And this was the dukedom Stephen would inherit? “Walden is conscientious about his family’s security?”
“He’s fanatical about it and has tasked me with measures to safeguard the ladies in particular. Every Wentworth conveyance is a rolling fortress of my design, the footmen are all skilled with firearms and knives, which I’ve fashioned for ease of concealment. We employ a lowlier variety of domestic than most households, because we want the sharpest possible eyes looking out for us. My sisters typically carry weapons, as do I, and the children never go abroad without a platoon of guards.”
Abigail’s Quaker relatives would shudder with horror at lives lived in anticipation of violence. “My uncles would say the price of endless wealth is endless fear.”
“So they’ve sold all their worldly goods, given away the proceeds, and taken up a life of carefree penury? I can assure you, Abigail, the price of poverty is also fear, along with disease, misery, despair, starvation, and death.”
Would Stapleton kill her for the letters? Abigail did not know and would prefer not to find out.
“I will stay with your family. If I’m to be credibly passed off as your intended, that only makes sense.”
Lord Stephen caught her hand in his. “But you had to put me through my paces, lest I begin to think you anything less than deucedly independent. It’s better now.”
His grip was warm and firm, reminding Abigail of another firmness. “I beg your pardon?”
“My knee. It’s better. Thank you.”
Something about his smile was a little too cheerful. “No, it isn’t. You are dissembling. I have no patience with liars, my lord, and if I’m to impose on your family, please assure me that we will be honest with them about the nature of our dealings.”
His kissed her fingers. “They will know what’s afoot, the better to keep you safe.”
More glib assurances that Abigail did not entirely believe. “What’s the real reason you are sending me away?” The part about turning to his family for aid was true, as was the bit about safeguarding Abigail’s person and her reputation.
And yet, she’d bet her favorite sword cane Lord Stephen was prevaricating about something.
“I know why you are so fond of that terrier, Malcolm,” his lordship said. “You are both persistent to the point of foolishness.”
“Persistence gets results.”
His lordship winced as he lowered his foot from the hassock. “Truer words…How soon can you be ready to accompany me to the ducal residence?”
He was in a hurry to get rid of her, probably having second thoughts about the whole scheme. “I am nearly ready now. I have but the one satchel, and packing that will take me five minutes.” She rose, wanting to be away from the man who apparently wanted to be away from her.
Lord Stephen extended a hand to her, and Abigail realized that she was to help a gentleman to stand, a reversal of the usual social convention.
“Don’t get all hedgehoggy on me,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. “You turn up prickly at the least provocation. I am trying to keep you safe, outflank Stapleton, and preserve decorum.”
Never in the history of masculinity had a man’s scent been so delectable. Abigail batted aside that awareness and studied her reluctant host.
“Preserve my reputation? I’m an inquiry agent. I haven’t all that much reputation to safeguard. And if you must know, my virtue in the technical sense was jettisoned as useless baggage years ago.”
Lord Stephen’s gaze went to the dragon frolicking across the ceiling. “The precious resource I seek to preserve by putting your person at a slight distance from my own is my sanity, you daft female. I slept exactly not at all last night, and I haven’t had such a close acquaintance with my own right hand since I was sixteen years old.”
He stood near enough that Abigail could see the flecks of gold in his blue irises. Some rare breeds of cat had eyes like that, azure intensity gilded with promises of lethal force.
“What has your right hand to do with—?”
“I give up.” He appeared to address his surrender to the dragon, and then he wrapped an arm around Abigail’s waist and kissed her.
Stephen had tried the opera, and he’d tried locking himself in his idea room. He’d had a few tots of brandy, though inebriation and unsteady pins were a foolish combination, so the brandy had been of limited use.
He’d finally repaired to his study to partake of the strongest soporific he possessed, the steward’s monthly reports from the Yorkshire estate. Even that drastic measure hadn’t chased away memories of kissing Abigail Abbott.
She took hold of a fellow and kissed him into submission, and the novelty of that, the sheer relief of being confidently handled, had captured Stephen’s imagination as no mechanical puzzle ever had.
Self-gratification hadn’t eased his desire one iota, and kissing Abigail again was rank folly, but she was soon to be ensconced in the Wentworth family fortress, where folly could not intrude. Surely a farewell kiss was permissible?
“The scent of you,” she murmured, wrapping Stephen in her arms. “You drive me witless. I can’t bear—” She fused her mouth to his, and all over again, Stephen was awash in desire and madness.
“I dreamed of you,” he said. “You breathed on me and I went up in flames.” In the last reaches of his thinking mind, where reason despaired and mischief rejoiced, Stephen knew that nothing could come of his attraction to Abigail Abbott.
When he’d spiked Stapleton’s guns, Abigail would go back to her inquiry business and Stephen would resume—
She ran her hand over his falls, her touch every bit as sure as it had been on his stupid knee. An even more brainless part of him leaped at the pleasure of her caress.
“You are so wonderfully bold,” he whispered, “and I am so hopelessly willing. I can keep you safe from Stapleton, and Quinn and Jane will keep you safe from me.”
Abigail subsided against him, though gently. Stephen had kept hold of his cane, Abigail had kept hold of him. The whole kiss had progressed without Stephen once worrying about his balance.
“You might have been kissing me to distract me,” she said, “but you weren’t.”
Hence her bold caress. Ah, well. “Distract you from what?”
“Whatever objective you are truly intent on. You have guile too, my lord.”
He could have stood there embracing her until the seasons changed, except that the sofa was calling to him, as was the temptation to lock the door.
“Perhaps you are distracting me, Abigail.”
She pulled back to study him. “Your kisses are enticing. When you call me Abigail, in that slightly chiding, slightly confiding tone, I lose a piece of my self-control. Nobody addresses me by my given name. I am Miss Abbott, even to my companion.”
He smoothed his hand over her shoulder, just for the pleasure of learning her contours. “I hear a fellow call out to Lord Stephen at the club, and I think: Who let some damned nob in here when I’m trying to enjoy a quiet meal with another inventor?”
She smiled at him, the first such benediction Stephen could recall from her. “I wonder if anybody ever feels entirely themselves?”