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

that you have annoyed the child’s mother. Your son annoyed her too. Lord Fleming has seriously annoyed her, and I daresay I myself might have tried her patience on occasion. Lady Champlain doesn’t like you, she doesn’t trust you, and she would be within her rights to take that child and her settlements and banish you from the lad’s life. Is that what you want?”

Stapleton did not immediately reply, but then, he was not used to having to think of anybody but himself.

“My lord,” Duncan said, “you raised a dunderheaded son, you recruited a dunderheaded conspirator, you are uniformly disliked by your peers, and your mistress’s loyalty is to your coin rather than your person. Nobody would question Lady Champlain’s decision to quit this household and shield the child from your influence.”

“But the boy—” Stapleton began.

Quinn turned, a jeweled snuff box in his hand. “Is no relation to you. And a man who cheerfully sends six-year-olds into the mines, while bleating in the Lords about hard work being a Christian service to their exhausted, starving little souls, can hardly be expected to have much regard for children in general, can he?”

Stapleton put Stephen in mind of a bantam rooster, with all the arrogance of his larger fellows, nowhere near the power in a fight, and not enough brains to realize his disadvantage.

“But the boy—he’s all I have. For me to remarry would be pointless, and I haven’t even second cousins who could inherit.”

“Harmonia will have the raising of him,” Stephen said, tugging gently on a canine ear. “She will remarry and dwell where she pleases. You will not interfere with her or the child.”

“Or what?” Stapleton asked.

Fleming provided the obvious answer. “Or the Wentworths will ruin us both. The duchess will put it about that I have an unmentionable disease so no woman of any standing will marry me. My father will disown me and cut me off without a farthing. In the clubs, word will spread that you are growing mentally feeble, and your temper and arrogance will lend credence to the gossip. My sister’s latest gambling markers will all manage to fall into the wrong hands, and I rue the day I bloody met you, Stapleton. I’m done with this.”

He rose awkwardly, though this display of meekness wasn’t quite convincing. Hercules’s ears pricked up, suggesting even a nibble of rare haunch of dunderheaded viscount might be his favorite snack in the whole world.

“A moment, Fleming,” Stephen said. “You offended Miss Abbott. How do you intend to make reparation for the harm you caused?”

Fleming scrubbed a hand over his face. “Will she take money?”

For Fleming, that was a good try. “A signed apology, recounting your bad conduct, and money,” Stephen said.

“But if I all but confess…”

“My, my,” Duncan drawled, uncoiling from his reading chair with feline grace, “it appears you might have to leave the country for a time. Prague is a beautiful city, and not that expensive.”

“Take a fortnight to put your affairs in order,” Stephen said, “no more, and the sum should be generous enough to convey sincerity but not enough to be insulting. You may send your apology to the lady at the Walden ducal residence, to be received by this time tomorrow.”

“Be off with you,” Stapleton said, “and Godspeed.”

Fleming stalked out, his gait uneven, and only Hercules looked sorry to see him go.

“He’ll need a stout walking stick,” Stephen said. “I really must commend Miss Abbott on her aim.”

The tea tray arrived, and nobody made a move to pour out. When the butler had withdrawn, Stephen let the silence stretch. Quinn and Duncan, clearly enjoying themselves, did likewise.

“All right!” Stapleton expostulated. “Tell me how much, and I’ll write out the bank draft now. The damned woman has caused me nothing but misfortune and I’m sure my son regretted falling into her snares.”

“The damned woman?” Stephen repeated softly. “Falling into her snares?”

“Careful, Stapleton,” Quinn said. “Lord Stephen’s temper is rare and magnificent.”

“Deadly,” Duncan added, “when provoked. That stout walking stick is a sword cane, he has at least two knives on his person at all times, and there is not a witness in this room who will support your version of events should injury occur—to you. And by the by, that mastiff looks hungry to me.”

“Your son,” Stephen said, leaning across the desk, “failed to disclose to Miss Abbott that he already had a wife. He abused her trust sorely and led her to believe they’d share a castle of marital accord in Spain. When the inevitable occurred, he admitted his calumny and sent her a bank draft. She sent it back, and then nature denied her the infamy and heartache of raising his bastard. Do you still think the damned woman will be content with a bank draft?”

The marquess was old and small, but Stephen longed to land even a single blow anywhere on his person. A single, hard blow.

Stapleton sat back in his armchair. “Champlain would never…that is, he wasn’t any different from…” The marquess tipped his chin up and looked from Quinn, to Duncan, to Stephen. “She enticed him. Women of a certain class think nothing of tempting—”

“A humble Quaker shopkeeper’s daughter,” Stephen said, “not a breath of scandal attached to her name before or since, and your philandering, fucking, wastrel of a prick of a son couldn’t keep his filthy hands off her. And you—my lord—did nothing to stop him or hold him accountable. He broke Harmonia’s heart, he all but broke Miss Abbott’s spirit, and who knows how many other women suffered because you would not curb his excesses. Write out a big, fat bank draft to be sure, the fatter the better, but you are about to change your legislative priorities too.”

Stapleton’s hand shook as he tugged at his cravat. “Or else what?”

“Or else I will kill you.” The threat was, alas, all too sincere. Quinn and Duncan did Stephen the courtesy of allowing the words to hang in the air, or about Stapleton’s scrawny neck, without any polite retrenchments.