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

for housebreaking. He’s no stranger to Newgate, if the rumors are true. He and Walden were locked up together, in fact. Quite an example Walden sets for his progeny.”

“You do me great honor,” Ned drawled, “but Miss Abbott isn’t going anywhere with you.”

Abigail considered options while the comforting weight of her reticule rested against her leg and Hercules stared hard at Fleming.

Ned could not account for his whereabouts the night of the break-ins. He could well manufacture an alibi, and His Grace could likely see him freed, but the truth was, he’d gone on his criminal errand for Abigail’s sake.

And he was a man with a criminal past, however distant, and that did not bode well for his treatment at Bow Street.

Then too, to reproduce the letters in Champlain’s handwriting, somebody would have to locate the late earl’s journals in the Stapleton residence, which was doubtless a sizable abode.

“You are tedious,” Abigail said, rapping Lord Fleming on the chest with the handle of her sword cane. “I will accompany you to Stapleton’s residence and nowhere else. Mr. Wentworth will inform Their Graces exactly in whose company I departed this park. If I am not returned to the Walden household in blooming good health by two of the clock, you will be arrested for kidnapping and the Marquess of Stapleton will be named as your accessory. Mr. Wentworth will delight in testifying against you. This lot”—Abigail sent a glower in the direction of Fleming’s hired bullies—“will remain here with Mr. Wentworth.”

“Miss Abbott,” Ned said, most pleasantly, “might I have a word?”

Abigail rapped Fleming on the chest once more for good measure, then stepped back.

“I know what you’re doing,” Ned whispered, drawing her a few feet away. “Stephen will dismember me if I allow you to do it.”

“I fight my own battles, Mr. Wentworth. Nothing stops you from telling Lord Stephen where the battle will be joined. Stapleton will not relent until he confronts me, and I have more than a few things I want to say to him.”

“But, Miss Abbott, Abigail, the marquess does not play fair, and if anything happens to you—”

“You are very dear, but this is what I do, Mr. Wentworth. I untie the knotty problems and tidy up the messy ones. I know what I’m about. Tell Stephen what’s afoot, send him along to Stapleton’s house, and all will be well.”

“This is what you do, when the issue is a straying niece or somebody’s pearl necklace gone missing. These men are dangerous, Miss Abbott. They play dirty, and you know that or you would not have sought Stephen’s aid in the first place.”

Ned, blast him, had a point. “Can you have the carriage followed?”

“Of course, and I can make certain that Fleming doesn’t have three more ne’er-do-wells lurking at his coach, but this is still the most foolish, dunderheaded, cork-brained—”

Hercules growled, and Abigail wanted to growl along with him. “A confrontation with Stapleton is exactly what Stephen hoped to bring about when he dragged me to that fancy ball.”

“Not this sort of confrontation.”

Spare me from overly protective men. “I am leaving Hyde Park with Fleming, and a half dozen people, including you, will see me get into his coach. He is not foolish enough to harm a guest of Their Graces of Walden, much less to make an enemy of Lord Stephen Wentworth.”

Ned scowled in Fleming’s direction. “I will inspect the interior of the coach before handing you up, you will take the dog with you inside the coach and wherever else Fleming hauls you, and I will alert Stephen to this madness before St. Paul’s tolls the quarter hour.”

“Miss Abbott,” Fleming called. “Are you coming with me, or do I have Wentworth arrested?”

“He can do that, Ned, but he won’t physically harm me. He could have shot me from a rooftop as I returned from Sunday services if my actual end was Stapleton’s objective. They must believe I know where the letters are, and that ensures my safe conduct.”

“Miss Abbott,” Fleming said again. “You try my patience.”

“And you,” Abigail said, striding up to him, “would try the patience of St. Peter himself. I will accompany you, Lord Fleming. Your dis-honor guard will remain here, and Mr. Wentworth will see me to your coach. Hercules comes with me, and if you object to those terms, I invite you to go for a swim in the Serpentine. Lord Stapleton’s next caller will be Lord Stephen Wentworth, and he will do much more than try your meager patience.”

Ned made a shooing motion toward Fleming’s toughs, and they shuffled off in the direction of Knightsbridge, where any number of drinking establishments doubtless awaited their custom.

Abigail took a firm hold of Hercules’s leash with one hand, grasped Fleming’s arm with the other, and directed his lordship back to the walkway.

Hercules trotted along at her side, issuing the occasional growl. Truth be told, the dog’s company did make Abigail feel ever so much safer.

Chapter Thirteen

“She was enjoying herself,” Ned said, pacing the length of Stephen’s office. “The damned female was meant to rule Britain, and she knows it.”

“She doesn’t,” Stephen said, shrugging into his morning coat before getting to his feet. “Miss Abbott cannot be talked into considering the management of even a duchy. I must be off. Send a badger to tell Quinn and Duncan what you saw, and that I’ve gone to aid…I’ve gone to see if I can render any service to Miss Abbott.”

And to kill Stapleton, if need be.

Badgers were the Wentworth family’s network of street urchins, beggars, flower girls, and crossing sweepers. Some of them took work as bank messengers, and all of them answered to Ned. They were sharper than Wellington’s scouts and expected a good deal less in terms of wages.

“A badger has already been dispatched, and I will follow as soon as I talk sense to you. You can’t just barge in on a marquess’s household, Stephen. Not even you would be that bold.”

“Yes, I would”—he slipped a knife into his boot and