kill Stapleton, Fleming, the butler, and anybody else who sought to do Abigail harm.
“He’s done what?” Quinn Wentworth spoke softly. In Ned’s experience, His Grace of Walden had never needed to shout, and particularly not with Ned. The emphasis had been all the more apparent for being rendered quietly.
“Stephen’s off to confront Stapleton directly,” Ned said, propping a hip on the library desk. “Miss Abbott wasn’t really given a choice about going with Fleming. She took Hercules with her, and I set a badger to following them. She’s at the Stapleton residence, ergo, Stephen took himself off to the same location.”
“We must trust Stephen,” Duncan said, from his reading chair before the fire. “Stapleton isn’t about to make off with a ducal heir or a ducal guest, and Stephen knows that.”
Quinn rounded on him. “Stapleton had a goddamned stagecoach held up in broad daylight trying to kidnap a woman who’d never done him a moment of harm. Stapleton violated the sanctity of Miss Abbott’s household. It’s not Stephen I’m worried about.”
Duncan nearly smiled. “There is that, and Miss Abbott is no doubt able to give a good account of herself.”
Quinn ran a hand through his hair. “I wish Jane were—”
Jane strode through the door. “Jane wishes you would recall that merely because a woman has been delivered of a child does not mean her mind or her hearing have become impaired. You are in a taking over Stephen and Miss Abbott?”
Quinn grasped his duchess’s hand and led her to the sofa. “I didn’t want to bother you. I’m not in a taking. Dukes do not…”
Jane crossed her arms and remained standing. “Quinton Wentworth, for shame.”
Ned and Duncan diplomatically found somewhere else to look.
“I would have fetched you down from the nursery,” Quinn said, “but I didn’t want to interrupt…” He waved a hand in the general direction of maternal delicacy.
“If you decline to interrupt every time I nurse our daughter, we will see a good deal less of each other than I prefer. Tell me what’s afoot.”
Duncan spoke as he got to his feet. “Might we wait for Matilda? I sent a footman to fetch her and she should be—ah, welcome, my love.” Not by a raised eyebrow or a smirk did Duncan indicate that some men had a proper respect for their wives’ counsel, but the message was conveyed by his husbandly peck to Matilda’s cheek.
“Stephen has joined battle with Stapleton,” Duncan said. “We are considering next steps.”
Ned took up the narrative for the benefit of the ladies. “Miss Abbott was accosted by Lord Fleming in the park. He was sent to retrieve her at Stapleton’s behest. He claimed all Stapleton wanted was to speak with Miss Abbott, and she insisted that the discussion take place at Stapleton’s home. Stephen suspects she is reconnoitering enemy territory, and he was in the saddle within ten minutes of learning of her decision.”
“And that,” Matilda murmured, “tells us all we need to know.”
“Thoughts?” Duncan asked, kissing her knuckles.
“We have both a king and queen in play,” Matilda said, “an unusual combination. They will likely divide and conquer, but if Miss Abbott is engaging with Stapleton, who is Stephen’s target? Lord Fleming?”
“Stephen claimed,” Ned replied, “that he went to pay a call on Lady Champlain.”
“We are wasting time,” Quinn muttered. “I don’t trust Stapleton, I don’t trust Fleming. I would like to trust Miss Abbott but we haven’t had time to take her true measure. And as for Stephen…”
Jane patted Quinn’s chest. “We do trust Stephen. He will have considered every permutation of the facts and possibilities, and he will have them all in hand.”
Quinn caught her fingers in his. “And if Stapleton takes Stephen’s cane away?”
Jane and Matilda exchanged a look. Ned had been deciphering such glances for several years now, and could make nothing out of them. Quinn, Duncan, and even Stephen were much easier to read, but the ladies remained a mystery. Ned suspected they remained somewhat mysterious to their devoted swains as well, and that only added to his puzzlement.
“You’d best be on your way,” Jane said. “Ned will go with you as my personal guarantor that no unnecessary bravado imperils anybody I love.”
Duncan bowed to his wife and released her hand. “And should necessary bravado arise?”
“Imperil somebody I do not love,” Jane said. “Lord Stapleton’s politics are disgraceful, but Quinn hasn’t yet allowed me to interfere. Stapleton sends six-year-old children into the mines when his own offspring never worked an honest day in his spoiled life. Now the