How to Catch a Duke (Rogues to Riches #6) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,84
to settle with him.”
“Miss Abbott.” Lord Fleming stopped three yards off and bowed, sparing Hercules an assessing glance. “We have not been introduced. Wentworth, good day. Perhaps you’d tend to the civilities?”
“Not if you think to bother the lady, I won’t.” Ned fingered the handle of his walking stick, which sent looks ricocheting among the three men behind Fleming.
“We mean the lady no harm,” Fleming said. “We simply want to have a civil conversation with her.”
The nanny collected her charge, while the swan glided away from the bank.
“Converse,” Abigail said, stroking Hercules’s head, “and I will decide if your intentions are civil.”
“I come to offer you my escort,” Lord Fleming said. “A certain gentleman of high station would like a word with you.”
The only gentleman of high station Abigail wanted a word with was Lord Stephen Wentworth.
“Here in London,” she said, “I’m told a quaint custom is observed among the wellborn. They pay calls on one another. They chat over a pot of tea and discuss any number of topics—the weather, attempted kidnappings, housebreaking, that sort of thing.”
Fleming’s brows rose. “You admit to breaking into my house?”
Abigail stepped closer, and Hercules moved with her. “I admit to having been the victim of housebreaking, sir. More than once, as my companion and my entire household in York will attest. Let’s talk about that, shall we?”
She itched to swing her reticule and drop Lord Fleming in his tracks. Between knives, sword canes, and the advantage of surprise, she and Ned could likely fend off Fleming’s toadies, and Hercules would doubtless give a good account of himself as well.
Except…this was Hyde Park. Half of London would witness the affray and know she had landed the first blow. Gossip would take wing because the lady assaulting the fine courtesy lord had been a guest of Their Graces of Walden before she enjoyed the hospitality of Newgate.
“Let’s talk,” Abigail went on, “about highwaymen who ride exceptionally fine horseflesh and speak in Etonian accents. Highwaymen who steal nothing but an innocent woman’s peace of mind.”
Fleming seemed amused. “You have interesting fancies, Miss Abbott. You can come with us now, or I am instructed to have you arrested for housebreaking. My own residence and that of Lord Stapleton were burgled less than a week past, and we have witnesses who put you in the immediate vicinity that same night.”
“Rubbish,” Abigail snapped. “Monstrous fictions typical of the fevered male imagination. You yourself saw me at the Portmans’ ball, which is the only entertainment I’ve attended.”
Ned took the place at her elbow, though she hadn’t heard him move. “You can’t accost a lady in the middle of Hyde Park, Fleming. That’s kidnapping, last I heard. Hanging felonies play hell with a man’s social schedule. Besides, you have too many witnesses here.”
Fleming glanced about. “Nobody of any consequence. Walden’s bastard hardly counts.”
“You flatter me shamelessly,” Ned replied, “but I’m afraid we cannot tarry. Tell Stapleton if he wishes to call on Miss Abbott, he should do like the rest of his ilk and send another of his catch-farts around with a card.”
Fleming took a step forward, as did his henchmen, which escalated Hercules’s rumbling to outright growls.
“Stapleton cannot be seen to call on his late son’s fancy piece, and well she knows it.”
“She,” Abigail retorted, “can deliver a swift kick to a location that will imperil the succession of your father’s title. She will then accuse you of having made untoward advances to her at the Portmans’ ball, and she will make sure Lady Champlain and the Duchess of Walden are privy to all the lurid details. If Stapleton is determined to drag this situation down to the level of false accusations and public scandal, I will oblige him.”
In the midst of this diatribe, a question popped into Abigail’s mind: Why was Fleming still willing to do Stapleton’s bidding? The gambling markers signed by Fleming’s sister had been returned to him by anonymous post.
Unless Fleming sought to retrieve the letters? For his own purposes—who wouldn’t want some sordid correspondence to wave in Stapleton’s face?—or perhaps to encourage a match with Lady Champlain?
“If you don’t come with us peacefully,” Fleming said, “I will see Wentworth here arrested for housebreaking. He’s no stranger to Newgate, if the rumors are true. He and Walden were locked up together, in fact. Quite an example Walden sets for his progeny.”
“You do me great honor,” Ned drawled, “but Miss Abbott isn’t going anywhere with you.”
Abigail considered options while the comforting weight of her reticule rested against