How to Catch a Duke

by Grace Burrowes

  “You know Miss Abbott at sight?” Stephen inquired, making no move to exit the room. “Did you know Stapleton had her accosted in the park, and not two minutes ago Lord Fleming marched her right in through your front door?”

  Harmonia put a hand to her throat. “Fleming pointed her out to me at the ball. She should not be here.”

  De Beauharnais retrieved a shawl from the chair behind the escritoire and draped it solicitously around Harmonia’s shoulders.

  “Perhaps we might continue this discussion elsewhere,” he said, giving Harmonia’s arm a pat. “Her ladyship’s private parlor should be reserved for the guests whom she chooses to receive.”

  Oh, nicely done, and Stephen was happy to quit the fancy little parlor anyway. Champlain’s journals weren’t on the shelves behind the escritoire, nor did they grace the mantel or the bookshelves across from the fireplace.

  “Let’s retire to Stapleton’s study, shall we?” Stephen said. “That is doubtless where Miss Abbott has been taken, and she needs to know that I am on hand to escort her from the premises.”

  Or to kill Stapleton, Fleming, the butler, and anybody else who sought to do Abigail harm.

  “He’s done what?” Quinn Wentworth spoke softly. In Ned’s experience, His Grace of Walden had never needed to shout, and particularly not with Ned. The emphasis had been all the more apparent for being rendered quietly.

  “Stephen’s off to confront Stapleton directly,” Ned said, propping a hip on the library desk. “Miss Abbott wasn’t really given a choice about going with Fleming. She took Hercules with her, and I set a badger to following them. She’s at the Stapleton residence, ergo, Stephen took himself off to the same location.”

  “We must trust Stephen,” Duncan said, from his reading chair before the fire. “Stapleton isn’t about to make off with a ducal heir or a ducal guest, and Stephen knows that.”

  Quinn rounded on him. “Stapleton had a goddamned stagecoach held up in broad daylight trying to kidnap a woman who’d never done him a moment of harm. Stapleton violated the sanctity of Miss Abbott’s household. It’s not Stephen I’m worried about.”

  Duncan nearly smiled. “There is that, and Miss Abbott is no doubt able to give a good account of herself.”

  Quinn ran a hand through his hair. “I wish Jane were—”

  Jane strode through the door. “Jane wishes you would recall that merely because a woman has been delivered of a child does not mean her mind or her hearing have become impaired. You are in a taking over Stephen and Miss Abbott?”

  Quinn grasped his duchess’s hand and led her to the sofa. “I didn’t want to bother you. I’m not in a taking. Dukes do not…”

  Jane crossed her arms and remained standing. “Quinton Wentworth, for shame.”

  Ned and Duncan diplomatically found somewhere else to look.

  “I would have fetched you down from the nursery,” Quinn said, “but I didn’t want to interrupt…” He waved a hand in the general direction of maternal delicacy.

  “If you decline to interrupt every time I nurse our daughter, we will see a good deal less of each other than I prefer. Tell me what’s afoot.”

  Duncan spoke as he got to his feet. “Might we wait for Matilda? I sent a footman to fetch her and she should be—ah, welcome, my love.” Not by a raised eyebrow or a smirk did Duncan indicate that some men had a proper respect for their wives’ counsel, but the message was conveyed by his husbandly peck to Matilda’s cheek.

  “Stephen has joined battle with Stapleton,” Duncan said. “We are considering next steps.”

  Ned took up the narrative for the benefit of the ladies. “Miss Abbott was accosted by Lord Fleming in the park. He was sent to retrieve her at Stapleton’s behest. He claimed all Stapleton wanted was to speak with Miss Abbott, and she insisted that the discussion take place at Stapleton’s home. Stephen suspects she is reconnoitering enemy territory, and he was in the saddle within ten minutes of learning of her decision.”

  “And that,” Matilda murmured, “tells us all we need to know.”

  “Thoughts?” Duncan asked, kissing her knuckles.

  “We have both a king and queen in play,” Matilda said, “an unusual combination. They will likely divide and conquer, but if Miss Abbott is engaging with Stapleton, who is Stephen’s target? Lord Fleming?”

  “Stephen claimed,” Ned replied, “that he went to pay a call on Lady Champlain.”

  “We are wasting time,” Quinn muttered. “I don’t trust Stapleton, I don’t trust Fleming. I would like to trust Miss Abbott but we haven’t had time to take her true measure. And as for Stephen…”

  Jane patted Quinn’s chest. “We do trust Stephen. He will have considered every permutation of the facts and possibilities, and he will have them all in hand.”

  Quinn caught her fingers in his. “And if Stapleton takes Stephen’s cane away?”

  Jane and Matilda exchanged a look. Ned had been deciphering such glances for several years now, and could make nothing out of them. Quinn, Duncan, and even Stephen were much easier to read, but the ladies remained a mystery. Ned suspected they remained somewhat mysterious to their devoted swains as well, and that only added to his puzzlement.

  “You’d best be on your way,” Jane said. “Ned will go with you as my personal guarantor that no unnecessary bravado imperils anybody I love.”

  Duncan bowed to his wife and released her hand. “And should necessary bravado arise?”

  “Imperil somebody I do not love,” Jane said. “Lord Stapleton’s politics are disgraceful, but Quinn hasn’t yet allowed me to interfere. Stapleton sends six-year-old children into the mines when his own offspring never worked an honest day in his spoiled life. Now the marquess is troubling Miss Abbott, and that troubles Stephen. We are entitled to make a show of support, lest Miss Abbott think we don’t look after our own.”

  In other words, Jane trusted Stephen, but did not trust Stapleton.

  “Gentlemen,” Quinn said, “we have our orders. Let’s be off.”

  Abigail frowns on violence. Stephen reminded himself of that guiding directive as he stalked from Harmonia’s pretty sitting room down the corridor to the library. A quick inspection revealed that Champlain’s handwritten journals weren’t hiding in plain sight.

  “My lord, you cannot run tame about this house,” Harmonia said, tagging after him. “My father-in-law will take a very dim view of your behavior, and I am none too impressed with it myself.”

  De Beauharnais had apparently made the prudent decision to bide in Harmonia’s parlor. Alternatively, somewhere in the house a proper portrait of her ladyship was in progress.

  Stephen’s next objective was the formal parlor, which—true to the butler’s assertion—was full of maids armed with dust mops and scrub buckets.

  “You cannot do this,” Harmonia said, a note of hysteria creeping into her voice. “You cannot charge in here, upend the household, and, no. Stephen, that is the marquess’s study and even I— You cannot go in there!”

  Stephen paused outside the door. “Stapleton has gone too far, Harmonia. He has troubled a woman I care for greatly, set his henchmen to bothering her in the park, and now he seeks to bully her into giving up personal possessions that have already been stolen from her. I won’t have it. You may either join the discussion or scurry back to your pretty parlor and your pretty painter.”

  He expected her to flounce off in high dudgeon—she was good at that. Instead, she cast a miserable glance at the closed door.

  “She’s in there. Miss Abbott.” Harmonia took four paces away, then four paces back. “She’s everything I’m not. Tall, self-confident, independent, competent. I hate her for that more than anything else.”

  A niggle of intuition told Stephen that Harmonia’s admission had significance beyond an insecure woman’s fears.

  “Harmonia, she had no idea Champlain was married. He was just another handsome customer flirting with her in her father’s shop, and then he became an admirer and a lover. The wh
ole time, the entire time, he was deceiving her. If she’s independent and self-assured, Champlain must take a significant part of the blame for making her distrustful and lonely too.”

  Abigail would smite him soundly for that conclusion, though it was nothing less than the truth.

  “He lied to everybody,” Harmonia said miserably, “most especially to himself.”

  Why did I ever think we had something to offer each other? Once upon a time, Stephen had willingly involved himself with this woman, knowing full well they were nothing more than a mutual diversion. Perhaps that had been the point.

  A diversion never questioned the morality of war, a diversion never had the ingenuity to dress as a man, a diversion never confronted an aggressor who had a thousand times her social influence and ten thousand times her wealth.

  “My lady, unless you want your son to turn out exactly like his father and like his grandfather, I suggest you join us in the marquess’s study. Champlain’s gallivanting about, wenching, and carousing made your marriage a polite misery. His behavior doesn’t have to ruin your future as well.”

  Nor would Stephen let it ruin Abigail’s future.

  A raised male voice penetrated the door, the words indistinct.

  “Stephen,” Harmonia said, “there’s more here in play than you know, and Stapleton isn’t entirely to blame.”

  “Of course not,” Stephen said, “he’s hired minions and impressed a co-conspirator in the person of Lord Fleming. His next move will doubtless be to inveigle you into trying to ruin Miss Abbott socially, which utterly clodpated maneuver will provoke Her Grace of Walden into mobilizing her legion of Valkyries against you. You will be banished to the north more effectively than if Stapleton had you bound and gagged and tossed into a coach.”

  A woman’s voice joined that of the shouting male, her annoyance palpable through the closed door.

  “Come along,” Stephen said. “I won’t allow Stapleton or Fleming to bully you, and Miss Abbott won’t either.”

  “She won’t bully me?”

  “Don’t be tiresome. Miss Abbott won’t allow their lordships to bully you.” He opened the door and marched in—as best he could with a cane—just in time to see Abigail wallop Lord Fleming in the knee with her reticule and a growling Hercules strain at the leash held firmly in Abigail’s hand.

  “Well done, Miss Abbott,” Stephen said. “Next time—if Fleming is foolish enough to provoke you again—aim higher and between his legs. The targets are doubtless tiny, but I trust you to make the blow count nonetheless. Good doggy, Hercules. Very good doggy, indeed.”

  Abigail considered herself a patient woman, and with Stapleton, she was managing adequately. The marquess was stubborn and arrogant, but he kept his hands to himself. Fleming, however, made the mistake of attempting to take her by the arm and steer her to the sofa one too many times.

  Abigail had no intention of sitting like a penitent schoolgirl while two men loomed over her and attempted to intimidate her.

  She clipped Fleming on the knee with her reticule, a glancing blow that ought to smart for a time without doing any real injury. Fleming, however, was apparently not used to being thwarted, and he rounded on her with an ugly snarl, reaching for her arm again.

  At some point in this exchange the door had opened, though Abigail could not take her eyes off Fleming to see who the intruder was. Stapleton was apparently inclined to let his minion manhandle a lady, which was, quite honestly, frightening. Abigail had come here for sound tactical reasons, but she hadn’t counted on Fleming acting like the ne’er-do-wells he consorted with.

  Hercules was about to make his opinion known regarding Fleming’s rudeness while Abigail scrambled to recall the appropriate commands.

  “Well done, Miss Abbott,” said an amused male voice. “Next time—if Fleming is foolish enough to provoke you again—aim higher and between his legs. The targets are doubtless tiny, but I trust you to make the blow count nonetheless. Hercules, good doggy. Very good doggy, indeed.”

  Stephen. The relief that coursed through Abigail was unseemly. “My lord, welcome. The discussion was just getting interesting. Hercules, sit.”

  The dog took to his haunches, his weight a comforting presence against Abigail’s leg.

  “Harmonia,” the marquess said, “take this disgrace to good tailoring away, and don’t come back until I bid you to. Take the damned dog too.”

  “We will stay,” Stephen said, lounging against the marquess’s desk, “and her ladyship will stay as well, because she is central to the conversation. Fleming, sit down and be quiet like yonder canine, lest Miss Abbott serve you more than a gentle tap to the knee.”

  Stapleton was turning the unbecoming shade of ripe tomato, but he pointed at the sofa, and Fleming subsided and commenced rubbing his knee.

  “We are here to hold a thief accountable,” Stephen said. “Or perhaps two thieves.”

  Two thieves? Abigail hadn’t stolen anything—yet.

  “Precisely,” Stapleton said, rapping his fist on the blotter. “Somebody broke into my home and took property owned by me. That is a crime, and I intend to see the perpetrator punished.”

  “And you assume Miss Abbott is the perpetrator?” Stephen inquired, fluffing the silk of his cravat. “When did this dastardly deed take place?”

  “Wednesday of last week,” Stapleton said, “and Fleming claims Miss Abbott was seen in the vicinity of this house.”

  The woman who’d accompanied Stephen into the room turned out to be Harmonia, Lady Champlain. By daylight, in an old-fashioned high-waisted gown, she did not look quite as glittering and gay as she had in a candlelit ballroom. She looked, in fact, weary and worried.

  “Lady Champlain,” Stephen said, “you were at the Portman ball, as was Lord Fleming. Was Miss Abbott present?”

  Fleming spoke first. “She was, but the dancing ended at least three hours before dawn, and Miss Abbott would have had time to effect her crimes while polite society slept all unaware.”

  Stephen was looking at Abigail, his head cocked at that inquiring angle. She nodded in response, though Their Graces would likely be displeased with her. Somebody had to put an end to this foolishness, and if that meant airing the truth, so be it.

  “Alas for your entirely self-serving theory, Fleming, the lady was with me. I escorted her to the Walden residence, and spent the balance of the night with her. Escorted her to breakfast, in fact, and my, you should have seen the looks on the faces of the duke and duchess.”

  In other words, Their Graces would support Stephen’s recitation, no matter the damage to Abigail’s reputation.

  “We’re courting,” Stephen said, aiming an indulgent smile at Abigail, “and the course of true love occasionally deviates from strict decorum.”

  “So you see,” Abigail added, “neither his lordship nor myself could have trespassed on your property, Lord Stapleton. Lord Fleming, however, has no such alibi. He could well have turned down the room with her ladyship, gone for a smoke in the garden, and made free with your premises without anybody noticing his absence. Given his sister’s tendency to wager, retrieving her vowels from you would have served his ends very nicely.”

  “How the hell could you possibly—?” Fleming began, rising from the sofa, only to sink back onto the cushions with both hands bracing his knee. “Bedamned to you, Miss Abbott, and to your quarter-ton reticule and half-ton dog.”

  “I am a professional inquiry agent,” Abigail replied. “I need not skulk about to learn of your sister’s unfortunate tendencies when they are common knowledge at the piquet tables.” A slight fabrication, very slight. Stephen had been at the piquet table and he could well have known of the lady’s gambling markers. “And if you had kept your hands to yourself, you would not have needed a small lesson in manners.”

  “Fleming?” Stapleton asked in a low voice. “Is this true? Did you feign a burglary of your own home just to disguise your perfidy toward me?”

  Fleming hesitated, then sent an ass
essing glance at Lady Champlain. He was preparing to lie, mentally arranging prevarications, which confirmed Abigail’s theory regarding his motives.

  “Lady Champlain,” Abigail said, “perhaps you should sit. You look quite pale. Lord Fleming’s desire to propose marriage to you has clearly inspired him to foolish behaviors. You may disabuse him of his presumptions now.”

  “Marriage?” her ladyship said, as if the word had been recently borrowed from Urdu. “Lord Fleming seeks to marry me? I know we’ve flirted and stood up for an occasional dance, but marriage?”

  “Why not?” Fleming retorted. “I am of suitable rank, you’re a proven breeder, Stapleton’s political influence would stand me in good stead, and you’re a widow. You should be grateful that a man of appropriate rank would take you on when your settlements won’t be that impressive.”

  “A proven breeder?” Lady Champlain echoed. “A proven breeder?”

  “And you’re not bad looking,” Fleming added, in what had to be the most ill-advised observation a man ever made. “A bit long in the tooth, but you can still pop out a couple of sons, I’m sure. I will be diligent regarding my marital—”

  Stephen waggled his cane at Fleming. “If you hold a prayer of living to ensure the succession, cease covering yourself in stupidity. She wouldn’t have you if you were the last exponent of the male gender in all of creation—do I have that right, my lady?”

  Lady Champlain nodded.

  “So, my lord,” Abigail said, “where are the letters?”

  All eyes turned to regard Fleming, who had stopped rubbing his knee. “I admit I looked for them, and I admit that had I found them, I would have read them thoroughly and used them as I saw fit.”

  Stephen shot his cuffs, the picture of elegant male ennui. “You admit to housebreaking with intent to steal and to contemplating extortion. Your criminal acts are undertaken not to protect anybody’s reputation, but simply to advance your own interests.”

  Fleming sat forward, elbows braced on his thighs. “My sister plays too deeply, Harmonia barely spares me the time of day, Stapleton is getting on and hasn’t an heir to his influence in the Lords. The boy…Champlain’s son could use a stepfather. What is so wrong about taking some old letters that simply prove what everybody knows? Champlain was a titled trollop.”