Duncan let the curtain drop. “Because he cannot walk with her in the park. He has nightmares, about being pushed in his Bath chair by unseen hands that shove him over the brink of a precipice.”
Quinn had been unaware of Stephen’s nightmares. Quinn was not, in fact, as well acquainted with Stephen as he should be. A difference in ages was partly responsible—he and Stephen were more than a decade apart—but so too was a difference in temperament.
“Stephen finds London misses insipid,” Quinn said. “They are not complicated enough for him.” Quinn, by contrast, had been awed by fine ladies as a young man. More fool he.
Duncan prowled the length of the library. He had overseen the development of the collection, and had doubtless read every volume on the shelves. Quinn liked books well enough, but only because his duchess enjoyed having him read to her at the end of the day.
“You have it all wrong, Quinn.” Duncan wound up a music box Stephen had made for Jane. “Stephen thinks himself too wicked for the sweet young things. He’s afraid he’ll make some joke, some little aside, and betray his upbringing. Add to that his inability to stand up with them, to even sit comfortably for long periods, and he’s like a cat in a kennel. His options are to remain in the shadows or stir the pack to violence.”
“They are young ladies, Duncan, not starving wolves.” Quinn’s daughters would be among those young ladies all too soon. Elizabeth was already jabbering about putting her hair up and letting her hems down and she was still a little girl, for God’s sake.
“The heiresses and matchmakers are of the same ilk as those who sent you to the gallows, Your Grace. What do we know of Lord Stapleton?”
That was Duncan, always focused, always thinking, and protective as hell where Stephen was concerned. “Should our duchesses join this conversation?”
“They are closeted in the sewing room. Miss Abbott’s wardrobe needs attention if she’s to be courted by a ducal heir.”
That bothered Quinn—the courtship that wasn’t supposed to be a courtship. “Stapleton and I butt heads in the Lords,” he said. “Jane is adamantly opposed to children doing factory labor, especially in the heavy industries. Stapleton maintains that a poor child should become inured to hard work early in life, the better to accept God’s will and make a contribution to the improvement of the realm. Children who don’t work are parasites in his estimation.”
The music box played a rendition of Mozart’s Sonata in C, a confectionary piece Elizabeth banged away at by the hour. Quinn had grown to detest it, though he’d never admit that to his daughter.
Duncan closed the lid of the music box and the contraption went blessedly silent. “Stapleton had only the one son if I recall?”
“Champlain, who went to his reward shortly after his own son was born. Stephen knew Lord Champlain and was among Lady Champlain’s many admirers for a time.”
“Stephen finds married women likeable.” Duncan set the music box in the middle of the reading table. “They are not interested in his prospects, according to him. He said Lady Champlain’s chess was so bad as to be interesting. I think he felt sorry for her because Champlain was such a bounder.”
Stephen seldom operated out of pity, at least not when he could be caught at it. “Could that be why Stapleton is in such a lather? His son misbehaved and left written evidence that Miss Abbott now possesses?”
“Few people care if titled sons misbehave,” Duncan said. “Stephen and I first encountered Champlain in Paris, where he was quite the bon vivant. According to Champlain, his papa sent him to the Continent precisely to indulge his frivolous inclinations. He and Stephen had a few adventures, about which I did not inquire.”
“Bordellos?”
“The French are more tolerant of certain predilections than we English.”
Duncan was former clergy, and the habit of primness died hard. “You think he and Stephen were lovers?”
“I did not inquire and neither will you, unless Miss Abbott, of all the ironies, has evidence of Stephen’s indiscretion and has earned Stapleton’s wrath as a result.”
Blast and bedamned. No wonder Duncan hadn’t suggested the ladies join them. “You and Stephen traveled on the Continent years ago. Why is Stapleton taking up the matter now? Maybe Stapleton committed the indiscretion or one of his mistresses did.” The old boy hadn’t remarried, which was odd, when the succession rested on the shoulders of one young child.
Duncan took the seat behind Quinn’s desk, and Quinn thought, not for the first time, that the wrong Wentworth had been made the duke. Duncan could inherit the title, if Stephen left no male issue and predeceased him.
Duncan—like all Wentworth menfolk, apparently—did not want the title, but he had the requisite gravitas, and more to the point, he would wield the power of the title for good ends.
“I am loath to suggest it,” Duncan said, “but somebody had better thoroughly interrogate Miss Abbott. Is Stapleton prone to violence?”
“We are all prone to violence under the right circumstances.” Quinn certainly was. “Stapleton dotes on his grandson, he provides well for his daughter-in-law, and he is civil enough when he and I meet. We disagree as reasonable gentlemen often do.”
Duncan took up a quill pen, twiddling the feather between his fingers. “Perhaps Stapleton’s problem is commercial. Most people who advocate working children and the poor to death for the sake of God’s holy plan have commercial interests. Mines, foundries, mills. What do we know of Stapleton’s investments?”
“I’ll put Ned and Jack to researching that question, and by this time tomorrow, we will know who sews Stapleton’s underlinen, whether he pays his bills on time, and the exact hour he last visited his mistress.”
“You will keep Stephen informed?”
Quinn would keep Jane informed. “The question should be, rather, is Stephen keeping us informed, and if not, what secrets is he guarding?”
Duncan looked pained. “He is entitled to his privacy, Quinn. Your motives for sending him touring with me weren’t entirely academic.”
“You’re right. My motives where Stephen was concerned were desperate, and in some regards, they still are. We will speak with Miss Abbott, and Stephen will insist on being present when we do.”
“The duchesses will insist on being present. One wishes Althea and Constance were on hand as well. They know Miss Abbott better than we do.”
“Shall I send for them?”
“Let’s confer with Stephen first. If we bungle this, he will never ask for our help again. You do not want a blunder of such proportions on your conscience, and neither do I.”
Hyde Park was a magical oasis of clean air, open space, autumnal verdure, pretty lanes, and quiet. York, true to its medieval origins, had nothing quite like it, and Abigail was enthralled.
“In spring,” Lord Stephen said, “the vehicles jam the pathways, and all the young swells on horseback flirt their way from carriage to carriage.”
“Are you among those young swells?”
“I was, for a few years. I am no longer flattered by the overtures of women willing to hold their noses and marry me in hopes of wearing the Walden tiara. Every time Quinn and Jane have another baby girl, I feel the wolves stalking closer. Horse, stop pulling at the bit or we will have words.”
The horse slowed to a walk.
“Did somebody break your heart?” Abigail asked. “Somebody other than your darling Jenny?”
“Half of Mayfair, a quarter of Paris, and about one-third of Berlin. By the time I reached Rome, I was a sadder and wiser fellow. I took to keeping company with widows and married women because they could be trusted. Married women and a few flirtatious fellows. Are you horrified?”
“No.” More than one client had retained Abigail to secure and destroy evidence of such liaisons. “Is that why you haven’t married? You prefer men?” She would be disappointed in a purely theoretical sense if that was the case.
“This is not the sort of conversation I envisioned us having, Abigail.”
“Then tell me to mind my own business and bestir yourself to flirt with me. We are here to be seen, are we not? We could also discuss the list of my clients with London connections, but I doubt that will be a productive conversation.”
A swan glided along on the still water of the Serpentine, cutting a path through the leaves dotting the water near the shore. The time of year was pretty but melancholy, and Abigail was abruptly homesick for York. She was in Hyde Park, driving out with one of the most eligible bachelors in England, wearing a truly lovely dress for the first time in ages.
Using the time to discuss old cases was pointless and just plain wrong, though Lord Stephen’s worldly sexual adventures weren’t an ideal topic for such an outing either.
“I have promised you honesty,” Stephen said, “and the healthy male form honestly delights me, and so have a few healthy males in particular. I mentioned the painter to you—Endymion de Beauharnais. He’s everything I’m not. Athletic, artistic, charming, beautiful, socially deft. I am a skilled draftsman and something of a flirt, but that man can make dragons fly and dowagers simper. I like him very much, though when it comes to the actual passionate part…”
He steered the horse around a bend in the path, and London might have been magically transported a hundred miles away. The quiet was deeper here, the sunlight more golden.
“I found intimate congress with men worth a casual investigation,” Stephen went on. “I find parasols, guns, poisons, cannon, lifts, anatomy, locomotives, canals, codes, alchemy, locks, clocks…I find much interesting. Endymion was genuinely attracted to me—a nearly incomprehensible notion, I know—while I was mostly tired of earls’ daughters groping me under the card table. My darling Jenny will always hold a place in my heart, while Andy…I am fond of him. In answer to your question, I do not prefer men in the sense you allude to, but I have enjoyed a passing hour or two with a specific few fellows.”
And Abigail sensed Stephen would tell her if his interest was more than avid and lusty curiosity. That degree of honesty was attractive, also troubling.
He steered the gig up onto the verge, which was carpeted with fallen leaves. “I have shocked myself.”
“I can keep a confidence, my lord. My livelihood depends upon it.”
He drew the horse to a halt. “I have shocked myself because I do not part with confidences ever—at all. That business with de Beauharnais.…I was eighteen, he was twenty-two. Sophisticated men of the world, or so we thought ourselves. I don’t discuss it, don’t think of it, don’t bring it up when he and I share a meal, which we do every few months. I’ve never so much as hinted about it to Duncan even when in the dregs, and Duncan has seen me in the dregs many a time.”
A gust of wind stirred the carpet of leaves, a dry, chilly sound, though the sun was warm and the grass a lush green.
“I have not been entirely forthright with you,” Abigail said. She had deliberately misled him, which had cost her the past three nights’ sleep.
“Are you married, Abigail? Are you Stapleton’s runaway marchioness? His illegitimate daughter? He’s a tiny cockerel, but my own father wasn’t nearly as tall as I am. Please tell me you aren’t married.”
Lord Stephen seemed genuinely distressed, and Abigail was genuinely ashamed. “If I had a husband, would you put aside our sham engagement before it’s announced?”
“No, but I’d keep my lips and hands to myself. The occasional determinedly straying wife has overcome my gentlemanly scruples—I’ve admitted as much—but your vows would be genuine and sincere. You would not stray. You might deal severely with a husband who disappointed you, but you would not stray.”
“I am not married, but neither do I deserve your good opinion of me.”
“I will be the judge of that. Whatever frolic or wrong turn you’ve kept to yourself, you’d best out with it. Quinn, Duncan, and the duchesses are doubtless conferring, and they will have questions for us. We need some leverage over Stapleton, and if he has leverage over you…Well, forewarned and all that.”
Why can’t we be just a couple in love enjoying a pretty autumn day? Why must we be two people with complicated pasts and no future?
“The letters Stapleton wants,” Abigail said, “I’ve read every one. I have nearly memorized them.”
“I admire your thoroughness.”
“Thoroughness has nothing to do with it. I was a fool.”
Lord Stephen picked up the reins and stared off into the trees. “Did you steal the letters? Steal them for a client, perhaps?”
“I had no need to steal them. They were sent to me, and they belong to me. Stapleton has no right to them.” No right to cut up her peace and wreak havoc in her life.
His lordship propped his boot on the fender. The breeze stirred again and a shower of freshly fallen leaves twirled to the grass. He said nothing for a long moment, then sent Abigail a faintly puzzled glance.
“Champlain was your lover. That sniffing hound charmed his way under your skirts, put his false promises to you in writing, and now Stapleton thinks to destroy the evidence of his son’s rutting. Was there a child, Abigail?”
She shook her head.
“Abigail?” Stephen spoke her name gently as he tucked an embroidered handkerchief into her hand. “The damned bounder is dead. I can’t call him out, and I no longer duel. Talk to me.”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders, a shocking presumption in public, no matter how secluded the path, and Abigail leaned into him.
“I was so happy. Champlain had promised to have a very important discussion with me as soon as he returned from his latest trip to the Continent—a discussion of highly personal matters, he said. Champlain called himself Mr. Richard Champion when I knew him, the man of business for a great lord whom discretion forbade him to name. I was too overjoyed to question anything he did or said. Everything I’d ever wished for—a devoted husband, a family, a home of my own—I was to have it all, at last. I was about five months along when he returned from Paris. He wrote to me, but I wasn’t to write to him, so I told him in person. I expected him to share my joy and have the banns cried.”
“I take it back. I will kill him even if he’s already dead. I knew Champlain, I know his widow. He could have plundered any number of willing citadels. He should not have trifled with you.”
“Oh, he loved me. Said so himself, wrote the words many times. I only learned he had a wife after I’d conceived. He loved his wife too, and would never give her cause to regret their marriage. But what did it matter that he was married when he would cheerfully set me up in my own establishment and make sure the child wanted for nothing?”
“I hope you hit him, Abigail. I hope you kicked him right in his courtesy title.”
So fierce, for a man who couldn’t kick anybody. “I almost burned his letters. Mon petit agneau chéri and Mein liebstes Häschen…As if I could be anybody’s dearest little lamb or favorite bunny rabbit. I should have burned them. I lost the baby a month later. A stillborn boy.”
The words were simple, the emotions complicated. She had eventually been relieved not to face endless scandal, not to visit illegitimacy on her firstborn. But the relief had been tiny, belated, and guilty—also vastly outweighed by sorrow.
“You kept the letters to punish yourself, didn’t you?” Stephen stroked her shoulder, as if they had all the time and privacy in the world. “You kept them as a reproach, and you became an inquiry agent because you wanted to preserve other young women from having to pay for trusting the wrong man.”
Perhaps she had. Abigail had never considered her motivations, beyond keeping a roof over her head and maintaining her independence.
“Champlain died within two years,” she said, “and destroying the letters seemed overly dramatic. They are mostly travelogues of his gallivanting on the Continent. Fine beer here, excellent wine there, an impressive violinist at some comtesse’s chateau. That should have told me something.”
Stephen hugged her, a quick squeeze about the shou
lders, then took up the reins. “He was a shallow, vain, overly indulged heir. They are thick on the ground and a disgrace to the peerage. I am sorry about the child, Abigail. You grieved that loss irrespective of Champlain’s stupidity.”
Nobody had consoled her for the loss of the child, nobody had even known of it until this moment—nobody except Champlain and a grim-faced, taciturn midwife.
“I grieve,” Abigail said, as the horse toddled on. “I grieve, but I don’t rage as much as I used to.”
“That’s like my knee,” Lord Stephen said. “The damned thing won’t get any better, and it probably will get worse. Bloody unfair, pardon my language, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I sulk and rage, then get on with the next experiment, not that a bad knee and a lost child are of the same magnitude. Did you name the baby?”
“A stillborn child cannot be baptized.”
The gig tooled along through the pretty afternoon, the gleaming surface of the Serpentine winking through the trees. Like Lord Stephen, Abigail had shocked herself by reposing this confidence in another.
“I named him Winslow Trueblood Abbott. Trueblood was my mother’s maiden name.” Abigail had never spoken her son’s name aloud before, never written it except on the walls of her heart.
Stephen collected the reins in one hand, and linked the fingers of his free hand with Abigail’s. “That is a fine name, very Quaker and upright. I like it. Any boy would be proud to have such a name.”
The park was deserted, save for a young woman feeding the waterfowl. Abigail was sitting too close to Stephen, clutching his handkerchief, and holding hands with him too. They might have been mistaken for any besotted couple, except the situation was worse than that.
She liked him. She trusted him, and she liked him enormously.
Chapter Seven
“I’m having my portrait done.” Harmonia, Lady Champlain, made that announcement at breakfast, the only time she was reliably in her father-in-law’s company. Lord Stapleton came to the nursery occasionally, and she served as his hostess at formal entertainments, but the marquess was a busy, busy man.
How to Catch a Duke Page 10
