“Good. We are making progress.”
The hint of smugness in his tone collided with a thought: Abigail need not sit demurely while Lord Stephen toppled her self-control with practiced skill. He was a mortal if formidable man. His self-restraint could be toppled too.
She slid a hand inside his riding jacket, around the lean warmth of his waist. She urged him closer and felt the surprise of that boldness go through him.
Now they were making progress. When he would have inflicted another one of his off-center kisses on her, she shifted, so their mouths lined up squarely. She anchored her free hand in his hair and held him still while she learned the taste of him.
Stephen Wentworth’s kisses were sweet, warm, and playful. He gave new meaning to the term nimble tongue, and he kept his hand on Abigail’s side, just inches from her breast. She liked that he was bold but not presuming, familiar without harrying her into intimacies beyond what she was prepared to share.
The whole business became so engrossing that Abigail forgot this kiss was meant as a rehearsal or a test case, forgot she was being hounded by an arrogant marquess. She forgot much that badly needed forgetting. Instead, she recalled that she was not yet an old woman, and not simply an inquiry agent with a reputation for thoroughness and discretion.
Lord Stephen drew back, and urged Abigail against his side. This resulted in her head on his shoulder, his arm encircling her. She rested her palm over his heart, which beat a steady and slightly accelerated tempo.
“You offer me a challenge,” he said, his hand smoothing over Abigail’s hair.
The warm glow within died, for all that the embrace was cozy. “This plan was your idea, my lord, and I’m not that hard to kiss. You aren’t exactly conventional in your approach, but I suppose I can manage further displays of affection if I must.” She was blustering, trying to ignore the disappointment she felt. For him the kiss had been an experiment, while for her it had been…
A revelation.
He cradled her cheek in his palm and pressed her face gently to his chest. “You are enthralling to kiss, and God preserve me from convention in any but the most traditional endeavors. Give me your hand.”
He possessed himself of Abigail’s hand. The next thing she knew, her palm was pressed to his falls, and to the hard column of flesh therein.
“Men get this way frequently,” she said, though few men got this way on quite such an impressive scale, at least in her limited experience. “It means nothing. What is your point?”
She removed her hand, and he wrapped her fingers in a snug grasp.
“Abigail, I do not get this way frequently, not anymore. One learns to manage one’s impulses lest one make a fool of oneself. I can appear to court you in all sincerity, steal kisses that I will genuinely treasure, disport with you in secluded alcoves and honestly resent any intrusions. You should know this before you embark on any subterfuges with me.”
He was trying to tell her something, to posit a thesis delicately. Abigail was too bothered with conflicting emotions and bodily sensations to properly dissect his words.
“You are attracted to me?” she asked.
“Need you make it a question?”
The slight testiness of his response, the evasiveness, suggested an extraordinary possibility: This gloriously intelligent, handsome, shrewd, wealthy, titled, and clever man was unsure of his own appeal. The test had been not of his ability to appear the doting swain, but of her willingness to appear doted upon—by him.
Abigail would ponder the why of that conclusion later, but in the easy rhythm of Lord Stephen’s caresses and the patience with which he awaited her reply, she accepted that Stephen Wentworth was even more complicated than she’d realized, and not what he appeared to be.
He was more, much more, than an arrogant London lord with a penchant for solving mechanical questions.
“You will forgive my befuddlement,” Abigail said, snuggling closer. “I am unaccountably muddled.”
He squeezed her in a half hug. “Got you stirred up, did I?”
“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself.” He sounded, in fact, relieved.
He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t sound so displeased with yourself. Women have needs. As it happens, I delight in meeting those needs.”
“Nobody needs to be kissed.” She was arguing in part for form’s sake, and in part because it seemed to amuse his lordship. Also because—no harm in being honest—she did not want to leave this couch or leave Lord Stephen’s comfortable, almost friendly embrace.
“Abigail dearest, we all need a little kissing, cuddling, and cavorting. Proving that to you shall be my fondest challenge.”
Abigail closed her eyes, savoring the rare comfort of another’s animal warmth, the utter relaxation Lord Stephen’s touch encouraged. Even as her body quietly hummed with pleasure, her mind faced an uncomfortable truth.
She could pose as the object of Lord Stephen’s affections. She could easily reciprocate his overtures and enjoy his attentions. That playacting would complicate the whole business of the letters, even as it sheltered her from Stapleton’s mischief.
The greater problem was the role Abigail would be inhabiting. She would be impersonating the woman she could never be, the woman Lord Stephen Wentworth loved with his whole, complicated, magnificent, devious heart.
Lady Mary Jane Christine Benevolence Wentworth was perfect, her tiny fingers and toes all present in the proper numbers, her face the envy of Botticelli’s cherubs. In sleep, her mouth worked in a pantomime of suckling, as if even her dreams were of nurture and security.
“Welcome, my lady,” Stephen said, cradling the baby against his heart. “I am your uncle. I will counsel you in the difficult diplomacy of having older sisters. I claim two such siblings, and they are formidable. I am proud to say that your older sisters are terrors, in no small part thanks to my inspiring influence.”
Mary Jane had three older siblings, all robust, clever, darling young ladies, full of the well-loved child’s high spirits and lively curiosity. Their papa and mama—Quinn and Jane—ruled the nursery with loving firmness, and unlike other titled parents, spent considerable time with their children.
“You have chosen well,” Stephen whispered. The nursery had a pair of rocking chairs next to the hearth, and in this setting—and in this setting only—a chair that rocked made sense to Stephen. “I taught Hannah how to pick a lock, and she’ll soon need clocks to take apart. Elizabeth makes up stories for me.” The baby—meaning the third youngest, who was no longer the baby—had yet to manifest her special gifts, but Stephen suspected she’d be highly musical.
He was helpless not to love them, and the little beggars took shameless advantage of his weakness. They loved him back, indifferent to his lurching gait, his tendency to play with their toys, and his frankly nasty outlook on humanity in general.
“You lot ruin all my theories,” he murmured, rocking the baby gently. “Curmudgeonliness becomes impossible with little princesses galloping the corridors of their kingdom and flying down the banisters.” Though sorrow was ever at hand when the nieces were present.
Stephen could not chase Quinn and Jane’s offspring, could not grab them about their sturdy middles as Quinn and Duncan did to hoist them onto the stair railings, could not take them on his shoulders when they began to tire in the park. He could put them up before him in the saddle, but only if an obliging groom lifted the child for him.