How to Catch a Duke, Grace Burrowes [short books to read .txt] 📗

tart before you toss my hospitality back in my face without giving me a scintilla of the information I request. Then you will make your way through the dangerous streets of London to some poky little lodging house run by a grouchy widow. She will overcharge you for a thin mattress on a short cot and demand your attendance at morning prayers. Have the second tart, Miss Abbott.”

On principle, Abigail could not capitulate. “Only if you share it with me.”

“Then serve me one quarter, and pour me half a glass of cider.”

He sat up, pain flitting across his features. Lord Stephen spent so much effort being naughty and disagreeable that his looks probably went unnoticed, but they were interesting looks. Like his siblings, he had dark hair and blue eyes. His build was leaner than that of the other Wentworths, though his shoulders were powerful and his air more self-possessed.

The Wentworth siblings had been born to direst poverty, with an abusive gin-drunk for a father. That much was common knowledge. The oldest sibling—Quinton, now His Grace of Walden—had finagled and scrapped his way into the banking business, where he’d made a fortune.

And that was before an ancient title had meandered and staggered down familial lines of inheritance to add old consequence to new wealth.

Lord Stephen, the duke’s only brother, was heir to the title and to at least some of the wealth. Their Graces had four daughters, and Lady Constance maintained that the duke and duchess were unwilling to add to the nursery population when Her Grace’s last two confinements had been difficult.

Lord Stephen limped badly, often using two canes to get about. The limp ought not to slow the matchmakers down at all—in fact, it made their quarry easier to stalk—but the naughtiness and sour humor were doubtless more difficult to overlook even in a ducal heir.

All of which made Lord Stephen the perfect accomplice to a murder of convenience. Nobody would trifle with him, if indeed anybody ever suspected him of the crime.

Abigail served him a quarter of the second tart—a largish quarter—which seemed to amuse him.

“You will accept my hospitality for the night,” he said, “and I will brook no argument. The staff seldom has an opportunity to spoil anybody but me, and they have grown bored with my crotchets. The laundry is heating your bathwater, the kitchen will make you up a posset, and before I go out I will select a few lurid novels to entertain you as you rest from your travels.”

“And if I’d rather stay with the grouchy widow at the poky lodging house?” She would not. Self-indulgence was Abigail’s besetting sin.

Lord Stephen took a bite of tart, which drew her attention to his mouth. Had she ever seen him smile? She’d seen him happy. He’d taken the time to explain to her the mechanism in his sword cane, conveying a child’s delight with a new toy over an elegant spring lock set into a sturdy mahogany fashion accessory.

Not the cane he was using now.

“If you’d rather stay with the grouchy widow, then London’s footpads could well render your death a truth rather than a fiction. Times are hard for John Bull, Miss Abbott, and thanks to the Corsican menace, an unprecedented number of humbly born Englishmen have grown comfortable with deadly weapons. Such a pity for the civilian populace who can offer no employment to the former soldier.”

Abigail had occasionally spent time in London, but she was nowhere as familiar with the capital as she was with the cities of the Midlands and the north. Besides, London was growing so quickly that even somebody who’d known the metropolis well five years ago would be confused by its rapid expansion.

“I will stay one night, my lord, because I am too tired to argue with you.” And because she longed for a hot bath, clean sheets, and a comfy bed rather than a thin mattress in a chilly garret.

His lordship set down his fork, most of his sweet uneaten. “You will stay with me, because I can keep you safe. What I cannot do is keep you company.” He shifted to the front of the couch cushion and, using the arm of the sofa and his cane, pushed to his feet. “I will see you at breakfast, Miss Abbott, when you will present a recitation of all the facts relevant to the marquess’s attempts to discommode you. The house is festooned with bell pulls owing to my limited locomotion. One tug summons a footman, two a tea tray, and you’ve seen the results of a triple bell.”

He moved away from the couch carefully. Cane, good foot, bad foot. Cane, good foot, bad foot.

“Is there nothing to be done?” Abigail asked, gesturing with her cider toward his leg.

He didn’t answer her until he was at the door. “I’ve consulted surgeons, who are loath to amputate what they claim is a healthy limb. The problem is the knee itself, which was both dislocated and broken, apparently. I was young, the bones knit quickly, but they weren’t properly set first. I fall on my face regularly and resort to a Bath chair often.”

Hence, the bell pulls hung a good two feet lower in his house than in any other Abigail had seen.

“And yet, you say you must go out. It’s raining, my lord. Please be careful.” She wanted to rise and assist him with the door, but didn’t dare.

“Enjoy your evening, Miss Abbott, for surely there are no greater pleasures known to the flesh than a soaking bath, a rousing novel, and a good night’s sleep.” He bowed slightly and made his way through the door. Before he pulled the door closed behind him, he poked his head back into the room. “Finish my tart. You know you want to.”

Then he was gone, and Abigail was free to finish his tart—and to smile.

Chapter Two

Babette de Souvigny slurped her tea. “You know how it is with most of the fancy gents, Marie. On your back, poppet, there’s