Stephen’s caresses shifted to her face and neck. “I had thought to have a forger replicate the letters you’ve written out, but we need a sample of Champlain’s handwriting if the forgeries are to fool Stapleton.”
Of course Stephen would know competent forgers. “You will have to find some other woman to whom Champlain sent correspondence. Stephen, is something wrong?” The quality of his touch, while gentle, was distracted. The cadence of his speech less than loverly.
“I told Quinn that I killed my father.”
Oh, dear competed with And Quinn had better have taken the news well. “And?”
“Quinn said I did the right thing. He apologized. Said I should never have been put in the position I was in.”
Abigail sat up and laid an arm across Stephen’s shoulders. “Now you are annoyed, because life was so much easier when you had this wall of resentment between you and the duke. He disappointed you by being decent. Wretched of him.”
Stephen turned his face against her shoulder. “Have mercy, woman.” His tone suggested a hint of a smile. “I will have to ravish you simply to still your tongue.”
“I am indisposed.” She had informed him of that by note. He’d replied with a bouquet of scarlet salvia and blue hyacinths. The first connoted consolation and was often sent to sickrooms. The second, if Abigail recalled correctly, stood for a request for forgiveness—or for regret.
Stephen took her earlobe between his teeth. “You are indisposed. I am not put off by a little untidiness, Abigail.”
“You are trying to change the subject, because emotional untidiness drives you barmy. His Grace thwarted your precious fictions about his fragile pride and arrogant indifference, and now you have to like him as well as love him.”
Stephen left off sucking on her earlobe and shifted down to lay his head in her lap. “And I thought Jane was a tad too perceptive. When we marry, will you carry me over the threshold?”
“We will never marry.” Abigail stroked his hair, trying not to let the heartache of that reality ruin the moment. “I truly had no idea how extravagant a society ball is. It’s appalling.”
“You can view it that way—the elaborate food, the gowns worn only once, the casual wagers in the card room—or you can see the beauty in it. The dancing, the music, the sartorial splendor, and laughter—also the sums transferred from wealthy coffers into those of people who work for a living. The kitchen makes certain none of the food goes to waste either. You looked lovely, Abigail, and you are a woman who deserves to dress occasionally in something other than sackcloth and ashes.”
She could argue with him—nobody needed jeweled dancing slippers, for God’s sake—but she didn’t want to argue. She wanted to curl up in his arms and wake up in a world where nobody got in a lather about old letters, and a common inquiry agent could fall in love with a ducal heir.
“Abigail, dearest,” Stephen murmured, cheek pillowed on her thigh, “have you ever had a notion to put your mouth on a man’s—?”
She gave his hair a gentle yank. “Champlain kept journals.”
“Journals?”
“When he’d have to wait a few minutes for me to join him in the stable, or by the side of the stream, I’d come upon him jotting in a notebook. He said he transferred the notes he took in pencil into journals, because a man’s life should be of interest to his progeny.”
“Not a humble sort, was he?”
“The journals will provide an extensive sample of his handwriting.” Abigail traced a fingertip over Stephen’s lips. “Champlain wasn’t vain in the usual sense; he simply could not allow his mind to idle, so he busied himself with jottings in the odd moment.”
Stephen closed his teeth on her finger, sucked for a moment, then let go. “I did not instruct Neddy to look for journals. Stapleton will have them, though, and they weren’t in his safe, so they must be in his private sitting room. He’d be unlikely to keep such volumes in his library, or where Lady Champlain or a casual guest could come across them.”
Stephen sat up and wiggled out of his knee breeches, extracted a handkerchief from a pocket, and tossed these items onto the clothespress. “A good forger needs some time to work, but we don’t have to copy the entire body of letters. Just enough to draw Stapleton out. You might have to sit in the park reading them, and then we’ll catch him trying to accost you.”
“You are aroused.”
He looked down at himself. “Around you, darling Abigail, this is my usual condition. One need hardly remark it and I assure you, I am capable of easing my own needs.”
He was so casual about such an intimate, complicated undertaking. Or perhaps not casual—competent.
“We need to talk about the letters,” Abigail said, though she didn’t want to talk about the damned letters. She wanted to cuddle up with Stephen Wentworth and never let him go. “Who has them? Who might have destroyed them? What if they aren’t destroyed and we make copies and…?”
Stephen kissed her. “It’s possible your copies are the only evidence of them. Perhaps Fleming destroyed them, perhaps somebody traded them for another twenty IOUs. Perhaps this whole business has something to do with posthumous charges of treason, of all the outlandish notions. Perhaps you should kiss me, Abigail. I truly did want to waltz with you.”
She kissed him and what followed was an odd, interesting addition to Abigail’s intimate vocabulary. Stephen wrapped her hand around his cock, then enclosed her hand in his own, and together, they stroked him to a quick, sighing completion.
The whole while, he kissed her and caressed her face and neck, but never once did he fondle her breasts or otherwise take liberties. She was left feeling friendly and cozy, happy to cuddle without the frustration that might have followed had Stephen been more passionate in his attentions.
Not what she would have predicted, but then, with Stephen predictions were pointless.
“Now we can have a nice sleep,” he said, using his handkerchief on his belly. “And our minds can work on the puzzle of how to thwart Stapleton while we dream of candlelit waltzes and naughty kisses.”
Abigail curled down to her side, more than willing to let the day finally end. Stephen wrapped himself around her and commenced rubbing her back.
“I can’t keep my eyes open,” she murmured.
“You have earned your rest. Go to sleep and dream of me.”
She would, blast him, and though it was a poor reflection on her pious upbringing, Abigail had wished desperately that she could have waltzed with him too.
He was right, though—they needed a plan for thwarting Stapleton, and when that plan had run its course, she would return to York, and Stephen would remain in Mayfair, where he’d probably…invent the world’s first repeating rifle.
“Wentworth took her to the ball?” Stapleton muttered, tapping his spoon against his teacup. “He took a professional snoop to Portman’s do, paraded her before all of society, casual as you please?”
Harmonia pretended to idly rearrange the linen napkins on the tea tray, though she’d rather be anywhere but in Stapleton’s study as he interrogated Lord Fleming.
“Wentworth not only paraded Miss Abbott before all of Mayfair,” Fleming replied, “he did so in the company of his older brother, who chatted graciously with Miss Abbott and partnered her at whist. The Wentworth cousin and his lady were present as well, and had the duchess not recently been brought to childbed, she’d doubtless have been showing the family colors too. Lord Stephen and Miss Abbott were firing a warning shot across your bow, sir.”
Stapleton took a prissy sip of his tea, then held the cup out to Harmonia. “This is too weak. You should know how I like my tea by now, Harmonia.”
The marquess sat behind his desk like a lord justice at the bench. His display of pique was strategic, intended to belittle her before Lord Fleming. She considered for a moment spilling the tea by accident in Stapleton’s lap, but denied herself that pleasure.
Papa-in-Law was angry, and when he was angry he was parti
cularly unmanageable. She retrieved his cup and saucer and set it on the tray.
“My apologies, sir. Lord Fleming, is your tea acceptable?”
Fleming smiled at her from the reading chair. “Bitterness is an acquired taste, my lady. My tea is lovely and suits me quite well, thank you.”
She subsided onto the sofa, while Stapleton’s frown became a scowl. Fleming had danced an interminable quadrille with her last night, his movements correct and surprisingly graceful. She had sought solace with de Beauharnais in the garden when the dance had finally ended—and solace she had found. Lovely solace.
“Something must be done,” Stapleton said. “I cannot have that woman flaunting herself before polite society. Harmonia, you will attach Lord Stephen’s affections. Bed him if you have to. He’s not to fall into the clutches of the Abbott creature.”
Stapleton could be rude, arrogant, and blockheaded, but this…Miss Abbott was welcome to Lord Stephen, more than welcome.
“Stapleton,” Fleming said softly, setting aside his teacup, “a gentleman does not address a lady thus.”
“Fortunately for all concerned, Harmonia is no lady. Your sister’s tendency to frequent the lowest gaming hells should have disabused you of the notion that a wellborn woman is necessarily a lady. If I tell Harmonia to bed Wentworth, she’ll bed Wentworth.”
No, she would not. Of all men, Stephen Wentworth would not be finding his way back into Harmonia’s bed. He had been an interesting diversion, rather like a tiger in the garden was an interesting diversion. The instant he thought she was pursuing him would be the instant he refused to be lured any closer.
Besides, she’d seen Lord Stephen watching Miss Abbott across a hand of piquet. Of all the inconvenient, outlandish impossibilities, the statuesque inquiry agent had caught Lord Stephen’s fancy.
She was tall enough to partner him well, whereas Harmonia…
“Is Lord Stephen your choice for Nicky’s step-papa?” she asked evenly. “His standing is appropriate, he’s wealthy, and he’s held in high esteem at Horse Guards. His limp is the result of an injury rather than a defect of birth. He’s witty, and he’s good-looking. I could do much worse.”
Stapleton gestured toward the tray. “Pour me another cup, and don’t be impudent.”
“There’s more,” Fleming said.
“What could be worse than that blasted woman attaching herself to a ducal heir?” Stapleton asked. He watched Harmonia pouring out, his lips pursed. “Unless she’s blackmailing him. Wentworth is the sort to have secrets—perhaps he’s a bastard, perhaps his older brother is a bastard. They both have the look of the baseborn knave, and God knows their antecedents were sordid. Miss Abbott makes her living unearthing secrets. Why would she be seen in Wentworth’s company unless she coerced him into the outing?”
“She’s biding at the ducal residence,” Fleming said, “as a guest. That’s not what you need to concern yourself with now.”
Harmonia put the second cup of tea—strong enough to scald the rust off a rapier—on the blotter before Stapleton.
Miss Abbott was biding with the Wentworth family and accompanying Lord Stephen to his first fancy dress ball in ages. Perhaps this was, in fact, a good thing. Perhaps it was cause for rejoicing. Though probably not. Papa-in-Law was wroth, and that was always a very bad thing.
“Fleming,” Stapleton began, “you have airs above your station if you think yourself capable of deciding which among endless pressing obligations I should concern myself with. A marquess, a peer of the realm whose title dates back to—”
“My house was searched,” Fleming said. “I spotted Lord Stephen with Miss Abbott, and within days, my house was searched. Nothing was stolen, but I suggest you check the contents of your safe and the location of any sensitive papers.”
Harmonia pretended to sip her tea, though she could taste nothing. This whole business was growing too complicated. She could only guess what Stapleton was about, and she wanted no part of it.
Stapleton left the seat behind his desk, swung the marchioness’s portrait forward on its hinges, and opened the safe.
“The money’s all—blasted hell. Blasted, infernal…” Stapleton reached into the safe, though Harmonia could see plainly enough that it held only money and jewels.
No papers. Poor Papa-in-Law.
“You put him up to this,” Stapleton said, advancing on Fleming. “You put that Wentworth jackanapes up to stealing back your sister’s vowels and my entire store of leverage in the Commons.”
“I wish I had,” Fleming replied, pushing to his feet. “But the Wentworth jackanapes, as you refer to him, can barely negotiate a set of steps, and I have no means of making a ducal heir do anything. You have many, many enemies, Stapleton, no friends, and only a handful of paid-for allies. You had best be careful about whom you accuse of what.”
Oh, that was well done. Just a hint of boredom in Fleming’s tone, a hint of amusement—and a hint of threat.
And if Papa-in-Law no longer had Lady Roberta’s vowels…Harmonia rose and smoothed her skirts.
“You gentlemen will doubtless wish for privacy if you’re to discuss delicate matters. I’m expecting my portraitist for an afternoon sitting, so I will leave you to your plotting.”
Fleming bowed cordially, while Stapleton closed the safe and positioned the painting over it.
“I am not plotting, Harmonia,” Stapleton said. “The Abbott woman must be dealt with. I had thought to negotiate with her, but she’s clearly intent on getting above herself. Don’t be like her. Keep to your place, or I’ll give you cause to regret it.”
Harmonia merely stared at him. He’d apparently set Fleming to spying on Miss Abbott and Lord Stephen. He’d collected up the vowels of various MPs as a means of buying votes in the lower house of Parliament. He’d even ensnared Fleming in his intrigues by virtue of buying Lady Roberta’s gambling debts.
Now he was threatening Harmonia before a witness, and not with a long holiday in the north.
She tipped her chin up, rather than let Stapleton think her cowed. “I beg your pardon, Papa-in-Law.”
“What I do,” Stapleton said, “I do to safeguard the boy’s future. I owe him that future, and so do you.”
The marquess was much given to pomposity, but in that last pronouncement Harmonia heard only weary determination, and—was she imagining this?—a hint of worry.
“I’ll see you at supper,” Harmonia said, curtsying. She left the study at a decorous pace and closed the door quietly behind her. The walls were too thick to make eavesdropping in the corridor possible, and besides, she’d already heard more than she wished to.
She gathered her skirts and pelted up to her private sitting room, where she changed into the flattering ensemble she and de Beauharnais had chosen for her sitting.
Chapter Twelve
“He’s reading your letters,” Ned said, taking the place beside Abigail on the garden bench. “Also cursing a lot and staring off into space.”
Abigail moved her skirts aside to make room for Ned, though she’d rather be alone. “I assume you refer to Lord Stephen.”
“In my head, he’s Lord Pontifical, Lord Impossible, Lord Limping Lover…but yes, I refer to the gentleman who has stolen your heart and not set foot in the family home for the past three days.”
Hercules peered up at Abigail from the flagstones. His chin rested on his enormous paws, and his eyes held the reproach of a poor wretch for whom the ball had been tossed for a mere half hour.
“I have endless privacy among the Wentworths,” Abigail said, “but no secrets.”
“We all have secrets,” Ned replied. “I suspect his lordship has confided more than a few of his to you. Did you know he hadn’t been to a fancy dress ball for years before you showed up?”
“Whereas I had never been to a fancy dress ball.” Pacing would have been unladylike and rude, but the sheer, endless waiting was fraying Abigail’s nerves.
“That bothers you?” Ned asked, holding out a hand
toward the dog. “That you’re new to the London social whirl?”
“Yes, it bothers me. I’ve attended a house party or two in pursuit of an inquiry, but this…this…extravagant idleness. I cannot fathom it, and I will never approve of it.”
Hercules rose on a sigh and ambled over to sniff Ned’s fingers.
“You think Stephen enjoys extravagant idleness?”
“He appeared to be enjoying himself at the Portmans’ ball.”
“And we know Stephen Wentworth is as transparent as Venetian glass, don’t we? He hated every minute of the whole excursion. He wished desperately that he could have come housebreaking with me, but he instead kept to your side like yonder hound, guarding you against all perils.”
Abigail did get to her feet and walked off a few paces. “I guard myself against all perils.”
Ned studied her while he petted the dog’s head. His expression put her in mind of the Duke of Walden, though Ned was no blood relation to His Grace.
“That’s the real problem, isn’t it?” Ned said. “You can’t respect the fancy wastrels who make up the aristocracy, and your Quaker heart isn’t keen on a fellow who’s a genius with firearms, but the real issue is, you are too stubborn to throw in your lot with anybody, even somebody as contrary, smart, and unconventional as you are—maybe especially that sort. Would you rather have a loyal lapdog?”
Hercules craned his head back, the better to revel in Ned’s caresses. Abigail felt exactly like that damned dog when Stephen touched her.
“You are impertinent, Mr. Wentworth.”
“And here I thought you hadn’t noticed my finer qualities, so besotted are you with his lordship.” He rose, and Abigail resisted the urge to step back.
Ned Wentworth was only slightly above average height, and he was slender. He had no title, and Abigail hadn’t heard any mention of Ned possessing independent means, though he was clearly well dressed, and yet…When Stephen had needed a housebreaker, Ned had apparently been able to get into, toss, and get out of not one but three dwellings in the course of a night.
How to Catch a Duke Page 20
