“You are thorough,” Ned said, “and those are good questions, but we don’t have all the answers yet. I can tell you Lady Champlain and Lord Stapleton don’t get along, don’t occupy the same box at the opera. One of our fellows chatted with Stapleton’s head maid over a pint. Stapleton is threatening to dispatch her ladyship to the north again after she spent the Season at the family seat, but the settlements say she must be housed in London if she so desires.”
“What of her ladyship?” Abigail said, getting up to pace. “Has she undertaken any new relationships lately, does she have debts, could she be expecting a child?”
The duchesses exchanged a look.
“My professional activities don’t permit me to shy away from human foibles,” Abigail said. “Somebody has those letters, and Stapleton has decided that now—years after Champlain’s death—the letters have significance.”
Stephen had put Abigail’s situation to his family in plain terms, saving her the recitation: Champlain had implied a promise of marriage, though Abigail hadn’t realized he was dissembling until it was too late. Champlain’s letters had gone missing several months ago, and Stapleton had started attempting to steal them from about the same time. Stephen had omitted mention of a child, for which Abigail was grateful.
If anybody thought Abigail an idiot for succumbing to Champlain’s charms, they were too well bred to show it.
“Do you have copies of any of the letters or can you recall portions verbatim?” Duncan Wentworth asked. “Sometimes codes can be secreted in the most innocuous-sounding prose. When Stephen and I traveled on the Continent, we were approached several times with requests to carry sensitive documents, though they were always described as reports, testaments, or simple correspondence.”
Stephen stuffed a pillow under his knee. “Duncan would not allow me to involve myself in any intrigues. I could have been a dashing spy, but, alas for me, my self-appointed conscience objected.” He lounged in his reading chair, not a care in the world, when twenty minutes earlier he’d been declaring himself the best trifler in all of England.
I will miss him. Abigail set that thought firmly aside, and focused on Duncan’s suggestion. “You think Champlain was involved in some matter of national security?”
Stephen was hard to read, Walden nearly impossible to read, and Duncan’s self-possession put sphinxes to shame.
“I have no idea,” Duncan replied. “Stephen described his lordship as a fribble, but a good spy would know how to impersonate a fribble.”
Abigail considered what she knew of Champlain. “He was a fribble, the genuine article. No clandestine operative intent on the king’s business would have dallied with a gunsmith’s daughter.”
Ned spoke up from behind his desk. “Guns are items of interest to most governments. Was your papa a gunsmith or, like His Pestilence here, a designer of weapons?”
Stephen blew Ned a kiss. “No need to be jealous of my tinkering, Neddy. I will never be the pickpocket you are.”
Ned threw a glass paperweight at Stephen’s head, which Stephen caught with one hand. Something interesting passed between them, part affection, part threat.
“My father,” Abigail said, “could do simple clock repairs or fix a broken clasp on a bracelet, but he was a gunsmith, not an artificer. The mechanisms of handguns have evolved quickly in recent years. He preferred to work on the fowling pieces and long guns because the hardware hasn’t changed as much. Many a squire still carries a Brown Bess. Who are the most frequent callers at Lord Stapleton’s house?”
Ned consulted a list. “He has political dinners from time to time, a lot of fat, bleating Tories. Socially, Lady Champlain makes the usual rounds. Lately she’s been inclined more toward the artists and poets, and the staff says she’s to sit for a portrait for that fop de Beauharnais.”
“Enough, Ned.” Two words, casually rendered, from His Grace of Walden. “That fop did Her Grace’s portrait, and I rather like it. I’d have him do yours except you can’t sit still long enough. What do we know about security at Stapleton’s town house?”
“I can answer that,” Stephen said, “having been a caller on many occasions. The staff is on the older side, probably hired in the late marchioness’s day. The butler likely saw Queen Anne crowned, and the house isn’t exactly a fortress.”
“Now you’re a second-story man,” Ned muttered. “St. Nicholas, pray for us.”
“The garden wall is about five feet high,” Stephen went on, tossing the paperweight back to Ned. “The windows on the north side of the house are overdue for a good glazing. Our Neddy could be in and out in half a tick.”
“A quarter,” Ned said. “The cook doesn’t lock the kitchen door in case the tradesmen show up when she’s kneading the bread dough or stirring a pot of porridge first thing in the day. The head maid says Cook has a follower, meaning the grocer’s boy probably comes mooning about after the household’s abed.”
“I won’t have crimes committed on my behalf,” Abigail said. “We needn’t contemplate any housebreaking. Stapleton doesn’t have the letters, or he didn’t two weeks ago.”
“You don’t know that,” Stephen replied, lifting his foot off the hassock. “Stapleton might have them and believe there are more. He might have stolen them from you and suspect you stole them back, when instead one of his political detractors has them. We need to take a closer look at his lordship’s domestic situation.”
Abigail cast a look at the duke and duchess, expecting Her Grace of Walden to object to housebreaking. Their Graces were holding hands, and the duchess was sitting close enough to the duke that their joined hands rested on her thigh.
“We also need to go to the opera,” Lord Stephen said, pushing to his feet. “Stapleton favors the opera. Jane, does Miss Abbott have suitable attire for Friday night’s performance?”
Ned rose as well. “I hate the damned opera.”
“Language, Ned,” Her Grace murmured. “Miss Abbott will be appropriately dressed for an evening engagement.”
“Neddy, if you’d rather not attend,” Stephen said, “I will escort Miss Abbott unassisted. Stapleton should have word by now of her arrival in London, and I don’t want him getting any untoward ideas.”
“I have an untoward idea,” Ned replied.
Stephen smiled. “I knew I could count on you.”
“No housebreaking,” Abigail said, though clearly her words were falling on deaf male ears. “We have no reason to believe Stapleton has the letters.”
“We aren’t looking for the letters,” Ned said. “We’re looking for why he’s desperate to get his manicured, beringed paws on them.”
“Lady Champlain does not favor the opera generally,” Stephen said, “and she stays in when Stapleton attends—you are not to seduce her, Ned. She has gallants aplenty for that. I must take myself off for a spot of contemplation. Miss Abbott, I’d like to escort you on a round of the shops tomorrow. You’ll want your own pair of opera glasses.”
Abigail had no intention of spending a single farthing on opera glasses she would use only once. “What time should I be ready, my lord?”