How to Catch a Duke

by Grace Burrowes

  Which he would, of course, read to her. Of that, Abigail was certain. They were leaving the shop, and she was about to enlarge on her previous description of him—not a fribble had been a cowardly dodge, after all—when Stephen patted the hand she’d wrapped around his arm.

  “Look sharp, Miss Abbott,” he said quietly. “Do you see the four-in-hand idling across the street?”

  The boulevard was broad, but the coach in question was impossible to miss. Four matched grays were in the traces, and the coach itself was painted silver-gray with gold trim. The livery on the coachman and groom was purple.

  “Those are Stapleton’s colors,” she said. “I don’t recognize the man at the window.”

  “That fine specimen is Tertullian, Viscount Fleming. His papa the earl is in wretchedly good health, and Flaming, as he’s known, hasn’t found a lady willing to shackle herself to him. He is entirely Stapleton’s creature and may have designs on the fair Harmonia.”

  Did anything happen in London that Stephen was unaware of? “And he’s watching us,” Abigail said, repressing a shudder. “What do we do?”

  Stephen leaned close, as if confiding a delicious secret. “We figuratively tell him to bugger himself.”

  He straightened, smiled, tipped his hat at Lord Fleming, and sauntered down the walk with Abigail at his side.

  Harmonia’s own dear god-mama had termed her god-daughter’s looks “middling pretty.” Mama had been even less complimentary. Champlain had married Harmonia for her settlements and for her earnest assurances that she would not interfere with his “manly pursuits.”

  He’d appeared vastly pleased with those assurances and offered Harmonia reciprocal promises to ignore her “little adventures” as well.

  She’d been vastly disappointed at his cavalier attitude and had entered into holy matrimony determined to make Champlain so jealous he’d stop his philandering and declare his undying love for her.

  He’d declared her a capital good sport and gone frolicking off to France. Or the grouse moors. Or Brighton. Or God alone knew where. Harmonia had coped as best she could, developing skills appropriate to a future marchioness and taking lovers when her mood was particularly low.

  One of the skills she’d found indispensable was the ability to eavesdrop on the marquess. Stapleton had his fingers in many a pie, from mining ventures to legislation that protected his mining ventures to trysts with his current mistress, and all manner of political intrigues. For Stapleton, socializing was an ancillary activity to manipulating politics for the betterment of himself and his titled cronies.

  When Tertullian, Lord Fleming, strode up the walkway apparently intent on paying yet another call on Stapleton, Harmonia decided to have a listen. Fleming was heir to an earldom and had a dull, dutiful view of life that might recommend him to Stapleton, but Harmonia found Fleming’s company tedious. He wasn’t a bad fellow, but he was already going a bit portly about the middle, and he smelled of bay rum. Bay rum, according to Mama, was a sure sign that a man lacked imagination in bed. Harmonia had tested the theory on three occasions, and, alas, Mama had been right.

  A fit of pique had inspired Harmonia to mention remarriage to the marquess, and that had been a mistake. She would not put it past Stapleton to choose her next husband, and make marriage a condition of remaining part of Nicky’s life.

  Blast all meddling men to perdition anyway.

  Harmonia took herself to the pink parlor and lifted the carpet that covered a vent in the ceiling of Stapleton’s office. The vent kept the office below cooler in summer and afforded a view directly down onto Stapleton’s enormous desk all year round. Champlain had showed her this spy-hole and several others, may he rest in peace amid well-endowed nymphs.

  “I tell you, she was on the arm of Lord Stephen Wentworth,” Fleming nearly shouted. “I know Miss Abbott at sight by now, and Lord Stephen is hard to miss. He can’t walk proper, and he’s even taller than she is.”

  Stapleton remained at his desk, fingers steepled, while Fleming paced before him. Papa-in-Law was a small man in both senses of the word. He’d married a lady whose stature exceeded his own, and Champlain had taken after his mother’s side of the family. Stapleton remained seated as much as possible, wore heeled slippers even when dancing and lifts in his boots.

  “How did Miss Abbott get from York down to London without your men spotting her en route? She rather stands out in a crowd.”

  “She was doubtless in disguise,” Fleming said, pausing before the portrait of the late marchioness. “She does that sort of thing. She might have been hobbling along bent over like an old crone or even have been dressed as a man.”

  How wonderfully devious of Miss Abbott.

  “But the fellows you set to watch for her were supposedly a sharp-eyed bunch, Fleming. Now you tell me this woman is strutting about on the arm of Lord Stephen Wentworth in the middle of Mayfair?”

  “His family hails from Yorkshire. Maybe he and Miss Abbott know each other from up north.”

  Stapleton remained silent, tapping his steepled index fingers against his lips. Fleming was supposed to squirm and fret as the silence lengthened, but he mostly seemed annoyed.

  “You promised to smooth the way for me with Lady Champlain,” Fleming said. “I’ve wasted plenty of coin and time in a nearly criminal pursuit on your behalf. You still haven’t told me what this is all about, and I have yet to so much as stand up with Harmonia.”

  “That’s Lady Champlain to you.”

  “She said I could call her Harmonia, and she fluttered her fan as she said it.”

  Stapleton’s hands dropped to the blotter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know, but m’sister claims the ladies use their fans to say what can’t be said in polite conversation.”

  Lord Stephen Wentworth knew the languages of the fan, glove, flower, and parasol. He was a better flirt sitting in his Bath chair than Fleming could be in his most inspired moments. If Miss Abbott was keeping company with Lord Stephen, she had good taste in escorts.

  Troublingly good taste.

  “Lady Champlain is the pattern card of decorum,” Stapleton said, “as any proper widow must be if she wants to remain a part of her son’s life. She will attend Lady Portman’s ball.”

  That was news to Harmonia. Lord Portman was young, Whiggish, and always spouting off about reform. His family had an old title, and the previous generation had married new money. Papa-in-Law had no time for Portman or his ilk.

  “You’re telling me I’ll have an opportunity to stand up with her?” Fleming asked, facing the desk.

  “You might. Her Grace of Walden has come safely through another confinement—a fourth girl, may the Almighty be thanked for small favors—and that means Walden might not attend. Lord Stephen will likely have to carry the family standard because Portman and Walden are as thick as a pair of drunken drovers when it comes to the blasted child labor bills. If Lord Stephen is smitten with Miss Abbott, he’ll escort her.”

  Fleming leaned across the blotter, hands braced on the desk. “Lord Stephen has a reputation for dueling first and ignoring all questions. I am not kidnapping Miss Abbott from a Mayfair ballroom. Not for you, not even for the promise of marriage to Harmonia.”

  Papa-in-Law gazed off across the room. “I never said the objective was to kidnap the woman. The objective is to inspire her to surrender some letters, and that apparently requires a pointed, face-to-face discussion. She must have a price, and she can’t possibly know what the letters are worth. With whom is she staying?”

  “I only caught sight of her an hour ago. How should I know where she’s biding?”

  Stapleton rose, but went only so far as to prop a hip on the corner of the desk. This was another ploy to mask his lack of height, to ensure that he never went literally toe-to-toe with taller men.

  “Miss Abbott comes from Quaker stock,” he said. “She’s not wealthy, and she charges only modestly for her snooping services. She’s probably staying wit
h some widowed third cousin or in a boarding house run by a Quaker goodwife. Start looking in those sorts of places. She doubtless has the letters with her, and she’s probably planning to call on me to discuss them.”

  Fleming went back to studying the marchioness. “What if she’s given the letters to Lord Stephen for safekeeping?”

  Oh, dear. Papa-in-Law’s face turned the shade of a ripe pomegranate.

  “Why would she do that?” he asked. “Stephen Wentworth is nothing but a randy, tinkering, lame ornament. He and his brother should have been consigned to the mines in childhood, and the entire peerage would have been spared the embarrassment the Walden title has become.”

  Fleming lifted the stopper from a decanter of brandy on the sideboard and sniffed. “The navy buys cranes from Lord Stephen, and the army won’t approve a new rifle pattern without asking his opinion first. He’ll become the next duke in all likelihood. You might dismiss him, Stapleton. I do not.”

  Well, well, well. Fleming wasn’t entirely dunderheaded, for all he wore bay rum. In Harmonia’s opinion, Lord Stephen was every bit as formidable as his ducal brother, though his lordship did a creditable job of playing the part of a frivolous heir.

  And—Harmonia was well informed regarding such matters—Lord Stephen was a devilish good kisser with more stamina in bed than any lame ornament ought to have.

  A woman looking for a prospective second spouse did not account that a detail, though Stephen Wentworth was too shrewd for her taste. The damned man noticed everything and kept too much of his thinking to himself.

  “Find Miss Abbott,” Stapleton said. “That’s the next step, and I rely on you to take it.”

  Fleming let the stopper fall back into the decanter with a clink. “I rely on you to insinuate me into Lady Champlain’s good graces. You have thus far disappointed me, my lord, and my patience will soon be at an end. I bid you good day.”

  “She’s at home,” Stapleton called as Fleming marched for the door. “Her ladyship can receive you now.”

  Not if I’m waiting for Endymion de Beauharnais to call, I can’t.

  “My sister expects me to drive out with her this afternoon,” Fleming said. “Perhaps we’ll encounter Lord Stephen and Miss Abbott in the park.”

  “Give them both my cordial regards, and find out where the hell the woman is staying. She’s kept the letters from me long enough.”

  Fleming looked, if anything, amused at that pronouncement. “I will call on Lady Champlain tomorrow. You need not join us.” He bowed—ironically?—and withdrew.

  Stapleton returned to his desk and took out pen and paper. Harmonia went to the window and watched as Fleming and de Beauharnais exchanged polite bows on the walkway. They chatted for a moment, a study in gentlemanly contrasts.

  Fleming was stolid, plain, and apparently dogged, though wellborn and a conscientious brother. De Beauharnais was gorgeous, talented, a commoner, and interesting company. Watching them converse, Harmonia felt a sense of sympathy for Champlain’s wandering eye. He’d wanted everything—a wife, a lover, adventure, another lover, the familiar company of his fellows, the management of his own wealth, the inane ritual of drinking away the dawn in a duck blind or galloping half-inebriated after a fox. He’d sought to live every second of his life.

  Not to hide in empty parlors listening at vents.

  Harmonia’s goal in life was to see that Nicky had the same opportunities Champlain had had, though she hoped her son also possessed a bit more sense by the time he was enjoying those opportunities.

  De Beauharnais bowed again to Fleming and jaunted up the porch steps, using his walking stick to rap on the door.

  Harmonia really ought to remarry. She needed an ally who could take on Stapleton and best him easily. Perhaps de Beauharnais would have some ideas. He knew everybody and knew a few interesting little secrets too. Best of all, he knew how to make a lady smile and how to keep his mouth shut about the lot of it.

  Stephen could not recall the last time he’d been so purely pleased with life. Abigail in a toy shop was a revelation. Beneath her pragmatic, self-contained veneer lay a female who’d not been cosseted or flirted with half enough. She’d turned the pages of pretty storybooks one by one and marveled at the softness of a doll’s hair. A child-sized tea set put longing in her eyes, and Stephen knew she was thinking of his nieces.

  The moment she’d spied Stapleton’s damned coach, the softness and wonder had gone straight out of her, and Stephen had been forced to all but drag her away from the scene.

  “Shall we tool over to Berkeley Square for an ice?” he asked, then regretted the question. The protocol at Gunter’s was for the adoring swain to fetch his lady her treat. If she also wanted a glass of lemonade, Stephen would have to make two trips from the shop to the coach, or to the benches under the maples where happy couples could turn a few spoonfuls of sweet into half an afternoon’s flirtation.

  “I would like to pay a call on Lord Stapleton,” Abigail replied as Stephen held the coach door for her, “and ask him some very pointed questions about housebreaking, drugging, and attempted kidnapping. He frightened me. I hate him for that.”

  Hate, for a woman raised with Quaker values, was very, very strong language.

  “Stapleton frightens a lot of people,” Stephen said, handing Abigail up into the coach. “He’s a nasty, manipulative, arrogant little sod, and he uses his wealth to conduct his schemes with impunity.”

  Stephen settled beside her on the forward-facing seat, used his teeth to pull off his glove, and took Abigail’s hand. Why he liked touching her so very much, he did not know. Casual affection toward a lover was a pleasant commonplace, but his craving for contact with Abigail was of a different order.

  He thought more calmly when he took her hand.

  As he had lain in bed with her, mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breathing, his mind had wandered to why he and Quinn were so un-brotherly toward each other. Stephen did resent Quinn for leaving him in Jack Wentworth’s care, but he also resented that Quinn had been able to work.

  Was resenting Quinn simply a habit? Was that what this horror of becoming the duke one day was really about? Or was the problem a fear that Jack Wentworth’s shade would have its revenge if Stephen had children?

  Such questions had eluded his notice, much less his attention, prior to becoming Abigail’s lover.

  “You are removing my glove,” she said, once again all starch and vinegar. “My lord, what are you about?”

  “I like touching you. Fleming rattled you. Perhaps petting me will settle your nerves.”

  The coach rocked as the groom climbed up to the box.

  “Do you suppose Fleming has the letters?” Abigail asked. “If Lord Fleming is in Stapleton’s confidence, he might well have stolen them for his own purposes, then made a great show of pretending to search for them at Stapleton’s behest.”

  Stephen rapped on the roof, and the coach rolled forward. “We are back to the why of this whole mess. Stapleton likely wants the letters to ensure Champlain’s reputation remains untarnished by proof that he trifled with a decent young woman. Why would Fleming want the letters?”

  “To blackmail Stapleton.”

  Stephen considered putting the tip of Abigail’s third finger in his mouth—and discarded the notion. Sex in a moving coach was enjoyable enough, but Abigail didn’t need that from him now.

  “Fleming is in expectation of a title,” Stephen said. “He’s not given to deep play, drunkenness, wild wagers, or scandal. The only thing Stapleton has that Fleming might want is influence with Lady Champlain. Harmonia is pretty, very sociable, and a devoted mother. She’s had plenty of time to be a merry widow, if that’s what she wants, and managing Stapleton must have grown tedious by now.”

  The more Stephen considered the idea that Fleming sought to impress Lady Champlain, the more it seemed to fit the available facts—almost.

  Abigail took off her other glove and clasped Stephen’s hand between both of hers in her
lap. “You think her ladyship might look favorably on a fellow who destroyed evidence of her late husband’s infidelity? What if it’s Lady Champlain whom Fleming seeks to blackmail with the letters?”

  The knuckles of Stephen’s right hand rested perilously close to the juncture of Abigail’s thighs. That three or four layers of fabric lay between his flesh and hers interfered with his imagination not one bit. That he’d made love to Abigail twice in the past several hours was also of no moment.

  He wanted her again, while she wanted to plant Stapleton a facer.

  Stephen longed to plant the marquess a facer as well, but only after locking himself and Abigail into a commodious bedroom for a month or two.

  Stephen rapped on the roof twice, directing John Coachman to pick up the pace. “I don’t know as Champlain’s widow would bother buying his old love letters. Not to speak ill of the dead, but I doubt you were his only inamorata.”

  Champlain had doubtless had a lover in literally every port, and Harmonia hadn’t been exactly parsimonious with her favors either.

  “Champlain tried to tell me that his wife had a very understanding nature,” Abigail said, stroking her fingers over Stephen’s knuckles. “He said they had a modern marriage.”

  “You take a dim view of modern unions?”

  “I most assuredly do. The mischief I have seen between people who vowed to love and cherish each other beggars description. Hurt feelings, drama, children caught in the middle, family members taking sides or not speaking to each other, vast sums spent in retaliation for minor slights. You and your brother might not have the warmest affection for each other, but your family at least treats its members with loyalty and good faith.”

  Abigail was so fierce, sensible, and passionate. How dare Stapleton or Fleming or whoever disturb her peace?

  “Whatever is afoot with your letters, Abigail, we will get to the bottom of it. Berkeley Square approaches. Have you considered sharing an ice with me?”