How to Catch a Duke by Grace Burrowes (most inspirational books .TXT) 📗

informed and make a spot of trouble for the occasional nabob or marquess. Quinn can’t be allowed to have all the fun. Are you fortified sufficiently to plunder the shops with me?”

“Let me finish my sandwich, and then you may dragoon me wherever you please.”

“Careful, Abigail. You could find yourself flat on your back on this table.” He looked to be considering it too, all dangerous and steamy.

“Or you might find yourself flat on your back, my lord.” She reached for her cider, but Stephen caught her hand.

“I adore you,” he said. “From the bottom of my heart and a few other parts of my anatomy, I adore you.”

What on earth was she to say to that? “I am flattered and fortified, and you are…”

He brushed his thumb across her palm. “Yes?”

“You are not a fribble, my lord. Your attempts to impersonate one fail utterly with me. You are no fribble at all. Let’s start with a toy shop.”

He, of course, knew exactly where the best toy shop in London was, and clearly, the proprietor knew Lord Stephen as a frequent and devoted customer. Abigail browsed, she did not buy, while Stephen chose a number of items for his nieces. He knew each child’s likes and personality, and for the baby he bought a storybook.

Which he would, of course, read to her. Of that, Abigail was certain. They were leaving the shop, and she was about to enlarge on her previous description of him—not a fribble had been a cowardly dodge, after all—when Stephen patted the hand she’d wrapped around his arm.

“Look sharp, Miss Abbott,” he said quietly. “Do you see the four-in-hand idling across the street?”

The boulevard was broad, but the coach in question was impossible to miss. Four matched grays were in the traces, and the coach itself was painted silver-gray with gold trim. The livery on the coachman and groom was purple.

“Those are Stapleton’s colors,” she said. “I don’t recognize the man at the window.”

“That fine specimen is Tertullian, Viscount Fleming. His papa the earl is in wretchedly good health, and Flaming, as he’s known, hasn’t found a lady willing to shackle herself to him. He is entirely Stapleton’s creature and may have designs on the fair Harmonia.”

Did anything happen in London that Stephen was unaware of? “And he’s watching us,” Abigail said, repressing a shudder. “What do we do?”

Stephen leaned close, as if confiding a delicious secret. “We figuratively tell him to bugger himself.”

He straightened, smiled, tipped his hat at Lord Fleming, and sauntered down the walk with Abigail at his side.

Harmonia’s own dear god-mama had termed her god-daughter’s looks “middling pretty.” Mama had been even less complimentary. Champlain had married Harmonia for her settlements and for her earnest assurances that she would not interfere with his “manly pursuits.”

He’d appeared vastly pleased with those assurances and offered Harmonia reciprocal promises to ignore her “little adventures” as well.

She’d been vastly disappointed at his cavalier attitude and had entered into holy matrimony determined to make Champlain so jealous he’d stop his philandering and declare his undying love for her.

He’d declared her a capital good sport and gone frolicking off to France. Or the grouse moors. Or Brighton. Or God alone knew where. Harmonia had coped as best she could, developing skills appropriate to a future marchioness and taking lovers when her mood was particularly low.

One of the skills she’d found indispensable was the ability to eavesdrop on the marquess. Stapleton had his fingers in many a pie, from mining ventures to legislation that protected his mining ventures to trysts with his current mistress, and all manner of political intrigues. For Stapleton, socializing was an ancillary activity to manipulating politics for the betterment of himself and his titled cronies.

When Tertullian, Lord Fleming, strode up the walkway apparently intent on paying yet another call on Stapleton, Harmonia decided to have a listen. Fleming was heir to an earldom and had a dull, dutiful view of life that might recommend him to Stapleton, but Harmonia found Fleming’s company tedious. He wasn’t a bad fellow, but he was already going a bit portly about the middle, and he smelled of bay rum. Bay rum, according to Mama, was a sure sign that a man lacked imagination in bed. Harmonia had tested the theory on three occasions, and, alas, Mama had been right.

A fit of pique had inspired Harmonia to mention remarriage to the marquess, and that had been a mistake. She would not put it past Stapleton to choose her next husband, and make marriage a condition of remaining part of Nicky’s life.

Blast all meddling men to perdition anyway.

Harmonia took herself to the pink parlor and lifted the carpet that covered a vent in the ceiling of Stapleton’s office. The vent kept the office below cooler in summer and afforded a view directly down onto Stapleton’s enormous desk all year round. Champlain had showed her this spy-hole and several others, may he rest in peace amid well-endowed nymphs.

“I tell you, she was on the arm of Lord Stephen Wentworth,” Fleming nearly shouted. “I know Miss Abbott at sight by now, and Lord Stephen is hard to miss. He can’t walk proper, and he’s even taller than she is.”

Stapleton remained at his desk, fingers steepled, while Fleming paced before him. Papa-in-Law was a small man in both senses of the word. He’d married a lady whose stature exceeded his own, and Champlain had taken after his mother’s side of the family. Stapleton remained seated as much as possible, wore heeled slippers even when dancing and lifts in his boots.

“How did Miss Abbott get from York down to London without your men spotting her en route? She rather stands out in a crowd.”

“She was doubtless in disguise,” Fleming said, pausing before the portrait of the late marchioness. “She does that sort of thing. She might have been hobbling along bent over like an old crone or even have been dressed as a man.”

How wonderfully devious of Miss Abbott.

“But the fellows you set to watch