How to Catch a Duke

by Grace Burrowes

  A sharp crack resounded and Fleming’s left cheek turned bright pink.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Well done, Lady Champlain,” Abigail said. “A gentleman does not speak ill of the dead.” Not before the man’s widow, in any case, and not when that woman had apparently had quite enough of being told what to do by the men in her life.

  “Damn it, Fleming, you do have the letters,” Stapleton said, rising from his chair and bracing himself on the desk blotter. “You found them, you hid them, and now some damned housebreaker has taken them. Admit it! My son’s reputation, the reputation of this house, is in the hands of one of your enemies. I knew I should never have taken you into my confidence.”

  “But you didn’t take him into your confidence, did you?” Stephen mused. “The problem with the letters isn’t that they confirm Champlain’s reputation as a”—he spared Lady Champlain an apologetic smile—“bon vivant, but that they prove he was kicking his heels in France at the time his son was conceived. The current heir to the Stapleton title is a cuckoo in the nest, and the letters, dated and highly descriptive of the locations in which they were written, prove that conclusively.”

  Lady Champlain’s complexion went from pale to translucent, confirming that Stephen had deduced the why of the whole imbroglio. Champlain could have been the world’s greatest libertine and merited only a few raised eyebrows.

  Not so, Lady Champlain.

  “You can’t know that,” her ladyship said, sinking onto the sofa. “Nobody can know that. I met Champlain in Paris that year, and we found a country house to rent until summer. Nobody can know…”

  “We know it now,” Abigail said gently.

  At the desk, the marquess was silent, his gaze fixed on the portrait hanging over the mantel.

  “Well, hell,” Fleming muttered. “If I’d known that’s why you were looking for—”

  Abigail hefted her reticule. “Hush, lest I heed his lordship’s guidance regarding where I aim my second blow. You are a walking verification of the theory that excessive inbreeding has rendered the aristocracy mentally unfit.”

  “I wanted to destroy the blasted letters,” Stapleton said. “That’s all I sought, to destroy them. I would have never known about them, except Champlain kept journals of his travels, for posterity, I suppose, and he noted when he wrote to whom. Her ladyship was his Sunday correspondent, Miss Abbott he wrote to twice a week. As if he feared she’d forget a marquess’s heir the moment he took ship.”

  Would that I had. Stephen was watching Abigail, and she realized he had more to say but was waiting for her permission to say it.

  “You’ve had Champlain’s journals for years,” Abigail observed. “Why set your highwaymen and housebreakers on me now?”

  Stapleton, who’d aged about twenty years in five minutes, twisted a ring on his fourth finger. “The boy turns six next week. He’ll soon be old enough to be interested in his father’s—in Champlain’s—journals. I read through them to make sure there’s nothing a lad ought not to see regarding his father. The journals are surprisingly dull given my son’s proclivities, but then I noticed the pattern of his correspondence, and I knew something had to be done.”

  “But the boy isn’t your grandson,” Fleming said. “Why go to all that trouble when the child isn’t even your blood?”

  “I didn’t realize he wasn’t my grandson until recently, and what does that matter? He’ll be the next Marquess of Stapleton, and he’s just a little boy. I want to blame Harmonia, but Champlain was…he was a difficult husband. One must concede the obvious.”

  Lady Champlain had regained some of her color. “Champlain wasn’t a bad man, he simply had more growing up to do.”

  Abigail could not be so generous, but she could keep her judgments to herself. Champlain’s character, or lack thereof, no longer interested her.

  “I don’t have the letters,” she said. “Somebody stole them earlier this year. By the time Lord Fleming was plaguing me and holding up stagecoaches, I no longer had them. I had read them often enough to be able to reconstruct them fairly well, hence, Lord Stephen was able to divine the impact of the dates.” Perhaps Abigail in some corner of her heart hadn’t wanted to see the possibilities, but then, she’d had no idea of the precise age of the Stapleton heir. “I would like the letters back, though. They are all I have…they are mementos of…”

  All I have of my son. That reality was too personal to be aired in this company—too personal, and too painful.

  Stephen held out a hand to her, and Abigail took it.

  “Miss Abbott wants her letters back. Lady Champlain, you will please return them.”

  Abigail rested against him, and perched as he was against the desk, he provided a sturdy support. The impact of his conclusion—that Champlain’s wife had stolen the letters—frankly caught her unaware.

  But it made sense. Her ladyship would do anything to protect her son, and Abigail respected that.

  “You took them to safeguard the boy,” Stephen said, “or perhaps to get Stapleton under control—God knows that thankless task should fall to somebody. The letters have served their purpose, Stapleton knows the slender thread by which his consequence dangles, but he also knows your own reputation will suffer should you disclose the child’s origins. Give the letters back, or I will take matters into my own hands.”

  Abigail had missed Stephen, missed the scent of him, the hard, muscular feel of his body. She might have, eventually, suspected the petite, pretty Lady Champlain of taking the letters, but not in time to use the knowledge effectively. Knowing who had violated Abigail’s household and why should have given her a greater sense of satisfaction.

  “You owe Miss Abbott much,” Stephen said. “You have stolen more from her than a batch of maudlin old letters. You stole her peace of mind and set in motion an interruption of the business she relies on to provide necessities. Worse yet, you imperiled her reputation. You sent her fleeing to virtual strangers for aid, and for that, she will require recompense. Give her back the letters. Now.”

  Abigail straightened and Stephen let her go. “I would like them back. They are my property, not yours.”

  A quiet knock sounded on the door.

  “Enter,” Stephen called.

  The butler took one step into the room. “His Grace of Walden and Mr. Duncan Wentworth, to call upon the marquess.” The man’s voice had quavered a bit, which Abigail understood only too well.

  Duncan and Quinn strode into the room, resplendent in morning attire, gold winking at their cuffs and from the abundant lace of their cravats. Both men wore boots polished to a mirror shine, and, by contrast, Lord Fleming looked frumpy and Stapleton positively mildewed.

  Hercules greeted them with a few thumps of his tail, but remained at Abigail’s side.

  Abigail was enormously glad to see both Wentworths, not that she should have ever, ever doubted that Stephen had the situation in hand. He looked of a piece with his kinsmen, and in his casual posture, perhaps even a bit more elegant.

  “Walden, Cousin.” He nodded graciously. “Greetings. Miss Abbott, it appears your artillery has arrived. Perhaps somebody should ring for tea, or—given the occasion—break out the brandy. I might instruct the butler accordingly, but it is hardly my place to do so.”

  Stapleton glowered at his butler. “Stop eavesdropping and get thee to the kitchen.”

  “My letters?” Abigail said. “I will have them back now.”

  Lady Champlain got to her feet. “I keep them in the nursery. You may have the lot of them.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Abigail said, unwilling to let her ladyship roam free without supervision.

  “That will not be necessary.” Lady Champlain made a good try at looking down her nose, but for once, Abigail was delighted to be nearly six feet tall.

  “Yes,” Abigail said, passing Stephen the dog’s leash, “it will. After you, my lady.”

  “I assure you,” Lady Champlain said, casting a pleading look in Stapleton
’s direction, “you need not treat me like a common criminal. I was only trying to protect my son.”

  “Then you might have approached me directly and discussed the situation with me like an adult. The earl has long since gone to his reward, and I have no interest in ruining you or your son.”

  “Harmonia,” Stapleton said patiently, “please fetch the rubbishing letters and let us be done with this.”

  Quinn and Duncan bowed as Abigail followed Lady Champlain to the door. Fleming rose awkwardly, standing with one knee cocked.

  “Abigail.” Stephen remained perched against the desk.

  “My lord?”

  “I named my dragon well.”

  His words fortified her, and she very much needed fortifying. Abigail offered him and him alone a curtsy, and followed Lady Champlain from the room.

  “Stapleton, attend me. That fellow,” Stephen said, pointing with his cane at Lord Fleming, “will sell you out before you can say God bless Mad King George. He knows your family secrets, and if you try to have him arrested for his housebreaking and coach robbing, he will implicate you thoroughly.”

  Hercules settled onto his haunches as if well aware that the most exciting bits were over. He insinuated his head under Stephen’s hand, and damned if petting the dog didn’t help Stephen restrain his temper.

  Stapleton sat up straighter at his desk. “Fleming would not dare betray me. I’d call in his sister’s debts, and let all of society know what a fickle and unreliable creature he is.”

  “Fickle and unreliable,” Quinn said, studying the volumes lining the shelves of Stapleton’s bookcase, “but honest in his assertions regarding your grandson’s patrimony, and if I understand aright, you no longer hold the lady’s vowels.”

  Fleming had resumed his place on the sofa, suggesting Abigail had dealt him a solid blow. “I didn’t rob any coaches, and I won’t say anything about the boy.”

  Duncan flipped out his coattails and assumed the reading chair. “You interfered with the lawful progress of a public stagecoach, which is in itself a hanging offense, no robbery required. Miss Abbott, who has a very keen eye for details, noticed your horse, your voice, and your manner of moving.”

  “She wasn’t on the coach,” Fleming retorted.

  “She was dressed as a man,” Stephen said, gently, for Fleming was having a trying day. His day was in fact about to get worse. “And she knows you effected at least one occasion of housebreaking, so hush while we decide what your punishment is to be. Be glad that Miss Abbott frowns on violence.”

  Fleming held his head in his hands, the picture of masculine despair. “I sought to offer Lady Harmonia an honorable union. I sought to safeguard the Stapleton legacy, I was only trying to be—”

  “Tiresome,” Stephen interjected, stroking Hercules’s silky head. “Before the ladies return, we must resolve matters to their satisfaction. Stapleton, how do you propose to do that?”

  Duncan looked bored, while Quinn had acquired a fascination for Stapleton’s collection of jeweled snuff boxes.

  “How do I—? My lord, you overstep. I haven’t robbed any stagecoaches or broken into any houses, and as a peer of the realm, even if I had, the wheels of justice would not grind me under for such behavior, particularly not when undertaken to protect my family’s standing.”

  Without turning away from the snuff boxes, Quinn muttered, “Don’t be too sure about that.”

  Stephen rose, making certain to test his knee carefully before putting any weight on it. “Here is your dilemma, Stapleton. You have an illegitimate heir. This is of no great moment, despite the magnitude of the possible scandal. Legally, the boy’s right to the title is unassailable, and he would not be the first illegitimate heir born to a peer.

  “The greater difficulty,” Stephen went on, “is that you have annoyed the child’s mother. Your son annoyed her too. Lord Fleming has seriously annoyed her, and I daresay I myself might have tried her patience on occasion. Lady Champlain doesn’t like you, she doesn’t trust you, and she would be within her rights to take that child and her settlements and banish you from the lad’s life. Is that what you want?”

  Stapleton did not immediately reply, but then, he was not used to having to think of anybody but himself.

  “My lord,” Duncan said, “you raised a dunderheaded son, you recruited a dunderheaded conspirator, you are uniformly disliked by your peers, and your mistress’s loyalty is to your coin rather than your person. Nobody would question Lady Champlain’s decision to quit this household and shield the child from your influence.”

  “But the boy—” Stapleton began.

  Quinn turned, a jeweled snuff box in his hand. “Is no relation to you. And a man who cheerfully sends six-year-olds into the mines, while bleating in the Lords about hard work being a Christian service to their exhausted, starving little souls, can hardly be expected to have much regard for children in general, can he?”

  Stapleton put Stephen in mind of a bantam rooster, with all the arrogance of his larger fellows, nowhere near the power in a fight, and not enough brains to realize his disadvantage.

  “But the boy—he’s all I have. For me to remarry would be pointless, and I haven’t even second cousins who could inherit.”

  “Harmonia will have the raising of him,” Stephen said, tugging gently on a canine ear. “She will remarry and dwell where she pleases. You will not interfere with her or the child.”

  “Or what?” Stapleton asked.

  Fleming provided the obvious answer. “Or the Wentworths will ruin us both. The duchess will put it about that I have an unmentionable disease so no woman of any standing will marry me. My father will disown me and cut me off without a farthing. In the clubs, word will spread that you are growing mentally feeble, and your temper and arrogance will lend credence to the gossip. My sister’s latest gambling markers will all manage to fall into the wrong hands, and I rue the day I bloody met you, Stapleton. I’m done with this.”

  He rose awkwardly, though this display of meekness wasn’t quite convincing. Hercules’s ears pricked up, suggesting even a nibble of rare haunch of dunderheaded viscount might be his favorite snack in the whole world.

  “A moment, Fleming,” Stephen said. “You offended Miss Abbott. How do you intend to make reparation for the harm you caused?”

  Fleming scrubbed a hand over his face. “Will she take money?”

  For Fleming, that was a good try. “A signed apology, recounting your bad conduct, and money,” Stephen said.

  “But if I all but confess…”

  “My, my,” Duncan drawled, uncoiling from his reading chair with feline grace, “it appears you might have to leave the country for a time. Prague is a beautiful city, and not that expensive.”

  “Take a fortnight to put your affairs in order,” Stephen said, “no more, and the sum should be generous enough to convey sincerity but not enough to be insulting. You may send your apology to the lady at the Walden ducal residence, to be received by this time tomorrow.”

  “Be off with you,” Stapleton said, “and Godspeed.”

  Fleming stalked out, his gait uneven, and only Hercules looked sorry to see him go.

  “He’ll need a stout walking stick,” Stephen said. “I really must commend Miss Abbott on her aim.”

  The tea tray arrived, and nobody made a move to pour out. When the butler had withdrawn, Stephen let the silence stretch. Quinn and Duncan, clearly enjoying themselves, did likewise.

  “All right!” Stapleton expostulated. “Tell me how much, and I’ll write out the bank draft now. The damned woman has caused me nothing but misfortune and I’m sure my son regretted falling into her snares.”

  “The damned woman?” Stephen repeated softly. “Falling into her snares?”

  “Careful, Stapleton,” Quinn said. “Lord Stephen’s temper is rare and magnificent.”

  “Deadly,” Duncan added, “when provoked. That stout walking stick is a sword cane, he has at least two knives on his person at all times, and
there is not a witness in this room who will support your version of events should injury occur—to you. And by the by, that mastiff looks hungry to me.”

  “Your son,” Stephen said, leaning across the desk, “failed to disclose to Miss Abbott that he already had a wife. He abused her trust sorely and led her to believe they’d share a castle of marital accord in Spain. When the inevitable occurred, he admitted his calumny and sent her a bank draft. She sent it back, and then nature denied her the infamy and heartache of raising his bastard. Do you still think the damned woman will be content with a bank draft?”

  The marquess was old and small, but Stephen longed to land even a single blow anywhere on his person. A single, hard blow.

  Stapleton sat back in his armchair. “Champlain would never…that is, he wasn’t any different from…” The marquess tipped his chin up and looked from Quinn, to Duncan, to Stephen. “She enticed him. Women of a certain class think nothing of tempting—”

  “A humble Quaker shopkeeper’s daughter,” Stephen said, “not a breath of scandal attached to her name before or since, and your philandering, fucking, wastrel of a prick of a son couldn’t keep his filthy hands off her. And you—my lord—did nothing to stop him or hold him accountable. He broke Harmonia’s heart, he all but broke Miss Abbott’s spirit, and who knows how many other women suffered because you would not curb his excesses. Write out a big, fat bank draft to be sure, the fatter the better, but you are about to change your legislative priorities too.”

  Stapleton’s hand shook as he tugged at his cravat. “Or else what?”

  “Or else I will kill you.” The threat was, alas, all too sincere. Quinn and Duncan did Stephen the courtesy of allowing the words to hang in the air, or about Stapleton’s scrawny neck, without any polite retrenchments. Abigail frowned on violence, true enough, but Stephen frowned on nasty little men who raised their sons to be nasty, if charming, philanderers.