which of the two will be the greater challenge?”
Abigail descended from the coach rather than reply, but she knew the answer, for she already did like Lord Stephen—far too much.
Chapter Six
“You left me there for three days,” Abigail muttered before Stephen had even given the gelding in the traces leave to walk on. “Three days with little more than a note from you.”
“Did you miss me?” Stephen had missed her. Had missed their verbal swordplay, missed the sight of her, and even missed the tattoo of her confident stride on his carpets. Learning the identity of the varlet who’d broken her heart had become a mental puzzle box, one that distracted him from frustrated lust.
She twitched her skirts away from the fender. “I missed making progress regarding Lord Stapleton. He’s biding here in Town, by the way. You were right about that.”
“That is a new frock,” Stephen said, clucking to the horse. “Quite fetching. I told you the duchesses would take you in hand.” The ladies had apparently compromised, for this dress was blue-gray rather than Miss Abbott’s preferred dreary slate. The cuffs bore a tiny border of light blue embroidery, and the buttons were nacre.
Understated, but not nearly plain. Bravo, Duchesses.
“Your womenfolk are, as you say, formidable. Why didn’t you remind me that Her Grace of Walden is nearly as tall as I am?”
“Because your height is immaterial?” he said, turning the horse down a quiet alley. “Because Jane has so many other delightful qualities that her statuesque proportions hardly bear mention? Have you made me the list I requested?”
Stephen had sent Abigail a note, unable to go three entire days without any communication between them.
“I have the list with me. I came up with the names of about a dozen clients who have London connections, but I don’t see why
those people are relevant.”
Stephen had been curious about her lover, of course, and had concluded that if she had been disporting with a fashionable courtesy lord, she would have most likely met him in the course of a case. Hence, her London-based clients were of interest.
“People who hire Yorkshire inquiry agents don’t expect to find those agents driving in Hyde Park at the Fashionable Hour,” Stephen said, which was true enough. “You must be prepared to encounter your former clients, and I must be aware of who they are the better to dote on you convincingly when we meet them. I don’t suppose the author of your billets-doux has family in Town?”
“What is this?”
Stephen had passed her a parasol. “I didn’t think Matilda would have time to drag you about on a shopping expedition, so I took it upon myself to safeguard your complexion. Open it.”
“My complexion is not…that is, thank you, my lord. This is too personal a gift, though.”
“Then don’t tell anybody how you came by it.”
She untied the blue satin ribbon holding the parasol closed. “But you bought it somewhere, and the modiste’s work will be recognized. Because I haven’t shopped at her establishment—this is quite pretty.”
The parasol was made of silk rather than lace, the shade somewhere between pewter and silver. Neither tassels nor beading adorned the rim, though three bands of flowery blue stitchwork ran around the border.
“This is elegant,” Abigail said. “Tasteful without being showy. I like it.”
But do you like me? The question bothered Stephen inordinately. “I was afraid you’d find it too un-plain.”
Abigail opened the parasol and propped it over her shoulder. “Plainness can become vanity. When people use a lack of ornamentation to call attention to their own piety rather than to the world’s vanity, the exercise takes on the wrong significance. I choose subdued fashions the better to blend in and not call attention to myself, also because I want my clothing to last.”
Stephen brought the horse to a halt, because the alley was blocked by a phaeton that canted off to one side, its left wheel cocked at an angle.
“You have no personal objection to wearing colors?” he asked.
“None at all, other than valuing modesty generally. I doubt I would wear jewels even if I could afford them, though.”
Alas, no bracelets or earbobs. But then, bracelets and earbobs showed a dreadful lack of imagination. “What do you have against jewels?”
“Jewels are a means of hoarding wealth and being ostentatious about it. When veterans beg in the street and children must toil in the mines to avoid starving, such displays are unseemly.”
The owner of the phaeton was standing beside his conveyance, arms akimbo, whip in hand. He was young—Stephen would put his age at less than twenty—and he had a perfectly matched pair of dappled grays in harness. No tiger was on hand to hold the horses, though perhaps the tiger had been sent to retrieve a wheelwright.
“You’ve lost a cotter pin,” Stephen said, drawing his gig closer to the disabled vehicle. “Not a difficult repair.”
“Beg pardon,” the fellow said, bowing and tipping his hat to Abigail. “I’ve lost a what?”
“The cotter pin,” Stephen said, wrapping his reins around the brake so he could gesture with his hands. “It holds the wheel to the axle without impeding rotation. If you have something of stout metal, about four inches long and half an inch thick, you can make do well enough to get back to your mews.”
The young fellow looked glum. “I haven’t any such thing, and my brother will kill me. This is his phaeton, and I didn’t precisely ask permission before taking it out. Why does nobody fix the potholes in London’s streets?”
“That would cost money,” Stephen said. “Miss Abbott, might you surrender your parasol?”
She passed it over and Stephen unscrewed the handle from the shaft. “This might do,” he said, brandishing the handle. “You will have to hold the phaeton steady so the wheel isn’t bearing weight when you thread the pin through the axle.”
The young man looked baffled, which meant Stephen would have to climb down and show him, an awkward undertaking with no groom to hold the horse, pass Stephen his cane, or otherwise prevent a fall.
“Miss Abbott, might you take the reins?” She was a competent whip, at least in the wilds of Yorkshire.
She studied the damaged vehicle and stepped down from the gig. “I believe I can manage, my lord.” She stripped off her gloves and left them on the seat.
Stephen passed her the parasol handle, which had a good four inches of straight steel shaft above the curved end.
“What is she about?” the young man asked.
“She is making sure you live to see your majority.”
“This will work,” Abigail said, peering at the axle. “Let’s be about it, sir. I will lift the phaeton, and you will hoist the wheel onto the axle. Then you slip this”—she held up the length of steel—“through the holes in the axle.”
The repair took less than a minute, with Abigail holding the phaeton just high enough off the ground that the owner could fit the wheel on straight and thread the parasol handle through the hole bored in the axle.
“We still need something to stabilize the makeshift pin,” Stephen said. “If the axle wobbles too much it can shear off the pin, and you’re stranded all over again.”
Abigail climbed into the gig unaided. “Your cravat is made of silk, my lord, and silk is exceedingly strong. If knotted tightly…”
“I cannot go about in public without my neckcloth, Miss Abbott.”
She gestured at the youth standing beside his conveyance. “If linen will do, then why not use his?”
“Good idea. Lad, knot your neckcloth around the axle and the parasol handle so the lot is snug, and then walk your cattle—and I do mean walk—back to their stable. Do not put the weight of your fashionable arse upon the bench—walk your horses like a groom would walk them. If anybody asks, you tell them the nearside gray is going a bit off.”
“That is a capital notion.” He tipped his hat to Abigail again, and bowed to Stephen. “My thanks to you both. All’s well and all that, right?”
Stephen saluted with his whip and waited until the phaeton had clattered out of the alley.
“I have never encountered a parasol with a steel handle,” Abigail said. “Where did you say you bought it?”
Damn and blast. “I made it.”
“You made me a parasol?”
“Not precisely. I am experimenting with designs, toying with the notion that a parasol can serve more than one function.”
She pulled on her gloves. “Such as carrying a scent bottle or vinaigrette in the shaft?”
Small scent bottles were typically about the size and shape of a fat cheroot. “Something like that. You did that boy a significant service, Abigail.” She’d hefted the phaeton like it weighed no more than a velvet muff, a feat Stephen could have managed only at peril to his balance.
“He was in the way and nobody save you was on hand to gawk at my outlandish behavior. You made that parasol?”
Stephen stopped the horse short of the end of the alley. High garden walls provided privacy on both sides, and the plane trees had enough leaves left to obscure the gig from any second-story windows.
“I made that parasol. I like adding cleverness to existing designs.” That much was true.
She examined the stitchery around the rim of the parasol. “You sew a very pretty seam, my lord.”
She was paying him a compliment rather than mocking him.
“I could not have lifted that damned phaeton, Abigail.”
“I could not have designed a parasol with any practical uses, my lord. Shall we to the park?”
“In a moment.”
First, he kissed her. Kissed her because she liked his pretty seams and his un-fussy, un-plain parasol, kissed her because she’d helped save a young man from mortification, kissed her because he could not do anything mor
e than kiss her and shouldn’t even be doing that.
“I don’t normally go about impersonating a hostler,” she said when Stephen drew back. “The poor young man seemed utterly helpless. I gather you were not mortified?”
“I am impressed at your generosity of spirit, Abigail.” At her pragmatic disregard for appearances, at her ingenuity when it came to using a cravat to secure wheel and axle.
She kissed him, a ladylike little peck on the cheek that drove him wild. “To the park, my lord. The day is fair and I’ve a mind to show off my new finery. Most worldly of me, but there you have it.”
Stephen gave the reins a shake. “I have just now this moment come upon a new use for the handle of a parasol.”
“What would that be?”
“French letters. A lady ought to be able to carry discreet contraception on her person, nobody the wiser. The handle of the shaft would have to be rectangular, like a pencil box, and the mechanism stout, but what do you think? Would it sell?”
He was improvising, and making a complete hash of matters, as usual.
Abigail made a sound halfway between a sniff and a chortle, then she punched Stephen on the arm and laughed outright, and soon Stephen was laughing with her.
“His lordship doesn’t drive young ladies in the park anymore.” Duncan offered that observation staring down at the empty drive, where not ten minutes past, Stephen had tooled away with Miss Abbott up beside him. They made a handsome couple, though Stephen would have demanded satisfaction if Duncan had rendered that compliment aloud.
“If Stephen wants time alone with Miss Abbott,” Quinn replied, “he’ll observe the proprieties, and that means driving with her in the park in an open vehicle at a decent hour.”
How to Catch a Duke Page 9
