How to Catch a Duke (Rogues to Riches #6) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,71
is a good sort,” Stephen said. “Genuinely talented, though he had best not venture too close to Stapleton’s notice. The marquess is enough of a titled turd to set the dogs on de Beauharnais for behaviors Stapleton’s own heir indulged in frequently.”
Ned brought Quinn a half-full glass and settled into a reading chair. “Stapleton is a turd covered in dog vomit. He doesn’t toss so much as a penny to the crossing sweepers, says they would be better off doing honest work in his mines. Little blighters are terrified of the mines, and well they should be. I was less frightened of Botany Bay than I was of ending up in the mines.”
Stephen massaged his leg, though it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have. “One windmill at a time, gentlemen. How do we know Miss Abbott’s letters haven’t been destroyed?”
Quinn sipped his drink. “Stapleton doesn’t believe they are destroyed, and that’s the greater problem. How do you confront him without letters to wave in his face when he’s convinced the letters exist?”
How to confront Stapleton was the consuming puzzle in Stephen’s mind—when he wasn’t absorbed with adoring Abigail. Between her discreet goggling at society in all its finery and the imprecations she quietly muttered at Stephen’s side, she’d made the evening delightful.
Ned set his drink aside to pull off his boots. He was dressed from head to toe in black, not a watch fob or a sleeve button glinting on his person.
“You could kill him,” Ned said, setting his boots aside. “Do the whole world a favor. Stapleton struts around London, not a care in the world, and his footmen would stand idly by should a runaway fish wagon gallop directly for him.”
Quinn made the predictable objection. “Jane would disapprove of murder.”
“Abigail would disapprove,” Stephen added, comforted by the realization. His grasp of right and wrong might be shaky, but he well knew how Abigail viewed right and wrong, and could extrapolate from there. “She’s not quite a Quaker, but she frowns mightily on violence.” Also on guns, and—what to do? what to do?—on the people who designed, sold, and grew rich off of them.
“No Quaker ever paraded around a ballroom looking so luscious as your Miss Abbott,” Ned said.
“Fleming had to have seen her.”
“That was practically the point,” Stephen replied. “If I thought Stapleton meant to do her permanent injury, I’d arrange an accident for him.”
Quinn was looking at him oddly. “A fatal accident?”
“Yes, a fatal accident. He’s a parasite, preying on a defenseless woman, impecunious MPs, the poor, his own mistress.…My guess is, the only being in all of creation Stapleton feels any attachment to is his grandson, hence this apparent attempt to whitewash Champlain’s reputation.”
Ned peered at his drink. “That doesn’t feel right to me. Swells and nobs dally where they please—they are expected to dally, and as long as they look after their bastards, nobody gives it a thought. What’s one more affair with an unsuspecting Quaker girl? Champlain diddled everybody from merry widows to French violinists, from what I’ve heard.”
“If he was passing state secrets to the French violinist,” Quinn said slowly, “that might imperil the succession.”
Stephen left off rubbing his knee. “Say that again.”
“If Champlain committed treason,” Quinn said, “he could be convicted posthumously, and his son’s ability to inherit anything through him jeopardized.”
Quinn was on to something, but Stephen’s brain was too tired—and his heart too busy missing Abigail—to pick out the threads of a theory. Treason could result in an attainted title, but did Stapleton have enough smart, determined enemies in the Lords to effect such a convoluted scheme?
“I don’t think it works quite like that,” Stephen said. “If Champlain committed treason, he wasn’t the titleholder at the time. I’ll pay a call on your friends at the College of Arms and ask them a few questions.”
“I am off to ask questions of my pillow,” Ned said, rising. “A fine evening’s frolic, my lord.” He bowed to Stephen. “The lads and I thank you for it. Oh, and you might be interested to know that Fleming is calling on Stapleton’s mistress once a week.”
“Busy lady,” Quinn muttered, finishing his drink. “One cannot envy her her duties.”
“When does she see Fleming?” Stephen asked.
“Tuesday afternoons. She keeps a calendar. Stapleton calls Monday and Thursday at two p.m. and departs at three thirty. He’s never underfoot at any other time. The fair Miss Marchant also entertains a Mr. Watling, probably the paper merchant.”
“Was she once upon a time an opera dancer?” Stephen