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

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 particularly 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