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

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