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

plain, and apparently dogged, though wellborn and a conscientious brother. De Beauharnais was gorgeous, talented, a commoner, and interesting company. Watching them converse, Harmonia felt a sense of sympathy for Champlain’s wandering eye. He’d wanted everything—a wife, a lover, adventure, another lover, the familiar company of his fellows, the management of his own wealth, the inane ritual of drinking away the dawn in a duck blind or galloping half-inebriated after a fox. He’d sought to live every second of his life.

Not to hide in empty parlors listening at vents.

Harmonia’s goal in life was to see that Nicky had the same opportunities Champlain had had, though she hoped her son also possessed a bit more sense by the time he was enjoying those opportunities.

De Beauharnais bowed again to Fleming and jaunted up the porch steps, using his walking stick to rap on the door.

Harmonia really ought to remarry. She needed an ally who could take on Stapleton and best him easily. Perhaps de Beauharnais would have some ideas. He knew everybody and knew a few interesting little secrets too. Best of all, he knew how to make a lady smile and how to keep his mouth shut about the lot of it.

Stephen could not recall the last time he’d been so purely pleased with life. Abigail in a toy shop was a revelation. Beneath her pragmatic, self-contained veneer lay a female who’d not been cosseted or flirted with half enough. She’d turned the pages of pretty storybooks one by one and marveled at the softness of a doll’s hair. A child-sized tea set put longing in her eyes, and Stephen knew she was thinking of his nieces.

The moment she’d spied Stapleton’s damned coach, the softness and wonder had gone straight out of her, and Stephen had been forced to all but drag her away from the scene.

“Shall we tool over to Berkeley Square for an ice?” he asked, then regretted the question. The protocol at Gunter’s was for the adoring swain to fetch his lady her treat. If she also wanted a glass of lemonade, Stephen would have to make two trips from the shop to the coach, or to the benches under the maples where happy couples could turn a few spoonfuls of sweet into half an afternoon’s flirtation.

“I would like to pay a call on Lord Stapleton,” Abigail replied as Stephen held the coach door for her, “and ask him some very pointed questions about housebreaking, drugging, and attempted kidnapping. He frightened me. I hate him for that.”

Hate, for a woman raised with Quaker values, was very, very strong language.

“Stapleton frightens a lot of people,” Stephen said, handing Abigail up into the coach. “He’s a nasty, manipulative, arrogant little sod, and he uses his wealth to conduct his schemes with impunity.”

Stephen settled beside her on the forward-facing seat, used his teeth to pull off his glove, and took Abigail’s hand. Why he liked touching her so very much, he did not know. Casual affection toward a lover was a pleasant commonplace, but his craving for contact with Abigail was of a different order.

He thought more calmly when he took her hand.

As he had lain in bed with her, mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breathing, his mind had wandered to why he and Quinn were so un-brotherly toward each other. Stephen did resent Quinn for leaving him in Jack Wentworth’s care, but he also resented that Quinn had been able to work.

Was resenting Quinn simply a habit? Was that what this horror of becoming the duke one day was really about? Or was the problem a fear that Jack Wentworth’s shade would have its revenge if Stephen had children?

Such questions had eluded his notice, much less his attention, prior to becoming Abigail’s lover.

“You are removing my glove,” she said, once again all starch and vinegar. “My lord, what are you about?”

“I like touching you. Fleming rattled you. Perhaps petting me will settle your nerves.”

The coach rocked as the groom climbed up to the box.

“Do you suppose Fleming has the letters?” Abigail asked. “If Lord Fleming is in Stapleton’s confidence, he might well have stolen them for his own purposes, then made a great show of pretending to search for them at Stapleton’s behest.”

Stephen rapped on the roof, and the coach rolled forward. “We are back to the why of this whole mess. Stapleton likely wants the letters to ensure Champlain’s reputation remains untarnished by proof that he trifled with a decent young woman. Why would Fleming want the letters?”

“To blackmail Stapleton.”

Stephen considered putting the tip of Abigail’s third finger in his mouth—and discarded the notion. Sex in a moving coach was enjoyable enough, but Abigail didn’t need that from him now.

“Fleming is in expectation of a title,” Stephen said. “He’s not given to deep play, drunkenness, wild wagers, or scandal. The only thing Stapleton has that Fleming might want is influence with Lady Champlain. Harmonia is pretty, very sociable, and a devoted mother. She’s had plenty of time to be a merry widow, if that’s what she wants, and managing Stapleton must have grown tedious by now.”

The more Stephen considered the idea that Fleming sought to impress Lady Champlain, the more it seemed to fit the available facts—almost.

Abigail took off her other glove and clasped Stephen’s hand between both of hers in her lap. “You think her ladyship might look favorably on a fellow who destroyed evidence of her late husband’s infidelity? What if it’s Lady Champlain whom Fleming seeks to blackmail with the letters?”

The knuckles of Stephen’s right hand rested perilously close to the juncture of Abigail’s thighs. That three or four layers of fabric lay between his flesh and hers interfered with his imagination not one bit. That he’d made love to Abigail twice in the past several hours was also of no moment.

He wanted her again, while she wanted to plant Stapleton a facer.

Stephen longed to plant the marquess a facer as well, but only after locking himself and Abigail into a commodious bedroom