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

simply impatient to be home. I am also unused to relying on others to fight my battles for me.”

Hercules planted himself at her feet, his chin on his paws as he watched a swan glide by.

“Trust is hard,” Ned said. “For some of us, it’s impossible.”

Was he referring to Stephen, to Abigail, or to himself? She wasn’t incapable of trust—far from it. She trusted her clients to be wary of telling her the truth, she trusted Malcolm to shed on the carpets, she trusted neighbors to be nosy, and human nature to be contrary.

Hercules rose to sitting, his gaze on the path Abigail and Ned had just traversed. A well-dressed man came up the walkway from the direction of Hyde Park Corner. He moved briskly, something about his bearing familiar.

“Do London swells typically take the air with three bully boys?” Abigail asked.

Ned casually turned his head, as if watching the progress of a nanny and her charge farther down the bank. “Bloody hell.”

Language, Ned. “I know that man,” Abigail said, as Hercules rumbled a warning. “I’ve seen him before.” But he hadn’t been in morning attire. He’d been…

“Take this,” Ned said, shoving his walking stick at her.

“I have my own sword cane, Mr. Wentworth. That is Lord Fleming.”

“That is trouble. Goddammit, Stephen will kill me, and I haven’t even a loaded peashooter to wave about.”

“I have a knife in my boot, a glass weight in my reticule, and a very stout hatpin in my bonnet. Hercules is trained to handle situations exactly like this. We shall contrive, and we shall do so without violating any Commandments.”

Fleming approached, his escorts hanging back a few paces. They were sizable, muscular, and dressed just well enough not to be mistaken for highwaymen.

“That nasty man tried to abduct me from a stagecoach,” Abigail muttered. “I have a score to settle with him.”

“Miss Abbott.” Lord Fleming stopped three yards off and bowed, sparing Hercules an assessing glance. “We have not been introduced. Wentworth, good day. Perhaps you’d tend to the civilities?”

“Not if you think to bother the lady, I won’t.” Ned fingered the handle of his walking stick, which sent looks ricocheting among the three men behind Fleming.

“We mean the lady no harm,” Fleming said. “We simply want to have a civil conversation with her.”

The nanny collected her charge, while the swan glided away from the bank.

“Converse,” Abigail said, stroking Hercules’s head, “and I will decide if your intentions are civil.”

“I come to offer you my escort,” Lord Fleming said. “A certain gentleman of high station would like a word with you.”

The only gentleman of high station Abigail wanted a word with was Lord Stephen Wentworth.

“Here in London,” she said, “I’m told a quaint custom is observed among the wellborn. They pay calls on one another. They chat over a pot of tea and discuss any number of topics—the weather, attempted kidnappings, housebreaking, that sort of thing.”

Fleming’s brows rose. “You admit to breaking into my house?”

Abigail stepped closer, and Hercules moved with her. “I admit to having been the victim of housebreaking, sir. More than once, as my companion and my entire household in York will attest. Let’s talk about that, shall we?”

She itched to swing her reticule and drop Lord Fleming in his tracks. Between knives, sword canes, and the advantage of surprise, she and Ned could likely fend off Fleming’s toadies, and Hercules would doubtless give a good account of himself as well.

Except…this was Hyde Park. Half of London would witness the affray and know she had landed the first blow. Gossip would take wing because the lady assaulting the fine courtesy lord had been a guest of Their Graces of Walden before she enjoyed the hospitality of Newgate.

“Let’s talk,” Abigail went on, “about highwaymen who ride exceptionally fine horseflesh and speak in Etonian accents. Highwaymen who steal nothing but an innocent woman’s peace of mind.”

Fleming seemed amused. “You have interesting fancies, Miss Abbott. You can come with us now, or I am instructed to have you arrested for housebreaking. My own residence and that of Lord Stapleton were burgled less than a week past, and we have witnesses who put you in the immediate vicinity that same night.”

“Rubbish,” Abigail snapped. “Monstrous fictions typical of the fevered male imagination. You yourself saw me at the Portmans’ ball, which is the only entertainment I’ve attended.”

Ned took the place at her elbow, though she hadn’t heard him move. “You can’t accost a lady in the middle of Hyde Park, Fleming. That’s kidnapping, last I heard. Hanging felonies play hell with a man’s social schedule. Besides, you have too many witnesses here.”

Fleming glanced about. “Nobody of any consequence. Walden’s bastard hardly counts.”

“You flatter me shamelessly,” Ned replied, “but I’m afraid we cannot tarry. Tell Stapleton if he wishes to call on Miss Abbott, he should do like the rest of his ilk and send another of his catch-farts around with a card.”

Fleming took a step forward, as did his henchmen, which escalated Hercules’s rumbling to outright growls.

“Stapleton cannot be seen to call on his late son’s fancy piece, and well she knows it.”

“She,” Abigail retorted, “can deliver a swift kick to a location that will imperil the succession of your father’s title. She will then accuse you of having made untoward advances to her at the Portmans’ ball, and she will make sure Lady Champlain and the Duchess of Walden are privy to all the lurid details. If Stapleton is determined to drag this situation down to the level of false accusations and public scandal, I will oblige him.”

In the midst of this diatribe, a question popped into Abigail’s mind: Why was Fleming still willing to do Stapleton’s bidding? The gambling markers signed by Fleming’s sister had been returned to him by anonymous post.

Unless Fleming sought to retrieve the letters? For his own purposes—who wouldn’t want some sordid correspondence to wave in Stapleton’s face?—or perhaps to encourage a match with Lady Champlain?

“If you don’t come with us peacefully,” Fleming said, “I will see Wentworth here arrested