Stephen would cheerfully die for Duncan, and Duncan would never allow him that privilege.
“I will make a terrible duke,” Stephen said. “I am bad-tempered, enthralled with commerce, frequently in company with opera dancers, and unable to waltz.”
Duncan set his chair to slowly rocking. “Dukes keep company with whomever they please, they generally own vast swathes of commercial property, and have been known to be difficult. Ergo, it’s that last—the waltzing—that renders you unfit for the title?”
Well, no. “Go back to Berkshire.”
“Matilda is having too much fun doting on the older girls, and that leaves the field clear for me to dote on my own offspring. What is it about the title that truly bothers you, Stephen? You have many of the attributes that should characterize the nobility. You are wise, tolerant, hardworking, loyal to friends and family, and kindly disposed toward humanity in general. You will be an asset to the Lords precisely because you were not born to privilege. You are already a reproach to the cits who use their wealth only for their own indulgence.”
“An occasional charitable donation is expected of the wealthy. Quinn would thrash me if I were to neglect that duty.”
Quinn would never thrash him. Once, long ago, Stephen had pilfered a currant bun—the most delicious, delectable, delightful currant bun ever to be consumed by a famished boy. Quinn had learned of the misdeed and swatted Stephen once on the bum. The pain had been nothing, but the reassurance to Stephen, that his older brother would not allow him to slip into a criminal life, had been inordinate.
“Perhaps I should have stolen more currant buns.”
“You would make a fine felon,” Duncan said. “You would execute your crimes without getting caught, inspire loyalty among your subordinates, and keep order in the ranks.”
“You make me sound like some sort of regimental authority.” And how Stephen had envied all those young men buying their colors.
A log fell on the hearth, sending a shower of sparks up the flue. “The military and the better-organized street gangs have much in common. That many of our returning soldiers now belong to those gangs emphasizes my point. What stops you from taking up a life of crime is the guilt. You know what it is to be a victim, thus you refuse to victimize others.”
“Truly, Duncan, a return to Berkshire on your part would be appreciated. I’ll squire Matilda and the girls about, and you can go back to reading the Stoics. I have a houseguest.”
Duncan’s chair momentarily stilled, then resumed its slow cadence. “You have acquaintances from all walks of life. What makes this houseguest different?”
“Miss Abigail Abbott is unlike any female—any person—I’ve encountered. She has no patience with guns.”
“And you love them. I’m sure that makes for rousing philosophical arguments. This is the inquiry agent from York whom Constance and Rothhaven hired?”
“The same. Miss Abbott kept Con’s secrets for years, never gave up on the goal, and eventually met with success. I admire that.”
“Having an entire regiment’s worth of tenacity, you would find such persistence admirable. Why is this woman your guest?”
She had nowhere else to turn. Stephen knew what that felt like too. “She has provoked the wrath of the Marquess of Stapleton. She sought my counsel regarding the best means of thwarting him.” Duncan had kindly omitted the obvious lecture: Bachelor lords did not house female guests who arrived without benefit of chaperonage. Bachelor lords did not socialize with inquiry agents of common origins.
Bachelor lords, in other words, were a lot of useless prigs.
“The marquess has a reputation for self-importance,” Duncan said. “I believe he and Quinn are on opposing sides of the child labor law debate.”
In Stephen’s opinion, children did not belong in the mines or factories. They belonged at school, and at the sides of parents or mentors engaged in trades, crafts, or some family enterprise. Quinn shared that viewpoint, having been worked without mercy as a boy and paid next to nothing.
“Stapleton wants some letters Miss Abbott has. She is bound by conscience to safeguard them.” Or was she? Stephen had begun to wonder who exactly had those letters.
“You cite the conscience of a woman who goes through life essentially as a professional fraud. She finagles secrets from those who don’t even know they have them, disguises and misrepresents herself, and takes coin to spy at keyholes. What is it about her that draws you?”
The clocks elsewhere in the house chimed the quarter hour. One was an instant behind the others.
“The footmen have been lax,” Stephen said. “The clock in the family room was wound at least an hour later than the others.”
Duncan held his peace, at which he was damnably talented.
“Miss Abbott has a conscience,” Stephen said. She still suffered guilt over the moment of her birth, for example. “She managed Con’s business without once taking advantage of the situation.”
“And now Miss Abbott needs help. She cannot bide with you, Stephen. Her reputation will not withstand that impropriety.”
“I’m here to ask Quinn and Jane to extend their hospitality to her.”
Duncan rose and added a log to the fire. He could do that—rise, move the fire screen, grab a length of wood from the basket, lay it amid the flames, and replace the screen—without once having to consider his balance. He could do nearly everything without considering his balance, and how Stephen envied him such sure-footedness.
“When Matilda showed up on my doorstep,” Duncan said, “frightened, famished, and friendless, I had no choice. Gentlemanly honor was the fig leaf I draped over my actions—damsels in distress and so forth—but Stephen, I had no choice. She beat me at chess, she thought I was intelligent, she admitted an attraction to a man who’d eschewed all bodily entanglements. She took me captive, utterly and forever, and if you lot had told me to turn my back on her, I would have instead turned my back on you.”
Such effusions from Duncan, the soul of intellectual dispassion, were unprecedented. Stephen had told Duncan to at least consider the proprieties where Matilda was concerned and had got exactly nowhere.
“Your point?”
“You never ask anybody for anything, but you are imposing on Quinn and Jane for the sake of this inquiry agent. That says a lot.”
“It says I can’t keep a decent female under my roof without her reputation suffering.”
“It says you will do for her what you would never do for yourself.”
“Observe propriety? Really, Duncan, I am not the outlandish boy who careered all over Europe with you. I am to be a bloody duke, after all.”
Duncan ambled for the door. “And a duke who intends to secure the succession must have a willing duchess, and that, my friend, is why you so dread taking up the title. I look forward to meeting your Miss Abbott.”
“Go back to Berkshire.”
Duncan paused, hand on the door. “What you dread to do beyond all else is ask for help. If Miss Abbott inspires you to such humility, she is surely the stuff duchesses are made of. Mind you don’t muck this up, Stephen. The right duchess only comes along once in a fellow’s life.”
Duncan slipped through the door, leaving Stephen alone to contemplate missing letters, irate marquesses, and family obligations.