“I don’t think it works quite like that,” Stephen said. “If Champlain committed treason, he wasn’t the titleholder at the time. I’ll pay a call on your friends at the College of Arms and ask them a few questions.”
“I am off to ask questions of my pillow,” Ned said, rising. “A fine evening’s frolic, my lord.” He bowed to Stephen. “The lads and I thank you for it. Oh, and you might be interested to know that Fleming is calling on Stapleton’s mistress once a week.”
“Busy lady,” Quinn muttered, finishing his drink. “One cannot envy her her duties.”
“When does she see Fleming?” Stephen asked.
“Tuesday afternoons. She keeps a calendar. Stapleton calls Monday and Thursday at two p.m. and departs at three thirty. He’s never underfoot at any other time. The fair Miss Marchant also entertains a Mr. Watling, probably the paper merchant.”
“Was she once upon a time an opera dancer?” Stephen asked.
Ned gathered up his boots. “Not her too, Wentworth. Does a bad knee compel you to overuse other parts of your anatomy?”
Perhaps it had. Stephen would ask Abigail what she thought of that theory, and she would probably plant him a facer for his impertinence. If she was very wroth, she might be persuaded to spank him.
“Miss Marchant and I are not acquainted,” Stephen said, “but I probably know some people who are friendly with her. Go to bed, and my thanks for a job discreetly done.”
“’Night, Ned,” Quinn called, settling lower on the sofa as Ned took his leave. “I miss Jane.”
“Poor lamb. You had to go out among the wolves without your shepherdess.” Stephen shifted the pillow under his foot. “I have never longed to dance with a woman as desperately as I longed to dance with Abigail tonight. She was the loveliest female in the ballroom, and there I was, stuck at the bloody piquet table.”
“Jane says Miss Abbott doesn’t dance.”
“Abigail doesn’t know how to dance. If I had two sound legs, I could coax her into it.” A lovely dream, that, and Stephen had studied the instruction books enough to know that the patterns of the waltz weren’t so very complicated. “She made me copies of the letters.”
“She being Abigail. You’ve read them?”
“I’ve read half of them, and like Abigail, I sense a pattern that refuses to emerge. Your notion about treason is intriguing, because that would affect the heir, and Stapleton is the sort whose heir matters to him.”
Quinn regarded him by the light of the fire. “My heir matters to me too. How exactly did Jack Wentworth die, Stephen?”
Chapter Eleven
Between one tick of the mantel clock and the next, a series of thoughts marched through Stephen’s tired brain.
Why was Quinn raising this distasteful topic now?
Why hadn’t anybody raised it sooner? Jack had been dead close to twenty years.
Was Stephen protecting himself by withholding the truth, or was he protecting Quinn? Perhaps protecting Quinn’s view of himself as a competent older sibling?
And the final thought: Abigail was not ashamed of Stephen for having interceded on behalf of his sisters. And if Abigail did not condemn him…
“I killed him,” Stephen said. “Put a tot of rat poison in his gin. It took a while, but he eventually succumbed and everybody attributed his passing to bad drink.”
“You killed him.” A question lurked in that statement. Perhaps a Why? or an Are you sure?
“Jack was planning to sell Althea and Constance to a brothel, and the buyer was coming around with money at the end of the week. I knew with Jack dead you’d be summoned off whatever clerk’s stool or fishing boat you were working on, because nobody wanted three more useless children depending on the parish. The neighbors kept us until you showed up.”
Some emotion ought to suffuse this recitation, but all Stephen could muster was relief to be dealing in the truth.
“You put rat poison in his gin. I am…” Quinn stared at the foot Stephen had propped on the hassock. “I am…I am sorry.”
Whatever Stephen might have expected his brother to say—I am disappointed, surprised, not surprised—I am sorry hadn’t been on the list.
“I made the decision, Quinn. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I am sorry you did not feel you could tell me this. Sorry I never thought to ask. Sorry that at the age of eight, you were put in the position where such a desperate measure was the logical course. You did the right thing.”
The night was apparently to be full of surprises. “I took my father’s life. How can that have been the right thing to do?” Stephen had never quite asked that question, but it had haunted the remains of his childhood and the entirety of his adolescence. Perhaps it haunted him still.
“Jack bragged about breaking your leg,” Quinn said, “about making a proper beggar boy of you and teaching you proper respect for your sire. Do you recall the game he’d play, tossing a crust of bread on the floor and making the three of you fight each other for it?”
“You never played.”
“And then you refused to play, though you were barely breeched. Constance and Althea learned to break the crust in half, and Jack took to eating the food in front of us instead. His own hungry children stood before him, ragged and shivering, and he’d eat half a loaf of bread bite by bite and laugh at us and tell us we should be out looking for work. Jane has likened him to a mad dog, one that menaces all other creatures and is deserving of a bullet to the brain.”
“Jane said that?”
Quinn stared into the fire, doubtless seeing memories of his own childhood. “Jack was an order of evil for which not even the Bible has a description. I had planned to kill him myself, but as the most likely suspect, I hadn’t devised a way to evade blame. I wasn’t about to leave you three without an older brother to fend for you. How ironic, that I should end up in Newgate for murder anyway.”
Stephen wanted this conversation to be over. He wanted to bury his face against Abigail’s hair and breathe in her scent. He wanted in some vague way to grieve and rage, not as a small boy succumbs to a tantrum, but as a grown man rails against the world’s fallenness.
The whole of York had known what a monster Jack was, and not a soul had lifted a hand against him. A father’s right, they’d murmured. Spare the rod…
More remained to be said, though. “Jack threatened to break my other leg if I warned Althea or Constance about the brothel.”
“He would have done it, Stephen. He would have thrown you down a well and laughed while you drowned, if he could have got by without the money your begging brought in.” Quinn was blessedly sure of that conclusion.
And—now that Stephen considered the proposition—so was he. “Jack wanted to sell me along with the girls, Quinn, but the buyer wasn’t interested in a lame boy. Jack couldn’t sell me as a climbing boy, he couldn’t sell me as a molly boy. Other than the begging, I was no earthly use to him except as a target for his fists and his hobnailed boots. I wanted to die. I wanted a benevolent angel to strike the lot of us down, but then I thought: Why us? Why not strike down bloody Jack Wentworth? He hadn’t lamed my brain, only my leg.”
Quinn patted Stephen’s leg, an awkward and unprecedented familiarity. “God be thanked for your brain, and for your stubbornness. Does Duncan know?”
“He doubtless suspects. He was so determined to see the good in me, no matter how relentlessly I showed him the bad. He wore me down, and I eventually admitted a stalemate.”
And what an exhausting struggle that had been.
“Duncan will approve. We think of him as a man of logic and reason, but he’s passionately opposed to blind respect for corrupt authority. Talk to him, when the moment is right. He would cheerfully kill anybody who threatened Matilda, or as cheerfully as Duncan does anything.”
Duncan had become obnoxiously cheerful since marrying Matilda. He was simply subtle about it. “I have never said anything to Althea and Constance, but they probably suspect too. You wi
ll doubtless mention this to Jane, and Duncan and Matilda have no secrets.”
Quinn’s lips quirked. “Jane had her suspicions, and as usual my duchess was correct. The Wentworth family will have a secret, though. How appallingly aristocratic of us. I cannot say emphatically enough that you did the right thing and the only thing.”
He grabbed Stephen by the nape, shook him gently, then brought him into a fierce, brief hug. “You know that, don’t you?” he said, not letting Stephen go. “You made a hard choice, but the only choice, and one no eight-year-old should have been faced with.”
Stephen managed a nod.
“Good.” Quinn thumped him once on the back and let him go. “And now I will join my slumbering duchess.” He rose and stretched, a specimen in his prime, and a damned fine brother. “Will you ambush Stapleton with Miss Abbott’s copies of the letters?”
“I was considering something like that.”
Quinn picked up his glass and set it on the sideboard. “Whatever you do, don’t execute your plan without consulting with Miss Abbott first. Duchesses frown on their menfolk going off half-cocked.”
“Right. Good night, Quinn.”
He padded to the door but paused with his hand on the latch. “She’s in the peacock apartment, and the dog sleeps in her sitting room. Damned beast you gave her will soon eat its way through Smithfield Market.”
Babies had a way of disrupting the most prosaic of marital routines, and the smaller the baby, the worse the disruption. Jane had no sooner returned from a nocturnal visit to the nursery and lain down in the ducal bed than the mattress shifted—or so it felt. She might well have been sleeping for an hour.
“Missed you,” she murmured, feeling her husband’s weight settle beside her. “Was it awful?”
From the earliest months of their marriage, Quinn had been sparing with words and lavish with physical affection, at least in private. Jane usually fell asleep with Quinn spooned at her back and woke curled against his side.
“The evening was long without you,” he said, moving closer. He rested his head on her shoulder. “The baby was asleep when I looked in on her.”
“Sleeping off her latest banquet.”
Normally, Quinn would offer at least a cursory report: Some retired admiral had been in his cups before the dancing opened, a dowager countess had been accused of cheating at cards. He kept track of the trivialities because often, those on dits had financial repercussions and his banks served many titled families.
“Is Stephen all right?” Jane asked, for polite society had doubtless remarked Stephen’s presence with more curiosity than compassion.
“Stephen is…” Quinn sighed, the sound profoundly weary. “Stephen is…Hold me, Jane.”
Never in more than a decade of marriage had Quinn asked that of her. She threaded an arm under his neck and pulled him close.
“Quinn, are you well?”
“I am heartsick for my brother.”
Jane waited, because surely even Quinn would embellish such an admission.
“All these years,” he said, “I’ve thought Stephen spoiled—a contrary, self-indulgent, arrogant, difficult fellow who simply could not put behind him an injury that resulted in nothing more than a bad knee. Jack Wentworth scarred us all, and Stephen spent less time around Jack than any of us.”
Ah, well then. In Jane’s opinion, Jack Wentworth was capable of greater evil than Old Scratch himself. Mention of him would turn any conversation melancholy. Jane stroked Quinn’s hair and drew the covers up over his shoulders.
“You and Stephen were discussing the past?” A difficult topic for any Wentworth.
Quinn hitched closer, and Jane was glad the candles were out and the fire was banked. This was not a conversation to have in daylight.
“All along,” Quinn said, “I thought: My brother is so disgustingly smart. From the kites he makes for the girls to the modifications he’s designed for his saddle, to the cannons and rifles and even a bedamned crossbow. Everything he touches is brilliant. Stephen has so much intelligence, I thought, why must he be bitter about an unreliable knee? Get the hell over it and move on. I was jealous of him. He can read in any language he pleases to, he’s charming, he’s stylish.…”
Another sigh, this one a tad shuddery.
“He loves you, and you love him, Quinn. The rest can all be sorted out.”
A silence stretched, while some strange tension gripped Quinn.
“The problem,” he said, in a near whisper. “The problem was never the bloody knee. What Jack Wentworth shattered was Stephen’s heart.”
Quinn held her in a desperately close embrace, and when Jane stroked his hair again, her thumb grazed Quinn’s cheek. She kept up a slow, easy caress, until his breathing quieted, and his hold on her relaxed.
Only then did Jane admit what her senses told her must be true: Quinton, His Grace of Walden, had cried himself to sleep.
Abigail’s evening had been a revelation, and not a happy one. If she’d entertained any wild fancies about eventually fitting into Stephen Wentworth’s world, they’d died a waltzing, flirting, bejeweled death.
Mayfair was not simply a different strata of society, Abigail reflected as she drew the covers up over herself, it was a different world, and not one she could comprehend. The cost of the ice sculptures alone would have housed many a lamed or blinded veteran. The price of a half dozen pairs of embroidered dancing slippers would have bought many a crossing sweeper a decent pair of boots.
Stephen navigated this perfumed and silk-clad world with ease, for all he needed a cane to get around. His flirtatious ripostes had been humorous without touching the hem of ribaldry, and he knew everybody. All Abigail knew was that a Quaker gunsmith’s daughter had no place among Stephen’s peers.
Everybody in the ballroom had known him, and they’d approached him with the sort of nervous jocularity that indicated respect and more than a little wariness. He was at home in that jungle, and Abigail never would be.
She punched her pillow and admitted that, but for Stephen Wentworth, she would have no wish to learn how to prowl the wilds of Mayfair.
Her bedroom door opened silently and a particular, uneven tread came to her ears.
“You are not asleep,” Stephen said, sitting on the bed. “And I am not tossing the rest of the night away while I pine for your company. We don’t have the letters.”
He shrugged out of his coat, then his waistcoat. His cravat joined the pile of clothing at the foot of Abigail’s bed, then he pulled off his boots.
“Say something, Abigail. You were less than loquacious on the carriage ride home.” Clad only in breeches, he moved behind the privacy screen. Even traveling that distance, he used his cane, though Abigail knew when his leg was paining him worse than usual, and that did not appear to be the case.
“Why didn’t you tell me Lady Champlain is beautiful?” she asked, over the sound of her toothbrush being appropriated. “She’s lovely.” And slender and petite, damn her.
“She’s also a good mother, not vain, and not very accomplished at games of marital revenge. Do you hate her?”
Water splashed against porcelain.
“I couldn’t possibly hate her, though she probably hates me. I’m accustomed to people resenting my work, because I wreck their blackmail scheme or reveal them to be unfaithful. I’m not used to being ashamed of myself because of foolish decisions I made years ago.”
“Harmonia does not hold you responsible for Champlain violating his marital vows,” Stephen said, emerging from the privacy screen. “She disregarded the same promises, and didn’t hold Champlain accountable either, more’s the pity. I suspect she and de Beauharnais will keep company for a time. Stapleton won’t allow them to marry, and for all I know they aren’t inclined to marry.”
Abigail propped herself up on her elbows. “I thought you said de Beauharnais…?”
“He likes some men, he likes some women. There’s no accounting for taste, is there? You like me, for example.�
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Abigail flopped back the covers rather than admit that she’d fallen in love with such a magnificent wretch.
“Come to bed. Tell me about the letters.” Because that was a far simpler topic than the dalliances of Mayfair sophisticates—also more important.
Stephen paused by the side of the bed to move the stack of his clothing to the clothespress. “Ned gave it a good try. He and his minions searched Stapleton’s study, bedroom, library, and sitting room. They searched his mistress’s home, and they searched Fleming’s abode. No letters. Plenty of IOUs from stupid MPs, even some impressive sums owed by Fleming’s sister to the wrong sorts of venues, but your letters were not to be found.”
He hooked his cane on the night table, climbed onto the mattress, and sat with his back propped against the pillows.
“I am tired, Abigail.”
She rested her cheek against his thigh. He’d left his satin knee breeches on, which was thoughtful of him, given that she needed to focus on the situation with Stapleton.
“I never realized,” she said, drawing a pattern around his knee, “how exhausting a wealthy life can be. The dancing alone takes stamina, and the gossiping and flirting and wagering.…The whole business struck me as a stage play put on for the amusement of the actors. A very expensive stage play.”
“And your Quaker heart railed against that display.” He stroked her hair. “As somebody who frequently went three days without eating in my childhood, I’m not too keen on fancy dress balls myself.”
“I thought you didn’t like the crowds and the dancing?”
“I loathe the whole farce. Do you have anything that bears Champlain’s handwriting?”
Abigail focused on the question, though she was physically and mentally exhausted and sadder than she could recall being in years.
“I don’t think so.”
“An old invoice from a gun purchase? A note bidding you to meet him beneath the trysting oak?”
“I destroyed my father’s business papers three years after closing his shop, and Champlain was inclined to do business in coin and show up unannounced.” Then he’d expected her to drop everything, sneak away to the stable, and hoist her skirts for him. There had been occasional trinkets—a plain ivory comb, a man’s pocket watch that kept unreliable time—nothing of great value.
How to Catch a Duke Page 19
