“We are lovers. You’ve seen my knee.” She hadn’t really. Abigail, in fact, seemed to have no particular interest in his knee at all.
“Tuesday, and I am very regular. Put this from your mind, my lord, or I will have to distract you with a few kisses.”
She generously bestowed several protracted, sweet, hot, wonderful kisses on him anyway, then subsided against him for the rest of the journey home. Stephen handed her down, bowed politely to her in the foyer, and watched her waft up the steps until she was gone from sight.
“You’re holding a parasol,” Ned said, sauntering into the foyer from the direction of the clerks’ office. “I’ve had my suspicions about you, your lordship. One hears all manner of rumors regarding your proclivities.”
Stephen shoved the parasol at him. “If Abigail Abbott asked me to carry her reticule, her gloves, her smelling salts, and her muddy boots, I would be honored.”
Ned examined the mechanism on the parasol, as if looking for a trigger device. “That woman has never needed smelling salts in her life. You, on the other hand, look a bit peaky. Knee bothering you?”
“No, actually, but I could use a favor.” Stephen explained that a package would arrive from the apothecary addressed to Ned for discreet delivery to Abigail. “And before you try to pry details out of me, there’s also a new twist to the situation regarding Lord Stapleton, Lord Fleming, and God knows who else.”
Ned, ever one to delight in an intrigue, either took the bait or, for once in his benighted life, showed a little mercy to a fellow mortal and let Stephen change the subject.
“Sounds complicated,” he said. “And if you do not marry Miss Abbott, you are a moron.”
Ned could deliver a setdown as effectively as any duchess, but his comment was accompanied by a gentle, nearly affectionate, shove to Stephen’s chest.
“And why,” Stephen replied, “would a woman like Abigail marry a moron, pray tell?”
“Because she is a lady of singular tastes.” He patted Stephen’s shoulder. “Have a care, Wentworth, or I will have to show you how to properly romance a willing female.”
“It’s not a true wooing.”
Ned snorted, flicked Stephen’s cravat, and strolled off down the corridor.
“It’s not,” Stephen repeated, to nobody in particular. “But it needs to be.”
Abigail’s courses had arrived two days early, which provoked mixed and entirely pointless feelings. She distracted herself by writing out the remainder of Champlain’s letters, organizing them by date.
Today finds me in dreary Auxerre, missing my darling goose desperately.…
I write to my dearest sugarplum from godforsaken Tournus.…
I spend this week pining for you desperately in Chaumont.…
The exercise had brought her no peace and less joy. The damned man had been a philandering, selfish cad, and not much of a lover, come to find out. His geographical descriptions and affectionate effusions struck her as inane, and even insulting. Could he not have used her name? Did he forget to whom he wrote?
What did a Quaker gunsmith’s daughter care for a description of vineyards she would never see or chateaus where the likes of her would never be a guest? Why had Champlain bothered writing to her at all?
“This is the last of the letters?” Stephen asked when Abigail assumed her place beside him in his town coach and passed over the letters. Duncan, Matilda, and His Grace of Walden would take the Walden town coach to the Portmans’ ball, though Her Grace would remain at home in deference to her recent travail.
“That’s all of them,” Abigail said, “and I can’t help but feel that I’m missing an obvious pattern, such as a code or signal. Do you think Champlain could truly have been a spy?”
Stephen tucked the packet into an inside pocket of his cape and took Abigail’s hand. She would rather they weren’t wearing gloves, but then, she would rather they weren’t on their way to a fancy dress ball.
“Champlain lacked the brains or integrity to be a spy,” Stephen said. “He might have undertaken some state-sanctioned snooping out of a lust for excitement, or he might have been used by spies, but he hadn’t the patriotism and nerve for true espionage.”
“You knew him that well?” Abigail agreed with Stephen’s characterization, though she would have added that Champlain had been charming, funny, and more manipulative than an ambitious matchmaker.
“I could have been him,” Stephen said. “Swiving my way across the Continent, more drunk than sober, much affronted when my smallest whim was denied, foolish wagers and broken hearts on every side. Duncan and Jane took me in hand and mitigated disaster. Champlain was an improvement over Stapleton—the son was nowhere near as overtly mean as his father—but that is hardly an endorsement. Witness Champlain’s mendacity toward you.”
Abigail had considered the months of trysting she’d allowed Champlain, and the fact that he hadn’t once brought up the issue of conception. She’d assumed he’d marry her, and he’d encouraged that assumption. He probably hadn’t bothered to consider the possibility of a child, and if he had, a bank draft had been the limit of his moral compass.
“I am nervous,” she said, squeezing Stephen’s fingers as the coach slowed. “I have never worn such a daring ensemble.” Nor had she ever felt so pretty. The Wentworths were tall, and their domiciles were built on a grand design. Somewhere in the past few days, Abigail had lost the sense of being out of scale with her species, if not her gender.
“I insisted Jane equip you with a silk shawl,” Stephen said, “because I am acquainted with your modesty. Please recall that these people are terrified of you, Abigail. You might not know their secrets, but you know how to unearth secrets.”
“I would never divulge—”
He held up a hand. “They don’t know that. They divulge one another’s closest confidences at the drop of a glove. The lowliest crossing sweeper has a greater sense of responsibility than do many of the people you’ll meet tonight. They are afraid of you, and that’s exactly how you want it.”
Stephen had the mental agility to think in such terms. Abigail could not be quite so detached. “Will Stapleton attend?”
“I doubt it. He and Portman are usually on the opposite sides of political issues. The marquess would have been invited, of course—anybody with a title receives an invitation from anybody with a title—but I’m more concerned that Fleming will be on hand.”
Stephen had a remoteness to his bearing, for all that he held Abigail’s hand. Mentally, he was someplace other than the coach.
“Are you having Fleming’s quarters searched, my lord?”
“Thoroughly, and Stapleton’s office as well. I’ve already had his mistress’s quarters searched, and do you know, the poor woman hasn’t a genuine gemstone in her entire jewelry box?”
Abigail would never have thought to investigate the mistress’s quarters. “Does she know that?” Like father, like son.
“I will make certain she does. If she’s putting up with old Stapleton’s strumming, she should be handsomely compensated. A hint or two that she’s considering writing her memoirs ought to get Stapleton’s attention.”
“What an inspired threat. You have a gift for seeing justice done.” Not skulking around on client business, but upending injustice in plain view. Abigail had never found her profession anything but interesting before, though lately…
The coach came to a halt. “I have a gift for justice rather than revenge?” Stephen asked. “Revenge is a bit more dashing than justice, don’t you think?”
She kissed him before the footman opened the door. “No, I do not think. If more men of your station were concerned with justice, the Stapletons and Champlains would be much less of a problem. How do I look?”
In the light of the coach lamps, Stephen’s smile was piratical. “I asked Jane to dress you in raspberry velvet. The memory of you licking raspberry ice from my spoon has resulted in more fevered dreams than you can possibly imagine. You look gorgeous.”
He kissed her, the sort of friendly kiss spouses might bestow on each other: Best of luck, chin up, onward to victory! But what did victory look like, when the battlefield was a chalked parquet dance floor and the combat uniform was formal evening dress?
Abigail waited in the receiving line with Stephen, her arm twined through his so that she might surreptitiously offer him support. As the ordeal dragged on, he leaned on her more heavily. All the while, he chatted with this viscountess or that half-deaf baron, introducing Abigail with a fond smile and a pat to her hand.
He was good at ignoring his own pain, good at impersonating the shallow younger son. By the time the herald announced them, Abigail was ready to shout at the nearest footman to bring his lordship a damned chair.
“I hate this part,” Stephen muttered, smiling genially down at the chattering, glittering mass of humanity in the ballroom. “Blasted steps go on forever.”
“We’ll take it slowly, so they can all get in a good gawk,” Abigail said, gathering her skirts in one hand and wrapping her other around Stephen’s arm. “I have you, and I will not let you fall.”
The descent was stately, to say the least. Abigail realized halfway down that the crowd was not only inspecting her, they were also staring at Stephen. He’d stopped attending any gathering that involved dancing years ago, and by Her Grace’s own report, even the duchess hadn’t protested his decision.
Some expressions were merely curious, some were faintly dismissive, a few were maliciously amused. If they were laughing at Abigail, well, no matter. She’d been ridiculed since the age of eight.
If they were laughing at Stephen, she would…
They reached the bottom of the steps. “I am having a violent impulse,” she said. “My family would be horrified.”
“Are you horrified?” Stephen asked, still leaning heavily on her arm.
“Not by the urge to toss a glass of punch at these gaping simians. I’d like to tromp on a few toes while I’m at it and accidentally spill my supper in some laps.”
Stephen twitched her shawl up higher on her shoulder. “Ferocity becomes you, my love. I have two objectives this evening.”
My love. Abigail’s objective was to get Stephen off his feet. “And they are?”
“First, to ensure Fleming remains among the guests as long as possible. Quinn, Matilda, and Duncan will aid me to that end.”
“Second?”
“To make certain that all of society knows I am passionately smitten with you, and that I will take mortal umbrage at any who seek to do you harm.”
No humor leavened his words, no hint of teasing. “Ferocity becomes you as well, my lord. In fact, I think it defines you.”
He bowed over her hand. “If you continue to flatter me so shamelessly, I will find us a deserted parlor in which to be mutually ferocious.”
“Find us the card room instead, my lord.” And woe to any woman who thinks to steal you away from me.
The crowd let them pass, though that required a few well-placed glowers on Abigail’s part. By the time she and Stephen reached the card room, she was ready to break chairs over the heads of those slowing his progress.
“Don’t look,” Stephen said, as they waited for an elderly couple to exit the card room, “but about five yards away, near the potted lemon tree, Lady Champlain is flirting madly with Endymion de Beauharnais. At some point this evening, I should pay my respects to the pair of them.”
Abigail was not nearly as curious regarding Lady Champlain as she ought to have been. As badly as Champlain had treated Abigail, he’d been a disgrace as a husband.
“Her ladyship is entitled to flirt with the entire Ninety-fifth Rifles,” Abigail said, smoothing a hand over Stephen’s immaculate cravat, “and I hope the lot of them flirt right back. Matilda and I will visit the retiring room sometime before supper, and you can make your bows then.”
She had Stephen seated across from her at the piquet table shortly thereafter, and though he distracted her terribly with his wandering foot, with his hand under the table, and with his drollery, he’d nonetheless taken the chair with the best view of the ballroom. Abigail was confident he monitored the entire gathering, even as he won far more hands than he lost.
“Fleming doesn’t have those letters,” Ned said, helping himself to a half-measure of brandy. “Stapleton doesn’t have them, Stapleton’s mistress doesn’t have them; consequently, I don’t have them. Brandy, anyone?”
“No, thank you,” Stephen replied, easing his foot up onto the hassock before the sofa. “What of the vowels?”
Ned put a stack of folded papers on the reading table. “There will be rejoicing in the lower house when these are put in the post. I thought I’d mail them from St. Giles.”
The poorest and most depraved of the slums, of course. Ned’s sense of humor tended toward the ironic.
“How many?” Quinn asked from farther down the sofa.
“Twenty, and that was only what I found on a cursory tour. Stapleton’s safe is practically in plain sight behind a mediocre portrait of the late marchioness.”
Exactly where Stephen had said it would be. “Does Stapleton have anything on Lady Champlain?”
Ned aimed a look at him, which Stephen returned blandly. “She must know better than to document her dalliances,” Ned said, “though since planting Champlain in the family vault, she’s apparently been a pattern card of widowed decorum. I did find some vowels for Fleming’s sister.” He passed those over to Stephen. “For a lady barely out of the schoolroom, she is definitely frequenting the wrong establishments.”
“I could do with a nightcap,” Quinn said. “Lady Champlain was quite cozy with Stephen’s portraitist friend tonight. Does de Beauharnais frequently play the gallant with society widows?”
Stephen had not in fact made his bow before Lady Champlain. He’d instead lounged against a pillar under the minstrels’ gallery and watched her with de Beauharnais. The fair Harmonia might as well have been a stranger for all the emotion the sight of her stirred. Once upon a time, Stephen had delighted in her smiles and flattery, even as he’d known his role had been to ease the sting of her husband’s infidelity.
If she and de Beauharnais weren’t lovers, they soon would be, which raised the curious possibility that they might pass the time comparing Stephen’s amorous appeal.
“De Beauharnais is a good sort,” Stephen said. “Genuinely talented, though he had best not venture too close to Stapleton’s notice. The marquess is enough of a titled turd to set the dogs on de Beauharnais for behaviors Stapleton’s own heir indulged in frequently.”
Ned brought Quinn a half-full glass and settled into a reading chair. “Stapleton is a turd covered in dog vomit. He doesn’t toss so much as a penny to the crossing sweepers, says they would be better off doing honest work in his mines. Little blighters are terrified of the mines, and well they should be. I was less frightened of Botany Bay than I was of ending up in the mines.”
Stephen massaged his leg, though it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have. “One windmill at a time, gentlemen. How do we know Miss Abbott’s letters haven’t been destroyed?”
Quinn sipped his drink. “Stapleton doesn’t believe they are destroyed, and that’s the greater problem. How do you confront him without letters to wave in his face when he’s convinced the letters exist?”
How to confront Stapleton was the consuming puzzle in Stephen’s mind—when he wasn’t absorbed with adoring Abigail. Between her discreet goggling at society in all its finery and the imprecations she quietly muttered at Stephen’s side, she’d made the evening delightful.
Ned set his drink aside to pull off his boots. He was dressed from head to toe in black, not a watch fob or a sleeve button glinting on his person.
“You could kill him,” Ned said, setting his boots aside. “Do the whole world a favor. Stapleton struts around London, not a care in the world, and his footmen would stand idly by should a runaway fish wagon gallop directly for him.”<
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Quinn made the predictable objection. “Jane would disapprove of murder.”
“Abigail would disapprove,” Stephen added, comforted by the realization. His grasp of right and wrong might be shaky, but he well knew how Abigail viewed right and wrong, and could extrapolate from there. “She’s not quite a Quaker, but she frowns mightily on violence.” Also on guns, and—what to do? what to do?—on the people who designed, sold, and grew rich off of them.
“No Quaker ever paraded around a ballroom looking so luscious as your Miss Abbott,” Ned said.
“Fleming had to have seen her.”
“That was practically the point,” Stephen replied. “If I thought Stapleton meant to do her permanent injury, I’d arrange an accident for him.”
Quinn was looking at him oddly. “A fatal accident?”
“Yes, a fatal accident. He’s a parasite, preying on a defenseless woman, impecunious MPs, the poor, his own mistress.…My guess is, the only being in all of creation Stapleton feels any attachment to is his grandson, hence this apparent attempt to whitewash Champlain’s reputation.”
Ned peered at his drink. “That doesn’t feel right to me. Swells and nobs dally where they please—they are expected to dally, and as long as they look after their bastards, nobody gives it a thought. What’s one more affair with an unsuspecting Quaker girl? Champlain diddled everybody from merry widows to French violinists, from what I’ve heard.”
“If he was passing state secrets to the French violinist,” Quinn said slowly, “that might imperil the succession.”
Stephen left off rubbing his knee. “Say that again.”
“If Champlain committed treason,” Quinn said, “he could be convicted posthumously, and his son’s ability to inherit anything through him jeopardized.”
Quinn was on to something, but Stephen’s brain was too tired—and his heart too busy missing Abigail—to pick out the threads of a theory. Treason could result in an attainted title, but did Stapleton have enough smart, determined enemies in the Lords to effect such a convoluted scheme?
How to Catch a Duke Page 18
