“Champlain sent you a bank draft.” Abigail had said that almost casually.
“Yes, a substantial amount.”
Stephen had always struggled with his temper, particularly in adolescence, when other boys were gaining height and muscle, and he was becoming yet more awkward and visibly unsound. He had enough experience containing his rages that he could speak somewhat calmly.
“Champlain bestirred himself to spend three minutes affixing his name to a piece of paper. A bank draft. Does a bank draft check under a boy’s bed at night to make sure Old Scratch isn’t lurking there to steal an unsuspecting little fellow away in his sleep?”
Abigail’s expression had become wary. “I beg your pardon?”
“Does a bank draft explain to a lad that some words, no matter how much swagger they convey, are never used before the ladies?”
“My lord?”
“Does a bank draft read tales to a boy of brave knights on their destriers or magical unicorns whose horns can cure all ills? Does a bank draft give a child affection, love, a sense of his place in the world? A bank draft. Bloody hell.”
Abigail regarded him from a distance of several yards across a sea of consternation. “I would think that a man raised in want of coin would value financial responsibility in a parent.”
“You were insulted by that bank draft,” Stephen retorted, “because you know that coin alone does not raise a child. Quinn used to leave his wages with Althea. He’d sneak around to wherever we were begging or make stupid bird calls outside the window until she could slip away. We’d have food for a few days. Lucky us.”
“You consider yourself unlucky to have an older brother taking an interest in your welfare?”
A logical question, but what did a lame boy know of logic? “He left us with Jack Wentworth, Abigail. Time after time, he’d scuttle away, back to his grave digging or his footman’s job, knowing that Jack was using his fists and worse on us. I begged Quinn to take me with him, but he said to stay where I had a roof over my head, to stay and look out for my sisters.”
Begging for food had never been half so corrosive to Stephen’s soul as begging Quinn not to go, begging him to take them with him.
“And you held up your side of the bargain,” Abigail said. “You plainly took your sisters’ welfare to heart in a way your brother could not. Quinn provided the coin, you provided the safety, though I shudder to think of the toll that arrangement took on such a young and defenseless boy.”
Abigail was so refreshingly practical, and her view of the matter—Stephen doing the part Quinn could not—hadn’t occurred to him previously. He’d reconciled himself to having committed murder, but in a situation where nobody dared interfere with a habitually violent father, perhaps that constituted a child’s form of self-defense?
A merciful God might see it thus. Perhaps. Maybe.
“I would do it again,” Stephen said, “if I heard Jack making the same plans for Althea and Constance, I’d do it again in a trice. Quinn was off somewhere on a job that was expected to last weeks. I planned to drink the poison myself at first. If Jack would sell my sisters to a brothel, what fate would he plan for me? Then it occurred to me that the poison might have another use.”
And what a wicked, hopeful thought that had been. “I recall gazing at the gin bottle in its place of honor on the windowsill, the light shining through the blue glass, obscuring the color of the contents. Jack was not a delicate drinker. He guzzled in quantity. Althea and Constance were out, unaware of the danger, and there I was, alone with my conscience and a quantity of rat poison.” Not a perfect solution, because rat poison did not take immediate effect.
But a solution nonetheless.
“How fortunate for your sisters that you did not go off into service with your brother.”
Fortunate for them. Althea had likely figured out the sequence of events, but she’d never mentioned it, and neither had Stephen.
He’d recounted the whole to Abigail, along with all the sordid details. What had got into him? “Suffice it to say that bank drafts do not impress me when paternal duty is at issue, and this digression is hardly relevant to the instant topic. When did you realize the letters were missing?”
And can we please forget I ever mentioned Jack Wentworth?
Abigail drew the shawl up around her shoulders, though the day was mild. “I first realized the letters were gone in June,” she replied, clearly willing to leave the topic of patricide behind. “Another anniversary—my father’s death—and at first I thought I’d misplaced them. I asked my companion about them. We searched the entire premises and found nothing. The staff professed ignorance, and they’ve been with me for years, so I believe them. Nothing else, not so much as a hairpin, has ever gone missing.”
Stephen patted the cushion beside him, wanting Abigail closer for reasons that didn’t bear examining. “We must think this through. How do you know Stapleton didn’t take them?”
“Because his attempts on me and my household were later in the summer. I have wondered if one of his subordinates didn’t steal the letters with intent to blackmail the marquess.” She settled beside Stephen, cozily close. “But why hold them this long? Stapleton is wealthy, and he could pay handsomely for a lot of old drivel.”
Stephen did take her hand and Wodin visually reproached him. “Are they drivel?”
“I have seen enough love letters to know Champlain was no Byron.”
“Nonetheless, Stapleton is apparently concerned they will fall into the wrong hands and reflect badly upon the late earl.” Though that explanation bore further thought, because Stapleton himself was no Puritan and never had been. Nobody expected strict fidelity of a wealthy, married peer or his charming son.
“I can pretty much reconstruct the letters,” Abigail said. “If I’ve seen something in handwriting, I can often recall it exactly. In my profession, such a skill comes in handy, and I read the letters many times.”
“Don’t admit that ability to anybody else. Quinn will hire you to spy on other banks for him.”
“I think your brother dislikes me.”
Stephen resisted the urge to kiss Abigail’s knuckles and settled for wrapping her hand in both of his.
“Quinn is like that hound. He looks fierce, and he can be fierce, but it’s mostly appearances. He gets down on all fours in the nursery and roars like a bear for the children’s entertainment. When Jane is expecting, Quinn rubs her feet and her back by the hour. He reads treatises on childbirth, though he does not like to read anything that’s more words than figures.”
To honestly praise Quinn’s role as head of the family was a relief. Quinn had clearly learned from Jack’s awful example, and that was some consolation.
Abigail patted Stephen’s knee. “Your brother is protective of you. He showed me your old room.”
What the hell? “And?”
“You had read more books by age eighteen than I have seen in my life.”
“When a fellow spends most of his time in a damned chair, reading happens.”
“Walden admires you for your book learning. He doesn’t understand how anybody could devour that much knowledge, and he respects you for it.”