How to Catch a Duke (Rogues to Riches #6) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,62
himself.
“Find Miss Abbott,” Stapleton said. “That’s the next step, and I rely on you to take it.”
Fleming let the stopper fall back into the decanter with a clink. “I rely on you to insinuate me into Lady Champlain’s good graces. You have thus far disappointed me, my lord, and my patience will soon be at an end. I bid you good day.”
“She’s at home,” Stapleton called as Fleming marched for the door. “Her ladyship can receive you now.”
Not if I’m waiting for Endymion de Beauharnais to call, I can’t.
“My sister expects me to drive out with her this afternoon,” Fleming said. “Perhaps we’ll encounter Lord Stephen and Miss Abbott in the park.”
“Give them both my cordial regards, and find out where the hell the woman is staying. She’s kept the letters from me long enough.”
Fleming looked, if anything, amused at that pronouncement. “I will call on Lady Champlain tomorrow. You need not join us.” He bowed—ironically?—and withdrew.
Stapleton returned to his desk and took out pen and paper. Harmonia went to the window and watched as Fleming and de Beauharnais exchanged polite bows on the walkway. They chatted for a moment, a study in gentlemanly contrasts.
Fleming was stolid, plain, and apparently dogged, though wellborn and a conscientious brother. De Beauharnais was gorgeous, talented, a commoner, and interesting company. Watching them converse, Harmonia felt a sense of sympathy for Champlain’s wandering eye. He’d wanted everything—a wife, a lover, adventure, another lover, the familiar company of his fellows, the management of his own wealth, the inane ritual of drinking away the dawn in a duck blind or galloping half-inebriated after a fox. He’d sought to live every second of his life.
Not to hide in empty parlors listening at vents.
Harmonia’s goal in life was to see that Nicky had the same opportunities Champlain had had, though she hoped her son also possessed a bit more sense by the time he was enjoying those opportunities.
De Beauharnais bowed again to Fleming and jaunted up the porch steps, using his walking stick to rap on the door.
Harmonia really ought to remarry. She needed an ally who could take on Stapleton and best him easily. Perhaps de Beauharnais would have some ideas. He knew everybody and knew a few interesting little secrets too. Best of all, he knew how to make a lady smile and how to keep his mouth shut about the lot of it.
Stephen could not recall the last time he’d been so purely pleased with life. Abigail in a toy shop was a revelation. Beneath her pragmatic, self-contained veneer lay a female who’d not been cosseted or flirted with half enough. She’d turned the pages of pretty storybooks one by one and marveled at the softness of a doll’s hair. A child-sized tea set put longing in her eyes, and Stephen knew she was thinking of his nieces.
The moment she’d spied Stapleton’s damned coach, the softness and wonder had gone straight out of her, and Stephen had been forced to all but drag her away from the scene.
“Shall we tool over to Berkeley Square for an ice?” he asked, then regretted the question. The protocol at Gunter’s was for the adoring swain to fetch his lady her treat. If she also wanted a glass of lemonade, Stephen would have to make two trips from the shop to the coach, or to the benches under the maples where happy couples could turn a few spoonfuls of sweet into half an afternoon’s flirtation.
“I would like to pay a call on Lord Stapleton,” Abigail replied as Stephen held the coach door for her, “and ask him some very pointed questions about housebreaking, drugging, and attempted kidnapping. He frightened me. I hate him for that.”
Hate, for a woman raised with Quaker values, was very, very strong language.
“Stapleton frightens a lot of people,” Stephen said, handing Abigail up into the coach. “He’s a nasty, manipulative, arrogant little sod, and he uses his wealth to conduct his schemes with impunity.”
Stephen settled beside her on the forward-facing seat, used his teeth to pull off his glove, and took Abigail’s hand. Why he liked touching her so very much, he did not know. Casual affection toward a lover was a pleasant commonplace, but his craving for contact with Abigail was of a different order.
He thought more calmly when he took her hand.
As he had lain in bed with her, mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breathing, his mind had wandered to why he and Quinn were so un-brotherly toward each other.