How to Catch a Duke (Rogues to Riches #6) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,83

pretty pink ribbon around it, and passed it to him. “Then you should marry her.”

“I want to, but I’m not sure she’ll have me.” Stephen put the tea in his pocket rather than hold it in his free hand.

Betty went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Good. If she puts you off balance, then she’s exactly the lady you ought to wed. You are not to tell Ophelia you stopped by here.”

“Of course not.” Stephen bowed over Betty’s hand, happy for her and her officer, and eager to discuss the conversation with Abigail.

But he was also—just a bit—daunted by the notion that Betty had so easily put him into her past. What could he offer Abigail that would prevent her from doing likewise?

Hyde Park, situated on the western end of London and thus close to the best neighborhoods, was lovely. The very air was cleaner, less tainted with coal smoke, horse droppings, and the evidence of passing fish wagons. To a lady raised in Yorkshire, the towering maples in their autumn finery were a relief, and the placid surface of the Serpentine balm to the soul.

“I’m glad we brought Hercules,” Abigail said. “This is beautiful.”

The park was situated next to the wealthiest neighborhoods, but open to all. Nannies with small charges toddled along the walkways, clerks and shopgirls shyly shared benches, and fine ladies walked out with their companions.

More than a few children pointed to Hercules, who trotted along at Abigail’s side with majestic dignity.

“When Good King Hal stole the monasteries from the church,” Ned said, tipping his hat to a passing trio of equestriennes, “he turned one of Westminster Abbey’s forests into a hunting ground. In the reign of Charles I, the place was opened to the public. Ungrateful lot that we are, we chopped off his head anyway. I’d hate to think of London without its royal parks.”

“I can breathe here,” Abigail said. “Might we sit for a moment?” Ned was a fine escort. He walked neither too quickly nor too slowly, he didn’t chatter, and he didn’t make a cake of himself to the ladies he encountered along the way.

But he wasn’t Stephen, and Abigail desperately wished she could be sharing this outing with Stephen, though strolling in the park with a leashed mastiff would hardly be his lordship’s idea of an enjoyable errand.

“You are sad,” Ned said, guiding Abigail to a bench near the water and taking the place beside her. “Or homesick?”

Heartsick? “Stephen will see a pattern in my letters that I could not see myself, and he will deduce the significance of it. He will confront Stapleton, sort him out, and I will return to Yorkshire. I am simply impatient to be home. I am also unused to relying on others to fight my battles for me.”

Hercules planted himself at her feet, his chin on his paws as he watched a swan glide by.

“Trust is hard,” Ned said. “For some of us, it’s impossible.”

Was he referring to Stephen, to Abigail, or to himself? She wasn’t incapable of trust—far from it. She trusted her clients to be wary of telling her the truth, she trusted Malcolm to shed on the carpets, she trusted neighbors to be nosy, and human nature to be contrary.

Hercules rose to sitting, his gaze on the path Abigail and Ned had just traversed. A well-dressed man came up the walkway from the direction of Hyde Park Corner. He moved briskly, something about his bearing familiar.

“Do London swells typically take the air with three bully boys?” Abigail asked.

Ned casually turned his head, as if watching the progress of a nanny and her charge farther down the bank. “Bloody hell.”

Language, Ned. “I know that man,” Abigail said, as Hercules rumbled a warning. “I’ve seen him before.” But he hadn’t been in morning attire. He’d been…

“Take this,” Ned said, shoving his walking stick at her.

“I have my own sword cane, Mr. Wentworth. That is Lord Fleming.”

“That is trouble. Goddammit, Stephen will kill me, and I haven’t even a loaded peashooter to wave about.”

“I have a knife in my boot, a glass weight in my reticule, and a very stout hatpin in my bonnet. Hercules is trained to handle situations exactly like this. We shall contrive, and we shall do so without violating any Commandments.”

Fleming approached, his escorts hanging back a few paces. They were sizable, muscular, and dressed just well enough not to be mistaken for highwaymen.

“That nasty man tried to abduct me from a stagecoach,” Abigail muttered. “I have a score